Funny or not, The Onion's Quvenzhané Wallis tweet was effective satire that reflected back at us.

That so many were so outraged this morning is precisely the point.  Satire at its best highlights the lesser parts of society, using amplification to reflect it back at us and make us take notice of our own behavior.  Those decrying The Onion, a satirical newspaper, for running an offensive tweet about Quvenzhané Wallis are possibly missing the point.  Obviously this wasn't someone online expressing an honest opinion about how they felt about a nine year old actress celebrating her first Oscar nomination.     It wasn't Rex Reed calling Melissa McCarthy a hippo or Brett Easton Ellis whining that Kathryn Bigelow wouldn't be considered a great director if she wasn't a hot white woman who made manly war pictures (essay).  This was an intentionally offensive, knowingly disruptive statement intended to provoke outrage and offense sent out by a technically 'fictional' twitter avatar.  Sadly, it wouldn't have been as shocking if an even slightly older woman had been called a "cunt".  Because we do *that* all the time.

Weekend Box Office (01/20/13): Chastains's Mama and Zero Dark Thirty top while Walhberg, Crowe, and Schwarzenegger bomb.

This weekend provides a fascinating lesson at the would-be star system and the extent to which it exists in Hollywood today.  Jessica Chastain indeed reigned as the star of the top two movies of the weekend.  Mama (review), which was sold more on executive producer Guillermo Del Toro than anyone in front of the camera, debuted with a terrific $28 million over the Fri-Sun portion of the weekend, with $33 million expected by the end of the four-day Martin Luther King Day weekend (or twice its $15 million budget).  Zero Dark Thirty (everything I've written about that one thus far...) is projected to earn another $21 million by Monday, with $17 million of that coming from its Fri-Sun second weekend, a solid hold of just -28% from last weekend.  The film's ten day total is now $55 million and will be about $59 million tomorrow, or almost identical to what Black Hawk Down had after its first ten days.  It opened on *this* weekend eleven years ago, ironically grossing exactly what Mama made over the four-day holiday and dropping 40% in weekend two for a $17 million second weekend.  Even compared to the usual slate of early year (January/February) supernatural horror, Mama's debut is the strongest yet, besting the $24 million debut of Michael Keaton's White Noise back in January 2005 (that would be about $29 million today).  So does this mean that Jessica Chastain is a new movie star?  Not quite.

The year the presumed favorites didn't even get nominated. Thoughts on the 2013 Oscar nominations...

Despite all of the pre-awards chatter and what-not, there were still a few surprises in this morning's Oscar nominations.  The biggest shock, for me anyway, was the inclusion of Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor in Django Unchained and the unfortunate exclusion of Leonardo DiCaprio (who I frankly expected to win) and Samuel L. Jackson (who gave the film's best performance) for same.  Waltz is fine, although it's interesting in that A) he's basically the film's lead character and B) he's playing a riff on the work he did in Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, but this time on the side of the angels (it's possible that voters simply voted for the most morally righteous white character in a film full of racists, ala Tommy Lee Jones's expected nom for Lincoln).  Django Unchained scored a best picture nomination (one of nine films nominated) but Tarantino was denied a Best Director nod.  The other massive snub was the exclusion of Ben Affleck for Best Director for Argo, despite the film being up for Best Picture and Alan Arkin snagging a Best Supporting Actor nomination.  I honestly can't figure that one out, as pretty much everyone who loved Argo gave Affleck full and complete credit for the film.  It's disheartening in that Affleck has made a real effort to use his star power to direct the kind of mainstream big-studio grown up genre fare that has been neglected over the last decade, and a snub can surely be read as 'Don't bother, just go direct Justice League'.  The Best Director category also provided the other mega-shock this morning, snubbing the proverbial front runner Kathryn Bigelow.  I'd hate to think the stupid 'torture debate' had an effect, but I think the stupid torture debate had an effect.     

2012 in film: The female-driven blockbuster is no longer a surprise, no longer written off as a 'fluke'.

