In “The Sessions,” John Hawkes plays Mark O’Brien, a 38-year-old polio survivor living out his life in an iron lung who decides it’s finally time to lose his virginity. To accomplish this, Mark seeks the services of a sexual surrogate, Helen Hunt’s Cheryl Cohen-Greene, a type of therapist who engages in sex with those whose […]
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Detractors of “Wreck-It Ralph” will undoubtedly dwell on the shameless transparency of the Walt Disney Company’s attempt to expand the size of their potential audience by melding a classic arcade game-based premise that evokes nostalgia in 20- and 30-somethings with their usual family-oriented formula. But this isn’t a fair point of criticism unless one presumes
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Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. Last week, I decided to take a much needed break before the onslaught of heavyweight holiday releases over the next couple of months, and it turned out to be a good time to do so:
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Historically, Robert Zemeckis’ dramas have worked by harnessing their thick characterizations and exaggerated situations to unabashedly play to the audience’s emotions. From Forrest Gump’s run across America to Chuck Noland’s bald-faced wailing at the loss of his beloved volleyball Wilson in “Cast Away,” Zemeckis’ finest work may be coated in Hollywood sheen, but it nonetheless
In its third weekend of release, Ben Affleck’s period crowd-pleaser “Argo” showed no signs of slowing down at the box office, dropping just 24.9 percent from last weekend for another $12.4m. Even more impressively, “Argo” beat all four new wide releases by a sizable margin. While the impending Hurricane Sandy undoubtedly had a negative effect
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The “Silent Hill” video game franchise is beloved primarily for its ability to instill dread in the player by pairing unsettling art direction and atmospheric music with character-driven narratives. In 2006, when director Christophe Gans adapted the series for the screen, he chucked the Japanese game developers’ multi-faceted storytelling approach out the window in favor
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One barely expects to find jokes referencing taboo topics like pedophilia, threesomes, and the use of Nair as an ass-grooming agent in an R-rated, John Hughes-inspired teen comedy, so the fact that they’ve turned up in a PG-13 version produced by Nickelodeon is shocking. And these gags are only the tip of the iceberg for
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In the opening scenes of “Smashed,” Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Kate Hannah immediately reveals herself to be a full-fledged alcoholic. She wakes up hungover, swigs beer in the shower, and sneaks a flew sips from her flask before walking into work… as an elementary school teacher. In the middle of class, Kate vomits, causing a student
If it weren’t for the ‘Scope cinematography, one could easily mistake “Alex Cross” for a rejected CBS pilot. Consider the main characters: a psychologist/homicide detective protagonist who has the ability to read body language with near-perfect accuracy, a partner who loves him like a brother, a heinously violent villain whose motivations aren’t made clear until
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As expected, “Paranormal Activity 4” earned the top spot at the domestic box office this weekend, but it did so without grossing anywhere near as much as the previous couple installments. #4’s $30.2m opening was down 42.5 percent from #3’s $52.6m and down 25.8 percent from #2’s $40.7m. Perhaps people heeded the advice of our
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