Category: Movies (Page 98 of 498)

Weekend Box Office: “Tangled” enjoying good hair and $ days, a “Warrior” doesn’t get its way, but “Black Swan” is no ugly duckling

Everything pretty much is working out at this weekend’s box office as was predicted Thursday night. The exception being that, as a whole, the post-Thanksgiving Day letdown may be slightly bigger than expected. To be specific, as prognosticators prognosticated, Disney’s “Tangled” led the box office derby.

Showing the usual strength of well-received family-animated comedies, the film formerly known as “Rapunzel” earned an estimated $21.5 million over the weekend. The less than thrilling news here is that, as calculated by Box Office Mojo‘s indispensable weekend chart, it suffered a rather larger than usual second weekend drop for its genre of 55.9%. Still, I’m guessing we can attribute some of that to the post-holiday doldrums.

Tangled up in Rapunzel

On the sunny side of the equation, the musical action comedy is already very close to the $100 million in its second weekend, and that’s never bad. On the other hand, the typically enormous CGI animation budget of $260 million makes that kind of number seem a hair less impressive. On the other other hand, when you consider not only the the worldwide box office, but the licensing, I think it’s fair to say that “Tangled” will be another profitable feather in the ever-more-humongous Disney cap.

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Francesca Fiore in “Spy Models”

Since I failed to give fabled, violence prone Euro-screen siren Francesca Fiore her due in my new interview with her alter ego, the great Scott Thompson of “Kids in the Hall” fame, the least I can do is salute her here. Here is the lovely and talented Miss Fiore alongside Bruno Puntz Jones (Dave Foley) in a movie parody that would make Elio Petri proud.

I’ve got a Fiore-licious bonus video after the flip.

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Not funny/moderately funny: “Killing Bono” vs. “Still Crazy”

Another entry in my occasional pairing of dramatically unfunny material (usually a trailer) with something that is, at least, a bit amusing.

No time for extended commentary today, but a picture is worth a thousand words and we’ll start with this misfired trailer for a film with a premise that’s apparently much stronger than the execution. What’s it’s like to be the also-ran band from Dublin, circa 1976? (H/t Deadline)

And now we have a trailer for a 1998 comedy that also takes a backward look at seventies rock. From the dependable writing team of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais and director Brian Gibson, here’s “Still Crazy.”

It’s not quite a laugh riot, but I know which movie I want to see, if only for the amazing cast.

Trailer time: Still “The Beaver”

One news item that Nikki Finke broke this week was that the long-delayed Jodie Foster film, which she costars in and directs, “The Beaver” looks to be getting a Spring 2011 release date. Confirming the news, Summit released a trailer yesterday, and here it is. To my surprise, this seems to be less of the black comedy I expected, and more of a straightforward psychodrama with some comedic elements.

Of course, the issue here is the film’s star, Mel Gibson, who you may have heard saying a few very impolite things. Of course, the eternal question is will audiences forgive said impoliteness. As Russ Fischer noted, there are some parallels that might help wary audiences over the hump. Who doesn’t love a redemption story? In any case, I think most people who say they’ll never see X star’s movies after X episode of misbehavior, alleged or proven, are people who weren’t fans to begin with. If the movie is something audiences think they’ll like, they’ll show and, though I’m not sure Mel Gibson is a guy I want to have the proverbial beer with anymore, I don’t believe that should be the first criteria for film attendance.

On the other hand, I seriously wouldn’t hold my breath regarding that Oscar qualifying run, at least as far as Gibson is concerned.

Vampires Suck

2009 may not have been a spectacular year in cinema, but at least Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer didn’t add to the pile of disappointment with another one of their stupid spoof movies. Unfortunately, they didn’t go away for good, and the best thing that can be said about their new film, “Vampires Suck,” is that it’s not as bad as their previous efforts. At the very least, it’s a lot more focused, using the first two “Twilight” movies as the backbone of the story, almost to the point of copyright infringement. Stephanie Meyer’s teen angst-filled universe is certainly a place that’s ripe for comedy, but Friedberg and Seltzer seem content with just throwing a bunch of lazy, half-baked jokes at the wall and praying that some of them stick.

Most of the jokes fall well short of their mark, but there are a few smirk-worthy moments thanks to stars Jenn Proske and Matt Lanter, both of whom do spot-on impressions of the actors they’re parodying. The film also has a surprisingly high production value compared to the directors’ previous work, which often looked like they were shot in someone’s backyard. But the problem with spoofing a phenomenon like “Twilight” is that only people who’ve seen the movies will understand a majority of the jokes, and they’re probably the last group that would want to watch “Vampires Suck.” It’s definitely a step forward for Friedberg and Seltzer, but it’s a small step, because the movie is still so terrible that it’s difficult to put into words. Let’s just say vampires aren’t the only thing that sucks.

Click to buy “Vampires Suck”

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