Category: Movies

Coens diss Wayne in interview

The Coen Brothers pretty much dissed John Wayne’s version of True Grit, their recently-released movie, in an interview with Deadline.com recently. Both admitted they saw the movie when they were young but barely remembered it and did not watch it again until their version of the movie was made.

That’s not all that uncommon; probably even wise. But when discussing Wayne’s Oscar, here’s the exchange that disgusted me:

JOEL COEN: That’s what I’ve read about it [Wayne's Oscar for TRUE GRIT] too, that it was a kind of valedictory thing.

ETHAN COEN: You’ve been around a long time, we love you, here’s an award.

The dismissive way they mention Wayne’s Oscar win – the only one of his career – was a step too far, in my opinion, in trying to minimize comparisons between Wayen’s film and theirs. Uncouth. That’s like asking someone to apply for a credit card in the middle of a church service.

Jeff Bridges is no John Wayne

When I went to Paranormal Activity 2 this weekend, I saw the first trailer I’ve seen for the Joel and Ethan Coen remake of the 1969 classic John Wayne western, True Grit. A grizzled Jeff Bridges is taking on the role of U.S. Marshall Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn, a role for which Wayne won his only Oscar. (He had been nominated earlier in his career for The Sands of Iwo Jima, but lost at that time to Broderick Crawford.

Now, arguably, Bridges is at a similar point in his career. He’s been nominated for two Oscars (Starman and Crazy Heart) and won only once (Crazy Heart). But Bridges is no John Wayne.

I’m a fan of the Coen Brothers; but even just in the previews, it’s easy to detect that this modern True Grit will be far more violent than Henry Hathaway’s classic ever thought of being. Sure, Wayne was often outspoken and said some things that ought never have been said during his infamous 1971 Playboy interview, and he needed a good colon cleansing as a reprimand for it. Yet overall, his legacy is a positive and pro-American one.

I suppose it’s inevitable that even John Wayne’s films are remade; but there’s no way even an actor as skilled as Bridges can ever outdo Wayne’s only Oscar-winning performance.

Only four weeks until the next Harry Potter movie

Harry Potter and his pals are outgrowing their teenage concerns like how to pop a blackhead, so it’s timely that we’re only four weekends away until the debut of the penultimate Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.

It’s been a long road; Emily Watson, Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe are now in their very early 20s and old enough to be graduating college, not high school. But the end is finally in sight. With so few truly great movies out the last few months, since summer wound down, this film is sure to be one of the big box office tent poles of the season.

I know that, looking forward to November and December, there’s no other movie I’m looking forward to as much. And it’s not even close.

Trio of new movies breathe life into September

Three debut movies are looking like solid bets to breathe life back into a dead September box office picture. Based on Friday’s receipts, it appears the Ben Affleck vehicle, The Town, will be the weekend’s champ, drawing in over $8.3 million on its first day of release.

The comedy, Easy A, drew in $6.8 million based largely on the possibility, fueled by her Twitter post, that if may be the last movie in Amanda Byrnes’ career; she Tweeted that she had decided to retire from the movies “because it’s not fun anymore” shortly after wrapping production on Easy A. We’ll see how long her retirement lasts once she realizes most jobs don’t pay millions of dollars for a few weeks’ work.

Finally, Devil, the new M. Night Shyamalan-scripted thriller, debuted to just under $5 million on Friday, which is lower than some of his movies but not bad considering he didn’t direct the flick himself.

We’ll have a fuller set of results later on, but behind those three, none of the films in theaters drew more than $3 million on Friday, including last weekend’s champ, Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D. That means everything else will likely end up drawing less than $10 million on the weekend. Might be hard for the producers to even buy an extended laptop warranty with numbers like that.

Inception looks to withstand Jolie…

The very smart thriller, Inception, appears as though it will hold off a strong challenge from Angelina Jolie’s new thriller, Salt. In Friday returns, Inception drew $13.2 million while Salt drew $12.7 million, with both films seemingly on a course to break the $35 million mark before the weekend’s out.

