Weekend Box Office (01/01/12): Strong holdovers close out 2011 movie year.

As is often the case, the last weekend of the year is basically a repeat of last weekend, both in general ranking and numbers, as the holiday weekend tends to keep drops low, if often absent.  Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol led the pack of major Christmas and holiday releases that actually went up from last weekend.  The Brad Bird spy thriller earned $31 million over Fri-Sun, with an eye towards a likely $40 million four-day holiday weekend.  At the end of its third weekend, the first of which was IMAX-exclusive, the crowd-pleasing Tom Cruise vehicle will have grossed $140 million by Monday, which means it has already outgrossed the $134 million-grossing Mission: Impossible III.  Overseas, the sequel is doing even bigger business, with a worldwide total of $324 million as we close out 2011.  The $215 million gross of John Woo's Mission: Impossible II is likely out of reach, but surpassing the $181 million gross from Brian DePalma's Mission: Impossible is not only possible but plausible.  Worldwide, the film is shaping up to be $600 million earner, the respective totals, speculative as they may be now, would make this film Tom Cruise's third-biggest domestic grosser and his biggest worldwide earner ever.  MI4 already ranks ninth on both lists.

2011 year-end wrap-up part II: The Overrated.

 This is the second of several year-end wrap essays detailing the year in film.  This time, we're dealing with 'overrated' films.  Here is the hardest one to write, merely because it's simply a list pointing out why ten films you all loved are actually either not-that-great or actually pretty terrible.  Most are what I would consider 'bad movies' that are being hailed elsewhere as greats, while a few are merely mediocre movies that are inexplicably being given a critical pass in most circles.  Again, if you've been reading me this year you'll probably be able to guess a few of these.  As always, these will be in alphabetical order. 

Sadly appropriate. Why The Artist 'deserves' to win at this year's Oscars.

Barring a box office blow-out by War Horse or The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and/or stunningly good reviews for the still-hidden Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, it does look like this year's Oscar race is all-but finished, with the presumptive winner being The Artist.  And I can think of no more fitting choice.  No, I don't think it's the best film of the year. I don't even think it's very good (review).   The reasons I don't like it are ironically why it makes tragic sense to anoint it as the 'film of the year' in 2011.  It is, I'll presume accidentally, indicative of much of what ails the entertainment industry at this very moment.  It celebrates what is hurting the industry, so it makes sense that the industry would celebrate it in turn.  

Review: The Artist (2011) is a textbook-example for our nostalgia-obsessed culture.

The Artist

2011
100 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

The Artist is a silent film about the death of silent films.  It is arguably no better or worse than any number of silent pictures that were produced in the 1920s, with a narrative that rips-off Singing In the Rain just enough to matter.  As an attempt to replicate a long-defunct film style, it is I suppose a success.  It amuses and generally entertains, but it exists with little artistic style of its own.  It exists merely to be a rather standard silent film, and I would argue not even an exceptional one at that.  Like Hobo With a Shotgun and Super 8, The Artist is yet another example of the ongoing trend of genre exercise.  It offers no commentary on its era nor any particular insight into the nature of the silent picture.  Other than the fact that it is indeed a silent film made around 90 years after the rise of 'talkies', it has little to offer.