AWAY WE GO

Written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida
Directed by Sam Mendes
Starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph


Burt Farlander: I had a dream about Montreal last week.
Verona De Tessant: Was I topless in it?
Burt Farlander: Yes.

From the moment you see this dilapidated shack of a house, you think how could anyone live here? There is a light on inside so someone must live there. Who could possibly though? It looks as though it could fall in on itself at any moment. And then you see the inside. There is a tool and workstation in the bedroom! What hapless losers call this dump home? Well, that would be Burt Farlander and Verona De Tessant (John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) and when you meet them, you realize instantly that they deserve so much better. They’re good people who are trying to find their place who haven’t realized yet that they don’t have to stay in one place to find it. They are also just now, both in their early 30’s, waking up to the reality of their adult life and seeing that they’ve got a lot more work to do than they thought. And so away they go in search of a real home in Sam Mendes’s AWAY WE GO.


It might have been the decrepit yet necessary space heater in the living room or the cardboard box that was doubling as a window in the kitchen but it was a lot more likely that it was Verona’s unexpected pregnancy that tipped the couple off. There comes a point in time in our lives when we can no longer just get by on our youthful charms, when we must take specific action to fashion our lives into something we can grow into security or a legacy. That time is now for Burt and Verona. After Burt’s parents (Catherine O’Hara and Jeff Daniels) inform the twosome that they are moving to Belgium for two years, they realize that there is no reason for them to continue living in Colorado as they were only doing so to be close to his parents. All too often, we resign ourselves to what we know and avoid venturing past our safety zones out of fear of the unknown or because of just plain complacency but Burt and Verona have just realized that there is nothing remotely safe about their particular zone. Worse yet, it isn’t home.


This charming road trip film is winning and touching despite its formulaic trappings. After leaving Colorado, Burt and Verona go to Phoenix, Madison and Miami. They even make their way north of the border to Montreal. At each spot, they visit with friends and family in hopes of feeling a connection that might make them want to move there. The premise is inherently episodic as each of these people they meet with has children already and they each have different approaches to proper parenting. There is always something to learn and Mendes does nothing to mask the transparency of their journey. What he does is allow seasoned character actors like O’Hara and Daniels, or Maggie Gyllenhaal, Alison Janney and Chris Messina to bring sincerity and depth to what would otherwise be hollow shells. And with the unavoidably likable Krasinski and the refreshingly honest Rudolph taking us on this ride, even long lulls on the road pass by like a breeze.


AWAY WE GO is the kind of film that makes me wish I had someone to get out there and look for a home with. Burt and Verona are something of a dying breed today. The love they have for each other is deep but practical and at no point in time does either take for granted that they will make it through to the other side without having to do a little work to get there. They also don’t take it all so seriously so as much as they work, they play just as hard. The way in which they play is what gives AWAY WE GO a warmth that I’ve only known from one place before … home.

Really? HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU?

Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson, Drew Barrymore, Justin Long and Ginnifer Goodwin – it’s a cast that never ends. With names like that, it is no surprise really that HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU was a hit last February. Factor in the perfect Valentine’s Day timing and how could you go wrong. The film won its weekend with just under $30 million and went on to earn just shy of $100 million. Not bad for a film that was based on a book that was based on one line of dialogue from the “Sex and the City” series. I missed it in theatres but now that it is available to rent, I’m not quite sure how any of you were that into the movie itself.


An incredibly sappy string driven score, complete with wind chime highlights, opens the Ken Kwapis (LICENSE TO WED) film. A little girl is playing all by her lonesome in a sandbox and then a boy approaches her. She looks at him and wonders what he could possibly want with her and he in turn, in true little boy badness, shoves her and calls her names. At this point in the film, I am worried that I am in store for a very silly film but a voiceover steps in to suggest that this scenario is where all troubles begin for the ladies. This little sandbox girl runs to her mommy who explains that this little boy only treats her badly because he likes her. Suddenly, I am wondering if this cheesy chick flick might be able to answer a mystery I’ve never quite understood – why do girls always go for the bad boys? The insight lasted for about five seconds though and before long, I was drowning in good actors acting poorly, poor actors acting worse than usual and so many exaggerated dating clichés that I was glad to be single and along watching this banality of a picture.


HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU tries to capture the particular moment in time that people of the dating world are living these days. We are a society of instant gratification. We expect certainty within moments of meeting and we decide within those same moments whether to use and discard or just not bother. We play by so many rules that no one can even see the goal through the field. Though we maintain specific distances with people, we claim to want closeness and we continue to play no matter how futile we think the whole affair to be. We are a complicated bunch and Kwapis paints us all as pathetic little losers with no hopes of ever finding love. His explanations are far too facile but he is sure to reinforce that we need another to be complete our lives and experience real happiness before wrapping up so that we can all continue to lose sleep wondering why he’s just not that into me.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: UP! Stays Up

The forecast did not look good on Friday. Before going into the weekend, prognosticators expected an easy second week win for Pixar’s latest hit, UP! It was then expected that Will Ferrell’s remake, LAND OF THE LOST, would follow in a distant second and R-rated comedy, THE HANGOVER, would post impressive but limited R-rated numbers. Then THE HANGOVER went and captured over $16 million on Friday to win the day and the title of second biggest R-rated comedy opening day in history (behind the $26.8 million one day haul SEX AND THE CITY took in last year). Suddenly the skies were not so clear for another UP! victory.


Ultimately, UP! won the weekend with a slight 35% decline. This marks the shortest second week decline for a Pixar picture since FINDING NEMO, which would eventually go on to become the top grossing G-rated movie of all time with just under $340 million. With no other significant family film or animated feature before the latest ICE AGE installment on July 1, UP! is in a great position to reach similar numbers to FINDING NEMO and will certainly surge past recent hits, WALL-E and RATATOUILLE.


Just because LAND OF THE LOST was being released on more screens, contained a PG-13 rating and starred Will Ferrell, people were expecting it to be the weekend’s big hit. Go figure. I would consider it a testament to a new audience intelligence that they didn’t just go see it because it was big and shiny but then again, they threw a ton of money at THE HANGOVER instead. To be fair, I actually thought THE HANGOVER, directed by Todd Phillips, who directed Ferrell in OLD SCHOOL, would be much better than it was and went to see it opening day as well. I found out very quickly just how sobering an experience it was. Warner Brothers is happy though. The unexpected success of THE HANGOVER affirms that it was the right decision to green light a sequel before the film even hit theatres.


No film came anywhere close to matching the per screen average of this week’s breakout art house success, AWAY WE GO. Directed by Sam Mendes (REVOLUTIONARY ROAD), AWAY WE GO follows John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph around the country as they search for a place to call home and raise their first child together. The simple and touching story received a mixed reaction from critics but audiences were drawn to it as it pulled in $143K on four screens for an average of nearly $36K per screen. The film will continue to unspool slowly in the weeks to come. Other notable limited releases include SERAPHINE, a French film by Martin Provost. The winner of seven Cesar Awards (the French equivalent of the Oscar), including Best Picture, SERAPHINE pulled in nearly $40K on six screens, for an average $6.5K. And proving further that she is box office poison, Mariah Carey starred in TENNESSEE and brought in a grand total of $10K on 15 screens (most of them actually in Tennessee) for a very un-diva like average of under a grand.


NEXT WEEK: Oh joy … Eddie Murphy is back in IMAGINE THAT (2800 screens). In this one, he bonds with his daughter because her imaginary friends have great stock tips. I enjoyed this premise the first time I saw it on “The Simpsons” when Homer was using Lisa for football tips. And aging A-listers, John Travolta and Denzel Washington go head to head in Tony Scott’s remake of THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123. On the smaller side of things, look for documentary, FOOD INC, Sam Rockwell vehicle, MOON and the latest Francis Ford Coppolla attempt to recapture his creditability, TETRO.

Source: Box Office Mojo

THE HANGOVER

Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
Directed by Todd Phillips
Starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galafinakis and Heather Graham


Stu Price: Why are you peppering the steak? You don’t even know if tigers like pepper.
Alan Garner: Tigers love pepper. It’s cinnamon they don’t like.

I think its fair to say that anyone who will see THE HANGOVER knows the pain of waking up to the birds chirping cheerfully outside and the sun shining brightly through the curtains, all the while wishing that it would all go away so you can sink into the hell you brought upon yourself. I myself have certainly shuffled back and forth between my bed and the toilet more mornings that I care to recall. What I don’t understand though is why anyone who does know this excruciating pain would choose to visit it voluntarily on the big screen. While watching THE HANGOVER does not inspire the same kind of nausea as a night of serious drinking, it does capture the subdued tone of the dreaded morning after pretty well. I stopped drinking excessively specifically to avoid this tone and THE HANGOVER is nowhere near a good enough reason to go back there.


