The Hangover III gets a promising, if potentially misleading trailer.

It's tempting to be somewhat intrigued by the darker tone of this initial teaser for The Hangover part III.  But let us recall that the first act or so of The Hangover part II teased a proverbial Heart of Darkness journey only to cop out during its second half into a tiresome retread of the first film.  Still, if this is really the series finale, then Todd Phillips arguably has complete creative freedom to make whatever movie he wants, including the kind of movie that I'd argue he wanted to make last time around.  Still, this does look a little better than the last film and John Gooddman's inclusion is promising (I'd argue Paul Giamatti was the best thing about the last time around).  Three final thoughts.  First of all, the final gag is a genuine winner.  Seocnd of all, what exactly is the logic of Warner Bros. not waiting a week and attaching this to their The Incredible Burt Wonderstone?  Did they rush it out so they could attach it to prints of Oz: The Great and Poweful? Finally, I can only hope (foolishly I know) that Warner Bros. chooses not to cut any more trailers for this picture, as I can't imagine anyone not knowing whether or not they want to see the movie at this point regardless.  Let's hope they keep whatever surprises the film has in store out of the marketing for as long as they can.  The Hangover part III opens Memorial Day weekend.  As always, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson

PS - I love the poster they dropped yesterday.  I hope whomever drew that Enemy Mine poster back in 1985 gets royalties.

I loathe the merely mediocre The Silver Linings Playbook because it's considered Oscar-worthy. Fair/Unfair?

I didn't much care for The Silver Linings Playbook.  I found it to be a painfully formulaic romantic comedy that seems to think making its lead duo a little quirky justifies a paint-by-numbers screenplay and rather thin characterizations.  I think the film's strong and painful first act, where David O Russell doesn't shy away from the heartache and constant stress of living with a mentally-disturbed adult, gives way to a 'up with quirky people' rom-com where Jennifer Lawrence basically plays a fantasy fuck toy and/or manic pixie dream girl who exits purely to pull Bradley Cooper out of his mental anguish (that she may win an Oscar for this of all performances merits an essay in-and-of-itself).  I think Robert De Niro's alleged 'comeback' turn is wildly overrated, as he is given little to do aside from two token monologues.  And the film goes completely off the rails into contrivance in its final thirty minutes, with the kind of inexplicable 'raised stakes' that would have been laughed off the screen in a vehicle starring the likes of Kathryn Heigl or Jennifer Aniston.  Yet here we sit where this completely generic and contrived romantic comedy is considered an Oscar contender.  So the question becomes, is it right that I carry more negative feelings about the picture primarily because of its alleged award-worthy status?  

Weekend Box Office (11/18/12): Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 2 scores $141m while Lincoln impresses with $21m.

The Twilight Saga ended as it began, kicking James Bond's ass to the curb with a massive opening weekend.  The fifth and final Twilight film debuted with $141 million over the weekend.  That's a touch higher than the $138 million debut of Breaking Dawn part 1 and just under the $142 million opening of New Moon over this weekend in 2011 and 2009 respectively, but we're still talking the kind of consistency that the Saw franchise would envy.  There are just ten films that have opened above $135 million and three of them are Twilight films.  Twilight 2, 4, and 5 now holds the 7th, 9th, and 8th biggest opening weekend respectively. Yes it was possible that Breaking Dawn part 2 (review/essay) would get a sort of series finale-bump over opening weekend, but in retrospect it was not entirely realistic.  This series frankly only plays to the fans at this point, with even casual fans coming out on opening weekend.  This isn't a series like Harry Potter, where fans who maybe missed an entry or two along the way and/or saw the prior films in theaters later in their respective runs rushed out to catch the finale on opening weekend.  If you wanted to see the newest Twilight, you were probably a hardened fan who absolutely ventured out on opening weekend every time.  So yeah, this isn't a series that gained new fans after the second installment so there wasn't much room for growth even for this caper (it played 79% female and 50% over 25 years old).  There also isn't much to discuss in terms of domestic totals.  The series has infamously short legs, and so it's probable that the picture did 50% of its business already.  So let's presume a $285-295 million domestic total.  Worldwide, the film has already grossed $340 million globally putting it on track to equal the over/under $700 million totals of the last three pictures.  

The Twilight Saga comes to an end in John Gosling's weekend movie preview.

