Weekend Box Office (01/30/11): The Rite tops, The Mechanic opens well, and Oscar nominees continue to soar.

While there were two major openers over the weekend and both of them opened within expectations, the real news was the performance of the various Oscar nominees that were in a position to capitalize on last week's nominations. Generally speaking, the news was good all around. Topping the weekend was The Rite, as the heavily-advertised religious thriller opened with $15 million. As far as religious horror pictures go, it pales to the $30 million scored by The Exorcism of Emily Rose in 2005, the $19 million earned by The Exorcist: The Beginning in 2004, the $20 million earned in the opening jaunt of The Last Exorcism several months ago (a surprisingly terrific little movie, by the way), and even the $19 million opening weekend of Stigmata from way back in September 1999. Still, The Rite had less overtly horror-ific moments to highlight in the ad campaign, as it mainly had a few fleeting shots of supernatural terror plus Anthony Hopkins to sell. The $35 million Warner Bros/New Line Cinema release will do just fine in the long run, and the film (for what it's worth) is Anthony Hopkins's biggest opening weekend for a top-billed star vehicle where he doesn't play Hannibal Lecter.

The Best Picture nominees: doing the box office math.

By Oscar night, at least five of the ten Best Picture nominees will have crossed $100 million, with The Fighter possibly being the sixth. Ironically, much of The Social Network's momentum was based on how much it had made ($95 million) and how that gross for a purely character-driven drama was a testiment to how well it connected to the public. What will the argument be when it enters Oscar night as the fourth or fifth lowest-grossing nominee in the pack? The ten-nominee thing is new enough to affect the math, and The Hurt Locker was a fluke, as the lowest-grossing Best Picture winner in modern history (had Avatar not been set up by the media as the Goliath of the nominees, The Hurt Locker could not have so easily slid in as the proverbial David). Generally speaking, one of the two highest-grossing nominees amongst the traditional five nominees ends up winning.

Weekend Box Office (01/23/11): Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher top chart with No Strings Attached, Way Back and Company Men under-perform.

As the lone new wide-release of the weekend, the Ivan Reitman romantic-comedy, No Strings Attached, debuted with $20.3 million. The $25 million picture was a solid win for both Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher. Portman probably deserves credit, as this was the first mainstream project to capitalize on her Black Swan press, as well as her new unfortunate role as a tabloid darling (re: surprise engagement + pregnancy = no escape). But the $20 million opening falls right in Ashton Kutcher’s median average when dealing with commercial fare such as this (What Happens in Vegas, Guess Who, etc). Out of fifteen wide-release openers, seven of them opened between $17 and $23 million. Killers, with $15 million, was just as much an anomaly on his box office filmography as Valentine’s Day (where, ensemble cast aside, he and Jennifer Garner were the leads) opening with $56 million. Journalists may unfairly tag him as a flop machine, and audiences may say they hate him, but as he’s not making a $70 million spy comedy, Kutcher is a reliable draw for reasonably-budgeted pictures such as this one

Weekend Box Office (01/16/11): Green Hornet, The Dilemma face off over MLK holiday.

As I wrote yesterday, expectations are a funny thing. For months, if not a year, The Green Hornet (review) was pegged as a costly sure-fire flop. Plagued by alleged reshoots, a date change from December 2010 to January 2011, and a seemingly desperate quick-conversion to 3D. But the film started screening for the geek crowd to mostly positive responses, and the buzz started building. The tracking estimated around $40 million for the four-day opening weekend. Yet when the film opened on Friday to $11.1 million, the pundits shouted 'disappointment!', 'failure!', and/or 'under-performer!' for daring to actually meet but not exceed expectations. So yes, the Michael Gondry superhero action-comedy The Green Hornet debuted at number one over the long Martin Luther King day holiday, with $34 million over three days and a projected $40 million for the four-day weekend. In my book, meeting positive expectations puts you in the 'win' column.

