It's been a rough year. With the recession ending for some people (not us!), the divisions caused by inane topics like the mosque in downtown Manhattan and the specter of doom hanging over us in the shape of the GOP's return to power, audiences have to feel pummeled by DEADLY SERIOUS ISSUES. What better time for a "Jackass" movie to come along? The opening number reflects the fact that demand probably wasn't that much higher than for previous installments - the 3D surcharge plus the huge Friday numbers that trailed off, suggest as much.
But Viacom and Paramount was very aggressive, almost desperate, in attempts to make this pre-millennial brand name relevant to today's ticket buyers. The ideal success pattern for R-rated sequels is to draw in the teens who couldn't get into the theaters but devoured the original title on DVD, and the "Jackass" movies were obvious big hits with young fans of the zombie factory known as MTV growing up. It makes sense that some of them are 18 and 19 now, and have been declared mature enough by the MPAA to see a man flung skywards from within a Porta-Potty. In 3D. The success of the movie, which may or may not be the first film in the series to cross $100 million domestic, likely doesn't mean much. These guys are getting too old for this, though a "Grumpy Old Jackass" somewhere down the line would be an amusing one-off. The other alternative is that this sequel goes supernova on the DVD marketplace, prompting these guys to start churning them out at an ungodly rate, until they pretty much destroy their bodies permanently. Either way, no real change to the moviemaking landscape, but mansions for all. Again. Bam Margera's mother must be proud.
Those numbers almost doubled the opening take of the Bruce Willis actioner "Red." You can view this pretty negatively. There's the suggestion that a $20 million superstar like Willis should be outdrawing the likes of Johnny Knoxville, or that the cast (including Oscar perennials like John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman) should bring in more than the casual audience this gross suggests. However, the opening falls in line with expectations for the toughest of genre mashups, the comedy-hyphen. It may be a comedy-actioner, or a comedy-horror film, but spiking comedy (specifically Malkovich loaded with PCP and attached to explosives) with anything (action - John Diehard has guns) is always a tough play. This is not your usual studio performer, because it's Summit, so domestically, the film should only require a $60 million gross, because the real money is in worldwide, where Summit has already sold off the rights.
"The Social Network" fell out of first but continues its minor audience loss. "Jackass" is fun, and "Red" has that opening weekend, but "The Social Network" does seem to be the movie on people's lips. With the decent opening, this is now a trek to $100 million, and nearing $65, that number remains a possibility if the weekend drops remain sub-40%. The smallest audience loss belongs to "Secretariat," which lingered right behind after dropping a shade over 25%, which makes sense given the story's appeal to non-first-weekenders. We're sure the early-bird screenings were packed to the brim. Most movies stayed afloat and approached respectability this weekend, even if they really weren't worth seeing in the first place. "Life As We Know It" is nearing $30 million in weekend two, and after a wimpy first session, the film might be leveling off at a respectable $50m, though $40m seems more plausible. Regardless, that one hurts. Speaking of hurt, another WB bomb continues to hang around in "Legend of the Guardians." The studio has to be stung that after four weeks in release, this thing hasn't even crossed $50 million. If "The Town" weren't crossing $80 million this weekend, some heads would be rolling.
There were a couple of limited release surprises that may have not gotten coverage by sites like us. Urban thriller "N-Secure," which looks a lot like "The Room" with a black cast ("The Black Room"?), opened just outside the top ten at 486 locations with $1.4 million, though we wonder exactly how those screens were acquired in the first place. The Tea Party documentary "I Want Your Money," meanwhile, opened up on 537 screens, averaging $520 per-screen, a perfectly fringe-y bomb for a fraud political movement. It barely outdistanced Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter," which pulled in $231k on only six screens, by far the weekend's highest per-screen at $38k. An expansion should follow next weekend.
The biggest indie hit of the moment continued to be "Waiting For Superman," which saw a slight uptick with an expansion, grabbing $753k at 182 engagements. The film gained some nice exposure thanks to President Obama this week, which might help it go from a $2.5 million hit into a $5 million grosser. The future may not be so bright for "Conviction," a dull crowd-pleaser inexplicably given an arthouse platform, that pulled in a decent $110k on eleven screens for a per-screen that Fox Searchlight hopes it can duplicate in coming weeks, though without critic heat that seems unlikely. Support your local indie theater, folks.
1. Rome Is Burning 3D (Paramount) - $50 million 2. Red (Summit) - $22.5 million 3. The Friendster Fanbase (Sony) - $11 million ($63 mil.) 4. Horsies! (Disney) - $9.5 million ($28 mil.) 5. Life As We Know It (Warner Bros.) - $9.2 million ($29 mil.) 6. Legend of the Gangbangers: The Owls Of Compton (Warner Bros.) - $4.2 million ($46 mil.) 7. The Town (Warner Bros.) - $4 million ($81 mil.) 8. My Soul To Take (Universal) - $3.2 million ($12 mil.) 9. Easy A (Sony) - $2.7 million ($62 mil.) 10. Wall Street: Zuul Never Sleeps (Fox) - $2.4 million ($48 mil.)