This weekend, after only four years, the Twilight saga comes to a close with the release of Breaking Dawn Part 2.  Based on the books by Stephenie Meyer, it has become a global phenomenon, creating its own literary sub genre with many imitators (the multi-million selling 50 Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fan fiction). Primarily, the series concerns the romance between 17 year old Bella Swan and the eternally youthful vampire, Edward Cullen. Like Harry Potter, the series has also spawned all manner of related (and not so related) merchandise, along with gaining a fervent fan base. The first book, Twilight, had not been an easy sell for Meyer, and had been rejected a number of times before securing a publishing deal with Little, Brown and Company, who paid $750K as part of a three book deal (LBC originally offered $300K, Meyer had wanted $1M). Published in October 2005, the initial print run of 75,000 sold out, and the book debuted at number five on the New York Times Best Seller's list within a month of its release and would eventually reach the top spot. In September of 2006, a follow up was released, entitled New Moon. Like its predecessor, the book was incredibly successful, selling out of its entire 100,000 hardback print run and making the top spot on the USA Today best sellers list (as well as the NY Times one again). 

Weekend Box Office (09-09-12): The Words is top opener in painfully weak weekend.

Maybe The Gangster Squad should have stayed put after all.  Its cowardly desertion of this weekend following the Aurora shootings  (it originally climaxed with a movie theater shootings) left September 4th without a major opener and none of the big action releases over the next month (Looper, End of Watch, Dredd, etc.) stepped up to the plate, leaving a vacuum.  As a result, this was the lowest-grossing weekend in several years (which just proves - it's the movies, stupid!).  The top opener of the weak was The Words, a CBS Films drama starring Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Jeremy Irons, Dennis Quaid, and Olivia Wilde.  All solid names but none save for Cooper qualifying as box office (Saldana sells in action, but not quiet drama).  The badly reviewed literary plagiarism vehicle both seems like the kind of character-driven drama we claim to want more of as well as the kind of thing (especially due to the reviews) that will play just fine on DVD in three months.  So its $5 million opening weekend is unfortunate, if not a surprise.  The film cost just $6 million and was an acquisition, so CBS's financial damages are limited to marketing and distribution.

John Gosling previews the week's new releases (09-07-12).

A relatively quiet weekend with just two major releases, only one of which is out to a substantial number of screens.The Words was written and directed by Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal and follows a young author (Rory) desperately trying to come up with a story. When his latest effort is rejected he happens across an old manuscript in a house in which he is staying with his partner. Finding himself blown away by how good the story is, he sets to work re-typing it, with a view to passing it off as his own. Thanks to 'his' new book, Rory finds himself the sensation of the publishing world and reaps all the rewards that come with it. But when a man connected with the original manuscript comes into his life, the author soon discovers the high price he will have to pay for stealing another's story. The Words marks the directorial debut of Klugman and Sternthal, who received advice on the script from the Sundance Writer's Lab. With funding in place they set to work on casting, with Bradley Cooper taking the lead role of Rory, Zoe Saldana as his wife Dora and Jeremy Irons as the stranger with the potential to expose Rory's deceit. Other members of the cast included J.K Simmons, Dennis Quaid and Oliva Wilde, the last two acting as a framing device for the picture - Wilde interviewing Quaid's character who has himself written a book relating to the events that unfold as the main body of the film. 

Weekend Box Office (08-26-12): Obama's America not withstanding, summer ends with an epic whimper.

Oh my, another film explicitly targeting an under-served niche did exceptional business almost exclusively with that niche.  In a sane industry that would be called smart business, but the studios tend to treat it as a *shock* and write it off as a fluke.  It was no shock to anyone paying attention during the week, especially when the film was announced to be expanding on over 1,000 screens this weekend.  With the weak slate of new releases and little holdover interest, the market was primed for a solid debut for something preaching to a very devoted choir.  First as foremost, 2016: Obama's America earned about 1/4 as much this weekend as Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 did over its opening weekend on about as many screens eight years ago.  As not-president John Kerry can attest, even the most obscenely successful political documentary of all time ($23 million opening weekend, $119 million domestic total) didn't help John Kerry defeat George W. Bush in the 2004 election (even if we can dispute the results in Ohio, Bush won the popular vote by three million).  So no, the fact that a directly-targeted group of anti-Obama moviegoers gave 2016: Obama's America $6.2 million doesn't mean anything more than the piss-poor box office of last year's The Undefeated (essay) in terms of predicting an upcoming presidential election.  

