Categories
Announcement

Weekend Box Office: July 26-July 28

#1 The Wolverine from 20th Century Fox opened at #1 with a gross of $53.1 million in 3,924 theaters.  Budget was $120 million.

#2 The Conjuring from Warner Bros. fell from #1 to #2 with a gross of $22.2 million (-46.9%) in 3,022 theaters (+119).  Total gross to date is $83.9 million.  Budget was $20 million.

#3 Despicable Me 2 from Universal fell from #2 to #3 with a gross of $16.4 million (-34.1%) in 3,476 theaters (-344).  Total gross to date is $306.8 million.  Budget was $76 million.

#4 Turbo from 20th Century Fox fell from #3 to #4 with a gross of $13.7 million (-35.5%) in 3,809 theaters (+3).  Total gross to date is $56.2 million.  Budget was $135 million.

#5 Grown Ups 2 from Sony/Columbia fell from #4 to #5 with a gross of $11.6 million (-41.6%) in 3,258 theaters (-233).  Total gross to date is $101.8 million.  Budget was $80 million.

#6 Red 2 from Lionsgate fell from #5 to #6 with a gross of $9.3 million (-48.3%) in 3,016 theaters.  Total gross to date is $35 million.  Budget was $84 million.

#7 Pacific Rim from Warner Bros. fell from #6 to #7 with a gross of $7.7 million (-51.9%) in 2,602 theaters (-683).  Total gross to date is $84.2 million.  Budget was $190 million.

#8 The Heat from 20th Century Fox held at #8 with a gross of $6.9 million (-25.7%) in 2,384 theaters (-305).  Total gross to date is $141.3 million.  Budget was $43 million.

#9 R.I.P.D. from Universal fell from #7 to #9 with a gross of $6.1 million (-52.2%) in 2,850 theaters (-2).  Total gross to date is $24.6 million.  Budget was $130 million.

#10 Fruitvale Station from Weinstein Company rose from #17 to #10 with a gross of $4.6 million (+520.7%) in 1,064 theaters (+1,030).  Total gross to date is $6.3 million.  Budget was unknown.

#11 The Way, Way Back from Fox Searchlight rose from #13 to #11 with a gross of $3.4 million (+56.6%) in 886 theaters (+582).  Total gross to date is $9.1 million.  Budget was unknown.

#12 Monsters University from Buena Vista fell from #10 to #12 with a gross of $2.9 million (-44.3%) in 1,470 theaters (-716).  Total gross to date is $255.5 million.  Budget was unknown.

 

The combined gross of the top 12 movies this weekend was $158 million.

Sources:
Box Office Mojo

Categories
Back Seat Producers Season 08 Shows

BSP Episode 280: Super

Release date – 4/1/2011

IFC Films

 

Written and directed by

  • James Gunn

Produced by

  • Ted Hope
  • Miranda Bailey

 

Cast

  • Rainn Wilson – Frank Darbo/The Crimson Bolt
  • Ellen Page – Libby/Boltie
  • Live Tyler – Sarah Helgeland
  • Kavin Bacon – Jacques
  • Nathan Fillion – The Holy Avenger

 

  • Predictions of the ending of How I Met Your Mother.
  • Shut up, crime!
  • Darrell drops some James Gunn/St. Louis knowledge.
  • Shut up, crime!
  • Liv Tyler… necessary?
  • The glorious Kevin Bacon.
  • Ellen Page.  Still Juno, but not Juno.
  • Rob Zombie!
  • Ever wanted to know what happens when you smack someone upside the head with a monkey wrench?
  • These are my two perfect moments.
  • All the eggs.
  • The proper applications of Superhero sex.
  • Darkness makes the end good.
  • All it takes to become a Superhero is the choice to fight evil.
  • Ellen Page and Anna Paquin.
  • Ellen channeling Kermit the Frog.
  • More on Chloe Moretz.
  • If you’re going to be Naked and Afraid in the wilderness, you want to be with women… no, not just for that reason.
  • The Mentalist and Red John.

