March Movies: Runaways, Bounty Hunters and Repo-Men In Brooklyn...or Wonderland!!

[PeterG]

Only a few debuts of note this week:

#1 - Alice In Wonderland - 116 million with a $31,143 average per screen (!!!) (Good thing the movie made a lot of money the first weekend, because I predict a major plummet by next weekend!)

#2 - Brooklyn's Finest - 13 million, but only playing at half the theatres of AIW. Good counter-programming, but with a lot of star power in this movie, that 13 million must be seen as a disappointment.

#20 - The Hurt Locker (re-entry) - .5 million...pretty high re-entry point. Anybody heard anything about this movie???

#45 - The Secret of Kells - $39,826, only playing in one theatre - so it beats the #1 movie of the week for per screen average! This one was one of the nominees for best animated film at this weekends Oscars.

[my little pony]

#45 - The Secret of Kells - $39,826, only playing in one theatre - so it beats the #1 movie of the week for per screen average! This one was one of the nominees for best animated film at this weekends Oscars.

I'd love to see it, the animation is gorgeous

[Buzz]

Saw the Crazies. For a B movie, it was not bad at all. Government conspiracies + zoombie like creatures =

[bobalina77]

Okay.. I went to see Alice Sunday night and I really liked it. I think the 3-D wasn't so much about things jumping out at you as it was just about giving it more depth and making you feel like you were "in" the movie.

Boyfriend and I have decided that when we get a cat we're naming it "Um"

[PeterG]

Just got home from seeing "The Crazies". Two thumbs up!

Good acting and directing and the only negative was that the plot had a number of holes in it. I would have rated it a thriller/horror classic if some of the cliches had been taken care of before filming started.

One major plus: Timothy Olyphant. He's a great actor and is SO beautiful!!

http://www.collider.com/uploads/imag...yphant__1_.jpg



I also wanted to recommend a DVD that I recently found at the public library. It's a 2006 Australian film called "Opal Dream". It's about a family living in a small town in Australia where the father is trying to make a go of it as an opal miner. The film focusses on the family's two children and how they handle living in a rural area and how they deal with a somewhat lonely life.

While the movie is mostly about the two young people, I'd say the movie is aimed more at adults than at kids (although it'd probably be a good movie for adults to watch with young people and talk about afterwards). Opal Dream stars Jacqueline McKenzie who was recently on the TV show "Mental" (which I loved) and was one of the leads on the sci-fi series, "The 4400". The father is played by Vince Colosimo who could be the younger, rougher-looking (but still handsome) brother of Eric Bana. (Vince looks great in his form-fitting T-shirts, by the way. )

[bobalina77]

I felt the exact same way about Fantastic Mr. Fox. The changes Wes Anderson made to the story were just plain awful, especially the whole whiny-son-hates-better-looking cousin subplot. Blah. It was such a shame as it was visually amazing.

We watched this the other night and both of us thought it was hilarious. I don't know how close it was to the book because I think I was like 7 when I read it (or actually had it read to me in school) so I don't remember it all that well.

[Matryeshka]

Had Alice in Wonderland been made by anyone Tim-I'm-artisitc-and-you-can-tell-by-my-obsession-with-muted-colors-except-my-mansession-Johnny Depp-Burton its rating on Rotten Tomatos would have been at least 20% less. Actually, I doubt it would have even been made. As for the cinematography and costuming, I'm sorry, but I've seen better in your average period piece. And I've seen that giant chessboard done elsewhere as well. The end of the movie lacked gravitas, was too hurried, and was too blah. And I swear, the heroine could hang with Kristin Stewart in terms of expression and look of constant confused constipation.

It had none of the wonder, imagination, or subtlety of the original, (though I admit that looking for the subtle in a Burton movie is like looking for intelligence in the Trash Can forum) or the whimsy of the Disney animated version. It had the potential to be good, even great, but I wish someone else had directed it. Preferably the guy that did the third Harry Potter movie whose name I can never remember, or Guillermo del Toro (director of Pan's Labyrinth )

[mrr50]

I saw Alice in Wonderland, I'm glad I saw it. It is thinly written and has some really strange plot devices. I'm torn as to recommend it to others. I'm not demanding my money back, but I think it could have been better.

[PeterG]

I saw The Ghost Writer on the weekend. We were going to see the Green Zone, but it did poorly at the box office, was getting bad or mixed reviews and I had just read it sat on the shelf for two years before being released. So we skipped it! I wanted to see The Runaways, but the group concensus was not unanimous, so I'll have to go see that some other time.

Went with a friend and his partner, who complained that he just goes to the movies to enjoy them and forgets them when he leaves the theatre. Whereas my friend and I will discuss everything from the script (and it's holes!), the location (we sometimes stay to see the end credits and where the film was made) to the direction and cinematography... We wore him out!!

While we all liked the movie, my friend and I thought the story was quite simple, even though it's about 2 and a half hours long. Yet we never got bored. The acting was probably the best part of the movie, I was happy to see Olivia Williams on the big screen and not just the small (Dollhouse). She can definitely hold her own with feature film actors.

I give this one thumbs up, but it's one that'd be fine to wait until it comes out on DVD.

Movie debuts this weekend (of note):

#2 Diary Of A Wimpy Kid - 22 million
#3 The Bounty Hunter - 21 million
#4 Repo Man - 6 million
#18 The Runaways - 1 million (less than 250 theatres)
#29 Greenburg - $118,000 (only three theatres - almost a $40,000 average per screen)

I read an article on yahoo that said Jennifer Anniston had flopped at the box office (yet strangely, Gerard Butler did okay). Then in the article, it said the studio expected the movie to make 20 million. And it made 21 million! Sometimes yahoo articles are so stupid!

Also interesting was that the article did not mention that Jude Law's movie did less than one third of The Bounty Hunter, in only a few hundreds theatres less than The Bounty Hunter's approximately 3,000.

Still, it must be disappointed for Anniston and Butler to debut lower than what looks to be a stupid/crappy kids movie...

[Buzz]

I saw Diary of A Whimpy Kid over the weekend and it was not too bad for a kid's movie. However I think I was one of the very few grown ups in the cinema. LOL

[Buzz]

I saw Hot Tub Time Machine yesterday and while there are some funny bits overall I found it to be really just stupid. I know... with a name like that what else was I expecting. LOL

[reckless]

Not exactly a new movie in the US, but it was a premiere in the UK last weekend. The Uma Thurman film "Motherhood," which bombed in the US, had a record disastrous opening in the UK. On its opening weekend, it had ticket sales of about $130. On the Sunday of that weekend, it sold exactly one ticket.