A quiet week with only two films opening in wide release, and strangely, not a horror film in sight as we approach Halloween. First up is the Bruce Willis old-guys-and-guns vehicle "Red," which is basically a slightly classier version of August's "The Expendables" and about as good. Next up is "Jackass 3D," the latest entry in the venerable franchise, which should take the top spot at the box office this weekend, especially with the inflated 3D ticket prices. The first two films grossed $64.3M and $72.8M respectively, which may shock some, but these films are promoted heavily and certainly have a dedicated fanbase. On the limited front, Clint Eastwood debuts his latest, the "Crash"-like "Hereafter" on a few screens, while Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell try their best to wet your eyes in the legal drama "Conviction." Foreign nuts should be prepared to spend a lot of time in theaters this weekend as Olivier Assayas' six-hour epic "Carlos" hits the big screen. Or if your bladder's a little on the weak side, Warwick Thornton finally gets a stateside release for his outback drama "Samson & Delilah."
In Wide Release: Based on the cult DC graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, "Red" is the story of a group of aging CIA agents who become targets themselves when the government decides they know too much. The action-comedy stars Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich as the agents in the film from director Robert Schwentke ("Flightplan," "The Time Traveler's Wife"). We've been excited to see the film after a string of recent summer action disappointments and the trailers were great, but the film itself doesn't quite deliver, even with the talent involved (our review here). RT: 70% Metacritic: 62. Johnny Knoxville and the "Jackass" gang have been quiet since 2006's "Jackass: Number 2," but they are back in a big way with "Jackass 3D." The TV show hasn't been in production for several years either, so it will be interesting to see whether or not the franchise has retained the loyalty of its fans. You probably know whether "Jackass" is your cup of tea or not, so reviews aren't much of a factor here, but if it helps, we liked it. RT: 43% Metacritic: 54.
In Limited Release: Workaholic director Clint Eastwood opens his latest, "Hereafter" on six screens this weekend with a wide release coming in a couple of weeks. The film meshes three parallel storylines of people -- a blue collar psychic, a French journalist and a London schoolboy -- dealing with grief. Matt Damon plays the psychic and gets most of the attention in the trailers, but his story shares equal screen time with the others, to varying effect. We caught the movie back at the Toronto International Film Festival and found it intimate and interesting, but ultimately let down by a clichéd script. RT: 69% Metacritic: 54. Also hitting a few screens before a wider release is "Conviction" from director Tony Goldwyn. Awards show-horse Hilary Swank stars in the true story of a woman who dedicates her life to overturning her brother's life sentence for murder, putting herself through law school in the process. Sam Rockwell co-stars as the brother, alongside a cast that includes Minnie Driver, Melissa Leo and Peter Gallagher. RT: 68% Metacritic: 60.
Opening this week are a couple of notable films we've been covering throughout the festival circuit. OlivierAssayas' "Carlos" is the six-hour exploration of cold war terrorist and assassin Carlos The Jackal. The film also hit the Sundance channel earlier this month and may be better suited for the small screen, for which it was originally conceived. We first reviewed the film at Cannes and revisited it at the New York Film Festival; it's definitely worth a look however you manage to take it in. RT: 93% Metacritic: 96. The Camera d'Or winner at 2009 Cannes, "Samson & Delilah," finally scores a stateside release this week. The coming-of-age tale follows two aboriginal teens in the remote Australian outback who try to escape the harsh realities of their lives. The buzz and reviews have been fantastic, so we really can't wait to check this one out. RT: 97% Metacritic: 73.
As you might have guessed from our coverage leading up to the film's release, we were impressed with the trailers for "Red" and were holding out some hope that in a year populated with rag-tag-crew films like "The Losers," "The A-Team" and "The Expendables" that disappointed, this would be the film that would be late-inning saving grace. Sadly, this is not the case. Based on the DC Comic and directed by Robert Schwentke, "Red" is essentially a more watchable version of "The Expendables" with a better cast, but plagued with the same narrative and tonal problems of Sylvester Stallone's steroid and testosterone-heavy film.
