Weekend Report
by Leonard Klady

The first outing since DreamWorks Animation's announcement of 100% 3-D production, Monsters vs. Aliens continued to fuel the enthusiasm for stereoscopic cinema. The picture had 1,550 3-D playdates (roughly 90% of available venues) that represented 38% of engagements and those playdates accounted for 57% of its weekend gross. The family appeal of the movie assisted the non-3-D showings which tend to have an even higher percentage of box office for live-action stereo films.
Weekend Estimates (Full List)

3-Day Estimates	Weekend	% Chg	Cume
Monsters vs. Aliens	57.3	-	57.3
The Haunting in Connecticut	23.2	-	23.2
Knowing	14.4	-42%	45.9
I Love You Man	12.3	-31%	36.7
Duplicity	7.5	-47%	25.6
Race to Witch Mountain	5.5	-57%	53.1
12 Rounds	5.2	-	5.2
Watchmen	2.7	-61%	103.2
Taken	2.6	-37%	136.9
Last House on the Left	2.5	-56%	28.4

Wilmington on Movies
Monsters Vs. Aliens, The Haunting in Connecticut, Z, and Shall We Kiss?

The robot utterly ignores Pres. Colbert’s touching grand gesture of intergalactic peace and love, a spirited rendition of the “Close Encounters” theme, segueing right into the equally throbbing theme from Beverly Hills Cop. Perhaps the next number in this thrilling Colbertian medley was “Can’t Stop the Music.” But we’ll never know; the robot rudely marched off to tear down the Golden Gate Bridge, without even a nod to Ray Harryhausen.

Monsters Vs. Aliens	-	-	-
The Haunting in Connecticut	-	-	-	-
Goodbye Solo	-	-			-
Shall We Kiss?	-	-	-	-
Z	-	-	-	-
Duplicity		-	-	-
Knowing	-	-	-
I Love You, Man	-			-
Hunger					-
Sin Nombre	-		-	-
Sunshine Cleaning		-	-		-
Tokyo Sonata	-	-	-		-
Everlasting Moments	-

Frenzy on the Podcast:
Wiley Wiggins, Star of Sorry,Thanks
by Noah Forrest

This week Noah talks to Wiley Wiggins about his new film, Sorry, Thanks, being in the cast of Dazed and Confused, mumblecore films, and great sci-fi films.

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Voynaristic
In Which We Discuss the Need for Nicolas Cage to Stop Making Bad Movies
by Kim Voynar

By choosing to continue making films like Knowing, Cage acts to the detriment of both his fans and himself. He's capable of better, so much better, and I want to see that Nic Cage again. I want to see that passion, that raw energy, that sense of wisdom gleaned from a life of good and bad choices, that powerful emotional range that we've seen from him in the past. I want to see him reach inside himself and show us something real, something honest, something better than what we've seen of late.

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MCN DVD
Quantum of Solace

If Che Guevara and Fidel Castro had been cutthroat capitalists, instead of communist revolutionaries, they might not have been required to hide from their enemies in the Sierra Maestra. They would have sat on the board of SPECTRE, whose tacticians wouldn’t have dreamed of hiding Soviet missiles in plain sight of American spy planes. Fifty years later, QUANTUM might have conspired to bring down governments around the world by serving as advisers to the swine in charge of AIG, Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers. Why prop up a paper tiger like Saddam Hussein or Hugo Chavez, when the real enemies of freedom are walking around freely on Wall Street?

Also ... Watchmen: Tales of a Black Freighter, The 400 Blows, Big Stan , and more ...

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Wilmington on DVDs
A Secret, Dodes’ka-den, L'Innocente and more ... Plus This Week's Box Set
by Michael Wilmington

This is an excellent, shimmering family drama -- as good as anything the old “quality“ directors like Claude Autant-Lara or Jean Dellanoy, or writers like Aurenche and Bost, made -- and almost as good as Truffaut’s own WW2-set message movie The Last Metro. Of course, the older Truffaut was far more tolerant of than the angry, feared young critic he used to be. I think he would have loved this movie, for example -- and saluted his old assistant.

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DP/30: Tony Gilroy

A 30-minute video chat with the writer-director of Duplicity.

“ We rehearsed for a week, just the three of us, which I had never done… I didn’t rehearse on Clayton at all… just the three of us, never at performance level, just to make sure… it’s a real tempo movie… everything is about tempo… and making sure that everyone could swing and that everything was there.”

The video interview is here .... or click here for a downloadable podcast...

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Frenzy on the Wall:
The Brilliance of Hunger
by Noah Forrest

I understand that for a lot of folks across the Atlantic that there are sensitive politics at play in this film and I appreciate that; but truthfully, this is not a film that is overtly concerned with reasoning, but with action. When someone is willing to forego eating in order to starve themselves to make a political point, it doesn’t matter whether or not you agree with their message; what matters is that they are willing to hurt themselves for a cause.

