Weekend Report
by Leonard Klady

Tracking had been torrid for Fast & Furious, which reassembled the original cast of the souped-up franchise. Fandango had the film taking 53% of its advance ticket sales and industry estimates predicted it would bow somewhere between $50 million and $55 million, or slightly less than last weekend’s launch of Monsters vs. Aliens.

Weekend Estimates (Full List)

3-Day Estimates	Weekend	% Chg	Cume
Fast & Furious	72.4	-	72.4
Monsters vs. Aliens	33.6	-43%	105.8
The Haunting in Connecticut	9.7	-58%	37.4
I Love You Man	7.9	-38%	49.3
Knowing	8.1	-45%	58.2
Adventureland	5.7	-	5.7
Duplicity	4.2	-45%	32.3
Race to Witch Mountain	3.2	-44%	58.3
12 Rounds	2.3	-57%	9
Sunshine Cleaning	1.9	46%	4.8

Digital Nation
ShoWest Sampler: Animation, 3-D and the New Woody Allen Film
by Gary Dretzka

Larry David plays a misanthropic physicist – and, of course, Allen’s newest alter ego – who gives up his research after a divorce and failed suicide attempt. After dinner, one night, he’s confronted by a blond waif who’s run away from her Mississippi home and is in desperate need of a meal and couch on which to sleep. Even though Evan Rachel Wood’s character touches all of his raw nerves, they embark on the unlikeliest of relationships. Things get even crazier when the girl’s estranged parents (Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley Jr.) arrive in New York, a year later, separately, and experience culture shock. Often hilarious, Whatever Works is set for a June release.   

Adventureland	-	-
Fast & Furious	-	-	-	-
The Escapist	-	-	-	-	-
Gigantic	-	-			-
Paris 36	-	-	-	-
Sugar	-	-	-
Silent Light	-	-		-
Monsters Vs. Aliens	-	-	-
The Haunting in Connecticut	-	-	-	-
Goodbye Solo	-	-			-
I Love You, Man	-			-
Sin Nombre	-		-	-

The Gronvall Files: Interview
Cary Fukunaga Makes His Name with Sin Nombre
by Andrea Gronvall

"In terms of the philosophy of the cinematography, the goal was not to innovate, but to hark back to older times. What we really wanted to do was shoot photojournalism style. Not documentary style, but photojournalism style in the sense that if we wanted a shot to work, it would have to tell the whole scene within that shot. And in terms of treatment of the image, we wanted—also like photojournalism—to shoot Kodachrome, [which] doesn’t exist anymore for 35mm, so we had to shoot negative stock and then try to approximate that with our post process."

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Wilmington on Movies
Fast & Furious, Silent Light, Sugar, Adventureland, and Paris 36
by Mike Wilmington

But the fact is that nobody transcends their vehicle in this movie. These vehicles are untranscendable. This script is undrivable. These speeches are unspeakable. The best performance in Fast & Furious is given by the Dodge Charger, or maybe the 1972 Ford Gran Torino or the F-Bomb Camaro or the 1987 Buick Grand National. The cars have the most charisma, and the keenest psychology. They also have the best lines. I hope they get their own movie soon, maybe one as well-written as Pixar’s Cars.

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Voynaristic
Gentle Pressure, Relentlessly Applied: Women's Voices in a Man's World
by Kim Voynar

When women speak about feminist issues, it's easy to tune them out; wrap the same ideas around female empowerment in relationships, the strength of women in communities, or the power of women socially and politically within smart, ironically constructed rhymes laid over a catchy hip-hop beat, though, and you start getting somewhere -- both with empowering young girls who will glean and hone their own philosophies and worldviews from the artistic expressions they're exposed to and, eventually, subtly infiltrating acceptance of those ideas into an entire culture.

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Wilmington on DVDs
Slumdog Millionaire, Danton, Il Generale Della Rovere... and more
by Michael Wilmington

Boyle pulls off this incredible cinematic juggling act with tremendous flair and panache. I wouldn't call the movie a masterpiece, but maybe I'm short-changing it. Slumdog Millionaire -- which won a ton of Oscars -- is more entertaining and memorable, more of a kick, than many films that are.

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MCN DVD
Slumdog Millionaire

The film literally could have been set in a dozen different locations and been every bit as effective as it was. Mumbai worked best, perhaps, because the teeming Garibnagar colony sat nearly adjacent to the Bollywood dream factory, thus creating a juxtaposition loaded with much metaphorical punch. Danny Boyle may not have known it at the time - Slumdog almost went straight to DVD, after all - but he created that rarest of treasures: a modern classic with universal appeal.

Also ... Seven Pounds, Marley & Me Tell No One, Twilight and more ...

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Frenzy on the Wall
The Mount Rushmore of Forgettable Actors
by Noah Forrest

Who could fill out this mountain? The criteria is a little complicated: they have to have been in at least a few good movies, they have to have been something resembling a major movie star who could actually open a movie (so Edward Burns would be out) and they have to be utterly forgettable to the point where you can’t remember a large portion of the films they’ve been in. So, for example, Kevin Costner would seem to be a good fit.

