Weekend Box Office

Okay, so I was wayyy off on some of those numbers.

Predicted:
1. Snakes on a Plane $37mil
2. The Illusionist $19mil
3. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby $17mil
4. World Trade Center $13-14mil
5. Accepted $7mil

Sunday Estimates:
1. Snakes on a Plane $15.2mil
2. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby $14.1mil
3. World Trade Center $10.8mil
4. Accepted $10.1mil
5. Step Up $9.87mil

Wow, I am really shocked that Snakes didn't do as well as I thought. It was so highly anticipated and hyped. Another surprise is that The Illusionist never even placed in the top 10. It was released this weekend, right? People really like Edward Norton and he hasn't been in anything in awhile. The trailer for it looked good. I was off 3 mil for Talledega Nights, World Trade Center and Accepted which isn't too bad. Accepted did better than I had expected and Step Up spent another week in the top 5. Which I am surprised at because all the reviews say it's so formulaic and predictable. Do we really need another dance movie? Good thing I don't bet on these things in Vegas....I'd already have Jimmy the Hook on my case.

DVD Quote of the Day: Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson Uncensored

I picked up the Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson Uncensored previously viewed from Blockbuster for ten bucks. I love roasts, because I'm low brow like that. I don't know who actually got roasted more, Pam, Courtney Love or Andy Dick. I've also got the Comedy Central Roast of Dennis Leary, but the Pam roast is funnier. Jimmy Kimmel is the roastmaster and the roasters include: Nick DiPaolo, Greg Giraldo, Jeffrey Ross (brutal! but hilarious), Adam Carolla, Sarah Silverman (who i LOVE), Tommy Lee (huh?), Courtney Love (double huh?), Andy Dick, Eddie Griffin, Bea Arthur (my girl Dorothy!), Elon Gold (whoever that is), The Lady Bunny(another name I don't know) and Lisa Lampanelli (love her, so friggin hilarious) with appearances by David Spade and Hugh Hefner. There are a lot of great one liners and zingers that it was hard to choose just one quote for the day but here it is, from my new favorite roaster (aside from Jeffrey Ross) Lisa Lampanelli.....

"Pam's dated Scott Baio, the singer from Poison and the dummer from Motley Crue. Her life story could be a show on VH1 called 'I f*cked the 80's'."

More ramblings to come......

Opening this Weekend....

The Illusionist
Starring: Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel
Tagline: Nothing is what it seems.
Plot Outline: A magician in turn-of-the-century Vienna who falls in love with a woman well above his social standing. When she becomes engaged to a prince, the magician uses his powers to win her back and undermine the stability of the royal house of Vienna.
Notes: I saw the trailer for this before World Trade Center and it looks really good. May go see it soon if I get a chance.

Snakes on a Plane
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson (duh), Julianna Marguiles, Nathan Phillips
Tagline: Relax. They're first class fliers.
Plot outline: On board a flight over the Pacific Ocean, an assassin, bent on killing a passenger who's a witness in protective custody, lets loose a crate full of deadly snakes.
Notes: The much anticipated Snakes on a Mother F*@%king Plane. I won't be reviewing this one because of my intense, irrational phobia of snakes. Looks like good times, though.

Accepted
Starring: Justin Long, Jonah Hill, Adam Herschman
Tagline: Reject rejection.
Plot outline: When a high school burnout discovers he's been rejected from every college he's applied to, he creates a fake university in order to fool his overzealous parents.
Notes: I have not heard a damn thing about this movie, but I love Justin Long's work and comedy in general.

Bon Cop, Bad Cop
Starring: Patrick Huard, Lucie Laurier, Patrice Belanger
Tagline: Shoot First Translate Later.
Plot outline: When a crime is committed on the border of Quebec and Ontario, everyone is forced to come together, whether they want to or not. As the investigation gets underway, we meet David Boucher and Martin Ward, members of their respective provincial police forces who are forced to work together. The two men couldn't be more different. In fact, the only thing they appear to have in common is that they are both cops, albeit cops with totally different styles.
Notes: Another movie I have not heard a damn thing about. Although, it's always good to see Canadian films hitting the multiplexes. Will be interesting to see how this one does. I'm not familiar with any of the actors or the director.

