The first film in Pablo Larraín’s Pinochet trilogy, 2008’s “Tony Manero,” took an inventive, circuitous approach in depicting the horrific oppression that Chileans suffered under the rule of a dictator. The second film, 2010’s “Post Mortem,” surpasses its predecessor in terms of bleakness and enigmatic acting, all the while raising compelling ideas about the role […]
Streaming Pick: “Post Mortem” (2010) Read More »
Rian Johnson’s “Looper” is a phenomenal science-fiction film, full of tantalizing ideas and, more importantly, confident about how to use them. Its story centers around time travel and the violent intersection of an assassin and an older version of himself, a conflict captured through an insidiously clever scenario that allows for alternating scenes of thrilling
After many straight weekends of disappointments at the domestic box office, Hollywood finally got to jump for joy again… well, at least Sony, which released both the #1 and #2 grossing movies, did. Those movies were the animated family comedy “Hotel Transylvania” and the high-concept sci-fi film “Looper,” which sold an estimated $43 million and
Weekend Box Office: “Hotel Transylvania” and “Looper” exceed expectations Read More »
“Hotel Transylvania,” the latest piece of CGI animation to be pumped out of a studio that isn’t Pixar, is a so-called family film that will not appeal to any member of the family: adults will be tortured by the unfunny humor and plain-looking animation and children will just want to go home and watch something
Review: “Hotel Transylvania” Read More »
Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office grosses. I may not have been successful across the board last weekend, but I was one of the few prognosticators to correctly predict that “End of Watch” would outperform expectations by a good margin and that
Box Office Beat: Weekend of September 28 Read More »
Paul Thomas Anderson began his career with the story of an older social outcast taking on a younger one as his protégé in 1996’s “Hard Eight,” and now, 16 years later and regarded by many as the leading American filmmaker of his generation, he has returned to the same scenario in “The Master.” Once again,
Review: “The Master” Read More »
Unlikable characters are difficult to get right, because their personalities inherently repel the viewer. So when a movie features a protagonist that is, on paper, entirely unlikable, what is a filmmaker to do? The answer: hire a great actor to make the character so believable that the audience finds truth in them, even if they
Review: “Arbitrage” Read More »
The 64th annual Emmy Awards were held last night in Los Angeles and, as expected, the big winners in the major categories were Showtime’s newcomer drama “Homeland” and ABC’s beloved returning comedy “Modern Family.” If you didn’t catch the show–and hopefully you didn’t, as it was a complete and utter snooze, with the exception of
List of 2012 Emmy winners Read More »
“End of Watch” is a superlative cop film by way of the war movie. That’s not an exaggeration, as its two protagonists, beat officers in the worst part of Los Angeles, patrol an area that seems just about as foreign and violent to most Americans as Afghanistan. The movie departs from the cop genre of
Review: “End of Watch” Read More »
As I predicted in this week’s Box Office Beat, Open Road’s cop film “End of Watch” did much better than most prognosticators expected, with receipts of $13m, and took the top slot on the chart for the weekend. It technically tied for first with Relativity’s horror-film-in-marketing-only (as our Timothy Semenza called it), “House at the
Weekend Box Office: “End of Watch” takes #1 Read More »
