Box Office: Mission New Years

Your mission should you choose to accept is it to rate the Mission: Impossible movies. I'm not sure that I can since I've found all four so easy to watch, even thrilling intermittently, until I promptly forget about them the next day. That said, I think I like Ghostocol, aka. I Am Mission Four the very best. And given how well it held up after a pretty big opening weekend, perhaps other audience members felt the same?

I wonder if Tom Cruise chose the tagline himself "No Plan. No Backup. No Choice"? That might well describe this franchise for him in terms of mega-star survival if you smooshed it together. "No Backup Plan. No Choice". He needed this movie to work and it did. Well done. Extra points for choosing Brad Bird aka Mr. Incredible as your boss, Tom. 

Box Office Top Ten 3 Day New Years Weekend (Estimates)
01 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4  $29.5  (cum. $132.4)
02 SHERLOCK HOMES 2 $21.0  (cum. $131.0)
03 ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS 3 $16.3 (cum. $92.7)
04 THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO 2.0  $14.8 (cum. $55.8) 
      ....whoa, Fincher's remake falling under the 3rd week of the Chipmunks regurgitation? Ouch. 
05 WAR HORSE 1 $14.3 (cum. $40.4)
06 WE BOUGHT A ZOO 1 $13.2 (cum. $40.6)
07 THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN  $11.4 ($47.2)
08 VALENTINES DAY 2: NEW YEARS EVE $6.3  (cum. $46)
09 THE DARKEST HOUR 1 $4.3 (cum. $13.2)
10 DESCENDANTS: FIRST GENERATION $3.4 (cum. $39.4) 

Talking Points
The Iron Lady was packing them in (extremely) limited release which just goes to show you that the Weinstein Co was setting fire to money by not opening it wider right away given that it's a) Meryl and b) the media is all up in that shit with Meryl profiles, 60 Minutes and the Kennedy Center Honors. That's free publicity that'll will wear off before the movie goes wide! Plus The Iron Lady is not the sort of movie that will benefit from word of mouth as it's not very good. A Separation and Pariah also opened to totally respectable if not earth shaking results which is too bad because they're both among the very best of the movies. This season is such a tough market for small movies. And yet they try to sell dozens of the best ones round about now every year.

Timid release strategies *can* work well for high quality hard to sell movies (The Artist, Shame) but you always run the risk of losing momentum... especially when you have major stars (Carnage / Dangerous Method) or brand recognition (Marilyn)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (up to $4 million) and The Artist (up to $5) both had their first million dollar weekends now that they're no longer quite so impossible for moviegoers to see. Wider please. A Dangerous Method and Carnage, which have much more improbable Oscar dreams, continue to do pretty well in super limited release. If they don't go wider soon they're totally going to miss a window since it's hard to imagine them scoring major Oscar nods.

New Year's Eve was up 92% this weekend. Gee, I wonder why! Expect it to vanish from the face of the earth next week despite being on over 2000 screens at the moment. Who gets those screens? Why is only one movie, a horror film, going wide?

Did you see a movie on New Year's or were you nursing a hangover?

Tuesday Top Ten: Memo to AMPAS

Oscar ballots left the Academy offices today on their way to the 6,000+ members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. If you must concern yourself with the math of Best Picture voting, here is how it works. I've always found that the discussions of hard but unknowable facts like voting percentages (no one but the accountants see them) and the math and statistics that surround them obscure the more telling aspects of like mood and buzz. Those are equally invisible things but way more honest about their own unknowability.

Anyway, sorry to distract with math. Here are the top ten things we'd respectfully like to say to AMPAS members today as they mull over their abundant choices. We may contradict ourselves a few times but so it goes in Oscar season.

TEN IMPORTANT MESSAGES FOR OSCAR VOTERS

10 We Feel For You Even When We Complain!
It's true that you can't please everyone. That's especially true if you are making decisions that millions of people are invested in even when they claim not to be. Thick skin is handy. We assume you have it when people like us start storming the castle. (If we didn't love you we wouldn't care... so stop freaking out about your relevancy)

09 Take Your Time. Watch a Few More Movies.
You have until January 13th to turn in your ballot. Yes, it sucks that at least a hundred screeners arrive between November and now assuming you have nothing better to do during the holidays than prop open your eyes with toothpicks for a marathon session. I don't want to overwhelm you further with more options so I will only boldly suggest a triple feature before you send off your ballot: A SEPARATION, BEGINNERS and MELANCHOLIA. These three films -- and several others -- won't get as much press as the bigger name movies they're superior to (*cough* You Don't Need To Horse Around With The Girl With the Iron Lady Tattoo) but that doesn't mean you shouldn't vote for them! I single them out because they're good, under-discussed and I know you have the screeners.

