Categories
Announcement

Weekend Box Office: May 10-May 12

#1 Iron Man 3 from Buena Vista held at #1 with a gross of $72.5 million (-58.4%) in 4,253 theaters.  Total gross to date is $284.9 million.  Budget was $200 million.

#2 The Great Gatsby from Warner Bros. opened at #2 with a gross of $50.1 million in 3,535 theaters.  Budget was $105 million.

#3 Pain and Gain from Paramount fell from #2 to #3 with a gross of $5 million (-33.4%) in 3,303 theaters (+16).  Total gross to date is $41.6 million.  Budget was $26 million.

#4 Tyler Perry Presents Peeples from Lionsgate opened at #4 with a gross of $4.6 million in 2,041 theaters.  Budget was $15 million.

#5 42 from Warner Bros. fell from #3 to #5 with a gross of $4.58 million (-24.2%) in 2,930 theaters (-415).  Total gross to date is $84.7 million.  Budget was $40 million.

#6 Oblivion from Universal fell from #4 to #6 with a gross of $4.1 million (-27.1%) in 2,770 theaters (-660).  Total gross to date is $81.9 million.  Budget was $120 million.

#7 The Croods from 20th Century Fox fell from #5 to #7 with a gross of $3.6 million (-14.1%) in 2,650 theaters (-265).  Total gross to date is $173.2 million.  Budget was $135 million.

#8 Mud from Roadside Attractions fell from #7 to #8 with a gross of $2.5 million (+17.3%) in 852 theaters (+276).  Total gross to date is $8.6 million.  Budget was unknown.

#9 The Big Wedding from Lionsgate fell from #6 to #9 with a gross of $2.49 million (-35.8%) in 2,298 theaters (-335).  Total gross to date is $18.3 million.  Budget was $35 million.

#10 Oz The Great and Powerful from Buena Vista fell from #8 to #10 with a gross of $1.1 million (-49%) in 774 theaters (-386).  Total gross to date is $230.3 million.  Budget was $215 million.

#11 Olympus Has Fallen from FilmDistrict rose from #12 to #11 with a gross of $741 thousand (-37.9%) in 836 theaters (-796).  Total gross to date is $96.6 million.  Budget was $70 million.

#12 The Place Beyond the Pines from Focus Features fell from #10 to #12 with a gross of $705 thousand (-44.9%) in 669 theaters (-493).  Total gross to date is $20 million.  Budget was $15 million.

The combined gross of the top 12 movies this weekend was $152.1 million.

Sources:
Box Office Mojo

Categories
Back Seat Producers Season 08 Shows

BSP Episode 270: Lincoln

Release date – 11/9/2012

Touchstone Pictures

Directed

  • Steven Spielberg

Produced by

  • Steven Spielberg
  • Kathleen Kennedy

Screenplay by

  • Tony Kushner

Based on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

 

Cast

Daniel Day-Lewis

  • Abraham Lincoln

Sally Field

  • Mary Todd Lincoln

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

  • Robert Todd Lincoln

Tommy Lee Jones

  • Thaddeus Stevens

 

  • Historical, but fun to watch.
  • Two and a half hours of a movie about the law.
  • Worst movie since Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunters.
  • NOT about Lincoln, it’s about the Thirteenth Amendment.
  • A mini-series about the Thirteenth Amendment might have been more interesting.
  • (How’s that for across the board reviews?)
  • Assume that the bulk of the audience that would see this movie probably believes that the Civil War was fought about slaves (only).
  • A better movie: James Spader and Tommy Lee Jones’ wig on a buddy-cop adventure.
  • If you love the law, don’t watch it being made.  And salad bars.
  • James Spader was great.
  • Darrell thought Sally Field’s portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln might have been the most accurate possible.
  • There were a lot of things in the movie that were unnecessary to the story; things that just repeated and repeated bits of information about the Emancipation Proclamation and slavery.
  • The hosts, for the most part, don’t like Spielberg’s attempt to force emotions.
  • Disagreements over what were the important points in the movie.
  • Very interesting side discussion about Ender’s Game.
  • This movie was better when it was The American President.
  • DeNiro does Lincoln.