From the moment THE HANGOVER begins, the voice is unmistakable. A wedding is being set up, from the flowers at the ends of the aisles to the frilly icing on the cake. As we know that we are about to watch a buddy movie where four guys get wild and rowdy on a Las Vegas bachelor party, there is no question that director, Todd Phillips, is speaking distinctly to the men out there and that the beautiful floral arrangements and final wedding details are meant to be ridiculed. Look at how preposterous all these finishing touches are, men. Aren’t women completely out of their heads for spending so much time on all of this? Let’s go get drunk already. If you’re the type of man who thinks that tired and immensely ignorant setup is hilarious than you may very well love THE HANGOVER. After all, it isn’t long after this that you get to delight in the demonizing of women as every one we meet is controlling, manipulative and callous. It’s all very modern bride.


THE HANGOVER is not about the women though; it is all about the men and their bond. The trouble is that I didn’t see anything remotely redeeming about this sad pack of losers. The groom himself, Doug (Justin Bartha), is completely uninteresting but that doesn’t matter as he is misplaced for the majority of the film. His impending brother-in-law, Alan (Zach Galafinakis) is a fat, furry troll of a man who is socially inept to the point of extreme discomfort – painful awkwardness is always a pleasure to watch on screen. Doug’s buddy Phil (Bradley Cooper) is ruggedly handsome but he steals field trip money from his elementary school class to spend at the tables and has zero respect or appreciation for his wife and child so it isn’t so easy to find him endearing. In fact, the only one of the bunch that is remotely winning is Ed Helms as Stu Price. Of course, Stu is completely whipped so you’ve got to love the guy. Poor thing has to answer to someone else; it is so horrible that people should be expected to be held accountable to the person they claim to love.

Frankly, I couldn’t have cared less what happened to these guys as I wish that less guys like this actually existed. Really, how am I supposed to root for guys who are so dumb that they would leave a baby in a parked car alone? While Philips is savvy enough to structure THE HANGOVER so that we piece the mysterious evening together at the same time as they do, it all amounts to these unappealing characters going from scenario to extreme scenario asking people if they remember anything about their interactions from the night before. It also doesn’t amount to very many laughs so maybe the real hangover isn’t from a heavy night of drinking but rather an excessive indulgence in overdone average dumb guy comedy.

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Black Sheep Previews: NEW MOON

After its highly anticipated debut at last week's MTV Movie Awards, the trailer for the second installment in the Twilight vampire series, NEW MOON, has reignited the lust for blood in girls around the world. Clearly, from the overtly romantic tone of the trailer, new helmer, Chris Weitz (who replaced Catherine Hardwicke to many fans' dismay), knows what fans connected with in the first installment and intends to play that up this time out. I'm not a big Weitz fan, when it comes to direction, that is. His writing is surprisingly sensitive (CHUCK & BUCK, ABOUT A BOY) but his direction barely holds big pictures together. As it stands, his work on THE GOLDEN COMPASS left the fate of the series in question so it does not bode well for this immensely popular series. That said, he seems to be holding true to the simple hometown aesthetic of the last outing, as opposed to the glamorizing Alfonso Cuaron brought to the Harry Potter series. Well, Taylor Lautner (Jacob - the one who turns into a wolf), got a much needed haircut and has clearly been doing nothing but working on his pecs since the last production wrapped but aside from that, everything seems to be in line with the sincerity that captured both believers and non-believers so genuinely in TWILIGHT. Just remember boys and girls, Lautner is but a baby of 17. No touching.



Personally, I've lost a little interest in the Twilight Saga. I had none to begin with and then was surprisingly impressed with the film. I mean, it wasn't perfect but it certainly had more going for it than I had anticipated. I loved Bella (Kristen Stewart) and her simple demeanor. Even Robert Pattinson as Edward grew on me after I got over his ability to sparkle in the daylight. I am still looking forward to this sequel but I've also been watching the first season of "True Blood" so my experience is tainted. There are far too many similarities between the two and "True Blood" is not doing a good job of it. The wah-wah whiny nature of the HBO series makes Edward seem all the more sappy. It's almost making me wish everyone would just leave the vamps alone already. That isn't going to happen though so I'll just have to hope NEW MOON reaffirms my belief in the possible love between a teenage girl and a decades old man who can potentially suck every drop of blood out of her at any moment.

