12/10/09

Tops at the Box: I came home and watched Alex Cox’ excellent Repo Man. No kidding. This after checking the box office results for the weekend. Then, after that (and before Repo Man), I went to the theater and forced myself to watch one of the weekend’s Top 3 films. No. 1 this (or, by the time you read this, last) weekend was a bit of a surprise: The Blind Side, which brought in $20.5 million over its third weekend, upping it’s so-far domestic total to a surprising $130 million. My second option was the weekend’s No. 2 film, New Moon, which brought in $15.7 million over its third weekend, upping it’s so-far domestic total to over $255 million. Option No. 3, the film I chose to go to, was director Jim Sheridan’s new drama, Brothers, which brought in a disappointing $9.7 million over its first weekend. The film was decent, but a very minor work when compared to Sheridan’s classics In America and My Left Foot. I went in not expecting much after watching the trailer and reading about the film. Sounded like a ho-hum remake. I went anyhow, if only to see the latest work of cinematographer/genius Frederick Elms. Elms, if you’re not familiar, is a modern legend, having worked as the go-to-cinematographer for a number of great American filmmakers, including Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, John Cassavettes, Ang Lee and many others. His latest, greatest work came while working on Charlie Kaufman’s greatest head scratcher yet, Synecdoche, New York. While Elms’ wintertime shooting is amazing throughout Brothers, and some of the acting and writing works very well, the music director nearly single handedly makes the film unwatchable with awful, often dated selections. There were other problems, sure, but hey, I had Repo Man to come home to. So, yeah, I made it through the night just fine.

A Decade of Directors: Normally I’d tell you about what’s coming out in theaters and on home video, but not this week. This week begins our look back at the decade in cinema. And a very good decade it’s been, filled with as many great filmmakers working at the top of their game as any decade this writer knows of. To come up with such a list I looked back over my “best of” lists for every year of the decade, watched a few films I hadn’t seen and took into consideration what all contending directors have done in 2009.

So, here it is, Screen Time’s Peter Jackson-less list of my 12 Favorite Directors of the Decade (name followed by how many films each director had that ranked on my year end lists): 12. Stephen Frears (3); 11. Clint Eastwood (4); 10. Gus Van Sant (4); 9. Alfonso Cuaron (3); 8. Richard Link later (5); 7. Michel Gundry (4); 6. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (3); 5. Joel and Ethan Coen (5); 4. David Gordon Green (4); 3. Quentin Tarantino (4); 2. Wes Anderson (4); 1. Christopher Nolan (5). For more info on my Best Directors of the Decade list, check out my in-the-works list-centric film and music website, **Ze Catalist**, at http://sites.google.com/site/zecatalist. Lots of fun film- and music-related stuff to be browsed awaits, including Top 10/15/20 film and music lists for every years of the naughts, columns, rants and much more.

Opening this Week: Okay, okay. I do have to tell you at least a little bit about what you can expect at the theater this week. First and foremost is the new Disney film, The Princess and the Frog. As far as audience testing goes, Frog has done better than any other film released this year. In fact, it’s already grossed over $2.5 million while only playing on two screens for two weeks. Unheard of! The film uses some interesting animation techniques (2D!?) and is the first Disney film to feature an African American as the lead character. Should be good.

Also seeing major distribution this week is Clint Eastwood’s latest film, Invictus, starring Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman. Look for this film to get some major Oscar love here in a month or two. Also, director Peter Jackson’s long-in-the-works The Lovely Bones will begin testing, so look forward to that one coming to town soon.