The weird part is that he says he’s giving up animation forever, but then it gets weirder and more worrisome.

H/t Mike Fleming.

Between repeat hardcore “Twilight” fangirls, their friends, and curious onlookers it really seems like a lock for the continuing vampire/human/werewolf romantic menage, considering the film’s spectacular $142.8 million domestic performance last weekend. Which is not to say there won’t be some success to go around this tme. Considering the longest official holiday weekend on the calender — and a “black Friday”-depressing economy that may put many folks in the mood to delay their shopping as long as possible — it seems more than very likely that there will be some nice money to be made at the nation’s multiplexes tonight through Sunday. (Hardcore talliers will be concentrating on the three day period starting Friday.)

The obvious favorite for the #2 spot, if only because it’s going to be booked into 922 more theaters than the next biggest wide release, is Disney’s PG-rated all-star comedy “Old Dogs.” With John Travolta and Robin Williams headlining with a premise that sounds like “Two Men and Two Six Year-Olds” and not much else in the way of broadly appealing, family-friendly comedies out there, this sure seems like a  sure thing in theory.

The slapstick-laden comedy, however, scored an abysmal 6% “fresh” rating at Rotten Tomatoes, but what of it? Director Walt Becker’s previous all-star comedy outing, “Wild Hogs” — the two films actually rhyme — was roundly reviled by most critics and then grossed over $168.2 million domestically.

Still, wouldn’t we all rather to win pretty? Our own David Medsker makes a salient point:

…You would think that Disney might step up their game a little bit after seeing just how successful their partners at Pixar have been by not taking the easy way, by using their early success to branch out and make some highly entertaining but also downright challenging movies (“WALL·E,” “Up,” “Ratatouille”). Disney got a taste of that themselves with “Enchanted,” and even “Bolt” to a lesser extent. Most of the time, though, it’s balls to the groin, and gorillas cuddling humans singing Air Supply….

As the quote attributed to H.L. Mencken goes: “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” On the other hand, some have given it a darn good try. We’ll see.

Next comes the producing Wachowski Brothers very R-rated, CGI blood-filled, attempt to wow the public with a little straight-up martial-arts violence: “Ninja Assassin” starring Stephen Colbert’s favorite Korean pop star, Rain. Directed for the brothers W by James McTeigue, who also handled their terrific/controversial “V for Vendetta,” this could be a canny attempt on the part of Warner Brothers at a bit of young-guy friendly anti-“New Moon” counter-programming. There’s certainly not much else going on right now for the highly stylized gratuitous violence market. Jason Zingale alludes to the holiday weekend in a split decision review that’s still more upbeat than most critics. So, the big question here is this: how many guys will want to, or be able to, check out all that mayhem in the middle of a family-oriented holiday weekend?

Now, the movie most of us cinephiles and geek types will be rooting for this weekend is Wes Anderson‘s stop-motion Roald Dahl adaptation, “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” which is venturing out from a successful arthouse release to compete on the general market. The only problem seems to be that Wes Anderson’s most widely praised film is still a Wes Anderson film and it’s been defiantly made in old-school, non-CGI puppet animation. On the other hand, it’s also a family film that should, in theory at least, play to the same audience as all the other simultaneous adult/kid pleasers. A lot of this, I think, will come down to Fox Searchlight’s marketing of the film as well as to whatever word of mouth developed over the last two weeks.

In limited release in 111 theaters, as per Box Office Mojo, but originally slated to go wide immediately, we have a major prestige pic from the Weinstein Company. “The Road” is based on the highly acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy and directed by John Hillcoat. His “The Proposition” was a big hit with critics but not particularly with me. (The low-budget pic with a cast of well-known actors made just over $5 million worldwide.) This tale of a father and son trying to survive as the bulk of humanity has degraded to murderous cannibalism — without any need for viruses, sun spots, or evil government programs gone badly wrong — is invariably described with words like “extremely grim,” “incredibly brutal,” and “beyond depressing.”  Will the numbers be described that way, too? It’s not clear what commercial good the popularity of the book and  a widely praised star performance by the always outstanding Viggo Mortenson can do here. I’d guess this one needs a significant Oscar nomination to do more than modest business, at best.

Finally, we have two well-reviewed arthouse contenders that I’m sure it’s possible we’ll be hearing from at Oscar time, Richard Linklater’s cinephile-bait, “Me and Orson Welles,” starring “High School Musical” fave Zac Efron, and the preciously named “Private Lives of Pippa Lee” starring a highly praised Robin Wright Penn and a cast of arthouse all-stars led by Alan Arkin, Maria Bello, and Monica Belluci. Still, the biggest news in more than ways than one is Disney’s return to traditional animation, “The Princess and the Frog” currently doing about as well you would think in two super-special engagements in New York and L.A. More on that later.

