Global Box Office: Monks, Assassins, Maids & Trophy Wives

To speak in gross generalities the last weekend in August is Hollywood's last chance to nab easy-to-please summertime dollars before the films get more "depressing" (read: statue-hungry) and people get back to careerism/schooling in September. But with Hurricane Irene shutting down NYC's unshutdownable mass transit and keeping people locked up in their homes (or other people's homes) this weekend all over the Northeast the box office will probably be way down. The Help will try to fend off three wide release newcomers seeking different audiences be that the horror crowd (Don't Be Afraid of the Dark),  the action-hungry (Colombiana), or comedy seekers (Our Idiot Brother reviewed). We probably won't be discussing box office tomorrow -- especially if we get a power outtage tonight! -- so let's talk about a related topic today.

Let's talk about movies that box office reports elsewhere never talk about: non-English language movies. Which are the highest grossers worldwide? The figures are drawn from various box office mojo charts as of Friday 08/26. I'm assuming that India doesn't release figures since Bollywood is a huge industry and you'd think they'd factor into the first chart more than they do if they did.

UPDATE: After compiling the list I discovered through the comments -- thanks Kin -- that the "Yearly Worldwide" chart that was my primary source of information contradicts the "Overseas Total Yearly Box Office" chart to quite an insanely large degree (what gives box office mojo?). Some titles are totally absent from either list though that makes no literal sense as "overseas" by any definition is part of "worldwide". NEW UPDATED LIST AND APOLOGIES AFTER THE JUMP.

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I Love Paris in the Fall.

Jose here. Words can not describe how much I loved Midnight in Paris (and I mean it -- after having seen it three times in six days, I still haven't finished my review!) and today you lucky people in North America can have the privilege of watching it on the big screen again!

As part of what might be the year's kickstart to Oscar campaign season, the film is being re-released in the United States in order to take advantage of the word of mouth that has made the film perhaps the most beloved movie so far this year. It's also Woody Allen's biggest moneymaker and I kid you not, I've yet to attend a screening of it that isn't completely packed. People down here even applaud and cheer when the film ends! 

In order to celebrate its re-release and to urge you to go see it in a movie theater (Blu-ray will not make justice to the warmth and magic that it exudes on the big screen) I'll go ahead and share what might be my favorite thing about it.

I don't know where Corey Stoll came from and what he did before, but he's perfect as a young, fiery Ernest Hemingway in the movie. He might give the film's most underrated performance but my favorite thing isn't how he possesses the exuberant allure of the iconic writer, but how every single actor in the film take Woody's words and make them their own.

No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure. 

Like his actors, Allen too makes famous literary voices his own, the way in which he crafts words that sound both familiar and strangely "normal" and feeds them to his characters is altogether more surprising because instead of feeling like a total intellectual snobbery fest, the film is charming ebcause of its desire to share with us and invite us to become more familiar with these artists.
Midnight in Paris might have the Woodsman's most enchanting writing since the 80s and like The Purple Rose of Cairo and Manhattan before it, manages to turn the ordinary into pure poetic joy. 

Anyway, before my love for it gets too out of control, I ask you: what was your favorite thing about Midnight in Paris?

Our Idiot Brother

If Willie Nelson had ever done a cover of "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" a simple name change to "Ned" would provide the perfect theme song for Our Idiot Brother. Like Maria, who just wasn't an asset to that abbey, sweet stoner Ned (Paul Rudd) has good intentions but is always in trouble; he's a headache, a flibbertijibbet, a clown. At the beginning of Our Idiot Brother we learn that Ned is both gentle enough and dumb enough to take pity on a sad uniformed cop and sell him some weed. See Ned go to prison.

Ned is lamb enough to not put up a fight when his lion-maned hippie girlfriend Janet (Kathryn Hahn) boots him off of their farm. His short prison stint was time enough for her to replace him with another manchild boyfriend (their similarity pays off in a fun sideways ways later on). Ned can deal with being homeless and jobless but is heartbroken about losing custody of his beloved dog "Willie Nelson". When he returns to his family in New York and begins couch-hopping, his only goal in life is to earn enough money to get Willie Nelson back.

...read the rest at Towleroad.

P.S. I hope I didn't give off the impression that I didn't enjoy but that I only wanted to enjoy it more fully.

P.P.S. If you're in a more serious mood this weekend, check out Vera Farmiga's Higher Ground for some strong actressing. More on that one this weekend.