2012 isn't just the year where we saw one female-starring and/or female-centric blockbuster after another.  2012 was the year when such a thing no longer merited any real surprise.  Back in 2008, we also had a solid run of female-centric smash hits.  Sex and the City, Mama Mia!, and finally the initial Twilight installment.  But we also had endless hand wringing about what these successes meant to the industry and/or how these various films (especially the first and last) were oh-so harmful for their target demographic.  What a difference four years can make.  This year we had The Hunger Games, Snow White and the Huntsman, Brave, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part II, and what looks to be a surefire smash in Les Miserables in a couple weeks.  And you could certainly make the case for the likes of the male-stripper dramedy Magic Mike, The Vow, and Prometheus (which of course starred Noomi Rapace and Charlize Theron), as well as the rather successful Pitch Perfect which slowly grossed $65 million.  What's important isn't that these female-centric films all were pretty huge hits, with several achieving genuine blockbuster status.  What's important is that nobody really gave a damn.

Better roles for child actresses than adult actresses? Jennifer Lawrence graduates to 'adult' roles by playing the token girlfriend/manic pixie dream girl.

Yes, this started as deleted material from my Silver Linings Playbook essay from Saturday. I don't want to get into another 'roles for women' rant, but it's interesting that Jennifer Lawrence may win an Oscar for arguably the first role of her career where she exists purely to support the male lead's arc (even her token girlfriend role in The Beaver had a character arc for *her*). She has not a single scene in this film where she exists as a character outside of her role as Bradley Cooper's girlfriend/spiritual healer. She is basically a glorified manic pixie fuck toy who exists purely to support the male lead's emotional journey, not fit for even a single scene disconnected from Cooper's story. This parallels the career trajectory of the likes of Shailene Woodley and Blake Lively, solid actresses who did film and/or television work as leads who only earned real acclaim after they took supporting roles in more automatically prestigious 'manly dramas'. Blake Lively was a lead in films like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and the television show Gossip Girl.  But she was written off as a kid-friendly television star before she played a strung-out junkie with romantic feelings for Ben Affleck's oh-so-conflicted bank robber in The Town. Shailene Woodley was a lead actress in ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager, but critics only started taking her seriously once she played supporting fiddle to George Clooney in The Descendants. It's a great film and Woodley is terrific in it, but would critics have even noticed the picture had it been told from her point of view? I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of this as the newer crop of child actresses 'come of age'.

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 (09-23-12): Four new releases cannibalize each other as The Master whiffs in wide release and Importance of Being A Wallflower explodes.

As always, for background and historical context for all the weekend's new movies, check out John Gosling's obscenely detailed weekend preview HERE.

It wasn't so much a 'something for everyone' weekend as it was 'multiple things for the same general audience' as four wide releases aimed at thrill-hungry moviegoers and/or adults debuted on the same day, creating a clear case of mutually assured destruction.  The top three movies are basically tied, but as always rank is irrelevant next to the actual hard numbers (why rank doesn't matter).  For the moment, the top debut of the weekend may be End of Watch, a 'found footage'-style LA cop drama, parlayed strong reviews into a solid $13 million opening, which is the second-biggest debut for Open Roads outside of The Grey ($20 million) back in January.  The $7 million film (purchased for $2 million) had a marketing and distribution cost of around $20 million, so even a $40 million final total will get this film in the black before home video.  It also proves that Jake Gyllenhaal  is a decent mid-range opener.  He's useful when the film you're selling doesn't cost $200 million ala Prince of Persia.  End of Watch is yet another installment in writer David Ayers's 'two volatile men in a car' sub-genre, which includes the likes of The Fast and the Furious, Training Day and Harsh Times (an underrated Christian Bale vehicle which he also directed).  He wrote but did not direct the the LA Riots-set cop melodrama Dark Blue while directing but not writing the frankly mediocre Keanu Reeves cop melodrama Street Kings.  Among films he directed, End of Watch should easily top the $26 million gross of Street Kings while it will be fifth (out of seven) if it can merely surpass the $9 million gross of Kurt Russell's Dark Blue. Fourth place is the $76 million-grossing Training Day, which is too far a bridge to cross at this point.