The theme was a bit different on “The Next Iron Chef” yesterday than it was last week. Last week, you’ll remember, the chefs had to create meals with some, you know, delicacies. Yesterday’s episode featured the idea of making more with less–simplicity. And that’s a theme that a really great chef can do a lot with.

For the initial challenge, each chef had to make something with a cooking vessel that they might not necessarily use normally–tagines, steamer pots, Mongolian hot pot, etc. With what they chose (they had a mad scramble to the table), the chefs could make anything they wanted–the traditional dish for that vessel, or something else unique.

Afterward, the chefs graded each other as they did last week. The favorite was Chef Mehta’s curry and rice dish that he made in a “couscouserie,” a vessel normally used for, well, cous cous. Chef Mehta would have an advantage in the next round because of his win.
The least favorite was Chef Mullen’s risotto with prawns, but he didn’t receive a penalty of any kind for that other than a hit to his pride.

Then for the main challenge, the chefs would be asked by Alton Brown to create a simple classic dish from one of three cuisines–Greek, French or Italian. And since chef Mehta won the initial challenge, he drew first randomly and picked Greek, and the dish was spanokopita–which is a spinach and feta cheese dish with phyllo dough. After that, Brown chose for each of the remaining eight chefs:

Chef Farmerie–Italian, Veal Tonnato
Chef Smith–French, Boulliabaisse
Chef Freitag–French, Coq Au Vin
Chef Mullen–Italian, Pasta Puttanesca
Chef Appleman–French, Ratatouille
Chef Crenn–Greek, Moussaka
Chef Garces–Italian, Minestrone soup
Chef Trevino–Greek, Dolmas (stuffed grape leaves)

The judges tasted and discussed each dish, and they were the same judges as last week–Anya Fernald, Jeffrey Steingarten, and Donatella Arpaia. They loved Mehta’s spanakopita and he made a sorbet to go along with it. Everyone also loved chef Freitag’s Coq au vin and marveled at how she made a version of it in a short amount of time.
They thought Appleman’s ratatouille with added meat was daring and it turned out great. They thought chef Crenn was the most improved from last week and Steingarten commented that he would order chef Garces’ de-constructed minestrone in a restaurant. Trevino made his stuffed grape leaves with cous cous and the judges thought that was a nice and tasty change of pace.

So then Brown started sending chefs to safety in order. Chef Freitag was first, followed by Garces, Appleman and Mehta. Then Trevino and Crenn. That left chefs Mullen, Smith and Farmerie. Chef Mullen was surprised because the judges really seemed to dig his puttanesca, and then he was really surprised when they informed him that his was the favorite dish. I’m not sure why they confused us and him like that, but at least it kept us guessing.

So it was down to chefs Farmerie and Smith. While the veal with tuna sauce that Farmerie de-constructed was not up to par, they liked his dish better than Smith’s boullabaisse, and so she was sent home.

Okay, we’re down to eight now and this season is already whipping by.
There are several of them that appear to be frontrunners–Appleman, Freitag, Mehta and Garces. I don’t think Chef Mullen will win, despite winning the round last night.

Did you see the show? Let me know what you think in the space below, and have a great week!

In the past several years Patton Oswalt has plotted an admirable career arc, going from being “that guy on ‘The King of Queens'” to the voice of Remy in “Ratatouille” to a progressively more well-known stand-up comedian. His hot streak continues this month with the theatrical release of the positively reviewed “Big Fan” and his latest comedy CD, My Weakness Is Strong — all of which means now is a pretty great time for Bullz-Eye’s Will Harris to have a chat with Mr. Oswalt.

“Big Fan” was naturally a main point of discussion, and Oswalt opened up about taking on a dramatic role after spending so long building his comedy chops, saying:

A lot of my instincts as an actor, I had to kind of sit on (during ‘Big Fan’). Like, my instinct was, ‘I need to end this scene with a funny look or a button of some sort,’ and I couldn’t do that. So that was certainly odd for me to not have that resource in this role, but…it was kind of cool to be in that situation for once in my career, where I’m just totally outside of my comfort zone. I mean, unbelievably outside of my comfort zone. It was kind of thrilling.

But don’t worry — Oswalt isn’t abandoning his funny side. In fact, as he discusses in the interview, his standup is evolving as he gets older, something illustrated on My Weakness Is Strong:

I think most comedians go through that, where you have to change or evolve. You don’t want to just keep doing variations on the same themes. And, besides, it would look kinda creepy for a guy my age to be doing stuff that, like, a 20-year-old would do. ‘Yeah, this is bullshit!’ It’s, like, ‘Really? You don’t have bigger concerns at this point in your life?’

To read more of the interview — including some of the performances Patton feels never got the attention they deserved, favorite unheralded films, and what it was like to work on Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” — click on the image above or follow this link!