That would be a strong second-week showing by Inception and a decent, if not dazzling, debut by Salt. Despicable Me, the animated children’s film, is the only other film likely to break the $10 million weekend barrier, as fourth-place-at-the-moment children’s live-action flick, Ramona and Beezus, based on the Beverly Cleary children’s classic that was around when I was in grade school, was trailing a distant fourth place with only about $3.0 million on Friday, good enough to stay ahead of Nic Cage’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

So while Jolie’s SALT continues to set spirometer ablaze, mark me down for being more interested in Chris Nolan’s latest “film between Batman films” offering, Inception.

Breaking Dawn release announced

A tentative release date has been leaked for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, and it appears the franchise has decided to stay out of the way entirely of the other huge children’s-lit-to-film franchise, Harry Potter.

Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn will be made as two separate movies, just as is the case with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. Deathly Hollows releases part one this coming November, while part two will release late next spring.

Breaking Dawn Part 1 will then follow in November 2011, well removed from any possible lingering Potter-effect on the box office, with Part 2 likely to follow in the Summer of 2012. The two-part finale of the Twilight Saga will be filmed in Baton Rouge and Vancouver with filming expected to start this fall and last for several months.

Hopefully those Twilight fans already lining up for the next installments will be well-supplied on the best fat burner, since they’ll be sitting there a LONG time this time…

Dream casting for Spider-Man reboot

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Spider-Man movie franchise reboot being headed up by director Marc Webb. There’s a lot of ways he could bring a fresh take and a lot of ways to screw it up.

Casting is vitally important.

Too often in casting today, directors will choose actors in their 30s to portray high school kids because they still look young at the time of casting. Trouble is, that works for one film and by the time a sequel would be made, they’re looking their age.

So, while I hold no illusions that Marc Webb reads a snarky site like HollywoodIdiocy, here’s some of my dream-casting for the Spider-Man reboot, with actors close to being age-appropriate for the roles.

First and most importantly, Mary Jane Watson. She’s the emotional core of this series, so getting her right is vital. It’s hard to find a young actress who can pull off the demands placed on MJ’s role in the Spider-Universe as she ages into it, but I think I’ve found just the candidate.

Saoirse Ronan would make an ideal Mary Jane. First of all, she’s only sixteen, making her the perfect age to begin playing MJ for three or four films before the next reboot. Plus, she proved quite capable of carrying a major motion picture with her role in The Lovely Bones. Sure, she’s closer to blonde than red-head, but so was Kirsten Dunst when she was cast. It’s called a dye-job. Big whoop.

As for Peter Parker, you need someone who has that mixture of geekiness and leading man potential. You’d have to nerd him up a bit, but at 17, Taylor Lautner has already proven his ability to be part of a huge, money-making movie franchise with his role in the Twilight Saga. Put a pair of glasses an him and he’d make a decent Parker.

To round out the romantic triangle and give MJ someone to worry about when vying for Parker’s affections, I can think of no one better-suited to the role of Gwen Stacy than Dakota Fanning, whose acting talent is beyond reproach.

So there you have it for the key roles; Lautner, Ronan and Fanning. Cast these three, Marc Webb, and no one will be whining over the loss of Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and Bryce Dallas Howard for very long at all.

Breaking Dawn gets a director

Summit Entertainment’s two-movies-from-one-book finale of the Twilight saga, inspired by the Stephanie Meyer book series, Breaking Dawn, finally has a director: Bill Condon.

A quick credit report on Condon reveals he was the director behind Dreamgirls, Kinsey, Gods and Monsters, and even scripted the movie version of Chicago. So he’s directed a lot of well-received movies but has no genre direction credits to speak of.

Still, he’s a big name and that counts for something; in fact, he’s probably the most established and decorated director to take on the teen angst vampire series to day. And considering the decidedly adult content of Breaking Dawn, it might be just the sort of director-to-material match the series needed at this point. Time will tell how well his treatment of the material is received.

