In sports, there is nothing as singularly saddening as watching a fiery and determined star athlete try to singlehandedly save a game—or a season—from the failings of the lackluster team around them. Kobe Bryant puts up 40-point games almost just to spite the mediocrity he has recently been forced to deal with; Tom Brady throws […]
Review: “Maleficent” Read More »
Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. After two weekends of wildly missing the mark, my accuracy improved last weekend, albeit not to the extent that I wanted it to. I lowballed on both “Man of Steel” and “This is the End,”
Box Office Beat: Weekend of June 21 Read More »
Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office results. After a completely uneventful February—the only film to post strong numbers was the atrociously unfunny “Identity Thief”—we now have our first potential blockbuster of the year on this first weekend of March, courtesy of Disney.
Box Office Beat: Weekend of March 8 Read More »
And the nominees are… “Adam and Dog” (Minkyu Lee, USA) – You’d never guess that this, the most aesthetically beautiful of this year’s nominees, was animated entirely in Photoshop, as the images have the appearance of a stunning blend of oil paints and watercolors. The world created in “Adam and Dog”—a painterly, ‘Scope version of
Review: The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013 – Animation Read More »
Going into the weekend, there was a general feeling that the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy would depress grosses, especially with about 300 theaters along the Eastern Seaboard closed on Friday. But it did anything but–in fact, one could make a case that the box office actually improved this weekend because there was little else for Northeasterners to do–as
Weekend Box Office: Sandy no match for “Wreck-It Ralph” and “Flight” Read More »
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
Review: “Wreck-It Ralph” Read More »
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:
Box Office Beat: Weekend of November 2 Read More »
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 »
I keep thinking that this is all an elaborate prank — that Disney has allowed Tim Burton to make a black-and-white animated riff on Frankenstein, with children as a part of the target audience, designed to play in IMAX and 3-D. It sounds like financial suicide to me, but that just makes the movie itself
New trailer: “Frankenweenie” Read More »
With “Brave,” Pixar has declared that audiences and critics can stop raving about how inventive and original their latest films are, and can begin classifying them as simple kids’ fare instead. The studio behind heartfelt, gorgeous animated treasures such as “Toy Story,” “WALL-E,” and “Up” demonstrates an astonishing lack of creative energy with their latest