DRAG ME TO HELL

Written by Ivan Raimi and Sam Raimi
Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring Alison Lohman, Justin Long and Lorna Raver


I just recently left a job at a bank and after seeing DRAG ME TO HELL, I sure am glad I did. This lovely, young woman, Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), tries so hard. She goes to work every day and does her best to impress her boss so she can get that promotion. She bakes family cake recipes from scratch to bring with her when she meets her boyfriend’s parents for the first time. She’s just trying to carve out a little spot for herself in the world. And then one day, in order to show her boss that she can make the hard decisions necessary in these trying economic times, she refuses to give an ill, elderly lady a third extension on her mortgage payments. Christine chooses personal career growth over human compassion and subsequently, Christine must go straight to hell.


The elderly lady is a Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver, who is absolutely repulsive and terrifying at all times). She comes from gypsies and she will have none of this behaviour. She knows that Christine could have done right by her had she really wanted to and so decides that Christine no longer deserves to live. In a turn that isn’t nearly taken as often as it should these days, Mrs. Ganush places a curse on Christine. The curse, as it is explained to Christine by a psychic she stumbles upon named Rham Jas (Dileep Rao), will find her tormented by a demon called the Lamia for three days. After these three days, the Lamia will return to take her soul to hell. It seems to me that Christine’s life already resembled hell but I guess it can always be worse. (You would be agreeing with me too if you saw what it was like for Christine to have Justin Long for a boyfriend – what a boring sap he is).


It sounds as though I’m poking fun but that’s only because DRAG ME TO HELL is a lot of unexpected fun. Raimi doesn’t cheap out on jump out of your seat scares that are usually accompanied by involuntary screeches but he does so a knowing admiration for classical horror conventions. Raimi may have been swinging along for years in the SPIDER-MAN franchise but he goes back to his roots with this one. He plays with sounds that are so intensely jarring, they would scare the deaf. He plays with shadows because he knows that what we cannot see is so much more frightening than what we can. Raimi plays, period. He knows, as well as his brother, Ivan, who co-wrote the screenplay, that scaring people is supposed to be fun. How else can one explain how something as simple as a handkerchief can become one of the most menacing devices I have ever seen? DRAG ME TO HELL is disgusting to watch and will gross you out but you’ll delight in every fright and desperately want the next to come. I don’t recall ever having as much going to hell.



FUN FACT: This was supposed to be Ellen Page's first post-JUNO role but she had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.

BLU-TUESDAY .. June 2

June is a little spotty from week to week when it comes to quality titles finding their way to Blu-Ray. The second though is certainly a strong start though. Romantic charmer, HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU, the fourth season of WEEDS and Spike Lee’s 2006 hit, INSIDE MAN all make their BD debuts. I am more intrigued by these though …

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
There is no question in my mind. This film was far too harshly criticized upon its release late last year. The reunion of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as crumbling couple, Frank and April Wheeler, under the direction of AMERICAN BEAUTY director and Winslet’s husband, Sam Mendes was highly anticipated for all of these reasons. The subject matter though was too bitter for audiences to appreciate, including myself. Too much yelling perhaps. I decided to give it a second chance in theatres though and quickly saw the beauty behind the Wheeler’s marriage. It isn’t perfect but what marriage is? It is one of the most memorable film experiences of 2008 and I cannot wait to welcome the Wheeler’s into my home. It comes with …

- Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound
- Commentary with Mendes and screenwriter, Justin Haythe
- “Lives of Quiet Desperation” (making of)
- Deleted scenes


THE GRADUATE
There is a reason why this Mike Nichols classic is still taught in classes forty years after its initial release. Sure, it was far ahead of its time and contains some of the most memorable moments in film history but for me, it just feels alive. Nichols won the Oscar for his direction (the film itself lost in every single other category it was nominated for). His eye can be felt in every focus decision; his hands felt in each movement of the camera. Nichols is constantly thinking about how to push this story visually but never unaware of the incredible performances he pulled from a strapping, young Dustin Hoffman the title character and a radiant Anne Bancroft as the infamous, Mrs. Robinson. My only concern is that the film has been rushed onto BD. Details on the features are scarce and I’ve actually read that there may actually be none. In the meantime, this is all I know …

- 2-Disc set, including DVD copy
- HD Master Audio


DEFIANCE
This was another title that saw only modest returns in cinemas. The story itself is not the problem. In fact, the story itself is quite compelling and surprisingly original considering it is a WWII story. The Bielski brothers flee their homes after their parents are killed by Nazi supporters and find shelter in the forest. They run into about a thousand other fleeing Jews and stake their ground by setting up camp in the forest and fighting back against all who try to get at them. The trouble is that director, Edward Zwick (BLOOD DIAMOND) sensationalizes their bravery. He seems almost too proud to be telling this story of Jews fighting back; it is as though he knows the whole while that people will be surprised by what they are seeing. Still, by the time the film concludes, the story is left to speak for itself and, like I said before, it is a beautiful, story. Maybe Zwick’s commentary track will humble the whole experience. Also …

- “Defiance: Return to the Forest”

(don’t ask me what that is supposed to be)

Really? PAUL BLART: MALL COP?

