MCN Weekend

Wilmington on DVDs: The Mel Brooks Collection

It’s good to be the King… But sometimes, it‘s better to be the Kaminsky.

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Wilmington on DVDs: Haywire

Steven Soderbergh is smooth, and he’s never smoother than when he’s engaged in some big crime thriller — whether it’s one of the Oceans or something brainier and more realistic, like “Traffic.” I had mixed feelings about “Haywire,” though. I liked it okay, I guess. But I should have liked it more, since it’s the same type of rock-’em-sock-’em wish-fulfiller as “The Limey.”

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Wilmington on DVDs: Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie

TIM & ERIC’S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE (Also Blu-ray/DVD Combo, with Digital Copy) (One Half Star) U.S.: Tim Heidecker-Eric Wareheim, 2012 (Magnolia) I have just one thing to say about this sorry excuse for a movie — this nauseatingly taste-challenged, almost putrefyingly preposterous goulash of scatological gags, failed nonsense, barf jokes, poop jokes, piddle jokes, and…

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Wilmington on Movies: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The movie — based by director John Madden and screenwriter Ol Parker on Deborah Moogach‘s novel, “These Foolish Things“ — is a nice little comedy-drama, intelligently made and beautifully designed and shot. But the acting is what makes it special. That glittering cast of British senior stars are a magnificent seven.

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Wilmington on Movies: The Avengers

These guys aren’t horsing around. They want to make something ass-kickingly fabulous out of this ensemble super-movie — this all-star mega-picture that brings together (for the first time) seven of Stan Lee’s Marvel comic book superstars in their big-movie super-reincarnations: Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Chris Evans’ Captain America, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, The Hulk (now played by Mark Ruffalo), and the group’s star of stars and champion wisecracker, Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man (played to the hilt by Robert Downey, Jr.).

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The Weekend Report, May 6, 2012

“The Avengers” rewrote the record books with the biggest ever opening three-day weekend that’s estimated at $200.5 million. With $30 million more than the former champ, there’s little chance that the Monday actual will change Sunday’s ebullience.

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Friday Estimates: May 4, 2012

“The Avengers” is out of the gate with with a Hulk-sized opening. Estimates put “The Avengers” at number two on the list of all-time opening days at the box office – behind “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part II” and the first “Twilight” movie.

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The DVD Wrapup: W.E., Haywire, Theatre Bizarre, Circus Columbia… More

If “Haywire” hadn’t been entrusted to director Steven Soderbergh and writer Lem Dobbs – also responsible for “The Limey” – it might have lacked the class, polish and velocity to prevent it from going straight to DVD.

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Wilmington on DVDs: Scarlet Street

Lang‘s personal favorite of all his American movies (his favorite among his German films was M), Scarlet Street pulls us into that special noir world we recognize from the other great dark hard-boiled, high-style masterpieces of the ‘40s: Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, the 1946 The Killers, Out of the Past, Laura, Detour, Criss Cross, Phantom Lady, Raw Deal, Caught, T-Men, Gun Crazy, Force of Evil, and The Maltese Falcon — a world of shadowy buildings and glistening, rain-slickened streets, of hot jazz wailing in an after-hours bar or a seething dance hall, of sultry dames with low-cut dresses and inviting eyes, of cynical hard-guys wearing rain coats and tipped fedoras, cigarettes drooping from their lips and guns clenched in their pockets, of killers to whom slaughter is just a job, nothing personal, and of maniacs and psychos for whom it’s very personal indeed.