Jim Carrey's best sketch in a relatively strong Saturday Night Live: Amusement Park Ride

Yes yes, Carrey was quite amusing in the Black Swan sketch, and I laughed out loud at Bill Hader's constant 'white swan = good/black swan = bad' pronouncements, but the best sketch of the evening, and one of the best of the season, was this quick and brilliant little piece of creepiness. We all know that Saturday Night Live gets most of its press from its political sketches and film parodies. But the best stuff is always the off-beat, completely out-of-left field sketches that simply spring from a good idea. Be it a police procedural written by a class of elementary school Spanish students, or a game show based on how little we know about the people we interact with on a daily basis, the truly sharp stuff simply springs from genuinely simple idea.

Scott Mendelson

Weekend Box Office (01/09/11): True Grit takes the lead, while Season of the Witch, Country Strong lead off 2011.

The crowd-pleasing, critically-acclaimed Coen brothers western remake/adaptation True Grit took the box office crown in its third weekend of release, setting itself up as a major Oscar contender. The Jeff Bridges/Hailee Steinfeld vehicle grossed $14.6 million in its third weekend, dropping a reasonable 40%. The post-holiday weekends usually see hefty drops, so this isn't anything to be concerned about. What is impressive is that, in its third weekend, True Grit has a Fri-Sun amount right on par with the opening weekends of recent (justifiably) acclaimed westerns such as 3:10 to Yuma and Open Range, both of which opened with $14 million within the last seven years. The (slightly overrated) film crossed the $100 million mark on Saturday, and ended day 19 with $110 million. That makes it the third-biggest grossing western in domestic history, behind the sci-fi tinged Wild Wild West ($113 million) and the revisionist epic Dances with Wolves ($184 million). It is also now the highest-grossing picture amongst the Oscar-bait contenders this year, although probably nominees Inception ($292 million) and Toy Story 3 ($415 million) are obviously out of reach. Alas, unless you only count pure traditional westerns, most of these genre-related box office records will likely fall when Jon Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens (trailer) is released this summer.

Weekend Box Office (01/02/11): Little Fockers, True Grit dominate New Year's weekend, family films stay above water.

As is usually the case for New Year's weekend, there are no new wide releases, leaving the field for holdover domination and a couple smaller pictures to make a last-minute Oscar-qualifying limited opening. Little Fockers once again topped the box office over the weekend, although it was much closer than expected. The big news was the incredible staying power of True Grit, which dropped just 1.7% from last weekend's terrific opening sprint. The critically-acclaimed Coen brothers western grossed another $24.4 million, compared to last weekend's $24.8 million opening three-day haul. Drops like that are generally reserved for the likes of Avatar and The Sixth Sense. With $86.6 million in twelve days, the film is easily the highest-grossing picture for the Coens. The film is obviously playing like a general audiences smash and has become a front-runner at this year's Oscars. It is also on track to crack $100 million in the next week or so, and it will easily surpass the $113 million gross of Wild, Wild West to become the second-highest grossing western in US history, behind the $184 million haul of Dances with Wolves. Oscar win or no Oscar win, this is a huge and genre-reviving triumph for everyone involved.

2010 in Review: Favorite Films of the Year.

At last, we're down to the probable grand finale. I'd love to toss in a couple more essays (best trailers/posters, the year in review, etc), but that depends on whether or not my daughter takes a nap on any given afternoon. But should this be the final major entry of 2010, so be it. Below is a list of fourteen of my favorite pictures that were released in theaters or DVD in 2010, plus a final nod to my favorite film of 2010 (no surprise if you've been reading me with any regularity). They are not necessarily 'the best', as there are plenty of allegedly great films that I missed (likely contenders: Inside Job, Blue Valentine, Animal Kingdom, Tiny Furniture), but they are all pretty great. As usual, the first fourteen are in alphabetical order.