John Gosling previews the week's new releases (09-21-12)

The House at the End of the Street is the new film from director Mark Tonderai, who made his debut with the 2009 thriller, Hush. The idea for the film actually originated from a short story written by Jonathan Mostow (director of Terminator: Rise of the Machines), which was then expanded for the screen by David Loucka. It sees recently divorced mother Sarah and her teenage daughter, Elissa, move into a new place, unaware that the house next door was witness to a double murder in which a young girl killed her parents while they slept. After the crime was committed, the girl vanished, leaving her brother, Ryan, as the only survivor. Elissa and Ryan (who still resides in the neighboring house) form a relationship but it soon becomes apparent that the evil that was present in the house at the end of the street may still be there. Elisabeth Shue takes on the maternal role of Sarah, with Jennifer Lawrence as Elissa. 

Make war, not love. Why do we mock actors who romance while lionizing those who do violence?

It's worth noting the deluge of praise that has greeted Matthew McConaughy over the last 18 months as he's basically cast off the high-profile romantic comedies of the last decade in favor of theoretically more serious work.  When Matthew McConaughy appeared in mainstream romantic comedies, he was a sell-out movie star, not a real actor.  Regardless of whether he was actually effective in said films (Yes - How to Lose A Guy In Ten Days and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past; No - The Wedding Planner, Failure To Launch, and  Fool's Gold), the idea that McConaughy was headlining relatively popular and often profitable entertainments was considered a net loss because he was using his talents in a disreputable genre.  But now that he's appearing in legal thrillers (The Lincoln Lawyer), male-centric dramas (Magic Mike), and ultra-violent crime pictures (Killer Joe), *now* he's being proclaimed as a real actor worthy of discussion. In short, McConaughy made films that were embraced by mostly female audiences and was derided for it.  Yet when he moved into male-centric genres, he's suddenly a respectable actor turning over a new leaf.

Lionsgate picks Francis Lawrence to helm Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire: When a 'safe', 'cheap' choice is also a good choice.

If you discount his last-minute attempt to salvage Jonah Hex, Francis Lawrence has made three films since 2005 and I have liked all three of them.  As such, while he is not a particularly brave/bold, or outside-the-box choice for Lionsgate to hire to helm the next Hunger Games sequel, Catching Fire, he is a good one.  All three of his films show an emphasis of character and substance over visual razzle-dazzle, and his sure-footed and confident eye will be a relief after sitting through Ross's shakey-cam hysterics.  While I was hoping Lionsgate would pick someone a bit off the beaten path (one of the female directors I mentioned, perhaps?), Francis is a solid choice.  In short, he makes good movies, casts good people in them, and delivers quality mainstream material that entertains without insulting their respective audiences.

As Gary Ross leaves The Hunger Games franchise, nine female directors who could/should replace him on Catching Fire and/or Mockingjay.

The Playlist doesn't break news all that often, merely seeing fit to be a one-stop shop for the movie news that everyone else breaks during the day (I don't mean that as an insult, The Playlist is the site I go to if I only have time to surf one movie news site in a given day),  So it's somewhat of a big deal that The Playlist has broken a pretty major story, confirming that director Gary Ross will not be back to helm the second and/or third films in the Hunger Games franchise.  There have been rumblings all week about contract negotiations, and Ross has now politely passed.  The site chalks it up to both Ross's lack of desire to stay in the same universe for the next several years combined with a somewhat low-ball offer from Lionsgate.  Whatever the case, Ross is gone and the hunt for a new director is now on.  While editing my John Carter obituary a few weeks ago, I removed a large paragraph dealing with the trend of giving young white-male filmmakers with barely a feature credit to their name the keys to $100-300 million franchise films while seasoned pros and/or minorities remain noticeably absent from the 'wish-list' (yes, I was glad to see F. Gary Gray on the Marvel wish-list for Captain America 2).  And while I wouldn't consider The Hunger Games a 'female film', it would be a great opportunity to make a point that female directors can indeed handle the kind of big-scale filmmaking that studios are all-too willing to offer to mostly untested male directors as a matter of course.  So, perhaps arbitrarily, perhaps to prove a point about how inaccessible the 'wish list' is for female directors, here are nine directors who happen to be women who also belong on 'the wish-list' as Lionsgate hunts for a second director.  These are in alphabetical order, with the exception of the final entry, who would be my 'top choice'.