Earlier this year, over the Martin Luther King Day long weekend, PAUL BLART: MALL COP debuted in theatres to a gross of $39.2 million. It went on to remain the most popular film in North America for three straight weeks and finished by pulling in $146 million. You really liked this movie. When I first saw the trailer, I thought, now there was a January dumping ground film if I’ve seen one before. And then you all went to see it. Not only did you see it but you told other people to see, judging from the slim week-to-week declines. Now that Mr. Blart is finally available to rent, I have seen it and I can’t say I share your admiration for mall security humour.

I will give you this. The best thing by far about PAUL BLART: MALL COP is Mr. Blart himself, Kevin James. James nails Blart. This is a pretty sad sack and your heart goes out to him immediately because James plays him with immense respect and sympathy for his position. This guy is in his forties and lives at home with his mother and teenage daughter. His wife left him after she got her green card and he has been working in mall security for ten years because he failed the police academy finals due to some serious hypoglycemia. He goes to work every day and gets no respect from his co-workers or the people he is paid to protect. James just laughs it off but he isn’t fooling anyone. This guy’s seriously unhappy, lonely and has huge confidence issues. James makes the movie but he’s got his work cut out for him with everything else in this movie that makes it ridiculous.


I should have known better. Check director, Steve Carr’s resume … DR. DOLITTLE 2, DADDY DAY CARE and ARE WE DONE YET? Apparently, Carr is the go to guy for low budget, simplistically broad family fare and PAUL BLART: MALL COP is his masterpiece. (I would love to be quoted in some paper calling this movie a masterpiece now.) I think I lost hope in the film when the mall was taken over by a bunch of skate boarding ninja punks looking to steal a bunch of credit card codes so they can fly to the Cayman Islands. That said, it was still a lot more enjoyable than that other mall cop movie, OBSERVE AND REPORT.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Up with UP!

People love to watch other people fail. It is especially more delicious when the one falling is finally doing it after a number of successes. And while the industry people around the world consistently admire and appreciate the Pixar pictures, they are all still waiting to watch them fall on their faces. The logic is that a streak of success ten pictures long is not sustainable but if there is one thing Pixar is good at (and realistically, there are a great number of things they are great at), it is making the impossible happen and proving everyone wrong.

The truth of it is that people may speculate when the first Pixar failure will come but these same people all LOVE the Pixar movies. UP! is no exception to any of this. It is universally adored by critics and audiences alike and now, it has overcome a vague advertising campaign to become Pixar’s biggest opening in years. As far as comparable summer Pixar releases go, UP! and its $68 million take is the biggest Pixar opening since FINDING NEMO pulled in $70 million in 2003. The fish movie went on to make close to $340 million in North America alone. WALL-E and RATATOUILLE both debuted to less ($63 million and $47 million respectively) and went on to make over $200 million each domestically so UP! is certainly off to a bold start. Now we just have to see where the wind carries it over time.


Universal’s attempt to counterprogram against UP! was only moderately successful. Sam Raimi’s return to the horror genre, DRAG ME TO HELL, only brought in about $16 million to narrowly beat out the second week of TERMINATOR SALVATION, which stumbled more than it should have (-62%). DRAG ME TO HELL is actually only slightly less praised than UP! is but audiences did not buy into the high concept approach to horror. That old lady in the movie couldn’t afford her mortgage payments and people couldn’t afford to pay to watch her not afford those payments. Or maybe they were just more interested in seeing the second frame of NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN. The Ben Stiller McMovie dropped off a reasonable 52% considering it had intense competition from UP!.


Both EASY VIRTUE and THE BROTHERS BLOOM continued successful expansions this week. THE BROTHERS BLOOM nearly cracked the Top 10, coming in just behind OBSESSED with $652K on 148 screens. Perhaps by the time final figures come in tomorrow, it will have surpassed the Beyonce thriller. Though Black Sheep doesn’t believe Jessica Biel’s turn in EASY VIRTUE is that special, audiences are eating it up. The British farce added just 16 screens to its roster and saw its returns increase by nearly 70%. And although it has the third highest per screen average of any film playing, this year’s winner Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language film, DEPARTURES, did not do the kind of business befitted to an Academy Award winning film. $72K on 9 screens is respectable but hardly memorable. An earlier release would have helped significantly.


