10/01/09

Box Office Breakdown: Sony’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs held the No. 1 spot for a second week with $24.6 million in sales, upping its two-week total to over $60 million. Taking the No. 2 spot was the Bruce Willis sci-fi film, Surrogates, bringing in $15 million in its first week. Not bad considering how down ticket sales have been this quarter, but not so great, either. MGM’s modestly produced - and strangely cast - Fame remake (budget: $18 million) brought in just over $10 million its first week. Steven Soderberg’s The Informant! and Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself rounded out the week’s Top 5 with stellar numbers.

New This Week: At last, a week of openings with some promising - and diverse - options! First and foremost, we have one of ScreenTime’s most anticipated films of 2009, the Coen Brothers’  new black comedy, A Serious Man (current IMDB rating: 9.3). Said to be more, well, serious than most of the Bros’ recent work, Man stars up-and-comer Michael Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik, a physics professor whose family - and work - life is falling apart around him. Next up, roller derby dramedy Whip It! Say what you will about Drew Barrymore as a director (huh?) and Ellen Page as an indie rock-loving leading lady (been there), ScreenTime thinks this flick has some serious dollar theater potential. Forget the hip soundtrack and all the not-so-hip cameos, the subject matter is mostly untouched and much of the cast (i.e. Alia Shawkat, Marcia Gay Harden and even a bearded Andrew “Futureman” Wilson) looks promising. Other noteworthy new releases this week: Michael Moore’s new government examining documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story; futuristic zombie comedy Zombieland (stars the awesome combo of Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson); and lastly, Ricky “The Office UK” Gervais’ directorial debut, The Invention of Lying. Set in an alternate reality where no one has ever told a lie, Invention stars writer/director Gervais as Mark Bellison, inventor of the lie (perfect for Gervais). Already one of the best reviewed comedies of 2009 thus far.

The Buzz: Loads of stars (Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener, etc.) line up for the upcoming Duplass Brothers film?!?! What!? Meanwhile, Greta Gerwig is in the upcoming (and sure-to-be awesome) Noah Baumbach film, Greenberg?! Okay, I’ll say it: the Mumblecore movement is officially in full effect.

New to DVD: Lame week for home video. Duds Year One and Dance Flick are the biggest titles of the week, followed by a number of B-dramas few know about, a slew of Blu-Ray reissues and, most importantly, a new master of the Roman Polanski classic, Chinatown. The once promising Assassination of a High School President, which appears to little more than an unofficial sequel to that Charlie Bartlett movie, will also finally hit store shelves. Mostly, though, look for the October 2 release day to be flooded with all the latest TV collections (“The Hills,” “Medium,” “Bones,” “Nip/Tuck,” “Ally McBeal,” “Man vs. Food” and much more).

NetFlix Watch Instant Pick: Director Carol Reed’s 1949 film noir classic, The Third Man. Says Roger Ebert about the thriller, which stars Orson Welles in one of his signature roles: “Of all the movies I have seen, this one most completely embodies the romance of going to the movies.” ‘Nuff said.