John Gosling previews the week's new releases (08/24/12).

A relatively low key weekend with just three releases, one of which is it at less than 1,000 locations. We're now in the tail end of August, where studios will often off-load movies that they're not quite sure what to do with.

Hit & Run is a romantic action comedy starring Dax Shephard, Kirsten Bell and Bradley Cooper. It follows ex-con, Charlie Bronson, who breaks out of witness protection to help his girlfriend get to Los Angeles for a once in a lifetime job opportunity. But they won't be making the journey alone as they quickly find themselves pursued by his former partners in crime and a Marshall tasked with keeping the 'witness' protected. Bell and Shephard play the couple, while Cooper plays one of the ex-partners, who ended up enduring prison as a result of Bronson's apparent betrayal. Shephard not only stars in the picture but also wrote, produced and co-directed, alongside David Palmer. The two worked together on the 2010 film, Brother Justice, a mockumentary that followed Shephard's attempts to become the next Chuck Norris style martial artist-movie star (That flick also starred Cooper and Tom Arnold, who plays Randy in this new movie). Prior to that, the actor/director had worked on Punk'd and appeared in Mike Judge's Idiocracy, amongst other films and TV appearances. 

Review: The Hangover part II (2011) teases darkness before reverting to formula.

The Hangover part II
2011
102 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

The biggest problem with The Hangover part II is not that it is a general retread of the first film.  After all, while we might have been spoiled by a decade full of part 2s that were not so much a sequel as a second chapter to a large continuing story, prior to 2001 (IE - Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings), it was not uncommon for a sequel to merely be a glorified remake of the first picture.  Sometimes it worked (Terminator 2: Judgment Day), sometimes it did not (Home Alone 2: Lost in New York).  The problem with The Hangover part II is that it's an EXPLICIT retread of the first film, hitting most of the same comic bits and character interactions but with neither the inventiveness of the first film nor the guts to go further with the premise.

The Hangover II gets a shockingly unfunny trailer, just replays the first film ala Home Alone 2: Lost in New York..

I make no bones about my admiration for the first Hangover. It had a tight mystery screenplay that worked as a light thriller first and a comedy second. And even back in June 2009, I said that I had no interest in a sequel, especially one that just repeated the story of the first one. And that's basically what Todd Phillips and his friends have done this time. Same three guys, same basic set-up, same core problem. Last time, it was a missing groom, this time it's a missing brother-of-the-bride. Oh, and it's in a totally different country this time. Oh, and the trailer fails to score a single laugh. It's been awhile since we've seen a sequel that so obviously seems to be just replaying the first film. The obvious precedent is Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. That's not good. Anyway, this one comes out May 27th.

Scott Mendelson

Weekend Box Office (03/20/11): Adult genre fare cannibalize each other as Limitless, Lincoln Lawyer and Paul all open 'okay'.

I often complain about the lack of big-studio adult genre pictures while pointing out that the few such entries generally do well due to the paucity of such things in the marketplace. Alas, this weekend was a comparative embarrassment of riches, with three genre pictures, all starring adults, two rated R, and none costing more than $40 million. Ironically, all three films did moderately well, but at least two of them would likely have done even better without direct demo competition. The number one film of the weekend was Limitless. The Bradley Cooper/Robert De Niro thriller grossed $19 million, and proving a major win for the struggling Relatively. This was a real test of Bradley Cooper's star power and he delivered. The film benefited from an easily-explained high-concept (a pill that makes you the smartest man on Earth). The film played 52% female and 60% over-25. Since the relatively-well reviewed picture cost just $27 million, this is an easy win for everyone involved.

Right or Wrong, The Hangover 2 does not need Mel Gibson.

Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms and the rest of the cast just plain didn't want Mel Gibson in The Hangover 2. That much we know, as his cameo role as a crazed tattoo artist was announced, then retracted and recast with Liam Neeson in just a few days last week. Since then, there has been much speculation and discussion in the blogosphere, much of it centering on the alleged hypocrisy of allowing a convicted rapist (Mike Tyson) to appear in the original Hangover while crying foul at casting a man who is an occasional drunk driver and periodic anti-Semite/racist asshole. But sometimes it's really not that complicated. What if the disapproval over casting Mel Gibson in The Hangover 2 had nothing to do with morality, but with simple business sense?