NEXT WEEK: Laugh it up, folks. Will Ferrell goes head to head with his former OLD SCHOOL director next week as LAND OF THE LOST (3300 screens) opens against the much buzzed about, THE HANGOVER (3200 screens). Oh, and if you’re a woman and want to laugh, well then you’ll be happy to hear that Nia Vardalos is back in theatres with MY LIFE IN RUINS (1100 screens). Or maybe laughing at people is much more your style. Mariah Carey returns to theatres in TENNESSEE (14 screens); she plays a waitress who wants to sing. It’s a big stretch. And finally, if you like your laughter with a little heart, Sam Mendes goes indie with AWAY WE GO. That’s where I’ll be.

Source: Box Office Mojo

UP!

Written by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson
Directed by Pete Docter
Voices by Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer and Jordan Nagai


Charles Muntz: Adventure is out there!

On paper, Pixar’s tenth feature film, UP!, doesn’t make a lot of sense. A 78-year-old grump of a man named Mr. Frederickson (voiced by Ed Asner) fills thousands of balloons in the home he’s been living in his entire adult life and these balloons literally uproot his house from its foundation and carry it high into the sky. To complicate matters further, an over eager 8-year-old wilderness explorer named Russell (Jordan Nagai) has stowed away under the porch. Together, they must navigate this unlikely flying machine to South America so that Mr. Frederickson can find adventure before it’s too late. It sounds like an uphill battle to me but this is why it makes such perfect sense for UP! to come along when it has. There could be no better way to commemorate this Pixar milestone than with a film that inherently requires an imagination as lofty as the boundless sky to get it off the ground.


UP! is consistently unexpected. It is uproarious one minute and then uplifting the next. Director, Pete Docter (MONSTERS INC), along with his co-director, Bob Peterson, and indie director, Tom McCarthy, put together an improbable scenario and gave a rock solid foundation to a story that barely spends any time on the ground. Not too dissimilar to McCarthy’s THE VISITOR, Mr. Frederickson comes from a different era. He met his wife Ellie when he was just a wee lad and they went on to spend their entire lives together, the up’s and down’s of which are strung together in a touching montage that shows sorrowful realities that are usually left out of animated films. With the love of his life now gone, Mr. Frederickson no longer understands the world around him. He merely sees how he has no place in it and suddenly feels as though it has all been wasted time.


As Mr. Frederickson and Russell coast alongside the clouds, so do we on this 3D adventure. It certainly cannot be called facile but UP! has a certain breeziness to it, as though Docter has been driving his own house in the sky for ages now. There are some minor moments of turbulence (one talking dog is fine – especially when it is as adorable as Doug, voiced by co-writer, Peterson – a large pack of talking dogs is a little too, well, Disney for my tastes) but you never lose faith in your captain. Docter is smart to infuse UP! with themes but even smarter to know never to allow these themes to upstage his characters and their journey. Mr. Frederickson is an uptight, old crank but he is also a sensitive and loving husband. Russell is a clueless little boy but he means well and has his own issues with an absent father. Authentic and unwavering, they cannot help but influence the other while their up and coming friendship inspires us.


With the bar raised so high by their past efforts, Pixar needed UP! to reach the sky to get over it this time. Its upbeat tone and upstanding quality allow it to glide right on over that bar and its unpredictable path make the experience adventuresome, exhilarating and unforgettable. It is everything you would expect to feel if you suddenly found yourself in a flying house, which is to say nothing at all and everything all at once. After conquering both the vast ocean and the infinite space in outer space, Pixar can now proudly say that they rule the sky as well.

Black Sheep Previews: PRECIOUS

It would be hard to argue the point. A movie about an overweight 16 year-old-girl with a poor background who is pregnant with her second child is not a story that can reach the masses. Even when PUSH, as it was originally titled, made its debut at this year's Sundance film festival, no one would have thought it had any potential to go anywhere. And then it won both the jury prize and the audience award. The fact that is was sold at that point is not so surprising. What is surprising is who bought it. Here is this little movie with the potential to make anyone who watches it want to die a little and it gets bought up my Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey - two of the biggest mass appeal media moguls on the planet. All of a sudden, PRECIOUS - BASED ON THE NOVEL "PUSH" BY SAPPHIRE, as it has now been renamed, is competing at Cannes and is one of the most hotly anticipated titles of 2009. There is even Oscar talk.



PRECIOUS was written and directed by Lee Daniels. This is only Daniels' second film and I'm sure even he is surprised by the attention this project is now garnering. To watch the trailer, you can feel the spin machine working overtime to make the film seem as inspirational as it can be. I'm sure the film isn't completely devoid of positive messages but sugar coating is not going to fool anyone when you see images of mothers chasing after their daughters with frying pans. Oddly, that isn't nearly as frightening as Mariah Carey without makeup.

PRECIOUS will begin its limited run on November 6.

EASY VIRTUE

Written by Stephan Elliott & Sheridan Jobbins
Directed by Stephan Elliott
Starring Jessica Biel, Kristen Scott Thomas, Ben Barnes and Colin Firth


Mrs. Whittaker: Smile, Marion.
Marion Whittaker: I don’t feel like smiling.
Mrs. Whittaker: You’re English, dear. Fake it.

You pretty much know from the very start whether EASY VIRTUE will be an easy experience for you or an excruciating one. It opens with a big, bright opening musical number that cuts back and forth between a staged choreography, complete with fans and clam shells and a sepia soaked introduction to Jessica Biel as Larita, the first female race car driver, winning a race and finding the man of her dreams at the finish line. By the time you meet her man, John Whittaker’s (Ben Barnes) eccentric British family at their country home, the ridiculously dramatic tone of the film is completely set. It is forced, exaggerated and awkward. It isn’t until a few scenes later that it becomes apparent that THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT director, Stephan Elliott, is trying to be farcical on purpose. By that time, it hardly even seems to matter.


John has just married Larita without telling his family first and he is bringing his American girl home to meet Mum and Dad. Kristen Scott Thomas plays the matriarch of the household and she will have nothing to do with this American tart waltzing into her home and stealing her baby boy from her. After all, it was up to him to take over the house at some point and Larita being accustomed to life in the fast lane, means she will not be entertaining the notion of living in the country. And so the tug of war between mother and daughter-in-law begins. It isn’t pretty, let me tell you. It also isn’t that interesting. The son they are fighting over is a bit of a spineless drifter, first of all, so he hardly seems worth all the trouble. And then there are the ladies themselves. Thomas, who has been making something of a successful resurgence in the last year, looks as though she may implode at any moment as she frantically rushes about and barks nonsense at everyone. And then there’s Biel, who is clearly trying to improve her standing as a leading lady. She isn’t the presence she needs to be to throw this family into such turmoil and subsequently only half holds our own and our attention. Colin Firth is the only presence that grounds everything. This is primarily because he seems about just as interested in being there as we are.


Elliott never quite seems to get a grasp on how he wants EASY VIRTUE to play out. Once the battle between the ladies is fully on, it finds an acceptable pace but it is still strained. People occasionally sing out of nowhere. Modern songs are repurposed with a big band sound to contemporize the period genre. And he is constantly forcing camera tricks to spice things up but they are entirely transparent. You end up waiting for the only possible conclusion to come and realizing pretty quickly that this film is about as virtuous as it is easy.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Stiller Takes Down the Terminator

Overcrowding at the box office is standard fare during the summer months. I always feel that the films could be better spread out but studios continue to insist upon pitting film against film instead of just picking perhaps more quiet weekends to let films find their own audiences. I just have to learn though that it isn’t about everyone having their own day; it’s about coming out strong and taking down the other guy while you’re at it.


Prognosticators were torn on how this weekend would play out. On the one hand, TERMINATOR SALVATION was tracking very well and seemed to be riding some pretty strong buzz. On the other hand, NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE AT THE SMITHSONIAN was coming a hugely successful following for the first film and a lack of family fare in the market place. Most had their money on NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM as family films tend to do big business on Memorial Day weekend. They would have won their bets but grossly overshot how much they would win by. Some predictions had the film coming in at $75 million but it only brought in $53 million in the end. While well below what they may have been hoping for, it is still much better than the first adventure’s opening weekend take of $30 million and that one went on to make over $250 million.


The buzz for TERMINATOR SALVATION seemed to dissipate pretty quickly as soon as the weekend hit. The McG directed film, the first in the series to come out since 2003, capitalized on the demand by coming on Thursday to the tune of $13 million, including midnight screenings. Poor reviews though, from both critics and fans, may have shortened the lines. Personally, I felt that the critics were being more harsh than needed but regardless, McG’s franchise reboot has a much more difficult road ahead of it as it goes into its next two expected installments. Meanwhile, the STAR TREK reboot continues to travel at warp speed. It has now brought in over $180 million in just three weeks and should have no problems crossing the $200 million mark by next weekend.