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Critics Roundup — May 3

Marvel’s The Avengers |Yellow||Yellow|Green| First Position (limited) |||Green|Green| The Perfect Family (limited) |||Yellow|| Last Call at the Oasis (limited) ||||Green| The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (limited) |Yellow|||| You Hurt My Feelings (ReRun Gastropub, Brooklyn) |||Green||

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Box Office Hell — May 4

Our Players|Coming Soon|Box Office Prophets|Box Office Guru|EW|Box Office . com Marvel’s The Avengers |158.0|171.8|155.0|160.0|170.0 Think Like a Man |9.0|10.3|10.0|9.0|9.0 The Pirates! Band of Misfits|6.7|7.4|6.5|6.5|6.3 The Hunger Games |6.0|7.1|7.5|7.0|6.5 The Five Year Engagement|5.6|6.4|n/a|6.0|5.7

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Review: The Avengers

Johansson conveys just enough about Natasha to intrigue us and make us want to know more about her — and she does much of it without saying a word. I don’t care what any Johansson haters have to say about her, she is fan-freaking-tastic in this role. She oozes lethal sensuality and her curves couldn’t look better in her skin-tight costumes, but Black Widow is more than just a pretty face, she is a totally bad-ass superhero whose only powers come from herself, and Johansson brings her formidable acting talent in full force here.

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Wilmington on DVDs: New Year’s Eve; Joyful Noise; Pillow Talk

This huge, lewd, sparkly 1959 hit –the first in the Rock Hudson-Doris Day movie series — has fun with serial seduction, sex mania, telephone party lines, Manhattan careerism, intimations of gayness, bedroom and bathroom gags on split screens (watch Rock’s toe in the bathtub scene), and other American erotic/cinematic peculiarities.

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Wilmington on Movies: The Five-Year Engagement

Most of the things that go wrong with most Hollywood romantic comedies, are done right here. “The Five-Year Engagement” isn’t a glamorous showcase for a bunch of glam-kids trading double-entendres, but an honest (but also funny) investigation into modern relationships and their quirks and pitfalls. The cast is a first-class, heavy-duty comic ensemble, and the genuinely amusing script has lots of good moments for lots of funny people.

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Review-ish: The Avengers

It’s mighty… mediocre. There isn’t anything BAD about the film. On the flip side, the only thing I took away as remotely memorable was Joss Whedon’s rendition of The Hulk. Downey does his Iron schtick. Thor is a little looser, but still a bit of a stiff. Sam Jackson has never really been this uninteresting….

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The Weekend Report

Cusp of summer box office experienced a lull with weekend revenues of roughly $115 million that amounted to a 17% decline from the prior frame. It was a steeper 30% downturn from 2011 when the bow of Fast Five blew away the competition with an $86.1 million launch. The weekend’s big noise was happening overseas with The Avengers getting a jump start on domestic with a 39 territory debut estimated at close to $180 million. Also heaping up advance gelt internationally is Battleship with $150 million to date prior to its North American bow on 5/18.

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The DVD Wrapup: Contraband, Camelot, Return, Young Goethe, Innkeepers, Hollis Frampton … More

Like JFK’s legacy, the movie version of “Camelot” hasn’t aged well in the succeeding nearly 50 years. In fact, after knocking ’em dead on Broadway in the early 1960s, the movie version failed to overwhelm Oscar voters or attract nearly the same number of fans as “My Fair Lady.”

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Box Office Hell — April 27

Our Players|Coming Soon|Box Office Prophets|Box Office Guru|EW|Box Office . com Think Like a Man |17.1|18.1|19.0|15.0|18.0 The Five Year Engagement|16.8|19.4|14.0|20.0|22.0 The Lucky One |12.5|11.9|12.0|12.0|11.8 The Raven|11.7|12.3|10.0|n/a|11.0 The Pirates! Band of Misfits|11.1|13.4|12.0|11.5|10.0

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Critics Roundup – April 26

The Five Year Engagement |Yellow||||Yellow The Raven |||||Yellow Bernie (limited) |Yellow||||Green Sound of My Voice (limited) ||||Green| Headhunters (Magnolia) (limited) |Green||||Yellow The Pirates! Band of Misfits |||Yellow|| Elles (limited) |Yellow|||| Warriors of Rainbow (limited) |Green||||

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Wilmington on DVDs. Godzilla

I’ve never visited Japan, and probably I never will. But if I get there, I know I’ll dream of seeing several things, all of which, to me, signify “Japanese cinema“ and “Japan.” A furious Kurosawa swordfight caught by three cameras. Two Ozu characters sitting on tatami mats, musing on the sadness of life. A geisha or wife suffering while Mizoguchi’s camera tracks slowly and beautifully around her. Something tragic or transgressive caught lucidly by Ichikawa or Imamura. And, rising up from the ocean, while the sun sets, Honda’s Godzilla (excuse me, Gojira), staring toward Tokyo and licking his chops.