 

Trivial Bits:

 

  • When Liv Tyler is in her rehab group session near the end of the movie, she can be heard saying. “F#*ked up, insecure, neurotic and emotional.”  This is a nod to her father (Steven Tyler) and Aerosmith’s 1980’s song “FINE” which is an acronym for that line.
  •  Body count – 19

 

Your Producers for this episode were:

  • Tony
  • Darrell
  • David

This episode was recorded:  7/23/13

Categories
Announcement

Theatrical Review: The Wolverine

Following the events of the third X-Men movie, Wolverine (also known as Logan) has left the group being haunted by his having to kill Jean Grey. The mutant is being tracked by another mutant, Yukio. Yukio is in the employ of Yashida, a soldier who Wolverine saved during the bombing of Nagasaki. Yashida is now on his death bed and asks Wolverine to protect his granddaughter Mariko, as he suspects that she is about to be in danger, because she is set to inherit Yashida’s huge tech company. At the same time, Yashida tells Wolverine that he can end Wolverine’s personal torment and take away his healing power, so that he may now live out his life a normal man.

This is the premise of The Wolverine, the latest in the series of X-Men movies and also the latest movie from director James Mangold, who’s previously directed movies like Cop Land (a big favorite of mine), 3:10 to Yuma and Identity. While I like Mangold, he wouldn’t have necessarily been my own first choice to direct a movie like this and in fact he wasn’t. The Wolverine was originally set to be directed by visionary director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) who ended up bowing out because this was going to take him away from his family for too long. So Mangold gets the gig and at least by my own reckoning, turns in a pretty enjoyable film.

The Wolverine is loosely based on one of the earliest Marvel Comics mini-series centered around Wolverine written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Frank Miller. That generally serves as the springboard for the film and other facets are added, in particular the villains of the piece, Viper and the Silver Samurai. This plays with the comic aspects a little on the fast and loose side, but it all still seemed fitting to me. The big thing though is that this movie is far more of a character study than anything else and Mangold paces it accordingly. The Wolverine isn’t a big blockbuster that goes for explosions and destruction at every turn and personally, I found that to be quite refreshing. I’ve seen some already complain that this is nowhere near being what they expect out of a movie associated with the X-Men franchise, and I get that, but just don’t agree with it. It does feel different than the other films in the series, but not to the extent that say Iron Man 3 feels from it’s predecessors. Iron Man 3 tried to change the entire flavor of the series, whereas with The Wolverine it’s more of a side story that’s definitely still in the same universe.

Now with all of that said, that also leads to what I think is a problem with the film for those that aren’t exactly that familiar with the character (or at least as familiar as die hard fans are). Basically, I tend to think that you just can’t come into this blind, you would’ve need to have seen all of the other films (with maybe the exception of X-Men: First Class in order to appreciate the set up. More than likely, if you are seeing this, then you have seen the other films, but for those that haven’t, you’re probably going to be asking quite a few questions.

I think the film has a terrific look to it and the action scenes are especially nicely done, in particular a fight on the top of a bullet train that’s terrifically executed. Some have found the third act of the film to be clunky with it’s twist that’s thrown in with the Silver Samurai character and the idea that Viper isn’t exactly the most developed of villainous characters. This didn’t really bother me at all as the focus wasn’t really on these characters for the movie other than being a means to an end for the character of Wolverine. I think doing more there would’ve actually made for a clunkier film and just detracted from the film’s main drive, which is exploring the character of Wolverine, which in turn leads to the strongest factor in the entire movie and that’s actor Hugh Jackman.

This marks Jackman’s sixth outing as the character (which I believe has to be the record now for actors consistently playing the same character in a comic book based film) and we know he’s already committed to the next movie in the X-Men series and if Jackman had his way, he’d play Wolverine in an Avengers film as well. That’s commitment to the character and for me anyway, it still looks like Jackman is having a great time with it. This is the role that put this actor on the map and it’s nice to see that he’s just not ready to toss it aside at all. There’s real poignancy to the character and in the midst of that, Jackman has found a way to still make him very likable and very much someone we want to keep following. I can’t wait to see what he does in the X-Men: Days of Future Past movie.

Jackman’s got some really solid support here, in particular with actresses Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima who play Mariko and Yukio respectively. Okamoto’s Mariko contains a strength and drive similar to that of the Jean Grey character and it’s easy to see how Wolverine is attracted to her. Fukushima’s Yukio is a developing mutant who has qualities that seem quite similar to those of Anna Paquin, who played Rogue in the X-Men films. They’re both engaging actresses and I tend to think that their chemistry with Jackman is pretty strong. Speaking of Jean Grey, Famke Janssen returns to that part here in a series of dreams/hallucinations that Wolverine experiences and it’s nice to see her back in the part. Haruhiko Yamanouchi plays Yashida and it’s a solid character part that serves the present day proceedings. The most advancement we see with that character is more in the World War II flashback scenes when Yashida is played as a younger character by actor Ken Yamamura. Svetlana Khodchenkova plays Viper and this is easily the one character that I’ve seen the most hate for out there. They find her out of place and over the top and the most lacking in character and motivation. I really liked her look and thought it was cool that she was more of a throwback to a classic sort of villain.

