Hugh Jackman, Always a Good (Tuneful) Sport

In so many ways I wish Hugh Jackman could move on from Wolverine, the role that brought him enormous fame but which he has been performing for 14 of his 15 years in motion pictures. That's longer than virtually any TV star performs their signature role. And there are more years to come with at least one more solo film booked after X-Men Days of Future Past. Think of the movie musicals and wide variety of dramas or comedies he could have done in that time! 

But, that said, Hugh Jackman always finds ways to become even more loveable (a tall feat given how adorable he started out) just when you're like 'enough, already!'.

Here he is one the BBC Radio 1's ‘The Matt Edmonson Show,’ performing "Wolverine: The Musical" by mixing his two signature roles (Logan & Jean Valjean) with his best role: himself.

♥♥♥

Sex & The Linky

Sound on Sight has a massive post about famous ongoing director/muse collaborations: Liv & Ingmar, Lynch & Dern, Fassbinder & Schygulla, etcetera...
Empire Chris Evans is becoming a director with 1:30 Train, a romantic caper about a woman trying to catch the 1:30 train (with the help of Chris Evans, who will co-star)
Pajiba celebrates the release of 2 Guns. "Boom, you've been Denzel'd"

In Contention 15 awards players still looking for distribution including one I hadn't heard of Tracks with Mia Wasikowska crossing the desert with John Curran (The Painted Veil) directing. I've been thinking that the Best Actress chart is leaning a little 'woman of a certain age' for Oscar's taste (if not for mine) so maybe Mia and are peers are just in hiding right now? 
David Poland says that the bullshit myth is that originals don't make big money at the box office and it's only sequels that did. He backs it up with titles.
Variety Whoa. are the Weinsteins going to get Miramax back. A merger may be in the works
Cinema Blend on the list of possible Bale/Batman replacements for that Superman/Batman team up movie. Surprisingly they're not all super famous with Richard Armitage (The Hobbit) and Max Martini (Pacific Rim) both on the list. Weirdly there appears to be little thought of Joseph Gordon-Levitt despite that The Dark Knight Rises Robin set up.

You guys, I can't decide if this "What if Woody Allen directed The Wolverine" is funny or not. Help me decide.

I think I'm in the place of LOL without the OL part. So, maybe not? I like it in concept!

/Film Warner Bros is still trying to get that Akira Without Japanese People abomination made.
MNPP The Golden Girls dollhouse? Amazing!
Signs and Sirens hates on Blue Jasmine. My review will be up tomorrow.
Coming Soon Josh Trank says the rumors about Miles Teller being Reed Richards in the Fantastic Four are not true. Good -- I like Miles Teller a lot but he's about 90% wrong for that role -- but it's going to be terrible anyway. Why must Fantastic Four movies be so terrible? 

Finally, I feel I've been remiss in not linking up to Emily Nussbaum's great great rescue piece on "Sex and The City" in The New Yorker. People have been discussing it online for a few days but I hadn't mentioned it. I'm so glad that a writer as scalpel-sharp as Nussbaum is a fan and performs this reputation resuscitation operation. It's too bad that the show's rep suffered after the two theatrical features drifted towards becoming what people always accused the show of being. Which it never truly was. I especially love her (correct) assertion that Carrie Bradshaw was the first female anti-hero on television. Carrie was of course reviled for it whereas her male counterparts in terrible behavior are regularly championed by fans and critics. I know people probably think I harp on gender politics too much here at the blog but what's happened to Sex & The City is a classic example of sexism at work. Canons are one of the best places to see the power of the heteronormative patriarchy thrown into obvious relief. "The greatest this!" and "The greatest that!" lists and the people who make them like critics organizations and awards shows and such often dismiss "feminine" identified films, tv, genre or entertainments as lesser than merely be excluding them from the conversation. But if you can't include "Sex and the City" as one of the shows that was instrumental in ushering in television's golden age -- just as crucial as "The Sopranos" -- you just weren't watching closely enough.

What Did You See This Weekend: Wolvie or Jasmine?

Amir here, bringing you this weekend’s box office report. Hit by superhero fatigue (more specifically ‘X-Men fatigue’ or even more specifically ‘Hugh Jackman as Wolverine’ fatigue) and feeling generally uninterested in most of the weekend’s leftover offerings, I spent the past couple of days at home catching up with some classics. The rest of North America felt differently, rushing to see Jackman’s sixth outing as the adamantium-clawed hero to help it to a total gross of 55 million dollars. Box office analysts suggest this number is well below the expectations but considering that with the international gross, The Wolverine has already surpassed its entire production budget in three days, it is well beyond the limits of my understanding how that is not considered a success.

