Sunday, March 31, 2013 at 8:01AM Happy 42nd birthday to Ewan McGregor! The giants in Jack The Giant Slayer earlier this month were super gross and dumb but they were right about one thing.
Ewan McGregor is delicious!
Especially in blankets.
So herewith a (not entirely sfw) photo gallery of Ewan-in-a-blanket in semi chronological order. If you can add to the gallery, please do!
Sunday, March 10, 2013 at 10:00PM 
Somewhere over a different rainbow: Gael García Bernal's NO is a deserved hit in platform releaseObviously the oxygen-hogging story this weekend was the release of a new Oz movie. Pre-sold films are Hollywood's favorite thing for a reason. Familiarity and branding goes a long long long long long long long way toward automatic ticket sales. But Somewhere over another rainbow (logo) NO is a more deserved success story. Let's discuss.
WIDE
01 Oz: The Great and Powerful $80.2 Review
02 Jack the Giant Slayer $28 (cum. $43.8) Review
03 Identity Thief $9.7 (cum. $116.5)
PLATFORM
01 The Gatekeepers $.2
(cum. $1 now on 67 screens & holding)
02 No $.1 Review
(cum. $.5 now on 35 screens & building)
03 Stoker $.1 Review
(cum. $.3 now on 17 screens & dwindling)
Word of mouth can be your best friend or your worst enemy in movie theaters. The big corporate movie studios are generally very consistent with their strategies though I'd argue too consistent. The would be blockbusters are released on so many screens that people sometimes buy tickets just because it's "the big movie opening" rather than from genuine I Must See This interest. I mean, imagine the financial bloodbath if Jack the Giant Slayer had opened on 10 screens and tried to build trusting that people would be recommending it to others? At least it made some money last weekend before a terrible 63% drop this week.
Meanwhile smaller titles are nearly always platformed in the same way even if that's a mistake for them. I mean, it makes total sense for a movie like Chile's Oscar nominee No which will have a distinctly limited audience proportionately the exact size of its word of mouth. In these cases platforming is wise since the movie is EXCELLENT (seriously, go see it) and people will tell their friends just that. But riskier polarizing movies like Stoker the studios treat in the exact same way, throwing all their chips on reviews and word of mouth even though that clearly won't work as well. I confess that I don't really understand the strategy. When you have a way to hook bigger audiences without word of mouth (i.e. the serial killer genre, some stars, and violent horror which has the most faithful audience ever) why aren't you using it?
the latest "mystery swag" from Stoker -- a creepy box of sharpened pencils with Mia Wasikowska's face staring back at you when you pull them out of the box.
I mean, I know I didn't exactly give Stoker a positive review but I'm glad I saw it. Stoker is, at the very least, a great curio discussion topic. But here's the catch. When they hide the weirdos they even lose their cachet as curios because nobody has anything to discuss having not seen it. I guess Stoker will have to wait for DVD to find its audience.
What did you watch this weekend?
I skipped the movies and went to see Sigourney Weaver on Broadway. (More on that tomorrow night)
Monday, March 4, 2013 at 11:33AM There was not a pot of gold at the top of that beanstalk... or rather there was but it had already been raided to build said beanstalk in the first place.
Box Office WIDE
01 JACK THE GIANT SLAYER *NEW* $28 Review
02 IDENTITY THIEF $9.7 (cum. $107.4)
03 21 AND OVER *NEW* $9.0
04 THE LAST EXORCISM PART II *NEW* $8
05 SNITCH $7.7 (cum. $24.4)
Given Jack the Giant Slayer's gargantuan budget ($200 million), and the loss of the family audience next weekend when Oz: The Great and Powerful cuts it off at the knees beanstalk (har-de-har-har), this has to be a regarded as a face plant (plant. get it, I... never mind). Unless its overseas take is significantly better.
Box Office PLATFORM
01 THE GATEKEEPERS $.2 (cum. $.6)
02 STOKER *NEW* $.1 Review
03 NO $.1 (cum. $.3) Review
04 HYDE PARK ON HUDSON *$.04 (cum. $6.2)
05 STAND UP GUYS $.1 (cum. $3.2)
Though Stoker had a non-spectacular 'highest-per-screen-average of any movie' claim this weekend, I always wonder why genre efforts with famous stars don't open wider to begin with. I mean, seven theaters??? Sure this is an art horror film rather than a easy-sell slasher but remember when Bug opened wide and they pretended it didn't have critically acclaimed roots? It was hardly a hit but it made $3 million in its opening weekend and $7 million in total. If you hide Stoker for long enough, it won't even get to $7 million because the buzz will warn away the people who are scared of anything non-generic... which is obviously a lot of people if you look at box office receipts for horror films where interchangeable slashers tend to reign.
One unreported story of the box office this winter season is surely that the non-bankable Oscar bait failures like Quartet and Hyde Park on Hudson still somehow managed to earn non-embarrassing grosses. Especially Quartet which nearly equalled Beasts of the Southern Wild's take with about .1% of its publicity - the power of the Dowager Countess!?!
What did you watch this weekend? I took in Stoker, Jack the Giant Slayer and a couple of 1930s movies
Sunday, March 3, 2013 at 10:32AM I can only imagine the pitch meetings for Jack the Giant Slayer...
The Royal Family, Their Trusted Ewan, and Jack the Farmboy
It's like 'Jack and the Beanstalk' on steroids. not one giant but hundreds, not a farm to save but an entire kingdom, not just treasure but a princess's heart to win. Oh, and minus the golden harp since harps are for sissies!"
Okay, yes, the harp does make a cameo appearance but the story has been greatly altered in an attempt to reach today's kids boys. Which is fine. Fairy tales are always morphing with the times and in this case why the hell not? There's a reason that Jack & The Beanstalk is a second tier fairy tale. [more...]
Saturday, March 2, 2013 at 3:00PM IndieWire ABC may forge a miniseries out of Oscar nominated AIDS doc How to Survive a Plague
Hollywood who said it: The Pope or "Fifty Shades of Grey"?
MNPP ways not to die celebrates King Kong for his 80th anniversary
The Advocate interesting take on Seth MacFarlane's Oscar night hosting gig, in which the author believes his entire performance was satire of sexism. I think that's an optimistic forgiving stretch but more power to you for enjoying the show so much!
Clothes on Film the shoes in Stoker
Empire Emma Watson may play Cinderella
French Films about Trains points to 14 directors whose films are worth obsessing about in advance
/Film Whoa. They're STILL trying to get Pride & Prejudice & Zombies made? You'd think Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter's fate and the free zombies on TV would have finally decapitated that project.
The Talks with Brian de Palma on violence in cinema and the staying power of Scarface
Unreality a pitch to Netflix. If you're going to revive beloved series, why not Firefly?
The Credits talked to Gavin Bocquet production designer for Jack the Giant Slayer about his work and the new visual fx demands of Production Design:
...if we were around during the Gone With The Wind time, you know the production designers job was more or less the same, you still had to create what you wanted to be the image, and then you broke it down into how you produced it. So the process is the same for the production designer, but the tools and the palette are a lot more variable in terms of what you can do, and also at times much more expensive.
Weekend Must Watch
Brava to Chelsea Davison for this incredible mimicry job & spoof: here's "Lena Dunham" auditioning for Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty. So funny.
So... you know this silence is literally torturing me. And yes I do realize now that in this situation that choice of words might have been a little inappropriate. But, you know, it makes *me* feel like an asshole that I have to threaten to torture you every day. So... if you could just tell me I'd really appreciate it and we wouldn't have to keep doing this"