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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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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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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.

Anne-T Reports Variety Kicks Bart Upstairs At 76; Timothy Gray New Majordomo Of Long-Lived Trade Sheet

"Reports of my death have been extremely exaggerated."
Roger Friedman Comments

"Wouter was part of a family that cared deeply about our world, our culture and cinema that mattered."
Cosmopolitan Taste-Maker And Champion Of Asian And Other World Cinema, Wouter Barendrecht, 43, Co-Chairman Of International Sales And ProdCo Fortissimo Films, Blessed With "Exquisite Taste In Weird Movies," Dies Suddenly
And - Fortissimo Release Reports Heart Failure In Bangkok

More Sunday NY Times
Kehr Delves Into DVD Release Of Depression-Era Paramount Pics
And - Chip McGrath On The Compression Of State Of Play
And - Observe And Report's Jody Hill's Brutal Losers
Plus - Big Cieper Drinks Deep At Auteurist Fount Of Shawn Levy

"There is no doubt that certain websites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet."
So Sez WSJ Editor Of Google, Et Al.

Cleaning Up After Roger Friedman's Discharge

"Melodrama has been the building block of storytelling in cinema since the form was invented. I've always been interested in that form. It's not psychological drama."
Aussies Give Baz More Chances To Gloat At Almost Breaking Even

Want To Be An Extra? Join The Teeming Masses

Fred Astaire: Sultan Of Suave

Roger Ailes Leaking To Nikki On A Story She Has Been Behind On At Every Step... Is She The Next Fox News 411?
La Finke Reports NewsCorp's Fox News Fires Roger Friedman For "Encouraging Piracy" Of NewsCorp's Fox Release Wolverine

How A State Of Crisis Led To State Of Play

Classifying The French New Wave At 50 By Tarantino Colors: Godard, "Mr. Red"; Rohmer, "Mr. Green"; Chabrol, "Mr. Black"

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber Hums The Tune That The Internet Is "Somalia"

Bollywood On Strike

"'Roger Ebert' is only a name. 'By Roger Ebert' are the three most magical words in the language, drawing my eye the same way a bulls-eye attracts an arrow."
Further Anecdotes From An Ink-Stained Stretch
And - "I've argued that a piece of critical writing ideally should offer ideas, information, and opinion—served up in decent, preferably absorbing prose. This is a counsel of perfection, but I think the formula ideas + information + opinion + good or great writing isn't a bad one."
Good Dr. Bordwell On The Ideal Vs. The True State Of Film Cricketing

VF Assembles Femme-Centric Inglorious Basterds Photo Portfolio From Brigitte Lacombe

The Sunday NY Times
The New York City Of Movie Memory Assembled From Stock Footage
And - Ambling With Brooklynite Paul Dano
And - Hanging With The Musical Bacon Bros.
Plus - Slumdog Author-Diplomat's Unlikely Rise To Fame
And - "My Fantasy Relapse"
Plus - In Letters, Beckett Goes On
And - Arthur Laurents, Mainly On Directing, With Intermittent Vitriol

The Invincible Yet Invisible Abel Ferrara

Anne-T On ShoWest Ebert Tribute

"There's a lot of erotic imaginings in this film which were originally set in the ravine, furtive encounters pushed against the concrete pillars, with sounds of traffic going by."
Toronto's Also A Star In Egoyan's Neeson-Starring Nathalie Remake

He's Lucky He's Not A Rent-A-Projectionist In The Deep South
The Dueling Fox News/NewsCorp News Releases Over Seemingly Untouchable Roger Friedman's Review Of Downloaded Wolverine
Earlier - A Firing Offense?

Busted In Dallas: How Do You Pull Off A Film Fest In A Tight Economy? (video)

Jackie Earle Haley To Rorschach Your Little Children In New Nightmare

NY Times Asks Boston Globe Workers For $20 Million In Concessions "Swiftly" Or They'll Burn Down The House

Lou Perryman, 67, Lead In Eagle Pennell's Whole Shootin' Match, Also In Poltergeist, Blues Brothers, Dies In Austin Of Apparent Homicide

J. D. Salinger, At 90, Still Not Talking After Being Doorstepped By Brit Hack

Mouse House Drives 11% Of Employees Out Of Parks Division

"Can British films get any worse? The Boat That Rocked has already triggered debate as to whether it's even crummier than Lesbian Vampire Killers."
UK Curmudgeon Opens Yap

A Brit On Tyler Perry's Enterprise

Relativity Leery: Dumps MGM For Lionsgate

"Their industry is collapsing and no movies are being made. That is what everybody is feeling, real panic down there. It’s the state of the economy in general. I know a lot of people that are panicking and feeling like that."
Canuck Blindness Scribe Peers Below 49th Parallel

Petey Howell Feels Two-Dimensional
As - Regal, Nation's Largest Exhib, Sez To Fox, No 3-D Glasses Supplied? No Ice Age 3

Sometimes All You Need Is A Critic And A Pen
"Everything Is Cinema," Richard Brody's Doorstopping Godard-ography, Gets Withering 9-Page Tour-De-Force Savaging From Outraged Bill Krohn