Predictions....I love guessing the weekend box office numbers, even though I'm wayyy off, most of the time. Here we go, Snakes on a Plane will trounce everybody for the #1 spot with roughly $37 million (give or take two million), The Illusionist may be number 2 with roughly $19 million, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby will be number 3 with roughly $17 million, World Trade Center number 4 with roughly $13-14 million and number 5, Accepted with roughly $7 million. Guess we'll see how off I was on Monday.

World Trade Center

I was torn on whether or not to see World Trade Center. On the one hand I love Oliver Stone and knew this would be good. On the other hand, I wasn't sure if it would be too emotionally heavy or overly political. Given that some of Stone's previous films such as JFK and Born on the Fourth of July can be heavy handed on the politics and conspiracy theories, I wasn't sure I wanted to get into all that with 9/11.

I was wrong. This film is really great and it's not as emotionally wrenching as I had anticipated, and didn't have Stone's trademarked hallucinogen-induced trippy frenetic editing. Andrea Berloff writes an amazing screenplay and combined with Stone's gentle directing makes for a very touching and surprisingly uplifting story. This film is based on the true story of two New York Port Authority officers John McLoughlin (Nicholas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena) who spend most of the film trapped in the rubble of Tower 1 after it collapses on them during their attempt to help evacuate people.



The film starts as McLoughlin and Jimeno wake up to begin their day on that fateful September morning. The audience sees the events unfolding the way that the Port Authority officers did upon arrival. We know what happened that day, the pre-meditated attacks, the immense loss of life. We have all seen the footage of the planes crashing and the buildings collapsing over and over again. Stone avoids blatantly exploiting the situation to manipulate the audience's emotions by not showing the actual planes hitting or the towers collapsing. Everything is seen close up from the confused point of view of those Port Authority officers as the events unfolded to them. Shortly upon arriving, McLouglin and Jimeno become trapped under a collapsing tower. Everything happened so fast, just like it did for those people that day.

As the devastation unfolds in front of the rest of the nation, McLoughlin and Jimeno's wives are left to pace and worry about whether their husbands are alive or not. McLoughlin's wife, Donna, and Jimeno's wife, Allison, are played beautifully by Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal respectively. They show the emotions the rest of the world felt watching CNN and every other news broadcast; disbelief, shock and utter helplessness. Since this story is based on actual events, Stone has included small snippets of other things that really happened during that time. The Wisconsin police watching the attacks on television, then after they've travelled to ground zero, bbqing their famed Brats for the rescue crew with a big "Wisconsin loves N.Y." banner behind them. Small little bits like this helped personify the sudden closeness the world felt with one another. One thing that I loved about this film is that Stone pointed out that while the world will never be the same after those events, they also helped us as a disconnected society reconnect in a more gentle, helpful manner.



Another character that figures into the story, is Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon), an ex marine who is moved by what he sees on T.V. and goes down to ground zero to help with the rescue efforts. I knew going into this film that it was based on a true story and knew that Jimeno and McLoughlin got out alive, and anybody who has read anything on the film beforehand will know this. So I believe it's safe to say, that the Karnes and another marine discover Jimeno and McLoughlin. The rescue of those two men was very moving. I won't discuss the end, but I will say that Stone kept the story lighter by narrowing the focus on the story of McLoughlin and Jimeno.

I was afraid going in that it would be too heavy and provoke too much sadness to take all over again. This film was really a reminder of how the global community became a little smaller and a little closer that day. This was quite a departure from Stone's usual style, I like his usual style, too, but he did the story justice. Very good movie.

Stone will be in Regina in October for a lecture at the university, so I'm really hoping to hear him speak. I love Any Given Sunday (have it on DVD) and admire his (filmmaking) balls.

World Trade Center
8/10
Highly recommended
See it because...you are ready for an uplifting story that came out of 9/11, Nicholas Cage and Michael Pena (who totally rocked in Crash, btw), you like a good drama


More ramblings to come.....

