10/08/09

Box Office Breakdown: I haven’t seen Zombieland and I don’t suspect that I will until it hits the RedBox circuit, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not thrilled to see it take the No. 1 spot at the box office this week with a sturdy $25 million draw. Visually, it looks well made, the writing appears solid and, from what I can tell, the jokes are universal without being overly cliché. Mostly, I just really enjoy leads Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs holds strong for a third week at No. 2, upping it’s total to $82 million, still $18 below it’s strangely bloated production budget. The 3-D reissue of Toy Story and Toy Story 2, billed as a double feature and re-released to help build up hype for next year’s Toy Story 3, brought in a respectable $12.5 million while Ricky Gervais’ directorial debut, The Invention of Lying, brought in just over $7 million in ticket sales (bummer). Bruce Willis’ sci-fi flop, Surrogates, took the five spot, upping it’s total to just over $26 million. The Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man only played on six screens, selling out a large percentage of its showings. Look for a wide release - and plenty of Oscar-talk - soon. Also of note, Drew Barrymore’s Whip It! didn’t fare too well, bringing in a way-too-modest $5 million in it’s opening week.

New This Week: Chris Rock explores the wonders of African American hairstyles (not even kidding) in the Jeff Stilson directed documentary/comedy Good Hair, while director Lone Scherfig’s much buzzed about American debut, An Education will see limited distribution. Starring the always impressive Peter Sarsgaard as the way-too-old-for-her lover of a 1960s Londoner (Casey Mulligan), Education’s screenplay was written by novelist Nick Hornby (About a Boy, Fever Pitch, High Fidelity), whose latest rock n’ roll novel, “Juliet, Naked,” hit shelves last week (ScreenTime read a chapter of said book and found Hornby to be surprisingly out of touch with his target audience). Look for summertime comedy Couples Retreat, written by Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, to do fairly well at the box office while the once promising low-budg flick, Trucker, sinks.

The Buzz: Good new, friends - Quentin Tarantino announced last Saturday that he will follow through on his “maybe someday” mentions of a third Kill Bill film! This is not surprising, considering Tarantino recently claimed in an interview that Kill Bill, Vol. 2 is the work he is most proud of. QT added that he plans to do one more film before revisiting The Bride. ScreenTime’s guess? I’m thinking he’ll finally do a gangster hybrid movie. But, of course, it’ll also be a Western and a comedy and a drama. And probably 16 other things. Me? I’m waiting for the guy to get his Godard on (pretty girly girls, macho dudes, jump cuts, overwhelming color schemes, character asides, etc.!). Also in the news: director Roman Polanski finally got pinched for that 1978 rape charge he’s been eluding for decades. Decades. Hot shot lawyer Reid Weingarten has already signed on to play his lawyer in the real life case of this 31-year-old charge. Yeah, he makes good flicks, but what an a-hole. Possibly asexual auteur Wes Anderson has quietly started working on a remake of Patrice LeConte’s 2006 French dramedy Mon Meilleur Ami (aka, My Best Friend). The film, which already has a Bottle Rocket-like following, tells the story of Francois, an eccentric antique shop owner who realizes that all of his friends actually kind of hate him. (Am I the only one thinking this film might be a little too relatable for comfort?) Sounds perfect for Anderson, who will almost definitely cast the Dignan version of Owen Wilson as Francois.

New to DVD: The Proposal, American Violet, Every Little Step, Shark City and a slew of Blu-ray editions hit shelves this week. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Zzzz. Sam Raimi’s sure-to-be cult classic, Drag Me to Hell, hits shelves in both DVD and Blu-ray formats, as does a restored version of Happy Birthday to Me, one of Raimi’s biggest early influences. Sounds like a heck of a double feature to me! Finding yourself in the Christmas spirit a little early this year? Great! Head to the video store, as almost every major studio out there is rolling out at least a couple of Christmas-themed discs this week. (Even Criterion is getting into the spirit, releasing Arnaund Desplechin’s 2008 instant classic A Christmas Tale on December 1). And, most importantly, you cinephile types out there will be happy to know that Eclipse is finally issuing their long promised Dusan Makavejev box set, titled Free Radical. The set, which sells for a reasonable $35, contains Makavejev’s first three films, Man Is Not a Bird, Love Affair and Innocence Unprotected. All three are extremely experimental and thus influential. Not for everyone.

Archival Pick: Brian DePalma’s 1970 weird-out black comedy, Hi, Mom! If you’ve never seen this indescribable free form film, starring a very young Robert DeNiro, and feel like having a very strange night, well, hop to it. It features one of the most impressive (and unthinkable) sequences, titled “Be Black, Baby,” of all time. It’s the kind of sequence every film student in the history of film students (post-1970) had to study and discuss at length. In fear of ruining the surprise, I’ll opt to say no more. Be prepared for anything.