Category: News (Page 84 of 401)

Midweek movie news

April 21, 2010 /

Regular readers might have noticed that I’ve taken a couple of days off, and with the TCM Film Festival kicking off tomorrow night, and some other things possibly brewing, I might not be following my exact usual schedule for the next several days, though I’m sure I’ll be posting stuff, but we’ll have to see.  In the meantime, there’s plenty going on and I’m sure I’ve missed something.

Chloe Moretz smashes face* We eventually did get a clear, but narrow, victor in the weekend box-office battle, but nobody’s too excited about the performance of “Kick-Ass.” The film will make money, $19.8 million is not bad for a $30-40 million dollar movie, and it should help everyone’s career, but I wouldn’t bet on a sequel unless it holds really extremely well and also cleans up in home video. Also, it should be noted that the superhero comedy had a slightly unfair advantage because of its late Thursday night opening getting included in the take — at least I think it was. Steven Zeitchik, who thought the film would break out in a major way, offers a post-not-quite-mortem.

* James Cameron‘s new interview with the L.A. Times will annoy conservative anti-environmentalists and climate deniers as well as fans of contemporary written science fiction. (It’s too complicated and self-referential to make a movie out of, Cameron states, apparently unafraid of the sweeping generalization.) However, “Avatar” fans will be delighted to know that two more movies appear to be in the offing along with that extended August 3-D/Imax re-release. Cameron’s cast and crew will be, I imagine, much less happy to learn that “Avatar 2” will involve water, and lots of it. What is it with this guy and moisture? (H/t the Playlist.)

Titanic 1996

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Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

Who says a trailer has to explain a movie?

April 18, 2010 /

For some reason, most of the people who make trailers these days think they have to give you a detailed summary of the film. They’re wrong. A case in point, “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” which I mention in the post below, did extremely well in its limited, eight-theater release this weekend. My curiosity is peaked, but I really don’t have much idea what the film’s about from this trailer, and I like it that way.

This other trailer tells you almost nothing about the actual plot of the movie in question, though it tells you something. The movie did okay.

Documentaries, External Movie DVDs, Movie Dramas, Movies, News

Family friendly “Dragon” grazes the keister of “Kick-Ass”

April 18, 2010 /

We have another apparent photo-finish at the box office this weekend. Despite my confidence Thursday night that “Kick-Ass” would be the top film this weekend and probably come out in the middle-to-high end of the $20-30 million range suggested by all the prognosticators, the film appears to have come just shy of doing either.  For now.
Aaron Johnson and Chloe Moretz in The “actuals” that will come out sometime tomorrow could change this. However, with an estimate of $19.75 million, the somewhat controversial hyperviolent “hard R” superhero action-black-comedy  is currently within $250,000 of being beaten by the $20 million estimate for the crowd-pleasing, PG-rated 3-D family film “How to Train Your Dragon”. That’s actually still good, if  you can ignore the expectations game.

However much the schadenfreude brigade plays up the gap between expectations and box office reality, the $30 million film from director Matthew Vaughn (a producer earlier in his career) is clearly going to be very profitable for Lionsgate. The man who started his career as Guy Ritchie’s producer and who since has proven himself to be, in my estimation, the vastly better filmmaker (I haven’t seen “Kick-Ass” yet), should be applauded for bringing an action film like this on what is, by Hollywood standards, a very low budget for an action film. I think that is especially so in the home video long haul as the “Kick-Ass” cult will undoubtedly grow, at least among fanboys of all ages. It’ll also be interesting to see if the film develops legs or sinks-like a stone theatrically, as many genre films do. Next weekend will tell that tale.

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Action Movies, Documentaries, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News

Maximum Miramax

April 16, 2010 /

If you’ve been reading the various hard-news entertainment blogs and sites over the last few days, you’ve no doubt noticed the continuing drama of the sale by Disney of Miramax, the “mini-major” studio which once bridged the gap between indie and mainstream filmmaking. The studio was pretty much the creation of mogul brothers Harvey and  Bob Weinstein, who famous named it after their parents (Mira and Max Weinstein). Now, they may well be poised to reclaim the studio they once sold to Disney and ran for them, before leaving to start The Weinstein Company in 2005.

You also may have noticed Nikki Finke’s attempts to lay claim to the latest on the story and crudely and not very convincingly bash her competitors. THR writers Elizabeth Guilder and the man I always call “Jolly Carl DiOrio” may have been guilty of jumping the gun or overstating the case a bit since the negotiations do appear to be ongoing. Also, I didn’t get the e-mail alert of which she speaks and can only see the story I linked to, which duly notes Disney’s denial of the apparent scoop. However, right now it sure looks to me like they got the story essentially right  and it’s not like La Finke has never slightly overstated things on a news story herself — though she does get some very good, detailed inside dope, there’s no doubt of that. To Finke’s credit, she has left up the offending piece and not tried to hide the evidence of her being the mean girl much of her audience, but not me, wants her to be.

Anyhow, at a time like this, it might be appropriate to consider the compelling admixture of quality, marketing, and occasional appeals to a certain kind of middle-brow film snobbery that highlighted Miramax, courtesy of Mad TV, who bring you the ultimate Miramax trailer from the day.

External Entertainment, External Movies, Humor, Movies, News

Well, maybe this will tide you over, Tolkien-adaptation wise. No, probably not.

April 16, 2010 /

I was really hoping to have time for a decent Friday night/end of week movie news dump, but the truth of the matter is that I’ve no time to do one of my usual semi-comprehensive end of week looks at movie news tonight. Fortunately, outside of continuing discussions of how the receipts of “Kick-Ass” will turn out over the weekend, not a huge amount that’s too earth shattering is going on.

However, I do have time for one item that will definitely put a mild damper on the days of hobbit-heads of all shapes and sizes, and aren’t almost all of us at least slightly hobbit-headed. We have word — really more in the nature of a reminder — from none other than producer Peter Jackson that the all-but promised twin film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s unintended prelude to The Lord of the Rings books, The Hobbit, to be directed by Guillermo del Toro aren’t exactly a 100% completely done deal yet, though I’d be beyond shocked if they somehow didn’t happen considering the talent involved and the success of the earlier films.

Nevertheless, the films have not been greenlit and, therefore, no start date has been set. For the same reason, no actual casting has been done. Oh, and by the way, the script was only finished last week. (Well, some movies don’t have a script when shooting starts. Some good ones, too — but not too many that weren’t made by Billy Wilder and none that requires this level of technical preparation.)

Of course, considering everything, doing the films should be a slam dunk but, as previously mentioned in many places the ongoing disaster and ensuing sale of MGM has simply gotten in the way. The Playlist has the details and the, er, gentle reminders to be cool, though most of the actual news is contained in this brief interview with Moviefone.

In the meantime, well, any excuse to run this great musical moment from “Flight of the Chonchords.” How often can you summarize over 10 hours worth of movie in under two minutes, and with such a good collection of beats?

Action Movies, External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Humor, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

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