02/03/11

ScreenRant: Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech won Best Picture at this past Sunday’s SAG (Screen Actor Guild) Awards, beating out all the usual suspects. Kinda surprising, really, seeing as how The Social Network has hogged most of the 2010’s awards thus far. The individual acting awards were all totally predictable - Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo all taking home the same honors they’ve been scoring at ever other show (umm, Amy Adams, anyone?!). And, for the most part, all of the television acting awards were also completely unsurprising - and totally not worth talking about. Also in the news this past week was the Oscar nomination announcements, most of which were also very predictable, most of the field being almost identical to the SAG and Golden Globe selections. Two bits that stood out: Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine) not getting a Best Actor nomination and Christopher Nolan (Inception) not getting a Best Director nomination. Umm … huh? Really? Also, Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours received six nominations, including Best Picture and Best Lead Actor. I saw this movie last weekend and, to put it lightly, I found it to be a very overrated flick. Boyle’s bright palates, gimmicky editing and run and gun segments (think Mountain Dew commercials) were all as overwhelming and painfully British as ever. Also, I didn’t feel the urge to purge at any point.  

Opening This Weekend: Thrillers The Roommate and Sanctum both open everywhere this weekend. Sanctum, an underwater 3D flick starring a number of no-names, is produced by James Cameron and said to be quite good. We kind of doubt it. The Roommate, starring Leighton Meester and Curvy Leighton Meester (Minka Kelly), is a campus-set movie about a once-crazy roommate who goes off her meds, obsesses over her well-adapted roommate and then beings doing seemingly evil things. There, no need to see that one, I just told you 90 percent of the story - all based on the trailer. My guess is that the movie ends with Curvy Leighton nearly escaping death while Normal Leighton either dies or gets sent off to a hospital for wackos. You’d be better off renting I Know What You Did Last Summer, or maybe even just going to Sanctum.

Tops at the Box: To put it lightly, this has been a very strange year thus far for the box office. This time last year Avatar was still running hot, getting people to the theater with its sexy blue things and Dances With Wolves plot. At the end of the first month of 2011, however, a little film called The Rite, a religion-themed thriller starring Anthony Hopkins, took the No. 1 spot, selling a super wimpy $15 million in tickets over its first three days. Looks pretty awful, but Hopkins is usually worth watching, even in bad films.

More From the Box: No Strings Attached, a rom-com starring Natalie Portman and Kelso from “That 70s Show,” took the No. 2 spot last weekend, bringing in about $14 million, upping its two week total to just under $40 million. You idiot moviegoers. Action flick The Mechanic, starring Jason Studly Statham and the always great Ben Foster, made about $12 million over its first weekend, taking the No. 3 spot, while Michel Gondy’s The Green Hornet took the No. 4 spot, bringing in about $11 million, upping its three-week total to a surprisingly high $80 million. Rounding out the weekend’s Top 5 was The King’s Speech, upping its U.S. box office total to over $70 million, making it an official indie super hit. Such good numbers will no doubt help the movie along in its journey towards that Best Picture Oscar. Good movie, but, well … Zzzzzz.

New to Home Video: Out this coming Tuesday, February 8: For Colored Girls; Hideaway; I Spit On Your Grave; It’s Kind of a Funny Story; Life As We Know It; Middle Men; Ong Bak 3; Paranormal Activity 2; The Romantics; Tamara Drewe; Wild Target; You Again; the Criterion Collection edition of Still Walking; a first-run Blu-ray edition of ScreenTime favorite Amarcord; and the complete eighth season of “Project Runway.”

Written by G. William Locke