Labor Day Weekend Box Office: “The Possession” tops down frame

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There is very little to say about the four-day holiday weekend box office, which saw two openers do relatively well, but not remarkably–“The Possession” with $21.3m and “Lawless” with $13.0m–and nearly every  holdover play to expectation. The one exception was the conservative documentary “2016: Obama’s America,” which grossed a surprisingly strong $7.1m, signaling that viewers […]

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“The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure” scores worst opening day box office ever for a wide release

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If you’re an adult, you probably haven’t yet heard of the Oogieloves — a Teletubbie-esque troupe of creature-things that star in a movie that opened in over 2,100 theaters yesterday. And if you hadn’t clicked onto this blog post, you probably never would have, either. The total opening day box office for “The Oogieloves in

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Review: “Lawless”

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“Lawless,” an ultra-violent gangster tale by John Hillcoat (“The Proposition,” “The Road”), is a textbook example of why the final act of a film is its most important. Movies that start off poorly have the potential to rebound, gaining the audience’s trust and respect with future developments. The ones with weak midsections can often be

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Streaming Pick: “Charade” (1963)

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The surprise is a lost art in contemporary cinema. Further, when new films actually manage to pull off unpredictable twists and turns–see Christopher Nolan’s “Memento”–they tend to sacrifice relatable characters to better service their plot tricks. Stanley Donen’s 1963 film “Charade,” on the other hand, is both unpredictable and emotionally resonant. The dynamic between the

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Weekend Box Office: “2016” beats openers; “Sleepwalk with Me” sizzles on specialty circuit

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No, it’s not a sequel to the Roland Emmerich disaster movie, but the conservative doc “2016: Obama’s America” forecasts a future that’s nearly as bleak. Even without big explosions, the film, which was advertised nonstop on talk radio and cable news,  grossed a stunning $6.2 million in its first weekend of wide release. That was

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