[Update: You don't have the screener but CERTIFIED COPY is on Netflix Instant Watch so do yourself the favor. (Whoops that's a quadruple feature!)]

08 Vanessa Redgrave in Coriolanus
You also might want to give Coriolanus a whirl too to see why some people are so excited about Vanessa Redgrave again. It's been kind of a great year for actresses and actors of a certain age (Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor may both skew the oldest ever). But don't throw that particular theme party at the Kodak and forget to invite the best one! That would be... weird.

"you are not my son"

07 On the other hand... consider rejecting the one-week qualifiers altogether.
We're not sure what went wrong in 2011 but the one-week qualifier shenanigans went viral this year. There were more of them than ever. Too many films are screaming "screw you!" at audiences and only courting YOU. This is not healthy for the cinema which is meant to be an art form for the masses. If you've ever worried about charges of elitism consider rejecting them entirely.

peek-a-boo releases, combating genre bias, and sticking it to loudmouth pundits after the jump!

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Box Office: Ethan, Sherlock and Alvin Return

The newish Sherlock Holmes franchise was down from its first go around and the news was even worse for The Chipmunks in their third attack on the box office. Those high pitched rodents were off 50% so maybe we can safely bury this franchise?

I could have put a picture of Alvin and the Chipmunks here. Thank me!

The big story was crowded houses in limited release for the return of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) in Mission: Impossible 4. (The four is silent or pronounced "Gost Pro•toh•call".) I'm eager to see it myself, not because of that prologue to The Dark Knight Rises that's attached in some theaters but because... director BRAD BIRD! He hasn't let us down yet: Family Dog, The Incredibles, Iron Giant, Ratatouille! So curious to see how he handles flesh and blood actors instead of drawings and pixels.

Box Office Top Ten
01 SHERLOCK HOLMES A GAME OF SHADOWS new $40 
02 ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: CHIPWRECKED new $23.5 
03 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL  $13 
04 NEW YEAR'S EVE new $7.4 (cum. $24.8)
05 THE SITTER new $4.4 (cum. $17.7)
06 THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 1 $4.3 (cum $266.4)
07 YOUNG ADULT $3.6 (cum $4)
08 HUGO $3.6 (cum $39)
09 ARTHUR CHRISTMAS $3.6 (cum. $38.5)
10 THE MUPPETS $3.4 (cum $70.9)

Other Talking Points
Precursor Nominations Mean Nothing to Ticket Sales: The Descendants [Michael's review] didn't really get a boost from its week of precursor glories, off 23% from last week, but then neither did any of the other films. It's all white noise to general audiences... until Oscar nominations, one supposes. Meanwhile one wonders if the Weinstein Co is being too cautious. The Artist [Nathaniel's review] was off only 2% but they only added one screen. My Week With Marilyn [Nathaniel's review] is also losing heat without expansions. It's taking forever and what gives with that. Marilyn is a brand. 

Jodie in Hiding:  Carnage is the second Jodie Foster picture in a row to open in a tiny number of locations following The Beaver. While I realize she isn't the draw she once was, it seems like she'd still be enough of a draw in wide release to at least make some money on a wider opening, even if people don't end up liking the movie, instead of the torturous inching along which prevents revenue.

Indie Success: Shame crossed the $1 million mark with 30 screens added and Margin Call crossed the $5 million mark (on a $3.5 million budget) as it continues to lose theaters. Is Margin Call a sign that Zachary Quinto is going to be a real behind-the-scenes force? He really seems to be taking to the producer's role with several projects lined up. 

What did you see this weekend? Was it worth your time?