Awards (partial list):

  • American Film Institute – 2013 Movie of the Year
  • Academy Awards – Actor in a Leading Role, Production Design
  • BAFTA – Best Leading Actor
  • Directors Guild of American – Outstanding Directorial Achievement
  • Golden Globes – Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture
  • Screen Actors Guild Awards – Male Actor in a Leading Role, Male Actor in a Supporting Role (Jones)

Your Producers for this episode were:

  • Tony
  • Darrell
  • Tony
  • David

This episode was recorded:  5/8/13

Categories
Back Seat Box Office Shows

Back Seat Box Office #138 & Results #137

Congrats to Monty for his perfect score of 25!

Picks:

Jeff

  1. Iron Man 3
  2. The Great Gatsby
  3. Peeples
  4. Pain and Gain
  5. 42

Lena

  1. Iron Man 3
  2. The Great Gatsby
  3. Pain and Gain
  4. Peeples
  5. 42

There are no other movies in wide release this weekend.

Back Seat Art House picks:

  • Jeff – Sightseers
  • Lena – Stories We Tell
Categories
Announcement

Weekend Box Office: May 3-May 5

#1 Iron Man 3 from Buena Vista opened at #1 with a gross of $174.1 million in 4,253 theaters.  Budget was $200 million.

#2 Pain and Gain from Paramount fell from #1 to #2 with a gross of $7.5 million (-62.9%) in 3,287 theaters (+10).  Total gross to date is $33.8 million.  Budget was $26 million.

#3 42 from Warner Bros. held at #3 with a gross of $6.1 million (-43.2%) in 3,345 theaters (-60).  Total gross to date is $78.2 million.  Budget was $40 million.

#4 Oblivion from Universal fell from #2 to #4 with a gross of $5.6 million (-68.3%) in 3,430 theaters (-362).  Total gross to date is $75.8 million.  Budget was $120 million.

#5 The Croods from 20th Century Fox held at #5 with a gross of $4.2 million (-37.5%) in 2,915 theaters (-368).  Total gross to date is $168.7 million.  Budget was $135 million.

#6 The Big Wedding from Lionsgate fell from #4 to #6 with a gross of $3.9 million (-48.9%) in 2,633 theaters.  Total gross to date is $14.2 million.  Budget was $35 million.

#7 Mud from Roadside Attractions rose from #11 to #7 with a gross of $2.2 million (-2.5%) in 576 theaters (+213).  Total gross to date is $5.2 million.  Budget was unknown.

#8 Oz The Great and Powerful from Buena Vista rose from #13 to #8 with a gross of $2.1 million (+16.7%) in 1,160 theaters (-450).  Total gross to date is $228.9 million.  Budget was $215 million.

#9 Scary Movie 5 from Weinstein Company fell from #7 to #9 with a gross of $1.4 million (-58%) in 1,857 theaters (-876).  Total gross to date is $29.6 million.  Budget was $20 million.

#10 The Place Beyond the Pines from Focus Features fell from #9 to #10 with a gross of $1.28 million (-53.1%) in 1,162 theaters (-422).  Total gross to date is $18.7 million.  Budget was $15 million.

#11 G.I. Joe: Retaliation from Paramount fell from #6 to #11 with a gross of $1.27 million (-65.7%) in 1,804 theaters (-903).  Total gross to date is $118.8 million.  Budget was $130 million.

#12 Olympus Has Fallen from FilmDistrict fell from #8 to #12 with a gross of $1.2 million (-58.3%) in 1,632 theaters (-702).  Total gross to date is $95.4 million.  Budget was $70 million.

The combined gross of the top 12 movies this weekend was $210.9 million.