Cinema de Gym: 'While You Were Sleeping'

Kurt here. This week saw the rare screening of a romantic comedy at the gym. The film was While You Were Sleeping, Sandra Bullock's first effort following her bomb-on-a-bus breakthrough. An extremely nice movie with minimal ambitions, its key function was to introduce the world to Bullock: Girl Next Door, soon to be Bullock: Queen of Ubiquity. Seen retrospectively, it's a major career indicator. Even the first 20 minutes – which are the minutes I saw – are teeming with the Bullockisms that Americans have been gorging themselves on since the film's 1995 release. Bullock is Lucy, a ticket booth operator at a Chicago train station who has many of the traits we've come to know so well: unlucky-in-love aura, frumpiness that barely hides her beauty (unkempt hair, choppy bangs, oversized sweaters), unladylike behavior (she dips her Oreos in her cat's milk), peripheral support system of surrogate family members, and an everyday earnestness so complete it seems exhausting. There's even a calories-be-damned mention of the local Chinese food guy, a la Two Weeks Notice.

I've never had the pleasure of an end-to-end While You Were Sleeping sit, but as I and most of you know, this is a Big Secret movie hinged on a well-intended lie that will surely come out in the wash at the close of the second act. Lucy is nuts about Peter (Peter Gallagher), the dapper businessman who visits her window each day but barely knows she exists. When he's mugged and tossed onto the tracks, Lucy saves the day and rushes his comatose behind to the hospital, only to have her out-loud thoughts of marriage get her mistaken for his fiancée (or, as the fib-spreading nurse memorably repeated in the TV spots, his "FEEE-ahn-say"). In a charming bit of farcically contrived, old fashioned group hysteria, Peter's family fawns over Lucy after funneling into the hospital room, wholly believing and embracing the made-up engagement news as a desperate means to relieve some alluded-to family drama. As is typical, Lucy is too overwhelmed – and far too kindhearted – to wreck the mood and spill the truth.

A joy of the earlier scenes is seeing the many older actors who play Peter's relatives, at least a couple of whom are no longer with us. The late, great Peter Boyle is Peter's father (Peters, Peters, everywhere); character actor Jack Warden, who passed in 2006, is Peter's godfather; and Glynis Johns, who's still going strong at 87, is Peter's grandmother. The latter, who was indeed the one and only Winifred Banks in Mary Poppins ("votes for women!"), is at the center of the earlier portions' best jokes. Suffering from a heart condition that's been troubling the fam, she's the key reason Lucy needs to keep up her act. "When my mom found out I wasn't getting married, her intestines exploded," says Lucy's co-worker and lunch partner (Jason Bernard). "If you back out now, you may as well shoot grandma." The biggest laugh comes when the relatives arrive at the hospital one morning to find that Lucy spent the night with her faux beau. Abruptly and inexplicably, the godfather, addressing Lucy, says of the grandmother, "You're like her – she can sleep anywhere. And believe me, she has."

Such a nasty little zinger sticks out like a scarlet letter in this squeaky-clean star vehicle. Most of the time, we're awash in Lucy's goodness, and asked to nibble our nails as that goodness pulls her deeper into uncharacteristic dishonesty. Of course, what ends up happening is Lucy falls for Peter's brother, Jack (Bill Pullman), while Peter's conked out, but I didn't make it that far. What I did see was a sweet bedside confessional that Lucy offers to Peter, a gooey romcom monologue that really showcases Bullock's then-blossoming powers. With an almost impossible cuteness, she exudes mainstream-friendly desperation and self deprecation, which somehow seems both put-on and very true at the same time. You can see the career of a lovable superstar taking shape in that moment. It's no wonder Lucy's earnestness became a career staple. Bullock's so good at it, she does it too well.

Conclusions?

1. For a while, it seemed Bullock was destined to star alongside vehicles: Bus (Speed), Train (While You Were Sleeping), Boat (Speed 2). It's totally a metaphor for her meteoric rise. Faster than a speeding Bullock!
2. During that same time, it also seemed she was destined to share the screen with Jacks: Keanu Reeves in Speed (Jack), Jeremy Northam in The Net (Jack), Bill Pullman in While You Were Sleeping (Jack).
3. Revisiting a film from the early days of a star's career can reflect a lot in terms of how said star's career panned out.
4. If you really want to make it as a leading lady in Hollywood, it might not be a bad idea to act opposite Sister Suffragette.

Do you like early Bullock? Or will you never get over that Oscar win?

"Wonder Twin Powers Activate"

File under: The greatest thing any Twilight cast members have ever done for us.

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That's Peter Facinelli & Nikki Reed as the infamous Wonder Twins. Though Facinelli was saddled with a total boresville part in Twilight, he was fun on Nurse Jackie and seems to have a good sense of humor in general. Remember that time he present costume design guild awards in just his underwear?

Now on to more pressing questions. Once their College Humor short emerges (which is what they're in costume for) what water-based shape is Facinelli going to take: whirlpool to drown in, icicle to suck on, bucket of water to dump with? And which animal form will Nikki change into? It's funny but I do always think of her as feral after thirteen (2003).