Reader of the Day: Cory

Today's Reader of the Day is the first in the series that I've actually met. We sat down for coffee last year while Cory from Canada was in town having a meeting about something so secret I couldn't even begin to tell you what it was. Perhaps he works for the CIA? But he was chatty about movies and that's what we love best!

Nathaniel: Hey Cory. Good to "see" you again. Do you remember the first movie or first movie obsession?
CORY: I feel like I’m on ‘Inside The Actor’s Studio’ right now.  This is awesome! The Great Mouse Detective.  I think I was about 3 years old, and it was for sure my first movie theatre experience.  We got ¾ of the way through it when my little sister regurgitated a bag full of Nibs all over my father.  So I guess I just remember the first movie that I got ¾ through.

My first movie obsession, which birthed the entire concept of out-of-control obsessions for me, was The Shaggy Dog.  It was in no way a healthy one.  I think I watched it every single day for about 6 years.  In second grade I actually managed to convince myself that the recess bell was my own personal trigger to transform into a sheep dog.  I spent every single recess for a full year absolutely convinced that I was indeed a dog.  Needless to say I had a very lonely year.

When did you start reading The Film Experience?
I can separate my teen to adult years by what my favourite film website was in each section of my life.  Mrshowbiz.com was most of my teens.  I was devastated when that stopped existing. Thankfully I managed to find Sasha Stone after that which led me to you. TFE is easily my most visited site on the interweb and I hope I never have to go hunting for a new favourite again. 

What's your filmgoing diet like these days?
These days, i.e. the last few weeks, my film diet is an anorexic one.  Not one movie has been watched and it feels great.  I LOVE not watching movies.  It’s the best!  Every February, like yourself I imagine, I end up waking up and watching movies until it’s time to go back to sleep.  On repeat.  For 28 days.  By the end I hate the entire concept of filmmaking and wish that I was sane enough to JUST MAKE MYSELF STOP!!!  I’m not.  It will happen again next year.  But I guess I should probably rewatch Mildred Pierce (1947) pretty soon.  

Three favorite actresses. Go!
The most difficult question on Earth.  Ok.  Just do it Cory.  First to enter your mind: Liv Tyler, Grace Kelly, and Michelle Williams.  Damn!  Is that even close to right???  I think so.  But what about Rachel Weisz...  I ask myself?  And Penélope Cruz...  reads my next thought bubble?   You can’t leave out Diane Keaton...   says a very logical part of my brain.  Yes!  I fit in six.  Get me away from this awful question.

 

Biopic of your life. Who plays you? Etcetera.
I’d have to cast by era here and my movie might as well be called, ‘Eras’.  (No that’s dumb.)  My teen years need to be portrayed by Ewan McGregor...  and it will be easy for him to do so as he can just play Christian from ‘Moulin Rouge!’.  I was an overboard romantic, a naive and passionate romantic.  I still am.  I’ve just learned to internalize it.  I even wrapped myself in a box for a girl once and got someone to drop me off in front of her locker.  I hid in it for 40 minutes with chocolates and flowers.  There was a crowd surrounding her when she opened it and I popped out.  She dumped me three days later.  Lesson learned.  Movies don’t necessarily reflect real life.  I believe this was considered to be ‘creepy’. 

My early 20s could be played by Ethan Hawke.  The way he conveyed his curiosity and excitement about life in, ‘Before Sunrise’ has always moved me and felt very much like a reflection of my precise existence.  I felt the very same way about his performance in ‘Great Expectations’.  Passionate.  Sensitive.  Passionate.  Passionate.  Passionate.  I adore his aura.  The last 5 years of my life...  maybe John Krasinski??  I don’t know.  He’d have to up the intense factor.  But he performs very matter-of-factly and gives off a very logical aura.  I speak a lot about auras.  Maybe the film should be called ‘Auras’.  Anyhow...  Krasinski seems to be able to convey ‘keeping it cool’ while in very intense situations.  I think that’s what I’ve mostly been doing for the last five crazy years.  Finally, I feel like I am slipping into a Hanksian era of my life.  I’ve always felt an attachment to Tom Hanks.  Passionate and funny.  I think that’s what I am right now.  I’ve turned into Tom Hanks. I’ll take it!

Box Office: "Limitless" Returns, Limited Hits

Yes, yes... we're irregular about box office reportage. It's a Battle New York staying regular-like about these things. Bear with us.  (Updated to reflect tiny adjustments of actual grosses)

WIDE TOP TEN
top hits of the 600+ screen count club.

01 Limitless $18.9 new
Most reports suggest that this is an "okay" debut in a weak frame despite hitting #1 and having a stronger per screen average by a couple thousand from its closest competitors. Does that mean that Bradley Cooper is only half-fuckable? That he's a walk-of-shame type that you'll feel guilty about afterwards? Or that there were just too many arrogant blonde leading men types fighting for your dollars (#1,#3,#4... it's a blonde multiplex invasion.)
02 Rango $15.0 (cumulative: $92.3)
This'll be the top grosser of 2011 any second now saving us the embarrassment of Just Go With It holding that honor.
03 Battle Los Angeles $14.5 (cumulative: $60.5)
04 The Lincoln Lawyer $13.2 new
05 Paul $13.0 new
06 Red Riding Hood $7.1 (cumulative: $25.8)
07 The Adjustment Bureau $5.7 (cumulative: 48.6)
08 Mars Needs Moms $5.3 (cumulative: $15.4)
09 Beastly $3.1 (cumulative: $22.1)
10 Hall Pass $2.5 (cumulative: $39.5) 

But the "Top o' the Charts" only tell such a small part of each week's stories. How about Jane Eyre and the like..

LIMITED TOP TEN
On less than 600 screens -- not including former wide releases that are on the fade. 

01. Cedar Rapids $.5 (cumulative $5.4 on 462 screens)
02. Jane Eyre $.4 (cumulative $.7 on 26 screens)
Jane and Mr. Rochester are still packing them in big city arthouses, tripling any per screen average within the actual top ten. But when you're playing at so few screens it's still hard to rack up a gross equal to your buzz. Will Focus wait a long time to expand this on lose the buzz? These things are always tricky and the men in capes and tights (i.e. summer season) are right around the corner, generally sucking up every last bit of media oxygen. If so many of last year's Oscar movies can huddle around the $100 million mark, there's no reason why this movie shouldn't be at least a minor hit. We shall see.
03. Of Gods and Men $.2 (cumulative $1.6 on 94 screens)
04. Win Win $.1 new on 5 screens
After The Station Agent and The Visitor, writer/director Thomas McCarthy may well be three for three, critically speaking. Will this drama with Paul Giamatti as a wrestling coach also be as popular as his other movies with specialty crowds. The Station Agent won $5.7 in its US run plus a SAG nomination and The Visitor managed $9.4 million and an Oscar nod for lead actor Richard Jenkins. Thomas McCarthy was Oscar-nominated for co-writing Pixar's Up, but he break out soon in a larger way with so much goodwill behind him?

poll by twiigs.com

McCarthy and Binoche in limited release

05. Barney's Version $.1 (cumulative $3.8 on 114 screens)
06. Kill the Irishman $.1 new on 21 screens 
07. Certified Copy $.1 (cumulative $.2 on 23 screens)
Abbas Kiarostami's engaging and provocative two-hander is opening and expanding like a French-language mirror of Jane Eyre though it isn't faring quite as well with only $237,000 so far. Hopefully it'll catch on with sophisticated moviegoers. Cross your fingers that this catches on at least as well as Michael Haneke's Caché which played for months in arthouses and racked up well over 3 million before hitting DVD. I bring up that film, also starring Juliette Binoche (what a filmography she's built) because though they're very very different films each is hugely rewarding: impressive filmmaking, hours of post-movie conversation fodder, and another chance to enjoy Juliette Binoche's mysterious magic and always moving tears. 
08. The Grace Card $.1 (cumulative $2.1 on 114 screens)
09. Biutiful $.09 (cumulative $4.6 on 89 screens)
10. The Music Never Stopped $.08 new on 32 screens

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?
In other words: Whose economy did you support?

I tried to give Kiarostami & Binoche some money but ended up throwing it Verbinski & Depp's way (like they needed it post Pirates) for Rango. Blame the clock.

First and Last, 'Once upon a time...'

the first and last images from motion pictures

Can you guess the movie?

The answer is after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Film Bitch Awards Continue

Our annual awards jamboree went into an unexpected coma due to Oscar exhaustion but the film bitch awards are back as we try and really not just sorta wrap up the 2010 film year. So here are BEST POSTER, SEXPOT and DIVA OF THE YEAR featuring achievements from Cher, Joan Rivers, I Am Love, Fish Tank, Burlesque, Love and Other Drugs and yes even Alice in Wonderland (among other films).