Date Night wins Clash

A couple of NBC Thursday Night comedy stars bested the Clash of the Titans at the box office this weekend in a photo-finish. In an effort to avoid such on embarrassment, Warner Brothers added 25 screens nationwide to Clash’s total, but was still out-distanced by the Steve Carell-Tina Fey rom-com.

Could this send some Warners execs on a desperate Seattle job search? Probably not, but it is a black eye for the mega-pic that, it was hoped, would show staying power similar to other 3D epics like Avatar and Alice In Wonderland.

So has the sheen gone off 3D with Clash’s huge second-week tumble from the top? Probably not, but it does prove you need more than 3D to sell a picture; you need a compelling story, great actors, and a solid director who’s not just wowed by the new 3D tech.

In the end, Date Night appears to have hauled in $27.1 million, while Clash trailed close behind with only $26.8 million; that’s a 56 percent drop, and the only other movie that plummeted faster this week was Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too? at 62.4 percent off its first week.

Behind Date Night and Clash, How To Train Your Dragon retained some momentum, bringing in $25.3 million in its third week, a drop of a mere 12 percent or so. Perry’s Married Too flick came in a distant fourth place with only $11 million, while The Last Song brought in $10 million to secure the fifth spot; the Miley Cyrus vehicle has over $42 million in box office to date, more than double its $20 million modest budget.

Nothing else drew more than $5.6 million. But the competition’s about to get a lot tougher. Next week brings us the Chris Rock-Martin Lawrence-Tracy Morgan comedy, Death At a Funeral, as well as the post-modern superhero flick, Kick-Ass, which is opening wide despite a hard R rating. Both films have excellent potential to do well.

Singer considering X-Men First Class and X-Men 4

Director Bryan Singer is rolling in rich projects right now; he’s been attached in the Hollywood rumor mill to the movies Jack the Giant Killer and a big-screen version of Battlestar Galactica, but his next project appears to be X-Men: First Class, a reboot of the Marvel mutant he launched and then abandoned to try his hand at a Superman movie.

The result, of course, was not a tuxedo-inspiring piece of cinema, but two subpar superhero flicks, as Superman Returns was disappointing, and the non-Singer X-3: The Last Stand was similarly uninspiring. Even last year’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, failed to live up to expectations.

At one time, Singer’s return to the X-franchise was doubtful, but given the weakness of films developed without his involvement, his return is now a welcomed bit of news among network execs. Word on the street is that producer Lauren Shuler-Donner has even promised to wait on moving ahead with X-Men 4 in hopes that Singer will helm that project as well.

Of course, with so many irons in the fire, can Singer really make good on all these projects? Probably not; something’s going to drop and hopefully it’s Jack the Giant Killer, a project that would be just fine in someone else’s hands.

Hoping Hot Tub is good

With John Cusack anchoring the upcoming comedy Hot Tub Time Machine, count me as one who is hoping the 1980s throwback laffer is more John Hughes and less Farrelly Brothers in orientation. I’ve always considered the 1980s my decade – the decade in which I went from 14 to 24 – so I’m rooting for this movie to do well, big time.

However, if the film reflects the mores, mentality and vocabulary of 2010 more than 1985, it’s a recipe for disaster. In my mid-40s now, I don’t enjoy going to movies that are excessively foul-mouthed, which is certainly the current trend. I intend to go to the movie if I can; but I will walk out if it’s too bawdy.

The Final Destination not so final

The Final Destination, a 3D outing of the decade-old franchise, was implied to be the last installment in the series, but considering the thriller raked in $180 million in global box office, the inexpensive series of films may not have made the top franchises 2010 list, a follow-up was suddenly a possibility.

Now it’s a lock; at ShoWest, Warner Brothers president Alan Horn confirmed development is moving ahead on a new installment of the movie series. Will it be 3D again? Hard to imagine it wouldn’t.