Cross-Eyed Or Painless? A Dissenting View Sez 3-D Is Gonna Be More A Headache For Viewers Than Theaters

Blockbuster Doesn't Have The Cash To Spruce Up Its Brick-And-Mortar

Alec Baldwin On Indie And Funny

25 Years Of A-List Set Photography By Murray Close

"Slumdog Was A Movie Of Its Time"

"I had to let go of my fantasy of the kind of career I was going to have," Mottola says, sipping water in a hotel suite overlooking Central Park. "I thought there was only one kind of filmmaking career I could really respect. I had to spend a lot of time getting my head out of my ass."
Life's An Adventureland

Anderson Sings Iranian Director Majid Mahidi, His Song Of Sparrows And The State Of Film In Tehran

On Juliet Binoche's Charisma

"Sometimes I give voice to characters who need to scream, while other times I think I'm yelling at myself for not getting off my ass more often and helping people out."
Neil LaBute, Saved By The Hell

IndieWIRE's 40+-Film Cannes Wish List

"The question is, should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyright... not steal, but take. Not just them but Yahoo."
Rupert Muses Aloud
Earlier - "I think the long-term situation is still very negative. I'm slightly more pessimistic because I think every family - rich and poor - is poorer than they were a year ago and they're being thriftier."
Murdoch Makes Media Forecasts, Including NewsCorp's Own Post-Kindle

Coppola's Got More Tetro, With 3 Gaily Colored Making-Ofs, Including "Vincent Gallo, Transcending The Father" And Why It's Shot In B&W Widescreen

Pasadena Weekly Obits LA City Beat

"I'm always looking for love. Girls in sherbet-colored gowns going to cotillions, Marlborough girls in uniforms... Now I want rectitude, brain power and passion. Quite often I take what I can get."
James Ellroy Returns To One Of His Central Subjects, Serializing In Playboy His Hate-Love Relationship With Women

Taymor To Cast Unknowns In Her B'wy Tune-Slinger "Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark"

"This couldn’t be more timely. It’s uncanny what Rand was able to predict, about the only things she didn’t anticipate are cell phones and the Internet."
Or, To Paraphrase Elaine May, "Pick Up 'Atlas Shrugged' And Pretend You're Reading It"; With April 1 Dateline, Zeitchick Recounts Wreckage Of Prior Attempts To Develop; Sanguine About Latest

"For as long as I can remember, even as a little boy, I used to think it was unfair that someday I was going to die. Whose idea was it? I didn't decide to come to this Earth and I certainly don't want to leave it now that I’m here."
Hola, Viggo!

Teasering Fame

"Many years later, standing in front of the firing squad, Gabriel García Márquez, had to think about this afternoon..."
Nobelist Calls It Quits At 82

Hw'd Finds Downturn Opportune Time To Say No To Pricey Stars

Cookie Jar Bids To Swoop Strawberry Shortcake And Care Bears From MoonScoop

Red-Band Trailering Brüno (nsfw)

World's First James Bond Museum Opens In Former Supermarket In Keswick, Cumbria

"Newspapers aren't assets to be flipped, leveraged, and stripped."

"I didn't agree to this."
Startling New Joe Wright-Keira Knightley Cut Is About Domestic Abuse And About Two Minutes Long

Focus Launches Baumbach-Jason Leigh-Rudin-Stiller-Gerwig-Duplass Comedy

"Bresson ruins our taste for the mediocre."
Gary Indiana On Robert Bresson
Plus - Bresson's Transcendental Tweets

Michael Moore Gets His Roger & Me Sequel... In ObamaVision

Wolverine FX House Rising Sun Pictures States They Never Had A Copy Of Complete Picture

Netflix's 2 Millionth Delivery: Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist; Renter Gets Lifetime Free Queue

The Daily Deadwood
"If you were a newspaper columnist in a big city like Chicago 50 or 25 or even 15 years ago, you were more than a little bit of celebrity, and sometimes you’d meet someone who might not otherwise give you the time of the day, but because your picture was in the paper, she’d dance with you at midnight."
Roeper Hopes To Still Be Writing For Sun-Times In 20 Years
And - "Hopefully, it will free the paper from the tax debt imposed on it by the convicted thieves, Black and Radler. I believe it has a future."
Ebert Sez Sun-Times Bankruptcy Good Biz Call
Plus - Front Page Of Trib/Sun-Times Bankruptcies Differ Radically
And - USA Today Loses 100,000 Readers Over Biz Travel Cuts
Plus - Julian Schnabel's Grandiose Luxury Edifice, Palazzo Chupi, Cuts Prices 30%
And - Nielsen Rates 1,600 Jobs
Plus - WIRED Rumor: 20 Online Gigs Unplugged

"Before, I would wait for someone to tell me what to do. But now I’m like a jazz artist and I go off the theme of a film. Now I’m always in character."
Elliot Gould Talks Drama
And - Last Schrader Standing Talks Mishima

Cannes Adopts Tarantino's Basterds