09/30/10

Tops at the Box: With his three films prior to this week’s No. 1 movie, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, director Oliver Stone went for the easy money and failed. Between Alexander, World Trade Center and W., Stone hadn’t made a decent movie since 1999’s Any Given Sunday. Money Never Sleeps, a sequel to his 1987 classic, Wall Street, opened strong, bringing in just under $20 million over it’s first three days in the U.S. and another $10 million around the world. Michael Douglas reprises the role of his Oscar Winning Gordon Gekko, joined here by Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin and Carey Mulligan. We’ve heard that the movie is “decent,” but definitely not a solid follow-up to the classic original. Meh. Sure, I thought about checking it out, then rented Harry Brown instead.  

More From the Box: Last weekend’s No. 2 film, Zach Snyder’s animated Legend of the Guardians, brought in a whole lot of praise and over $16 million over it’s first three days. The visuals do look interesting, but with Snyder at the helm, we have absolutely no interest in this movie. The weekend’s No. 3 film, Ben Affleck’s great The Town, upped its 10-day total to just under $50 million in the U.S. while the No. 4 film, modestly made comedy Easy A, continued to roll, upping it’s total to $32 million with another $11 million weekend. Rounding out last weekend’s Top 5 was chick-flick comedy You Again, which brought in  about $8 million over its first three day. Ugh. Also of note: Inception somehow remains in the Top 10 after 11 weeks, as does ScreenTime favorite The American, an artsy hitman flick that has brought in $35 million over its first four weeks.

Opening this Weekend: Rejoice! It’s here, finally, director David Fincher’s The Social Network! And yes, we know it’s not cool to be stoked about a movie covering the rise of Facebook, but we don’t care about cool. Written by Aaron Sorkin, starring Jesse Eisenberg and, of course, directed by Fincher (Se7en, Zodiac, etc.), we’ve read that the movie is an incredibly well made Shakespearian drama with a story as modern as any ever made. Also, so far the film has a perfect score on Metacritic. Needless to say, don’t be surprised if next week’s column is all about Fincher and his new flick - good or bad. Also out this week is the U.S. adaptation of Let the Right One In, renamed by Let Me In by writer/director Matt Reeves (Paranormal Activity). The original being one of our favorites of the last decade, we have a hard time getting too excited about Reeves’ film, even if the critics are thus far loving it. Director Christian Alvart’s said-to-be awful thriller, Case 39, also out this week, sat on shelves for years, only recently getting a release date (likely only due to the sudden rise of actor Bradley Cooper’s popularity). The trailer looks awful. Three notable indies begin to test this week as well: Freakonomics; Barry Munday; and Douchebag. So, basically, The Social Network is out this week!

ScreenRant: After hearing the new Deerhunter album and seeing Harry Brown this weekend I took a look at my ongoing favorite album and films lists for 2010 and realized that, dang, this hasn’t been too bad of a year so far. Of the 45 films I’ve already seen in 2010, there are 19 that I like quite a bit and 10 that I love. The next step, of course, was to rank my list of the films I’ve yet to see, many of which have not yet been released. With the Cinephile Season right around the corner, here it is, the Top 20 films from 2010 ScreenTime - and probably you, too - has not yet seen: 1. Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky); 2. The Fighter (David O. Russell) ; 3. The Social Network (David Fincher); 4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Pt. 1 (David Yates); 5. True Grit (Coen Brothers); 6. Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek); 7. 127 Hours (Danny Boyle); 8. Somewhere (Sofia Coppola); 9. Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz); 10. Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos); 11. Jack Goes Boating (Philip Seymour Hoffman); 12. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Woody Allen); 13. It’s Kind of a Funny Story (Ryan Fleck); 14. Tamara Drewe (Stephen Frears); 15. Let Me In (Matt Reeves); 16. Fair Game (Doug Liman); 17. Hereafter (Clint Eastwood); 18. The Extra Man (Robert Pulcini and Shari Berman); 19. Morning Glory (Roger Michell); 20. The Next Three Days (Paul Haggis).

Out on Home Video: The Karate Kid; Agora; A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010); The Secret of Kells; Mid-August Lunch; Human Centipede; Holy Rollers; Troll 2; a sh-ton of new Blu-ray first editions, including all the Rocky films and ScreenTime fave Run Lola Run; season five of “Ally McBeal;” season five of “Bones;” season six of “Medium;” and the first season of “Stargate: Universe SGU.”

Written by G. William Locke