127 Hours
First and foremost, that 'incident' that occurs at the third act isn't nearly as hard to watch as you've heard. If you're staying away out of fear, buck it up, because James Franco's grandmother thinks you're a 'p***y'. Danny Boyle's dazzlingly compelling and sharply edited character study about a young climber trapped in a cave is about so much more than its climax. It's a shockingly unsentimental yet genuinely moving look at the choice that we all have to make to truly live. James Franco, Hollywood's most versatile entertainer (he's the equivalent of that kid in high school who wanted to be on every page of the yearbook), gives the performance of his career. And you know what? If you want to close your eyes and ears at the end, I won't hold it against you. The movie works whether you keep your eyes open or not.

Weekend Box Office (12/26/10): Little Fockers opens soft, True Grit opens strong, Tron: Legacy flounders.

I remember being genuinely shocked at the success of Meet the Fockers back in Christmas 2004. It had been well over four years since the original and, box office aside, it wasn't a film that cried out for a sequel. I figured that no one cared, that it had been too long since the original, and that the sequel would do token business but no more. For the second time in 2004, I was dead-wrong. Twice that year, sequels that didn't have all that much pre-release buzz around them exploded out of the gate and kept going for the next few months. The other was Shrek 2, which opened out of nowhere on the pre-Memorial Day weekend to $108 million over three days and $128 million over five, to end up winning the year with an astonishing $441 million. Meet the Fockers grossed $46 million over the three-day portion of Christmas 2004 and a stunning $70 million in its five-day opening weekend. The film kept on rolling, ending up with $279 million domestic and $516 million worldwide. That makes Meet the Fockers the second-biggest live-action comedy in US history (behind Home Alone with $281 million) and the world's highest-grossing live-action comedy ever. So when I say that there wasn't all that much buzz for Little Fockers, that really didn't mean much in theory. Except this time, when it did.

Weekend Box Office (12/05/10): Black Swan soars in limited release, while holdovers tumble and Warrior's Way fumbles.

There was but a single new wide-release this weekend, as the weekend after Thanksgiving is a scary time for Hollywood. Few studios are willing to risk dealing with the post-holiday hangover, so this weekend brings just The Warrior's Way. But we'll get to that in a minute. First off, Tangled took the box office crown in its second weekend, dropping just a bit less than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I, which was enough to score the number one slot. The Disney animated fairy tale grossed $21.6 million, which accounts for a somewhat troubling 55% drop in weekend two. With $96.5 million in twelve days, getting to $200 million is no longer the sure-thing that I pegged last weekend. Still, the film is Disney's biggest non-Pixar hit in quite a long time. It's about $13 million ahead of Chicken Little at the end of its respective weekend, about $26 million ahead of Enchanted at the end of its post-Thanksgiving weekend twelfth day, and it's nearly $31 million ahead of Bolt at the same interval. It will outgross Princess and the Frog next weekend and has pretty much passed Meet the Robinsons as of today. So by any rational standard, the film is a big win for the Mouse House, even if the film did cost (allegedly) $260 million to make. If that's true, then it will still be a very long time before Tangled gets in the black, although the likely trillions of dollars in merchandise sold will likely help ease the over-budgeting.

Review: Black Swan (2010)

Black Swan
2010
110 minutes
Rated R
Opens December 3rd in select theaters

By Scott Mendelson

Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan is a dazzling and often intoxicating horror story. No, it's not a body count slasher picture or a supernatural spook story, but it is every bit as unnerving as the best in traditional horror. It is at the core a character study of one woman striving for perfection in a severely competitive field and the various people around her who may or may not be looking out for her best interests. But the film is told in such a dazzling fashion that it often resembles a fever dream. It is scrumptious entertainment and a remarkable bit of cinema. It also contains a remarkably full-throttle performance by Natalie Portman, one that will likely win her an Oscar next year.

Black Swan gets a new poster.

I had to miss out on the LA press screenings last week (on a Friday night... really?), so I may have to wait until opening day to check this one out. Still, this is a very snazzy poster, if slightly more conventional than the creepier first one-sheet.