The Top 10 saw only one other debut and it did what was expected. DANCE FLICK did mediocre business and will likely end up making is reported $25 million budget back but not doing much else past that. And below the Top 10, THE BROTHERS BLOOM and SUMMER HOURS continued to add theatres and grosses. Each saw their returns increase over 300% and their averages in and around $7K per screen. Although there are no estimates reported for Steven Soderbergh’s sexy THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, the week’s best art house debut goes to EASY VIRTUE (Black Sheep review to come this week). This British farce, with Jessica Biel making a play for more leading parts, pulled in a solid $11K average. Reviews are mixed though so Biel will need to try again. I would suggest she take off some clothes but she already has and that went straight to video.

NEXT WEEK: Pixar tries to make it 10 for 10 with their latest feature, UP! An animated feature about an old grump and a boy scout in a flying house seems like a hard sell to me but they made rats in the kitchen and a half silent film about a robot work so I don’t underestimate anything they put out. UP! will be released on 3700 screens. The only other wide release next weekend is looking for a decidedly different market. Sam Raimi’s financing horror flick, DRAG ME TO HELL, opens on 2400 screens. Outside of that, THE BROTHERS BLOOM goes wide and this year’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, DEPARTURES, from Japan, will finally hit North American theatres.

Source: Box Office Mojo

TERMINATOR SALVATION

Written by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris
Directed by McG
Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard and Anton Yelchin


John Connor: I knew it was coming but this is not the future my mother warned me about.

The TERMINATOR series has always had large gaps between installments. The first installment debuted to modest results in 1984; the second followed in 1991 and crossed over to the mainstream thanks to James Cameron’s patient and human approach to the action blockbuster. The third film came out in 2003 and essentially killed the series. Many thought that would be the end but McG, a director with a spotted history at best, recently resurrected the franchise. McG believed that there was more to this story to tell and new ways to tell it. As far as I can tell after having seen TERMINATOR SALVATION, he was pretty much wrong on both fronts. The story is just more of the same and, while the visual style and setting are certainly new, they are heavily borrowed from the gaming realm so I’m not sure they can be called new in the original sense of the word.


McG makes films that either go big or go home. This one certainly went big but it did so with its bags packed and ready to go home at any moment. This is the first in the series to take place in the future, 2018 to be precise. Every previous installment has taken place in present day and played with time and space. Terminators and power players from the resistance have gone back and forth in time to make sure that certain events either do or don’t take place so that certain other events in the future either do or don’t take place. TERMINATOR SALVATION is no different. John Connor (Christian Bale, who often seems to have forgotten that he isn’t playing Batman this time) is the leader of the resistance. The resistance is a small group of human beings who were fortunate enough to survive Judgment Day but, as a result of their survival, then had to fight the machines in order to maintain their survival. The machines orchestrated Judgment Day as a means to wipe out humanity and rule the planet. Humanity created the machines to begin with. It isn’t a terribly complicated plot after you go over it a couple of times in your head but TERMINATOR SALVATION does very little to advance that plot, which begs to question why it was even made.


As far as I can tell, it was made to indulge a need to see the war that was always only alluded to in the previous films. Stylistically, McG has crafted a dank and dismal post-apocalyptic planet. For a film about salvation, there doesn’t seem to be much left to salvage. The land is barren and there is destruction everywhere you look. And while there isn’t much new to absorb from a plot perspective, there is still plenty to enjoy in terms of action. The Terminators have only one purpose – to kill or capture any human they come in contact with – and they never sway from that purpose. They are relentless and have no fear so their threat is always very real and constantly frightening. As it takes so much to kill them, it never feels as though humanity’s mission will be realized. That said, it is quite clear that McG spent a great deal of time preparing for this film by locking himself in his basement with his Xbox. Many sequences seem like they have taken perspectives I have seen in many a war game (inevitably being played by someone else as I only observe instead of play games). His technical approach shuns the organic and almost makes it seem as though he is rooting for the machines.

TERMINATOR SALVATION is the first in a new trilogy of Terminator films. Its bleak tone will ensure that it doesn’t cross over the way T2 JUDGMENT DAY did. It simply isn’t that accessible. You need to know the history to understand the plot properly but as the plot is second to the action, it can still be greatly enjoyed by appreciating just this aspect. If McG wanted to redefine the series, he didn’t have to look any further than this film’s newest character, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington). Half machine, half human, Marcus asserts his humanity with his live, beating heart found beneath his metallic frame. McG focused too heavily on the frame and forgot what keeps everything alive.

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