All in all, I thought The Wolverine was quite a bit of fun. This X-Men side-story is a cool little character study that’s made even more appealing due to Hugh Jackman’s considerable acting strengths. It’s still satisfying to me as an action film and it’s a little bit of a change of pace for a summer action movie as it doesn’t go for the same sort of widespread destruction that’s more prevalent right now. I’m a fan of the previous films in the series (to varying degrees) and The Wolverine still seems like it fits and continues the series nicely. And speaking of continuing the series, stick around for awhile during the end credits for an additional scene that nicely sets things up for X-Men: Days of Future Past. This is a nice teaser for things to come and I can’t wait to see it.

Categories
Back Seat Box Office Shows

Back Seat Box Office #149 & Results #148

Congrats to Jeff and Lena for their high scores of 19.

Thanks to Nick for his voice mail.

Picks:

Lena & Art:

  1. The Wolverine
  2. The Conjuring
  3. Despicable Me 2
  4. Turbo
  5. Grown Ups 2

Back Seat Art House picks:

  • Lena & Art – Blue Jasmine
Categories
Back Seat Quickies Shows

Back Seat Quickies #95: Warner, DC and San Diego Comic Con

In the seat:

  • Scott

recorded: 07/23/13

Categories
Announcement

Weekend Box Office: July 19-July 21

#1 The Conjuring from Warner Bros. opened at #1 with a gross of $41.9 million in 2,903 theaters.  Budget was $20 million.

#2 Despicable Me 2 from Universal fell from #1 to #2 with a gross of $24.9 million (-43.3%) in 3,820 theaters (-183).  Total gross to date is $276 million.  Budget was $76 million.

#3 Turbo from 20th Century Fox opened at #3 with a gross of $21.3 million in 3,806 theaters.  Total gross to date is $31 million.  Budget was $135 million.

#4 Grown Ups 2 from Sony/Columbia fell from #2 to #4 with a gross of $19.9 million (-52.1%) in 3,491 theaters.  Total gross to date is $79.4 million.  Budget was $80 million.

#5 Red 2 from Lionsgate opened at #5 with a gross of $18 million in 3,016 theaters.  Budget was $84 million.

#6 Pacific Rim from Warner Bros. fell from #3 to #6 with a gross of $16 million (-57.1%) in 3,285 theaters (+10).  Total gross to date is $68.3 million.  Budget was $190 million.

#7 R.I.P.D. from Universal opened at #7 with a gross of $12.7 million in 2,852 theaters.  Budget was $130 million.

#8 The Heat from 20th Century Fox fell from #4 to #8 with a gross of $9.3 million (-33.6%) in 2,689 theaters (-439).  Total gross to date is $129.3 million.  Budget was $43 million.

#9 World War Z from Paramount fell from #7 to #9 with a gross of $5.2 million (-44.3%) in 2,066 theaters (-937).  Total gross to date is $186.9 million.  Budget was $190 million.

#10 Monsters University from Buena Vista fell from #6 to #10 with a gross of $5.1 million (-51.8%) in 2,186 theaters (-956).  Total gross to date is $249.1 million.  Budget was unknown.

#11 The Lone Ranger from Buena Vista fell from #5 to #11 with a gross of $4.4 million (-61.9%) in 2,273 theaters (-1,631).  Total gross to date is $81.3 million.  Budget was $215 million.

#12 White House Down from Sony/Columbia fell from #8 to #12 with a gross of $1.5 million (-61.1%) in 1,454 theaters (-1,112).  Total gross to date is $68.5 million.  Budget was $150 million.

 

The combined gross of the top 12 movies this weekend was $181.1 million.

Sources:
Box Office Mojo

 

Categories
Back Seat Producers Season 08 Shows

BSP Episode 279: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Show Notes to follow

Categories
Announcement

Theatrical Review: R.I.P.D.

Nick Walker is a Boston police detective with much on his mind. On a recent drug bust, he and his partner, Bobby Hayes, unexpectedly recovered some mysterious gold pieces that weren’t part of the bust. Both of the detectives took the gold without reporting it, and now this deed weighs heavily on Nick. The next day, Nick tells his partner that he’s going to report the gold, but won’t say a thing about Bobby keeping his- and then both are sent out on a major operation. As this operation is going down, Bobby shoots Nick dead. At that moment, Nick believes he is about to get his final judgement, but he’s yanked away and brought before a woman known as The Proctor. Nick has just discovered that he’s dead and The Proctor is the Boston bureau chief of the R.I.P.D., the Rest In Peace Department. The job of the R.I.P.D. is to protect and serve the living from creatures who refuse to move peacefully into the afterlife, known here as Deados.