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Wilmington on Movies
Duplicity, I Love You, Man, Knowing, and The Great Buck Howard

The kick of the movie is that we’re never really sure, until the end, who’s playing whom and why. Roberts uses her coltish, snappish, sexiness to seduce us as well as Ray, and Owen opens up a vein of comic vulnerability and schlemielhood beneath the Bondishness. So what’s the underlying theme here? Is sex just a career tool, beauty and charm just corporate come-ons? Duplicity is about smart, highly professional but amoral people, who may be stabbing each in the back at every turn. And, given the recent exposure of corporate duplicity in our own financial world, it’s a movie that’s become as timely as it is entertaining.
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The Ultimate DVD Geek
The Spy Who Came in
From the Cold
by Doug Pratt

The black-and-white picture on the Criterion release is slick, smooth and spotless, and the monophonic sound is vivid. Since Martin Ritt's 1964 spy thriller is dependent upon mood and atmosphere to sustain its appeal as it lays the foundation of its narrative, Criterion's version is far more involving and far more effective. It isn't just that the movie looks and sound nicer. It's a better movie.

The Sunday NY Times
The Marital Minefield Of The Shared Netflix Queue
And - Kehr Takes In The Robe
Plus - Behind Sugar
And - Riff-Rafferty Stews In The 1950s
Plus - "You know my process is script first."
Faster And Furiouser?
And - Neil LaBute Has A Thing About Beauty

Steven Bach, 70, UA Exec On Raging Bull, Annie Hall, Heaven's Gate, Wrote "Final Cut" About Its Unmaking

A Media Prof Considers The Variety-La Finke Tempest

Elvis Mitchell Gets A Rogue Award

Maurice Jarre, 84, Oscared For Lawrence Of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Passage To India

Is Former "Next James Bond" Clive Owen Now The New Jude Law?

Economy Sinks "Ethnic" Press

New L.A. Film Permit Rules Rankle Location Managers

Is This The World's Most Baffling Movie Trailer?

"Oh, to be a state or local official in America over the next 10 to 15 years, before somebody figures out the business model, to gambol freely across the wastelands of an American city! It's got to be one of the great dreams in the history of American corruption."

Former AOLer Jon Miller Joining NewsCorp To Oversee All Digital

"Instead of taking Ritalin, Prozac or any of those other drugs, you just sit and meditate for 20 minutes in the morning and afternoon, go about your business, and watch things get better and better."
WIRED On David Lynch's Meditation Website (with video)

The Daily Deadwood
NY Times Cuts Salaries 5%
As Well As - That Wonky 3-Page "Index" At Front Of Section One
And - On The Destruction Of The Chicago Tribune Foreign Bureaux
Plus - Blender Mag No Longer Pulses
And - Oregonian Sets Pay Cuts, Furloughs And Layoffs
And - " We are putting on new clothes for a new era, but we are the same Christian Science Monitor, committed to the same objective we have adhered to since we were launched a century ago: "to injure no man but to bless all mankind."
With - Michigan's New Era Of Hybrid Newspapers
Plus - What's At Stake In The Bankruptcy Pleas Of Chicago Reader, Creative Loafing Holding Co.
And - Alt-Weekly LA City Beat May Be Looking At Stars, But Now Resides In Gutter
While - Illinois' Third-Largest, Daily Herald, Cuts, Cuts, Cuts, To Pay Down $50 Million Debt On Printing Presses
And - Boston Herald Dumps 24 Into The Bay

"Ridiculous" Playwright Ronald Tavel, Staple Of More Than 20 Warhol Films, Was 72
And - 1970s NBC News Correspondent Irving R. Levine, 86, Knew From Economics And Bowties

"'Did the animators of Monsters vs. Aliens model the movie’s villain after their boss, Jeffrey Katzenberg?"
Cieply Gets Deeper Into That Superficial Bloggin' Thing

"I am not a man... I am... Cantona!"
Trailering Ken Loach's New Comedy

1920s Magazine TIME Considers 1950s Technology, 3-D, In Modern Times

Smarties Corner
Bob Koehler On The "Cinema Of Extreme Majesty, Strength And Courage" Of Dark, Merveilleux French Auteur Phillipe Grandrieux
And - Koehler Inters Sundance's New Frontiers
Et plus - "Volume 3 of the Straub/Huillet box set from Editions Montparnasse is now available."
Jonnie Rosenbaum On Global DVD Discoveries
With - How Director Christian Petzold, Of Yella And Jerichow, Typifies "La Nouvelle Vague Allemande"
And - Minding Andrew Bujalski's Naturalistic Beeswax

"South Wales Police Apologize For Handing Suicide Hanging Rope To Widow"
Headline Of Week That's A 5-Second Paul Thomas Anderson Movie

Trailering Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock

Lionsgate Cuts 45 More Positions; Sword Of Icahn Still Hangs Overhead

Wayne Lewellen, Paramount Distrib Vet, Was 65

Washington Post Offering Buyouts To Longterm Employees Over 50

Mike Leigh On 50 Years Of Nouvelle Vague

"In my drinking days, some of us would gather around noon on Saturdays at Oxford's Pub for what we called Drunch. We would commence with shots of creme de menthe and pint glasses of real Coke, in the hope that a combination of alcohol, sugar and caffeine would restore us."
Ebert Great-Movies The Great Withnail & I

What Would You Pay To Own Nikki Finke?