SAG Nominations: Surprising, Silly, Shame-less

Regina King and Judy Greer announced the SAG nominees

Before we begin can I get something off my chest. You've possibly noticed that I always list actresses before actors when I do lists or my own awardage. Beyond my own actressexuality there is another reason for this. It galls me that they're listed second everywhere as if they're just slightly less important than actors. Now, you might say that's just a matter of alphabetics since "Actor" comes before "Actress" in correct alphabetization and that's true enough. But it's not only alphabetics, its our lazily sexist society. Please to note that SAG makes a point of calling all acting professionals "actors" without gender division and yet they do this and then STILL list men first even though "female" comes before "male" in correct alphabetization of category titles.

Grrrrr and also "girl!"

So women first when I list it because that's how we like it! 

MOVIES

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCES BY AN ENSEMBLE IN A MOTION PICTURE 

• The Artist
• Bridesmaids
• The Descendants
• The Help
• Midnight In Paris

These are strong nominees this year but as usual they left great actors out, even when their films were nominated.  Some comments on that problem in a separate post.

One theory of SAG ensemble voting is that actors vote for the movies that they wish they'd been in and that theory definitely holds up this year. All five of these sets must have been a blast when you think of the actors involved, the costumes, the color, the comedy (all five have comedic spirit even the two that are dramas).

poll by twiigs.com

It's also worth noting that this list is 80% identical to the BFCA list for ensemble. The only difference is you need to swap out Midnight in Paris for Ides of March. Still... it's clear that voters don't watch the more under the radar movies. I wish A Separation had opened a few months ago and built up to the acclaim it so deserves.

How fun would a win for Bridesmaids be as a ceremony capper? I demand a Wilson Phillips song be played when they take the stage should it occur.

COMPLETE LIST OF NOMINEES & MAJOR SURPRISES AFTER THE JUMP. 

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Naked Gold Man: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Competitive Season

I wish there were festive holiday songs for Oscar junkies. "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Steamroll", "All I Want for Oscars is You", "Let it Snub, Let it Snub, Let it Snub", "God Rest Ye Merry Shortlisters", "Do You Vote How I Vote" etcetera.... The mood is definitely upon us!

This weekend while LA, NY online, and Boston were handing out their prizes and BFCA voters were mailing in their ballots a certain movie that few had yet seen was screening for Oscar voters and it's likely to be a big deal (though whether it will make the BFCA due to the voting deadline today, remains to be seen). Let's just say that I heard sniffling and whispered "wows" during the credits at the guild screening here in NYC.

The AFI's TOP TEN LIST was also released this weekend. It went like so...

• Bridesmaids
• The Descendants
• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
• The Help
• Hugo
• J. Edgar
• Midnight in Paris
• Moneyball
• The Tree of Life
• War Horse

It reads like an odd experiment in Oscar predicting from two months back before people had seen all the films (plus Bridesmaids. The AFI always includes at least one populist hit to represent the film year).

But bringing us back to the now, it's time for a chart update to reflect all of this madness.

These past couple of weeks have definitely proven to us that The Tree of Life has not been forgotten, that The Help is in a good place (The actors branch is large and we suspect they like it) that Thanksgiving is a very smart holiday to start your heavy Oscar campaigning (See: Hugo, The Descendants, My Week With Marilyn and The Artist). We're not aloud to talk about the three last films to arrive (War Horse, Dragon Tattoo, Extremely Loud) but let's just say when it comes to Oscar, I'm bearish on the first two and bullish on the last having now seen all three. I'm also pleased to note that Moneyball is well liked. At an Oscar dinner I attended for Rango recently, it was the consensus favorite of my table. 

Strangely the film that hasn't been coming up in conversation that much is Midnight in Paris but I blame this on the emergence of so many new films all at once. Moneyball doesn't always come up organically in conversation but when it does it's, in my experience, usually "oh, I love that." It's the job of the new films arriving to wow voters and erase memories of early favorites. It's the job of the early arrivals to remind voters how much they loved them in the first place; that's the push forward and the pull back.

PREDICTION INDEX | PICTURE | DIRECTOR | ACTRESS | ACTOR | SUPPORTING ACTRESS | SUPPORTING ACTOR | SCREENPLAYS | VISUAL CATEGORIES | AURAL CATEGORIES | FOREIGN FILM | ANIMATION, DOCS AND SHORT FILMS