08/26/10

Tops at the Box: Sylvester Stallone’s over-the-top 80s action homage, The Expendables, was the No. 2 film in the U.S. for the second straight weekend, bringing in another $16.5 million, upping its 10-day total to $65 million. Uhh, moving on … 

More From the Box: Vampires Suck, a film ScreenTime hadn’t heard of until a few days ago, took the No. 2 spot last weekend, bringing in $12 million over its first three days. If you liked Scary Movie or any of the Wayans Brothers’ (White Chicks) later stinkers then yep, you’ll probably like this surely stupid spoof of the current vamp-flick trend. Coming in at No. 3 last weekend was Eat, Pray, Love, upping its so-far total to $47 million with another $12 million over the weekend. The No. 4 film last weekend was Lottery Ticket, which, to these eyes, looks like a black comedy in the grain of Friday and Barbershop, two perfectly enjoyable - if shallow - comedies. I doubt Lottery Ticket, which brought in $11 million over its first three days, is as good as Friday - probably more in the ballpark of Best Men of The Wood. Rounding out last weekend’s Top 5 was buddy cop comedy The Other Guys, starring Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell, upping its so-far total to just under $90 million. Oh, and last but not least, we feel it necessary to also say that Piranha 3D, which actually looks like a fun flick, had a decent weekend, bringing in just over $10 million over its first three days. Look for this Weinstein-delivered film to do well on DVD and Blu-ray in a couple of months.

Opening this Weekend: We’ve no idea why, but the folks at Fox Searchlight are re-releasing Avatar on 700 nationwide screens. They supposedly added some footage or something. No thanks, we say. Greedy bastards. Also seeing wide release are horror flick The Last Exorcism, produced by Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel) and Takers, an ensemble action flick that’s getting some of the worst reviews of the year. Looks pretty bad. Six indie and foreign films will also begin to test, including the awesome-looking Mesrine: Killer Instinct, starring the great Vincent Cassel. The French thriller, the first of a two-part series about real life French gangster Jacques Mesrine, has already done reasonably well overseas. We’re very stoked. But, meh …a pretty lame release day overall. Stay tuned next week, where we‘ll talk about three very promising movies (two wide, one limited) that will start to run.

ScreenRant: The film lineup for this year’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in New York City has been announced and, as expected, looks amazing. Beyond amazing. The best ATP has offered yet. The fest, known mostly for music, is offering its best film schedule ever this year - thanks entirely to the fact that the entire fest - both music and film - is being curated by auteur Jim Jarmusch (Down By Law, Mystery Train). Set for September 3-5, ATP 2010 will feature 22 films and a panel discussion featuring Jarmusch and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore. Yep. Amazing. Best yet is the list of films Jarmusch has selected, which seem to be almost perfectly aimed at ScreenTime’s tastes. Here’s the complete list of what is surely our dream fest: Pedro Costa’s Ne Change Rien; Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces; Roman Polanski’s Repulsion; Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket; Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show; David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch; Bob Rafelson’s Head; Josef von Sternberg’s Underworld; Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing; Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Doulos; Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah; Jules Dassin’s Brute Force; Takashi Nomura’s A Colt is My Passport; Jacques Becker’s Hands Off the Loot!; Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly; Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider; Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line; Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild; Terry Zwigoff’s Crumb; Lars von Trier’s Antichrist; Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times; and Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter. Dang. Anyone wanna sponsor a ScreenTime fieldtrip to NYC?

New to Home Video: Out this coming Tuesday, September 7 on home video: John Rabe; Killers; MacGruber; Solitary Man; That Evening Sun; reissues of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Wall Street; first run Blu-ray editions of a huge number of movies, including In Cold Blood, Mars Attacks!, The Player, A Scanner Darkly and THX 1138. TV series coming to home video on September 7: seasons 1-3 of “Boy Meets World”; season three of “Chuck”; season two of “The Guardian”; season six of “The Office”; season nine of “Smallville”; and last and certainly least, season four of “thirtysomething.”

Written by G. William Locke