 

So that's six pages down. One more to go. Woohoooooo almost finis! (Just in time for the NEW Oscar predictions for 2011 which always kick off in some form on April 1st ). We'll fill in the BEST SCENES next (final page) but I'm still debating various efforts, like this number below for Best Musical Number in a Non Musical Film.

Since not many of you saw Hrithik Roshan in Kites here's the film's best scene. Someone told me it was edited out for the US version of the movie (they released three versions I believe) which is in-san-it-y since there's plenty of unnecessary filler elsewhere in the movie (seriously you could lose like 10 minutes simply by shaving of 10 seconds from every scene involving long soulful gazes between Hrithik and Barbara Mori there are so many of them) and this is Hrithik's only musical number. And don't people buy tickets for his movies because of the dance numbers?

I could watch him dance for hours. So it's kind of annoying that the editing is so hyperactive. I mean his body is all the hyperactivity one needs, always locking, shaking, popping, flipping, swaying, slinking, swerving, slurving (I made that last word up) and busting out all over.  Hrithik just missed the sexpot list. The sexiest people are, generally speaking, the ones who just exude carnality (Mila Kunis in Black Swan and Tom Hardy in Inception, hell-O) without every noticeably forcing the point. But since Hrithik is basically a superhero made flesh, one forgives most of the oversized everything so... almost! Here's hoping he gets another chance headlining an international effort like Kites, just a better one next time.

So, what'cha think of them divas? And I'll gladly take recommendations for the final categories: Action Sequence, Musical Moments, Kiss & Sex Scenes, Opening & Closing Scenes, Credits and just Best Moments in general.

Linkboy

Guardian an "intimate" Q & A with the one and only Hilary Swank. Admit it: you want to know how often she has sex and what her most embarrassing moment was.
<--- ExpressUK talks to Lucy Punch whose career has apparently been reheated by playing that golddigging bimbo in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger last year.
Movie|Line offers up suggestions for replacing Darren Aronofsky on The Wolverine. I do vaguely like the Andy and Lana Wachowski suggestion. The others, not so much.
The Playlist Joseph Gordon-Levitt will play The Holiday Killer in The Dark Knight Rises (2012). That'll mean something to some of you but for me it's the first Bat villain from a movie that I'd never heard of prior to the movie.
Every Film in 2011 Just like it sounds. Hats off (but maybe straightjacket on?) to this UK guy Neil White who is going to review every film released in the calendar year. Insanity! He's already to #105 (The Adjustment Bureau).
Orlando Sentinel here's a charitable movie promotion: Disney is encourage potential young Tangled customers to get their hair cut. The locks go to making hairpieces for those suffering from medical hair loss.

One of my friends asked if I wanted to see [lists four movies] yesterday. I say 'I'll see any of those but Paul.' My friend is all "oh, right. You hate geek things." Total misconception! So many people think this about me so I feel defensive. Not true. loves geeky things. I just have a weird ambivalence about fanboy culture because it's too narrow/noisy. I love superheroes and sci-fi and such but how you gonna live on only one to three genres? Why limit yourself? If you're not also taking in classic cinema, Almodóvar, serious actressing, arthouse, silent film, talky dramas, and other genres you're going to die of artistic malnutrition! So I say "Ugh, stop it. I do so love geek things. But Paul? Seth Rogen voicing a CGI alien?"

[Diesel Sweeties]

For what it's worth I ended up at Rango finally. Y'all were right to push me in that direction. In case you aren't aware, the "Reviews" on the banner will take you to an index of movies seen and screening log and when I've reviewed something the link itself. I'm behind so I'll need to do capsules soon.

Off Cinema Diversions
Towleroad photos of last night's super moon. It was just blinding and beautiful here in NYC. Were any of you killed by werewolves?
Warren Ellis issued a challenge to his readers to remake/remodel The Fantastic Four. Super fun illustrations followed. They don't mention it in the thread but 2011 (November to be precise) marks the 50th anniversary of the cosmic ray mutated superfamily. Too bad the film version was so terrible.
Spiegel Knut the famous polar bear has died.
The Awl answers the question "What is a Rebecca Black?" in case you noticed that name clogging up your twitter feed and facebook wall this past week.
Vulture has a funny "dos and don'ts" for making your own Friday style viral hit. Warning: Disturbingly homogeneous Teen Girl emerges! I haven't been a teenager in a long time but I remember there being more than one kind. I mean there's even several different types on Glee each week.
Antenna offers an informative primer on all sorts of things going down with Netflix, Google, MPAA, NPR if you, like Nathaniel, find the behind the scenes of  media-internet-showbiz occassionally confusing / disorienting.