Sources:
Box Office Mojo

 

Categories
Back Seat Quickies Shows

Back Seat Quickies #89: Iron Man 3

In the Seat:

  • Sam
  • Scott

Recorded 08/05/13

Categories
Back Seat Producers Season 08 Shows

BSP Episode 269: Life of Pi

Release date – 11/21/2012

20th Century Fox

 

Directed – Ang Lee

Produced by – Ang Lee, Gil Netter, David Womack

Screenplay by – David Magee

Based on Life of Pi by Yann Martell

 

Cast

Suraj Sharma – Piscine “Pi” Molitor, age 16

Irfan Khan – Pi, adult

Tabu – Gita Patel

 

  • The list of upcoming movie reviews… connect the, umm, dots.
  • Deuce (via email) – amazing!
  • Tony – visuals lacking & animal special effects, not so good.
  • Darrell – blown away, stunning visuals.
  • David – liked it, but some aspects turned him off.
  • A visually well told story.
  • This movie damns religion (although not really about religion)… listen to find out why.
  • Which story do we want to believe? NOT which story is true?
  • Nature or humanity?
  • Is human nature inherently good or evil?
  • I need more tiger.
  • Best scene… pee on the tarp, spray on his face.
  • Is Gerard Depardieu the most recognizable name to US audiences?
  • A brief trip into Great Gatsby land.
  • Bad movie going experiences.

Trivia bits-n-pieces:

  • 86% of the tiger shots were CGI, the rest (23 shorts) were real.  Some of the real tiger scenes were when Richard Parker was swimming in the water and couldn’t get back in without Pi’s help, most of the scenes where Pi is training the tiger with a stick and when the tiger scratches his claws on the hatch below.
  • Tabu and Irrgan Khan, who played mother and son in  this film, previously played husband and wife in the film The Namesake.

Academy Awards

  • Best Director
  • Best Cinematography
  • Best Visual Effects
  • Best Original Score

Your Producers for this episode were:

  • Tony
  • Darrell
  • David

This episode was recorded:  5/1/13

Categories
Announcement

Theatrical Review: Iron Man 3

In the wake of the epic alien battle in New York with the Avengers, billionaire industrialist Tony Stark, is snow suffering from anxiety attacks. Stark’s eyes have been open to what kind of world he’s now in, and as such, he’s become a constant workhorse in making sure that the person most important to him, Pepper Potts, is protected. In the midst of this, the world is now facing a new threat in the form of an international terrorist called The Mandarin. Stark’s best friend, James Rhodes, has assumed a new identity as the Iron Patriot and for now remains the first line of defense against The Mandarin. In addition, Aldrich Killian, the head of a new company called AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) wants to enter into a partnership with Stark for his own mysterious means.

That’s a broad description to the premise to Iron Man 3, the first movie to follow in the wake of Marvel’s Avengers movie and so expectations are extremely high for this, maybe so high that no movie right in the wake can hope to meet them. I thought this was certainly watchable, but it’s flavor is quite a bit different from it’s predecessors in the Marvel movies. If I was looking at this as a comic book, this feels like a fill-in issue created to give the regular creative team a break, and the fill-in doesn’t quite reach what you’re used to.

And that’s exactly what it is, Jon Favreau is no longer at the helm of the film and this time it falls into the hands of co-writer and director Shane Black. Now Black is certainly no stranger to high-power action films, having written films like Lethal Weapon, The Monster Squad, The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight as well as having directed and written Kiss Kiss Bang Bang with Robert Downey Jr. in the lead of that film. These are certainly entertaining movies, and all have a distinct flavor to them that’s been identified with Shane Black. Unfortunately for Iron Man 3, it feels more like a Shane Black movie than it does part of the Marvel series with an over-reliance on action movie cliches and dialogue that feels more written than actually spoken.

There’s a lot of comedic moments in the film, and while there’s nothing really wrong with doing that, doing it in a Marvel movie seems to me anyway to soft-pedal a lot of the threat. Everybody in the film (or most everybody anyway) seems to have the same sort of snarky flavor that just doesn’t lend themselves to taking any of what’s happening that overtly serious. There’s action movie cliches all around, with to me the most egregious being the use of the high-opera type of ending with hero versus villain and the girl in-between atop a very high structure. This cliche has been around forever, but first used in comic book films way back in Tim Burton’s first Batman movie, and used again and again since. I expect a bit better of the Marvel movies than to rely on this old chestnut.

