Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. It’s finally February, meaning there are now non-Oscar-bait releases worth getting excited about. Steven Soderbergh’s new thriller “Side Effects” is one such release. But that doesn’t mean the slate is filled with winners, as the
Box Office Beat: Weekend of February 9 Read More »
It certainly seems as though more effort went into conceiving the basic premise for “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters”—the eponymous fairytale characters grow up to professionally battle the species that nearly roasted them to death as children—than writing the screenplay itself. Not only does writer Tommy Wirkola (who also directs) employ a paper-thin plot, he
Review: “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” Read More »
Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. It’s Super Bowl weekend, meaning Sunday’s grosses should be relatively subdued as Americans stay home, fill up on pizza and nachos, and watch grown men pummel each other. But that doesn’t make the movie-money race
Box Office Beat: Weekend of February 1 Read More »
This year’s Oscar-nominated short films will be released in select cities next month, but a vastly inferior program of shorts will sell at least 10 times the number of tickets. “Movie 43,” as it’s titled for no apparent reason, follows the Hollywood moneymaking formula recently re-popularized by “Valentine’s Day” and “New Year’s Eve”: maximize star-power
Review: “Movie 43” Read More »
Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. There are three January releases left, and not one of them appears to be worthy of audience attention. Two (“Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters” and “Parker”) didn’t screen for critics until tonight; one (“Movie 43”)
Box Office Beat: Weekend of January 25 Read More »
Just when you thought that the critically celebrated Jessica Chastain had finally done her first “paycheck movie,” the actress once again proves that she will only participate in cream-of-the-crop projects. “Mama,” while certainly not in the same league of cinematic excellence as Chastain’s other film of the moment, the masterwork “Zero Dark Thirty,” is nonetheless
That “Broken City”’s portrayal of its conservative political candidate as a corrupt snake and its liberal candidate as a JFK-emulating idealist does not even come close to being its tiredest cliche should tell you something about the filmmakers’ capacity for original thought. It’s astounding that this predictable “thriller” about a crooked New York City mayor
Review: “Broken City” Read More »
Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. And it’s not just any weekend at the movies, but a four-day one, seeing as Monday is Martin Luther King Day. Between this and posting my Top 10 Films of 2012 last weekend, it finally feels
Box Office Beat: Weekend of January 18 Read More »
Despite a lackluster crop of summer blockbusters—“The Dark Knight Rises,” in particular, was a colossal disappointment—2012 turned out to be a very good year at the movies. Two weeks ago, with several key films left to see, I began actively wishing that I would be disappointed by my remaining viewings because I didn’t want to
Danny Baldwin’s Top 10 Films of 2012 Read More »
The killing of Usama bin Laden is widely regarded as the United States’ biggest foreign policy triumph since the Cold War, so when the inevitable film about how the C.I.A. accomplished the heroic task was announced, it was reasonable to dread that the result would be blindingly patriotic and full of phony climaxes. I pictured
Review: “Zero Dark Thirty” Read More »
