Few American presidents have inspired as much dissonance in public perception as Barack Obama. Political junkies and ordinary citizens alike are highly accustomed to the wide range of terms used to characterize the current Commander-in-Chief — from visionary to bumbling buffoon, post-racial uniter to race-baiter, bold terror warrior to scheming capitulator, socialist to corporate stooge, […]
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Since its inception in the early 1990s with Robert Rodriguez’ “El Mariachi,” the do-it-yourself filmmaking movement has been roundly celebrated by the entertainment media. Indeed, micro-budget films that have blossomed into full-fledged Hollywood hits, from “The Blair Witch Project” to “Napoleon Dynamite,” offer compelling narratives of the little guy seizing upon the promise of capitalism,
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Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office grosses. There are three new openers and a significant expansion, but we’ll be lucky if even one ascends to double-digit numbers. And that’s after last weekend’s four releases all proved underwhelming. It must be late August!
Box Office Beat: Weekend of August 24 Read More »
“Expect the expected” could be the tagline to “The Expendables 2,” the loudest, shootin’-ist film of the summer. This sequel to Sylvester Stallone’s 2010 fanboy action epic finds a nearly identical cast doing nearly identical things. And while that may sound like a damning critique, it isn’t. Also in the vein of its predecessor, “The
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This weekend’s box office returns for the major openers–“The Expendables 2,” “ParaNorman,” “Sparkle,” and “The Odd Life of Timothy Green”–were solid but not spectacular, certainly not the surprisingly strong numbers that “The Bourne Legacy” and “The Campaign” posted last weekend. The Sylvester Stallone/Arnold Schwarzenegger action ensemble pic predictably claimed the #1 slot, but it fell
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In future years, “Sparkle” will be remembered as Whitney Houston’s final bow before audiences — a legacy that, while technically accurate, will be somewhat misleading in that the late singer-actress only plays a supporting role (and a cookie-cutter one at that). She gets one big song to herself, which seems disconnected from the rest of
“Searching for Sugar Man” is the rarest kind of documentary — one that chronicles events so unbelievable that the viewer is content to simply sit in awe of what is unfolding before them. The filmmaking isn’t particularly sophisticated and the material isn’t particularly challenging, but by sharing such a stranger-than-fiction story, first-time director Malik Bendjelloul
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“Easy Money” is being released in the United States under the banner “Martin Scorsese Presents,” an honor it most likely earned because the legendary filmmaker felt flattered by the movie’s attempts to emulate his organized crime dramas, particularly “Goodfellas.” Everyone else will wonder why they didn’t just re-watch a Scorsese joint instead, for “Easy Money”
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Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office grosses. Last weekend, three of four releases did well, delivering exceptional results — in the case of “The Bourne Legacy,” results that few predicted. One wonders if their success will lend itself to equally strong holdover
Box Office Beat: Weekend of August 17 Read More »
If Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the husband-and-wife directing team who burst onto the scene with the 2006 crowd-pleaser “Little Miss Sunshine,” intended for their latest film, “Ruby Sparks,” to directly represent the human condition, then their effort should be regarded as a failure. Teaming with writer Zoe Kazan, Dayton and Faris take their high-concept–a
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