Weekend Box Office (04/01/12): The Hunger Games powers on, Wrath of the Titans falls into the "Tomb Raider trap", Mirror Mirror underwhelms.

As expected, The Hunger Games (review/trailer) again topped the box office this weekend, but its relatively strong hold suggests that it may be a bit mightier than a conventional Twilight/Harry Potter sequel.  With $58 million in weekend two (the ninth-biggest non-opening weekend ever, ahead of all the respective Harry Potter and Twilight Saga films), the film dropped 61% and ended day ten with a whopping $248 million.  That's the biggest ten-day total for a non-sequel ever, and the fifth-biggest ever.  It came in above the $240 million ten-day total of Spider-Man 3, and it is that film which its performance most resembles.  Spider-Man 3 opened with $151 million in May of 2007 before dropping 61% for a $58 million weekend.  Spidey took a drop on weekend two despite having no new releases to compete against because it wasn't exclaimed critically-acclaimed among the fanbase.  The Hunger Games had two big releases this weekend, plus the loss of its IMAX screens which represented about 7% of its theaters and 10% of its gross last weekend.  No other mega-opener on this level that benefited from IMAX has had to deal with the immediate loss of those premium screens, so it bares mention when comparing it to the respective second weekends of The Dark Knight ($75 million off a $158 million debut) or Alice In Wonderland ($62 million off a $116 million debut).  Spider-Man 3 ended its domestic run with $336 million, and its ten day total represented 71% of the gross.  Giving The Hunger Games a similar pattern would give this franchise-starter a final domestic cume of $349 million.  We'll see how it weathers the 3D reissue of Titanic next weekend.  Oh, and it's up to $362 million worldwide, all on a mere $90 million budget.

Weekend Box Office: (03/25/12): The Hunger Games debuts with $152 million.

Besting any number of opening weekend records, The Hunger Games (review HERE) opened this weekend with a scorching $152.5 million.  That's the third-biggest opening weekend of all-time, behind The Dark Knight ($158 million) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II ($169 million).  Obviously by virtue of being number 03 on the list, it's also the biggest opening weekend for a non-summer movie, a non-sequel.  It's of course the biggest debut in history for a film not released by Warner Bros. during the third weekend in July, for those keeping release-date score.  It's also Lionsgate's highest-grossing film ever after just three days, besting the $119 million domestic total of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.  While it's Lionsgate's most expensive movie, it's still an example of smart budgeting as it came it at $90 million before tax credits which brought the total exposure to just $78 million.  Even if you factor in the hardcore marketing campaign over the last month, Lionsgate is surely in the black or will be by Friday, making everything after this pure profit.  There isn't too much to say because this record debut has been prognosticated to the point of tedium over the last two months, as one tracking report after another continually upped the predicted opening weekend number, to the point where the film would have been called a 'flop' if it hadn't opened with at least $100 million (not by me, mind you).  But yeah, Lionsgate pulled some of the best marketing in modern history (teaser/trailer01/trailer02), turning a relatively popular young adult book series into a mainstream media 'event', which in turn made the film adaptation into a must-sample event even for audiences who only had token knowledge of the series.

A safely sanitized celebration of state-sponsored child murder. The disturbingly crowd-pleasing immorality of The Hunger Games.

The Hunger Games: an IMAX Experience
2012
142 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

Note - this is not a conventional review and there will be far more spoilers than usual.  So warned...