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Quote Unquotesee all »

“I’m in Locarno, my movie is premiering for 1,000 people, which is nuts. A huge-ass screening, second day of the festival, 7:30pm in the sidebar competition. It’s comparable to Un Certain Regard or Director’s Fortnight. Every movie I saw in that section was fun, brilliant movies from around the world. The main competition was like Aza Jacobs and Mia Hansen-Løve, people who have been around. And I was like, “This is crazy. What am I doing inside the bloodstream of this establishment? I’m 27. I don’t belong here.” Every person I talked to there couldn’t believe what the movie cost, and then couldn’t believe when I told them what other American movies cost. We were the cheapest movie there by 65%. The next cheapest movie cost I think three times as much as we did. And they were just like, “You can’t make movies for what you’re telling us your movie cost.” And I told them, “Well, I can, I’m here, I’m in the same section as you are, so you are wrong. People think I’m lying when I tell them my budget. And also everyone likes it. I’m having a great time and people are being very responsive. Maurice Pialat’s widow was like, “I heard your movie’s good, I want a copy of it.” I’m like, “Well this is f**kin’ crazy.” Pedro Costa saw it there and really liked it and I’m like, What am I doing? I had gone in two months from screening at BAM for a lot of friends to Pedro Costa? This is the exact sentence: “Pedro Costa saw your movie. He’s a huge Jerry Lewis fan. He wants to talk to you about your movie and also Jerry Lewis.” And I thought, “I’m out of my element. I cannot have that conversation because that’s ridiculous.” Because his retrospective was happening at Anthology when I worked at Kim’s, and his Criterion box set came out when I was working at Kim’s. He can’t want to talk to me. That’s not possible. That’s not allowed. There is no world where that makes any sense!”  Or like when you wrote me to say that David Gordon Green wrote you to say, “I’m watching The Color Wheel and then I’m going to see Tree of Life.” There is no world where this is allowed! Again, somebody whose DVDs I was putting on the shelf, as, like, a hero. And it’s just like, “Oh, I’ll watch this movie.” There’s just a very fuzzy area in the middle there and it happened very quickly and I don’t understand why.  I still have a voice-mail from Sean [Price Williams, cinematographer]. I wish he was here to talk about it, but the voice-mail is a long pause and he’s just like, “I don’t want to tell you this, because it’s gonna make you so insufferable. I hate having to tell you this, but Leos Carax watched your movie and he really loves it, and he wants to meet you when he comes to New York.” I can’t live in a world where Leos Carax knows who I am, watches my movie, likes it, and thinks, “I wanna meet that guy.”
~ It’s Alex Ross Perry’s World

“I don’t know. It’s been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be to make the films I really dream of making. I was in Italy a few years ago scouting for this very beautiful film I wanted to make with Richard Linklater. We worked really hard on the script for a couple of years and couldn’t get the money together. It was an expensive idea. It’s heartbreaking when that happens over and over again and then the movies that do get made are ones that have lots of women being beaten up or zombies being killed. It’s all fine, it’s all okay, but it’s hard. I remember when River Phoenix died, he was ahead of me on this curve. He kind of realized how hard it was to make serious movies. People like Sidney Lumet figured out how to walk that line, but it’s hard. And it requires patience. It’s a life’s work and I wonder if I’m up to the task.”
~ Weary, Wary Ethan Hawke

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