Movie Quote of the Day: Real Genius (1985)

Holy crap. I saw Real Genius for the first time in forever last night when I picked up the DVD. This is one of those movies that is much better in your memory. It's very dated now and not as funny as I remember. But, Val Kilmer was the hotness back then and he makes the film. In case you haven't ever seen it, 15 year old genius Mitch Taylor (Gabe Jarret) gets recruited to go to Pacific Tech, a school with other super smart genius types to do super smart genius type things. Chris Knight (Kilmer), king shit on campus, takes young Mitch under his wing and teaches him to goof off and not take things so seriously. One thing I found out that I didn't know was that Stacy Peralta (famed skateboarder and now award winning director) has a small part in the film as "Shuttle Pilot". Anyhoo, here it is...

Mitch: Something strange happened to me this morning...
Chris: Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid, with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?
Mitch: No.
Chris: Why am I the only person who has that dream?

More ramblings to come....

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

I had a free afternoon this week and took in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Will Farrell cracks me up. I read that the producers of this movie pitched it to studios in six words: Will Farrell as a Nascar driver. And greenlight it, they did. It wasn't terrible, but not great either. There were funny parts but the parts didn't come together as a whole.

Ricky Bobby (Farrell) is a Nascar driver who's childhood dream was to be a race car driver and was told by his transient, deadbeat father, Reese (Gary Cole), that "If you aren't first, you're last." Ricky has based his career on that piece of advice and it has worked since he is always the number one driver with many endorsement deals ("I'm Ricky Bobby. If you don't chew Big Red gum, *BEEP* you"). Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly) is Ricky's racing partner and best friend, always willing to sacrifice a win for Ricky as part of their "Shake and Bake" team slingshot maneuver. Ricky is also married to Carley (Leslie Bibb), an attractive, blonde gold digger more concerned with Ricky's wins and endorsement deals than with him as a husband. He also has two young sons with out of control attitudes.


In every narrative movie comes the inciting incident that thows everything out of balance for the protagonist. In this case it's the entrance of Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen), the new hotshot French Nascar racer who becomes Ricky's nemesis. Girard begins winning races, Ricky loses and soon afterward, Ricky gets into an accident that puts him in a very different place. Ricky gets help from his mother, Lucy (Jane Lynch) and re-unites with his father, Reese. Reese puts Ricky through different challenges to get back on track with some hilarious results. For example, Ricky, who's become scared of driving fast, is told by his father that he's strapped some illegal drugs to the bottom of the car, has called police and Ricky has two minutes to get away if he doesn't want to go to prison. Ricky slowly regains his confidence and has found a new connection to his family. Will Ricky Bobby be able to race and win again?

The strongest performances in this film are Ricky Bobby, his mother played by the hilarious Jane Lynch, who did a bang up job in The 40 Year Old Virgin, and father played by Gary Cole, who always brings his A game in every performance he does (Office Space). John C. Reilly is terrific as Ricky's friend, Cal. Will Farrell and John C. Reilly together have some of the funniest parts of the film. Molly Shannon was also great as Ricky's sponsor's drunken wife. They never really went anywhere with her character though and it seemed like a waste of talent. Sacha Baron Cohen was a little over the top as Ricky's gay, French nemesis. His accent really bothered me. I wasn't crazy about Amy Adams as Ricky's assistant, Susan, either. Overall, it wasn't terribly memorable. As I said earlier, funny parts that don't quite add up to a whole. The film pokes fun at Nascar drivers and fans, Christians and the South. If you aren't too sensitive about that (some people on the IMDB boards for this film are) then you should find most of it funny. Like, the argument before dinner (Dominos and KFC) over which Jesus to say grace to, the baby Jesus or adult Jesus, considering Applebee's fine dining, etc.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
6.5/10
Recommended: Wait til it hits the cheap theaters or rent it.
See it because....you really, really like Will Farrell and/or like a silly comedy.
Best line...Ricky: I'm on fire! I'm on fire! Help my Jesus! Help me Jewish guy! Help me, Allah! Help me, Tom Cruise! Tom Cruise use your witchcraft to get the fire off of me! Help me, Oprah!
Cheesiest line...Susan's fired up rants, which were supposed to be more comical than they actually were.

More ramblings to come....