The Hunger Games, as it exists as a film, is caught between two worlds.  One on hand, it wants to be a dramatic thriller about a totalitarian regime that picks children at random and forces them to fight each other to the death for the entertainment of the wealthy masses.  On the other hand, it wants to be a series that appeals to mass audiences in order to rack up massive box office grosses and become 'the next big franchise'.  As a direct result of this conundrum, the picture not only fails as a social/political commentary but becomes an ugly celebration of the very narrative that it should be condemning.  By refusing to look directly at its own story and by instead fashioning a convenient morality out of its murderous sporting event, it lets the audience off the hook and even encourages them to enjoy the blood-sport as 'entertainment'.  The film may appear to be mocking reality show conventions and the tendency to emphasize simplistic narratives to alleviate discomfort, but by virtue of what it omits and what it emphasizes, The Hunger Games is a prime example of what it claims to criticize. The film is so afraid to confront the horror of its premise that, in its need to create a mass-audience PG-13 franchise, it makes the cheering audience culpable and every bit as guilty as those who would watch such a thing in real life.

Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton aren't to blame for a culture that promotes and idealizes female stupidity. YOU are.

I'm as big of a Jon Hamm fan as the next film critic.  But he's wrong when he posits or even implies that Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton are to blame for a cultural that promotes stupidity.  Even if we agree that the careers of Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian are a sign of a nationwide dumbing-down of our culture at large, they are merely the symptom.  They are only guilty of taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to them.  If we were offered television shows, fashion lines, the chance to write memoirs, the opportunity to record music, and millions of dollars thrown at our feet merely for being ourselves, would any of us turn it down?  The phrase 'stupid like a fox' comes to mind, as they have created brands worth tens-of-millions of dollars despite seemingly possessing no extraordinary talents or abilities.  But they are not to blame for a culture that has allowed them to become rich and famous (or more rich and exceedingly famous).  In short, YOU are to blame.

*This* is confidence: The Hunger Games gets an IMAX upgrade while Lionsgate releases a spoiler-free second trailer.

I have now seen three Hunger Games previews, the teaser, the wonderful full trailer from a few months ago, and now this 69-second second trailer.  And I still know next-to-nothing about how the film plays out.  I know the concept, I know large chunks of the first and second act, and I know some of the actors I can expect to see.  Other than that, nadda.  No mega-money shots from the climax, no thrill-spilling montage, no expository narration or on-screen text.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you market a would-be franchise.  You explain the core story, you tease a character relationship or two, offer a few tantalizing bits and pieces, and you get out.  This final teaser, combined with the news that the film will play in IMAX for the first week of release, is a sign that Lionsgate feels it has the goods and can deliver not just to the fans of the source material but to general audiences as well.  The Hunger Games opens on March 32rd.  As always, we'll see...  Oh, and the IMAX press release is after the jump.

Scott Mendelson      

The Hunger Games gets a (seemingly) final theatrical one-sheet.

This looks like the final poster and official theatrical one-sheet.  The tagline operates both in relation to the story and Lionsgate's optimistic box office predictions.  This one, arguably one of the higher-profile films of the Spring, drops two months from Monday.  I hope Lionsgate has the courage not to cut another trailer, since their first teaser does a splendid job of not giving away the whole picture.  Anyway, as always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson

The Hunger Games trailer is a strong example of confident marketing, and a textbook-study on how to sell the goods without spoiling the whole movie.

This is exactly how to cut a full-length trailer.  You establish the core plot of the story, you establish the main character and why we should be invested in their fate, you offer a few details of the mythology, and then you fade to black.  Obviously,  having not read the books, I can't say for certain, but this 2.5 minute trailer seems entirely made up of first and second act material (if not even less than that, depending on when the main competition begins).  And while there has been fun 'fear' from fans of the series that it would be sold as a Twilight clone, this Lionsgate trailer is explicitly about the circumstances in which Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) finds herself hunting other kids in the woods.  Yes we get a few dialogue patches from one would-be male love interest (at this point purely platonic) and a long close-up of the other, but whatever romantic inclinations exist in the narrative is being saved for the next trailer.  What you do get is a sense of scale and some truly gorgeous 2.35:1 cinematography, a realistic and atmospheric dystopian future that feels right at home in classic 1970s sci-fi parables , brief but important appearances by Elizabeth Banks and Donald Sutherland, and a showing of pure confidence in both the product being sold and the manner in which to sell it.  This one drops on March 23rd, 2012.  As always we'll see, but I'm highly impressed.

Scott Mendelson