Nick is made an offer to serve a 100-year term with the R.I.P.D. and he quickly accepts and just as he accepts, he learns he’s to be partnered with an R.I.P.D veteran, old West Sheriff Roy Pulsifer, who’s not exactly thrilled to have a partner. Something’s brewing in the Deado community and now it’s up to Walker and Pulsifer to put a stop to it.

R.I.P.D. is the latest comic book to movie adaptation and it comes to us from director Robert Schwentke, who’s best known for directing another comic-to-film adaptation, Red (which I haven’t seen) and the Jodie Foster thriller from a few years back, Flightplan (which I have seen and the less said the better). I’m a comic book fan, but I’ve not read R.I.P.D., so I can’t really say how faithful this is to it’s source.

If you’ve seen the trailers for R.I.P.D., then more than likely you’ve gotten a vibe off of them that’s a lot like the Men In Black movies. Not knowing the source material, I can’t say if that’s exactly the same there as well, but it’s certainly evident with the film. The whole film is virtually staged and set up just like the first Men In Black movie, but doesn’t exactly have the same style (or it’s own style) with it’s execution, making for a final piece that’s just sort of there and nothing else. Schwentke does a good job of making his main players look really cool (all scenes that you’ve seen in the trailer), but offers up little else. One neat little piece here is that when back in the world of the living, the R.I.P.D. officers have completely different appearances- for Nick Walker, it’s an old Chinese man (played by veteran actor James Hong) and for Roy Pulsifer, it’s a supermodel (played by supermodel Marissa Miller), that little juxtaposition of character types is pretty clever and when it’s used on-screen, it offers up some pretty nice moments, but not enough to really make R.I.P.D. stand out. Even with that, the rest of the movie still feels like warmed-over Men In Black.

I mentioned that Schwentke makes his main players look cool, I just wish it was the same with the visual effects as well. The Deados, when exposed, take on monstrous appearances that definitely feel like CGI models and don’t exactly feel natural to the rest of the movie. This could certainly be intentional, and while I’m not opposed to visual effects that look more theatrical than natural, there’s still something here that just feels a little off.

Ryan Reynolds plays Nick (marking his fourth comic book movie) and Jeff Bridges plays Roy. Reynolds is OK here, but there’s nothing real distinctive about the part. Bridges hams it up as the Old West lawman and not necessarily in a good way. Some of his lines just come off as unintelligible gibberish making me wish he would’ve shown a little restraint with his character. Mary-Louise Parker plays The Proctor, and for me anyway, she’s the really bright spot in the cast, having a distinctive style about her and some pretty snappy line delivery. You wouldn’t know it by seeing the trailers, but Kevin Bacon is in the film as Nick’s former partner, Bobby Hayes and our villain of the piece. Bacon’s serviceable in the part, but again, like so much else in the movie, it’s a by-the-numbers villain.

R.I.P.D. has a few good ideas, but it’s over-shadowed by being too much like Men In Black, and doesn’t do much to really stand apart from that. It’s not a horrible movie by any means, but in comparison to a lot of the other big summer fare, it just comes off as average more than anything else. I do think it’s watchable, but I’d also advise to maybe wait until it hits cable or Netflix streaming to take the plunge.

Categories
Back Seat Box Office Shows

Back Seat Box Office #148 & Results #147

Congrats to Jeff and Nick for their perfect 25s!

Thanks to Nick for his voice mail.

*Bonus – at the end of the show, we call Lucy Wilde’s (Despicable Me 2) business card phone number

Picks:

Jeff

  1. The Conjuring
  2. Red 2
  3. Turbo
  4. Despicable Me 2
  5. Grown Ups 2

Art

  1. Turbo
  2. Red 2
  3. The Conjuring
  4. Despicable Me 2
  5. Grown Ups 2

Lena

  1. The Conjuring
  2. Turbo
  3. Red 2
  4. Despicable Me 2
  5. Grown Ups 2

Also in wide release this weekend: R.I.P.D.

Back Seat Art House

  • Jeff – Blackfish
  • Art & Lena – Only God Forgives
Categories
Announcement

Theatrical Review: The Conjuring

Ed and Lorraine Warren are investigators of the paranormal. Ed is a non-ordained demonologist and Lorraine is clairvoyant/empath. As the movie starts, they are detailing one of their cases in a college lecture hall and right from the start we’re buying everything that they’re telling us. In 1971, Ed and Lorraine encounter the Perron family little realizing the terror that they’re about to experience.