Now to be fair, the action sequences and visual effects are really, really nice and certainly the part of the movie that still makes it very watchable. The only thing that I’m not really that thrilled with is the new design of the Iron Man armor that’s dominantly used in the film. Call me a traditionalist if you like, but I like the distinct look of the red and gold armor and this new version that’s mostly gold and chrome, just feels a little softer and ring true to the comics. It’s not the only armor used in the film and there’s a lot of versions here though that do owe to previous comic appearances and it’s a nice little easter egg for fans, but I don’t think it’s quite enough.

As far as the cast goes, Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle and Jon Favreau all return reprising their parts from the prior movies. They certainly do what’s asked of them here so there’s no real complaints. The standout for me is Paltrow who actually gets to do a few action bits that are pretty entertaining.

New to this film are Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian, Rebecca Hall as Maya Hansen (another scientist who works for AIM- again, there’s way more to her than just that), Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin and James Badge Dale as Savin, a bodyguard to Killian. Guy Pearce is smarm personified to a point of being cartoony, but to his credit, I think he actually excels in the action scenes that he’s in. The biggest disappointment to me though is Kingsley as The Mandarin and it’s for a couple of reasons that aren’t entirely Kingsley’s fault. Beware, I’m going to go into a couple of spoiler moments here, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, you might want to skip the rest of this paragraph and proceed to the next. In the comics, The Mandarin is to Iron Man as say The Joker is to Batman or Lex Luthor is to Superman. The way Kingsley performs this character it doesn’t really quite have that much threat to especially with his vocal performance which sounds like it’s part Asian, part European and part Minnesotan. I don’t have any idea about why this was the chosen way to go with his voice, but it just doesn’t convey any sort of threat at all. In addition, there is a huge twist to The Mandarin here that just totally betrays the concept of the character as he’s been seen in the comics, so much so that it reduces the character to a joke and leads to another dialogue scene between Kingsley and Downey that again just deadens the movie.

I chose to see this in 3D and basically the 3D here is just OK and not at all complimentary to the film. Originally, I’ve been dodging all of the 3D versions of the Marvel movies because they’ve been added as an afterthought (at least to me), but I figured by this time maybe the film had finally been shot with 3D in mind. It’s just not the case here and if you choose to see this, then don’t even bother with it.

As with the other Marvel movies, there is an additional scene at the end of the credits and while this one doesn’t exactly look like it’s building towards anything what it does do is add a little further continuity between the movies which considering what they’ve originally sought to build here, is something that they’re going to have to stick with for these films.

As I said at the start of this, expectations are certainly high for this movie and maybe they’re so high that there might not be anyway that they could ever be met. After I saw The Avengers, I walked out of the theatre just with an incredible high and so you naturally want every Marvel movie to follow to at least come close to giving you that same feeling. Unfortunately, Iron Man 3 just doesn’t do it. Oh, I still think it’s watchable and it certainly does have it’s moments particularly with some great effects and action scenes, but it’s cliche-ridden script and jokey nature just don’t give this film any sense of threat whatsoever. I could see that with some distance, watching Iron Man 3 again might be a different and more enjoyable experience, but after this initial viewing, I don’t much have a desire to do that any time soon.

Categories
Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Book Club – Book Eight: Snow Crash

Author: Neal Stephenson

Published: 1992

Bantam Books

Plot Summary – In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s Cosa Nostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous…you’ll recognize it immediately.

Quick Thoughts: [forthcoming]

“Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.”

Your Hosts:

  • Sam
  • Scott

This episode was recorded 03/28/13

Next time: South of the Border West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

Categories
Back Seat Box Office Shows

Back Seat Box Office #137 & Results and Voice Mails #136

Congrats to Art, Monty, Jeff, Scott and Father Beast for their perfect scores!

Thanks to Art and Nick for their voice mails.

Picks:

Jeff

  1. Iron Man 3
  2. Pain and Gain
  3. Oblivion
  4. 42
  5. The Croods

Lena

  1. Iron Man 3
  2. Pain and Gain
  3. Oblivion
  4. 42
  5. The Big Wedding

Back Seat Art House picks:

  • Jeff – The Iceman
  • Lena – Scatter my Ashes at Bergdorfs

There are no other movies in wide release this weekend.