New Execs Expected For Warner In 2010

Fox Launches Lotsa Local-Language Productions

Redstone's National Amusements Fails To Find Buyer For Block Of 1,000 Theaters

"Five minutes into our interview, Keener takes three sachets of sugar and tips them into her soup. "Oh my god, I just poured all my sugar into my lunch! F---! I am such a klutz!" She leans over to one side until her head is almost on the table, and laughs a rich, dirty laugh; her eyes narrow and there's that giant wraparound smile so familiar from her movies."

The Ludlum Legacy

"Rio Bravo, Still Hip At 50"

About Bruno's Many Viral-Curious Websites

While Woody Allen's Latest May Not Have A Script, The Cast Includes Kidman, Banderas, Brolin, Hopkins, Pinto And Watts

Post Office Wants To Dead-Letter 150,000 Jobs

Ethan Coen One-Acts Out

Former Cineplex Odeon And Livent Theater Impresario Garth Drabinsky Found Guilty Of Fraud And Forgery In Canadian Court

FT Plans "Web-Ready Workflow" For Its Journos
While - Atlanta Journal-Constitution Cuts 30% Of Staff
And - Florida Comm'y Considers Life Without Miami Herald
Plus - Reported $50 Million Bid For Austin Statesman-American May Be Based On Real Estate Alone

AFI Fest Taps Compulsively Clever Cricket Robert Koehler As Director Of Programming

"For the third time in six years, Michael Sheen will be playing Tony Blair in a film written by Peter Morgan."

The Death Of Oakland's Parkway Speakeasy Theatre

Oscars Move To March 2010 To Run Past Vancouver Olympics; Awards Season Now A Fortnight Further

MOMA Sets Mike Nichols Retro

Trailering Where The Wild Things Here
Plus - The Woz Picks Up On Jonze's Kidstar

David Lynch Foundation Television Launches; No Trademark On TM

These Are Your Stooges, Nyuk-Nyuk: Sean Penn, Jim Carrey, And Maybe Benny Del Toro

"Ramin Bahrani is the new great American director."
So Sez Ebert On Release Of Goodbye Solo
And - Michael Tully Talks To Bahrani

The Daily Deadwood
ChiTrib Foreign Coverage Moved Into L.A.
While - Senate Bill Would Allow Tax-Exempt Status For Newspapers
With - The Bill In Question
And - AP Entertainment Editor Quits
Plus - E&P Recaps The Most Recent Damages
And - Playboy Strips NYC Offices
Plus - Internal Memo Makes Waves At Wall Street Journal

Kubrick's Knockout Pal
And - The Day Of The Fight

"Is 'West Side Story' Overrated?"

The Travelers Guide To Jim Jarmusch

Look Back At Kenneth Anger

Charting The Internet's "Which Blowhard Am I?"

Jacob Weisberg Enthuses Kindle Will "Change World"

"Out of pity, I even picked up the check."
Pete Pious On The Status Of His Business Lunches

The Dumbed-Down Subtitles Of U.S. DVD Release Of Let The Right One In

Armond White Takes The Last Metro For Criterion

171 Movies Slotted For 16th Hot Docs

A First, Almost NSFW Glimpse Of Von Trier's Antichrist
And - Vatican Endorses Angels & Demons With Reported "Call To Boycott"
Plus - What's New In Christian-Themed And -Marketed Movies? A Christian-Hippy Coffeehouse Owner Who Dragged A Cross On His Back For Decades

"The biggest problem when journalists write about journalists is that there are often backstories unknown to readers."
La Finke Asserts That Triple-Blunderbuss Anti-Bloggotry Fusillade By Variety Result Of Her Turning Down February 27 Acquisition Overture
And - Poland Footnotes The "Emotional Grand Canyon"

LA Times Fishwraps 50 More Jobs, Including Pulitzered Transportation Writer

Former Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Argues Case For Charging For WSJ.Com

Sight & Sound Offers A Brief History Of Cinematography

"Caper films should feel exhilarating!"
Pope Pious V Chastises Duplicity For "All Smarts, No Fun"

Teasering The Funny Robert Byington's New Directors/New Films Entry Harmony And Me
While - Funny Or Die Sez This Is The Most Indie Movie... EVAR!

Japanese Film Renaissance Largely Financed By Nation's TV

GE Finds Increased Value In NBC Universal... But More In The Cash-Rich Cable Units Than The High Profile, Named Units

ShoWest To Give "Vanguard" Award To Michael Bay
While - "When I’ve posted this I’ll go & have a Turkish bath & stupefy my nerves in sweaty duration. My person is developing dirty habits."
Anthony Lane Trundles Through Beckett's Letters

"I didn't like it because it was so far removed from the motives of most of the people I know."
Without Specifying Those Motives, Tony Blair's Communications Advisor Tetchily Sez He's Bored, Bored, Bored With Politico Satire In The Loop

After Birthday Girl, Jez Butterworth Thought It Was Time To Become A Somerset Pig Farmer