The film starts off by introducing us to Frank Moses (Bruce Willis). Retired and pretty much bored by the routine of his post-career life, his only joy is a fledgling romance started over the phone with mousy Social Security telephone helpline administrator Sarah Moss (Mary-Louise Parker). Frank tears up his pension checks just to have an excuse to talk to Sarah and plans a trip to Kansas City where she works in order to try and finally meet her face to face. Aww. But, before he can probably pack his bags, a faceless group of armed gunmen attempt to kill him and destroy his home but not before Frank, whose senses from being an ex-CIA black ops agent are still in fine form, gets the drop of them first. Now aware that he's a target -- and that anyone he's spoken to might be in danger -- Frank races to Kansas City to get Sarah out of harm's way. Obviously, she's more than slightly unnerved that a man she only knows over the phone is suddenly in her apartment with a crazy story, but Frank ties her up and soon they're hitting the road, determined to find out who is behind this and why he's a target for assassination. To help him, Frank reconnects with his buddies from the old days, including the cancer-stricken Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman), the paranoid Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) and the killer-turned-Martha Stewart style homemaker Victoria (Helen Mirren). And really, that's the story and in a film like this, it's about as simple as it needs be. Unfortunately, the script by Jon and Erich Hoeber makes the mistake of assuming the audience will actually care or be invested in the intricacies of just why Frank and his buddies are being put in the bullseye. So to service that end, the part of William Cooper (Karl Urban), the current CIA agent tasked with killing Frank and his cohorts, deviates from the strict bad guy role into a poorly drawn account of an agency foot solider who is questioning his loyalty. Rebecca Pidgeon seems like she walked in off the set of one of her husband David Mamet's films, doing the frosty, ball-crushing bitch routine that seems to be the only parts she ever takes. Throw in the mix something or another about Guatemala and the vice president and you have the makings of some very tedious scenes of people explaining to each other who did what and when and why -- all stuff that is particularly uninteresting, and gets in the way of stuff getting blowed up real good. This is a movie with James Remar for God's sake. We're not expecting "Inception" here; just give us a bad guy, some vague reasoning to drive the plot, leave it be, and let the very talented cast go wild. In short, we're never given enough reason to care about the past transgressions of a fictional government that doesn't come into the film until the very late stages of the story. Which leads to the film's other major issue: it's not nearly as clever or as fun as it thinks it. For one, director Robert Schwentke is never really sure if he's making an over the top explosion fest or comedic espionage tale and settles uneasily between the two. The first half of the film contains the most bonkers (and fun) set pieces (which are all pretty much given away in the trailers unfortunately) that are topped by a showdown between a handgun wielding Marvin and missile launcher armed bad guy. Somewhere along the way into the second half of the film, gone are the absurd villains and we get fairly boilerplate spy movie set ups; most of which don't ignite the way we hope and are certainly a long way from being inventive or interesting. Is it cool to see Helen Mirren shooting a huge gun on tripod? Yeah, sure. It was neat in the trailer, mildly amusing in the movie but as that sequence went on it just become sort of boring. And while the cast has some fun playing against type, the real treat in the film? Mary-Louise Parker. She's essentially a surrogate for the audience, at first in total disbelief at what she's been thrown into and then sort of thrilled by it. Her turn is great and marked by some pitch perfect comedic facial expressions; someone needs to cast her in an outright comedy to see what she can do but she's tops here. Judd Apatow, get her on the phone. Seriously. Director Robert Schwentke got a lot of heat around him in the lead up to the film but after watching "Red," it's hard to see why. The action beats in the film are hardly memorable, the comedy gets a couple of smirks and guffaws here and there and that's about it. The cast saves the film from being a total waste of time and there is some novelty to the film's premise that helps keeps things moving, but it's hardly enough. The pacing is nowhere close to that of Schwentke's "Flightplan" at the nearly two hour running time is unforgivable given how often the film lags as each minute wears on. In the film, RED stands for Retired Extremely Dangerous but for audiences, they might be warned its also Red Extremely Dull. [C+]
While there's plenty of viral internet comedy shows out there competing for your procrastination time, none of them have managed to be as consistently funny and generally excellent as Funny or Die's "Between Two Ferns." The world's second most awkward talk show (behind "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno"), features "The Hangover" star Zach Galifianakis (and occasionally his more clean-shaven, fictional brother Seth) interviewing a host of celebrities that have included Jon Hamm, Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron, Ben Stiller, Steve Carell and, most recently, Sean Penn, while sitting between the titular plants.
The latest episode went up today (via Vulture), and features Galifianakis talking to Bruce Willis (whose latest film "Red" hits on Friday). As ever, Galifianakis isn't afraid to ask the difficult questions -- like "When you made "The Whole Ten Yards," were you ever worried that it might be too good?" -- and Willis proves himself to be as game as anyone else out there with an enjoyably demented performance. Watch it below.
It's been a rough year. With the recession ending for some people (not us!), the divisions caused by inane topics like the mosque in downtown Manhattan and the specter of doom hanging over us in the shape of the GOP's return to power, audiences have to feel pummeled by DEADLY SERIOUS ISSUES. What better time for a "Jackass" movie to come along? The opening number reflects the fact that demand probably wasn't that much higher than for previous installments - the 3D surcharge plus the huge Friday numbers that trailed off, suggest as much.