BOX OFFICE

01 THE WOLVERINE $55 *NEW* 
02 THE CONJURING $22.1 (cum. $83.8)
03 DESPICABLE ME 2 $16 (cum. $306.4) 
04 TURBO $13.3 (cum. $55.7)
05 GROWN UPS 2 $11.5 ($101.6)
06 RED 2 $9.4 (cum. $35)
07 PACIFIC RIM $7.5 (cum. $84) 
08 THE HEAT $6.8 (cum. $141.2) Review
09 R.I.P.D. $5.8 (cum. $24.3)
10 FRUITVALE STATION $4.6 (cum. $6.3) Review
11 THE WAY WAY BACK $3.3 (cum. $8.9)
12 WORLD WAR Z $2.7 (cum. $192.6) Review

The weekend’s other wide release is the virginity comedy called The To-Do List. Not helped by the generally negative critical response, Aubrey Plaza and co. sold less than two million dollars worth of tickets and debuted outside the top ten, surely a failure by all measures. On the other hand, The Conjuring continued its strong run and proved once again that horror films are the most consistently profitable genre in today’s cinema. Meanwhile, Fruitvale Station added more than 1000 screens and The Way, Way Back nearly 600, and they were both rewarded with strong returns, allowing them to finish at 10th and 11th respectively.

The real story of the weekend, however, was in the tiny release of Blue Jasmine. Those of us not lucky enough to live in NY and LA will have to wait at least a week to see it, but Woody Allen’s latest opened to an astonishing 102k/screen average on six screens, surpassing the screen average of the widely successful Midnight in Paris. It’s probably a bit much to expect a similar final tally for Jasmine, but the signs are all good so far.

What did you see this weekend? (If you are as uninspired by the top ten as I am, may I suggest the acclaimed documentary The Act of Killing or Computer Chess? See them if they’re open near you!)

Randomness: Wolverine and The Railway Bling Ring

Here's a collection of items that I couldn't be arsed* to talk about separately so I'm grouping them together. Join the conversation in the comments.

What is this?

It's the Pinoy poster for Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring. I hate the font and I have no idea why they've redressed Emma Watson in trashy whore drag (she does not wear this in the movie) but I love the idea of designer labels sharing billing with the stars. That's more than a little clever. Do you like? [Thanks to Ipe for bringing this to my attention]

Here's the latest promotional image from The Wolverine.

Post Man of Steel it is suddenly tremendously weird that Wolverine has less body hair than Superman, though he's still much veinier. Given my love for Hugh Jackman you'd think I'd be looking forward to this movie but it's literally the superhero movie of 2013 that I've thought the least about which I blame fully on the terribleness of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. If this one is only twice as good it will still be bad so they'd better step it way way up. 

Remember that long stretch of time in 2012 when my podcast mates started claiming that I had made up the existence of Quartet with Maggie Smith? That the movie did not, in fact, exist. Well it finally opened proving me right and even though it was quite bad it was a minor hit (Maggie's renewed drawing power) but each year there's a movie like it that feels half imagined. Here's the latest promotional image from the stealth Railway Man which may or may not exist given its lack of distributor or release date and the full calendar of its stars.

I hate that hair on Nicole Kidman but given all the greatness she's delivered lately via ad campaigns, on red carpets, in The Paperboy and on my freaking telephone, we will follow her anywhere... yes, even into frumpy hair and possibly dull "supportive spouse" roles. 

Yes, No, Maybe So: "The Wolverine"

I have to believe that the superhero subgenre of action flicks reached its populist peak last summer (it'd be tough to have MORE of a glut than a summer season where The Avengers, Batman and Spider-Man were the three most popular releases). Though I grew up loving comic books and superheroes, too much of the same thing is bad for any artform, and the movies need a wee break from all the mutated testosterone... at the very least throw us a curveball with a female superhero. 

But it's hard to resist this mutton-chopped mug. Hugh Jackman returns for his sixth stint as an atypically rage-filled Canadian... aka Logan, The Wolverine.

What they did to me - what I am - can't be undone."

That's one of the many DRAMATIC lines in the trailer but I sincerely hope he's not talking about X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Undo, undo! The Yes No and Maybe So breakdown is after the jump...

Click to read more ...