Gangster Squad: Bullets and Boredom

Michael C here to kick off the movie year with my first review of 2013 for a movie I noticed had slipped through the cracks here at the Film Experience in the rush of Oscar Nomination Fever. But surely 2013 will get better than this! 

Gangster Squad is a film haunted by the ghosts of its superior cinematic ancestors. Some films do gain resonance from evoking earlier titles in their genre but Ruben Fleischer’s crime saga is such a creative void that it can’t wrestle the audience’s attention away from the specters of film noir past. So much more rewarding to occupy one’s mind with fond memories of Chinatown, than to watch characters we don’t care about exchange gunfire in action scenes we can’t follow for reasons not worth understanding. 

Penn vs. Brolin in "Gangster Squad"

The most obvious film intruding on Gangster Squad (2013) is The Untouchables (1987) - at times the new film borders on a beat-for-beat retelling of the earlier story with Al Copen switched out for Mickey Cohen... [more]

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The Linkmaker

Vanity Fair looks at the Lincoln costumes of first time Oscar nominee Joanna Johnston from sketch to still
LetterBoxd are any of you trying this new cinephile site out? I am. 
A Blog Next Door film scores to write to? (Joe Reid was just talking about this habit in that Hours piece). I used to write to the score to Talk to Her but lately I've found music distracting.
MNPP "Who died worse: Fantine or Talia Al Ghul?"
Gold Derby's Tariq Khan thinks Emmanuelle Riva is going to win Best Actress. I wish I believed him!

Empire Lance Armstrong: The Movie?
Coming Soon Here's most uncharted territory for the movies: elderly gay romantic drama. Ira Sachs will follow up his critical hit Keep the Lights On with Love is Strange starring Alfred Molina and Michael Gambon as long time companions who decided to tie the knot. 
Tom Shone interviews Spielberg for The Sunday Times (subscription required for full article)

With every movie, some more than others, you have to make the audience your accomplice." 

Towleroad Ryan Gosling on his abs and pecs. LOL. Gosling does always give good quote. Speaking of...
Frisky ...remember this classic "Meet Ryan's Abs" infographic? (I can't find the full thing anymore)
i09 sci-fi authors have a sense of humor about the gender politics of genre book covers 
Hollywood Elsewhere Marilyn at the 1950 Oscars? This photo looks fake to me but I love it still. 

Finally... did you hear that those Django Unchained action figures are being pulled by the Weinstein Co over debates that they have commercialized and trivialized slavery. Oh god. People are so frustrating. If you accept that the movie is historical fantasy fiction, aren't the dolls also exempt from this kind of moral outrage? Or do the $35+ dolls somehow shamelessly commercialize it whilst the $150+ million grossing movies doesn't? At any rate, pulling the dolls is no biggie for the Weinstein Co since the first series is already sold out (and given how many characters were in that series, was there ever going to be a second series?) and selling for $760 to $7,000 online (asking prices). I get that purchasing a slave doll has more uncomfortable connotations than buying a ticket to a movie in which Quentin Tarantino plays with his live action dolls playing slaves but isn't it basically the same thing in the end: a commercial product which makes money off a communal desire to create fantasy corrective narratives about atrocities of the past?

Multiple Zeroes. Dark Thirty

With a post Oscar nominations wide expansion into movie theaters Zero Dark Thirty won a strong $24 million opening weekend. $24 million is chump change for superheroes and cartoons but it's a big deal for contemporary dramas without bankable stars. Put it another way: that's well over what The Hurt Locker earned in its entire theatrical run here in the States. The torture controversy may have soiled ZDT's Oscar winning prospects somewhat (including that surprise snub for Bigelow) but it hasn't hurt it at the box office.

The Top Five This Weekend

Chart repurposed / visually adjusted from Box Office Mojo

Gangster Squad grossed less than the cheapo laughs of A Haunted House once again confirming that the earth is doomed and also that filling your movie with stars doesn't necessarily help (which also means the earth is doomed... at least for those of us who like our movies with movie stars in them.) That said it took Brad Pitt a long time to be considered "bankable" and Ryan Gosling is inching ever upwards. This is his second best opening (after Crazy Stupid Love, which was also jam-packed with fellow stars) though he has yet to star in a $100 + million hit.

Meanwhile Django and Les Miz continue to prove that their hit status is bonafide. With only three weeks in theaters both are well over $100 million and are on their way to very healthy profits, with or without Oscar statuettes.

Fantine may be impoverished and unemployable but Anne Hathaway now has her SEVENTH $100+ million hit.

I've noticed that that really tired annual meme that Oscar hates blockbusters and that general audiences don't like "Oscar-Bait" movies has died this year thank God! That death rattle lasted forever. Your Best Picture lineup this year is more proof that that's only ever been partially true at best and is often misleading. The average gross from this year's crop is $76 million and it's going up every week. Among the nine only (arguably) Silver Linings Playbook has underperformed given it's box office friendly stars / genre but that's only because they opted to pretend it was a tough arthouse sit with that crawling release pattern. Even after the Oscar nominations its still in less than 900 theaters. 

Do you support Oscars economy each year by seeing the nominees in the theaters?
 

Isn't it Bromantic? Gossbender & Hutcherflin

I am, like all sane citizens of the interwebs, living for the Michael Fassbender & Ryan Gosling PDA photos surfacing as they hang out on the set of Terrence Malick's latest. Gosling's cup runneth over: ever growing stardom, unique charisma, versatile talent, ... and now a backrub from Fassy!

In bromantic news 20something division... Jennifer Lawrence  is telling MTV News that Josh Hutcherson and Sam Claflin, her co-stars in 2013's Hunger Games: Catching Fire are totes in love. Video after the jump....

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Linkfall

My New Plaid Pants "13 Whores of Halloween" a fun countdown of film characters: "Jules" from Cabin in the Woods, "Lucy" from Bram Stoker's Dracula and 11 more!
Star Ledger movies as political propaganda: Won't Back Down, 2016: Obama's America, and more
Pajiba a shirtless link roundup. Why haven't I thought of this? On a content related note: I hadn't heard that Ryan Gosling has left Nicolas Winding Refn's Logan's Run remake. Sad face. But I guess Ryan Gosling, who is 31 going on 32, would already be dead by Logan's Run standards! 
Hollywood Elsewhere on John Goodman's Oscar campaign problem for Flight.

 

After Elton cute and thorough interview with the star of Gayby out actor Matthew Wilkas
The Incredible Suit meets James Bond Daniel Craig in posh hotel as Skyfall takes London by storm 
Fashion It So funny newish tumblr on the costumes in Star Trek: The New Generation. Love how randomly specific the interwebs can be
In Contention looks at all the contenders in the Best Animated Feature race 
/Film gets excited by one random comment from the difficult brilliant genius Paul Thomas Anderson about Chris Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy  
Movie|Line wonders if Idris Elba will win the James Bond role in the future. But why are we talking about this? I want Daniel Craig to keep on running, shooting, fighting, travelling, stripping, and bedding those Bond girls. Don't you?
Cinema Blend ...at any rate, Daniel Craig's possibly final two Bond pictures MIGHT have linked stories, a la Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace