Box Office: Keanu & the Ouija Board
Sunday, October 26, 2014 at 5:52PM Amir here, reporting to box office duty. If there is one trend box office enthusiasts can always count on, it’s a double-figure, profitable opening for a mediocre horror film. Ouija didn’t disappoint its makers and despite the letters on the board spelling disaster, a fat $20m cheque was pocketed. Ouija had a comfortable lead over the weekend’s other big opening, John Wick. It’s an action flick starring cult hero Keanu Reeves as a man who goes after the heartless Russian criminals who kill his cute puppy. Quite a stretch, that premise! I refuse to believe good reviews for Keanu’s films until I see them, so it’s with a giant grain of salt that I inform you this one’s winning praise all around.
TOP TEN WIDE
01 OUIJA $20 NEW
02 JOHN WICK $14.1 NEW
03 FURY $13 (cum. $46) Michael's Review
04 GONE GIRL $11.1 (cum. $124) Jason's Review
05 THE BOOK OF LIFE $9.8 (cum. $29.9) Interview
06 ST. VINCENT $8 (cum. $9.1) Michael's Review
07 ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE... $7 (cum. $45.5)
08 THE BEST OF ME $4.7 (cum. $17.6)
09 THE JUDGE $4.3 (cum. $34.3)
10 DRACULA UNTOLD $4.3 (cum. $48.3)
Anyway, ‘tis the season of awards, so let’s look at how contenders did this week: Gone Girl continued its marginal drop and will become Fincher’s best selling film in the next couple of days, surpassing the multiple Oscar-nominee Benjamin Button. Alejandro Innaritu’s Birdman expanded from four screens to 50 and still maintained the weekend’s best per screen average. As I mentioned last week, I still have doubts about its wide potential, but the signs are definitely encouraging. Whiplash also expanded but has struggled to break the million dollar mark as of now. It strikes me as one of those films that we, in our relatively small cinephile blogosphere, have been talking about loudly for ages, but out there in the real world, I wonder how many people have heard about it at all. Finally, Citizenfour, as close to a shoe-in as we have in the documentary category at this point, opened to strong business on five screens. Expect to hear a lot more about it in the next couple of months.
As for myself, I’ve seen four films so far: Black Coal, Thin Ice; Maps to the Stars; Two Days, One Night; and Fury. I would rate them, respectively: A-, F, A-, B-. Now I’m off to see A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Force Majeure.
What have you watched this weekend?
Gone Girl, John Wick, Keanu Reeves, Ouija, box office
Reader Comments (18)
F for Maps?!?
Our local International Film Festival (Canberra) kicked off this weekend, and I binged. Of Oscar/awards note, I saw MAPS TO THE STARS and HUMAN CAPITAL (both earn a rating of 3.5 out of 5). Favourites were RUIN (a Venice winner from the most cutting edge Australian director around at the moment) and JAUJA (a bag of fantastic weirdness with Viggo Mortensen).
(Also saw IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE, WHY DON'T YOU GO PLAY IN HELL?, PARTICLE FEVER, THE SALT OF THE EARTH, SEPIDEH: REACHING FOR THE STARS, WE COME AS FRIENDS, AMAZONIA and THE FORT).
What Beau said - an F for Maps?! Not that I will see it for months...
I saw Snowpiercer, which was exceptional in almost every way. Very rarely has a DVD rental kept me on the edge of my seat the way that movie did. Truly horrifying at times, but also darkly funny and moving. Octavia Spencer has been on a roll with her film projects since winning the Oscar, good for her.
I saw The Elephant Man, to which my coworker responded, "Why would you do that? It's so depressing!"
"The Elephant Man" is probably David Lynche's best and most conventional movie... I saw "Fury" a bromantic World War II movie in which Brad Pitt kills Nazis again- this is not as much fun as "Inglorious Basterds".
Volver! I revisisted, as I do every year, Perdo Almodovar's classic film. I always find something new to appreciate with each viewing... and Penelope Cruz. What a performance, what a characterization! I think if I have to vote for whoever gave the best performance in that phenomenal lineup from 2006 Best Actress field, I would have to pick Cruz as my #1, then Streep for The Devil Wears Prada, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, and then Kate Winslet.
I saw the remake of Elsa & Fred with Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer. It's good, the actors share good chemistry but it's nothing compared to the original.
This weekend, I saw Citizenfour, which I liked more for the subject matter than for its style, and Force Majeure, which I loved for its sleek direction and design (though the story may wrap up a little too easily).
Also, in refreshing my memory about the film, I watched the trailer to Ida. WOW, it's amazing. Better than the film, I'd say, and that's saying something. The music is to die for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXhCaVqB0x0
I watched The Raid 2 at home and had a blast. It's what you'd get if Michael Mann, John Woo, Sergio Leone and Tsui Hark all got together and had the coolest (movie) baby in the world.
The only thing I made it out for at a theater was MOMA's presentation of the recently recovered and restored footage from Orson Welles' Too Much Johnson. It was am altogether incredible and inspiring program, and probably the best time I've had in a movie theater all year. Just the story of how the footage was found and restored was incredible, but then to actually see the footage - which even in rough, unfinished form is still pretty incredible - and hear the arcane production and location detail the preservation team was able to find - and to hear it all accompanied by a brilliant live piano score - was just movie heaven.
The Theory of Experience: an outstanding central performance by Eddie Redmayne in a two-decade-spanning, fairly conventional biopic (despite the two co-stars' claims to the contrary during the post-screening Q&A). Felicity Jones' solid but low-wattage performance and the writing make Jane Hawking a supporting role in her own story. What else? A waste of Emily Watson, a miscast (but adorable) Charlie Cox and a generic, ultimately annoying score. B-
The Theory of Everything, yikes.
I saw Birdman and this is a rare instance of a film living up to its hype. My favourite part of the film was its percussive score as I thought it meshed brilliantly with the material. Everyone has been talking about the central performances, the camerawork, the lighting, the meta aspects of the plot etc. etc. but I haven't heard too many people mention its score, which I'm sure will be nominated for an Oscar. This movie needs to be seen, and by as many people as possible.
Fury. And like Denny from a previous post, this film worked for me. I'm still thinking about it. Brad Pitt and Shia LeBeouf were standouts for me.
(Also, I "saw" Bryn Terfel strolling along in Boston. I stopped him to gush about his performance in Sweeney Todd. We then chatted about our mutual admiration for Emma Thompson, how I wished I could attend one of the London performances, and what he was doing in Boston (concerts with the BSO). A lovely and thrilling celebrity encounter. FTR--he was super gracious and taller and thinner in person. But, oh, that lovely Welsh voice...)
Beau & Suzanne - Unfortunately, yes. It was garbage and by a far margin Cronenberg's worst film.
Even the praise for Julianne baffles me. She's never been as shrill and unsubtle as this.
Anne Bancroft is so lovely in The Elephant Man. Very depressing film but brilliant.
I saw Birdman. I agree with a previous comment that it lives up to its own hype. This is actually the first Inarritu film I've seen. His others always seemed to grim and brutal for my tastes (although I'd still like to get around to Amores Perros and 21 Grams and maaaaaybe Babel, the latter two just for the Oscar completist in me). Birdman seemed like he balanced his brutality (because it's still definitely there in this film) with loose, dark, zany comedy that makes it much more accessible. Keaton is great, Stone and Watts did as well as I would expect that to, and I loved seeing Norton send up his own dickish reputation. But the ones I keep coming back to are Riseborough (her introductory hallway conversation with Keaton was Jennifer Lawrence's crazy/insecure/horny/forceful/insightful character from American Hustle condensed down to 2 minutes and she nailed it, believably investing in each beat sewn into a coherent whole in such a short amount of time) and Ryan (so clean, simple and pure in an otherwise overwhelming movie).
This is actually a great, heightened, fantastical counterpoint to Whiplash in that it asks much of the same questions: how far do you go for art? What's the line between creative genius and selfish asshole? How do you balance artistic discipline with personal relationships? And both explored these questions in interesting, haunting ways that are sticking with me long after the credits rolled.
Amir...sorry, but I liked Maps to the Stars, and actually preferred it to Cosmopolis.
Also, Whiplash seems to be rolling out really slowly; it was only on 46 screens this weekend. While you got it in Toronto last Friday, it won't hit Montréal until 28 November.
I only saw two movies this weekend. I went to Fury, and commented on it on the other post. The other was a French film entitled "L'Homme qu'on aimait trop" (with a really insipid English title of "French Riviera," in case it shows up in the States someday). It's one of these "based on a true story" tales of a woman who disappeared on the Riviera in 1977. Her mother (a former casino operator forced out of business by the Italian mafia) thinks that the daughter's boyfriend (a lawyer of perhaps lax virtues, who also used to be the mother's lawyer) did it, and gets him put on trial 30 years later. I went mainly because of two of the leading actors...Catherine Deneuve as the mother and Guillaume Canet as the lawyer. They were OK, but not great, and the film was also glacially paced. Not that great, overall.
I saw "Birdman" and it's exhilarating, and like other Inarritu films it can be a bit exhausting. But this is definitely his most entertaining and funniest work. Edward Norton is a hoot and since I have a bit of a crush on him, it was great to see him showing so much skin. I hope he gets in for supporting actor. Andrea Riseborough also makes quite an impression in a couple of her scenes. How swiftly she turns in that first scene in the hallway!