That’s the broad basic premise of The Conjuring the latest movie from director James Wan who’s best known for the very first Saw film. Wan’s next project is reportedly the next film in the Fast & Furious series but before he gets there, we get to experience The Conjuring a terrific little throwback horror film that really does stand above a lot of recent fare.

Before going into this, I was not aware that the events of this film were based on true events. Now there’s a terrific little crawl at the start of the film that tells us this and it’s great to set up what’s about to happen, but in my case, I figured the statement of being based around true events was the normal sort of hype that you get with this type of movie and maybe with just a little smattering of something that truly happened. Now after the fact, I still don’t know how much of this is true, but having done a little bit of post-research, it sounds like Wan got everything right about the Warrens and the Perrons (and it certainly helps that Lorraine Warren is actually credited as a consultant for the movie- though that can certainly be open to interpretation).

Wan takes his time in setting this one up and paces this similarly to such films as The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror (in fact, there’s a nice little suggestion by the film’s end that the Warrens are being called in to consult about that). It treats it’s subject matter most earnestly and doesn’t indulge in a plethora of skepticism. If anything, the Warrens themselves are the first to point out that many things they get called in to investigate can be easily explained as non-paranormal events, but yet they’ve still witnessed events that are classified as paranormal and thanks to the strong performances (more in a moment) we buy into this.

On the other side, we also buy into the Perron family right from the start. Carolyn and Roger Perron are a hard working family just trying to make ends meet for their family of five daughters. They’ve purchased their house through a state auction and after horrific events start to occur, they just can’t up and leave their home due to financial constraints more than anything else. Even before Carolyn goes to call in the Warrens, they’re willing to chalk up some of the weirdness they’ve encountered as things that can be easily explained, but eventually it becomes too much, and we as the audience certainly feel that.

The Conjuring doesn’t have an overuse of blood and gore and earns it’s R rating more for it’s intense situations. As I said above, Wan is pacing this like classic horror films from the 70s and the way this is executed, it certainly shows that there’s still a lot of gold to mine from that stye of filmmaking (Rob Zombie knows this as well and certainly demonstrated it well in The Lords of Salem from earlier this year, a movie that I didn’t have the time to review properly when it came out, but at least I wanted to shout it out here as it’s something I could certainly stand to watch as a double-bill with The Conjuring). Now there are certainly good visual effect moments here, but they’re used sparingly and Wan relies mostly on just good ol’ suspense-building and characters that you really do care about, though I have to also call out a terrific original score from Joseph Bishara that really does punctuate everything in the right way.

But Wan’s best tools in making this vision an effective one is his absolutely terrific cast. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga play Ed and Lorraine and besides being a couple of my own personal favorite acting talents these days, they really do bring credibility to their parts and have a terrific chemistry together. As I said above, I really didn’t know this was based on true events at the start, and I was sort of looking at this thing as being the potential start of a new horror franchise with Wilson and Farmiga being the continuing players. Their chemistry is so good that I’d love to see them reprise these roles. Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston play Carolyn and Roger Perron and again, like Wilson and Farmiga, they’ve got terrific chemistry together, though it’s certainly a more earthy flavor. Both of these sets of relationships feel very real and they’re aren’t over-dramatized in the slightest.

Shanley Caswell, Hayley McFarland, Joey King, Mackenzie Foy and Kyla Deaver are the five young actresses who play the Perron’s daughters and again, their relationship feels very authentic. Joey King really stood out to me amongst the daughters as Christine Perron with one particular scene where she experiences the horror from her bed.

The Conjuring is horror filmmaking at it’s best. James Wan certainly demonstrated with the first Saw movie that he could make a great horror film of a certain flavor. I thought he did a nice job with the movie Insidious (also with Patrick Wilson) as well, but The Conjuring is a real standout. Wan’s maturity as a filmmaker is certainly evident here and now I’m really looking forward to seeing what he does with the next chapter in the Fast & Furious series as he steps out of the horror/terror genre and into the action genre. Wan’s got a clear-cut vision with this throwback horror film and it’s excellently realized thanks to strong performances from a terrific cast. I really would like to see Wan, Wilson and Farmiga re-visit the Warrens with another movie and certainly the door is open for such a thing to happen. If you’re looking for a little break from summertime big-budget spectacles, well, it doesn’t get much better than The Conjuring. Highly, highly recommended…