Box Office: Cowboys, Smurfs, Soldiers, Aliens, Beginners

Confession: I loved The Smurfs when I was young though I knew that they drew scorn from many corners. I would sing "la la laLALALA la la la la la" loudly whenever I wanted to annoy my older brother. That said, the movie looked a-tro-cious so I felt roughly zero in the way of nostalgic pull. I don't know how you cast talents as comedically strong as Hank Azaria and Neil Patrick Harris and then rely on fart jokes but apparently they did since "Who smurfed?" is supposed to be a joke therein. I was discussing this on Twitter last night with strangers lamenting that their kids liked it and Miyazaki would have to wait. I just returned from a vacation week with close friends and their children (including my goddaughter) and I'm happy to report that Miyazaki is well loved by the tween / early teen set. So there's hope for all disheartened parents of toddlers out there! Some of your children will grow out of their bad taste. Some of them won't and will grow up to rush to movies like Zookeeper wtih Kevin James on opening weekend. It's not the end of the world. It only feels like it to the devoted cinephile.

Weekend Showdown. Cowboys vs. Tiny Blue Aliens

box office top ten
01 COWBOYS AND ALIENS new $36.4
02 THE SMURFS new $35.6
03 CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER [review] $25.5 (cumulative $117.4)
04 HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART TWO [review] $21.9 (cum $318.5)
05 CRAZY STUPID LOVE [your take] new $19.1
06 FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS $9.2 (cum $38.1)
07 HORRIBLE BOSSES $7.1 (cum $96.2)
08 TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON $6 (cum $338)
09 ZOOKEEPER $4.3 (cum $68.8)
10 CARS 2  $2.3 (cum $182.1)

Items of Note: HP 7.2 passed the difficult $300 million barrier domestically and the even rarer billion mark globally placing it at the #2 position for 2011 just behind #1s Transformers 3 (domestic) and Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (global). Given that "It All Ends!" has only been in release for two weeks, it'll easy defeat both of those films any day now. In ten days Captain America has earned about $116 here in its home country which means its already falling behind Thor despite a similar opening weekend draw. Thor was an even bigger hit across the Atlantic which doesn't seem likely for Cappy due to his homeland hero specificity. Cars 2 is running out of fuel, and may become the first Pixar release since A Bug's Life to fall short of $200 million domestically. Ah well, they'll always have their merchandising bonanza. Wasn't that the whole point of the sorry film to begin with?

poll by twiigs.com

other films we thought we'd check in on...
18 SARAH'S KEY $.3 (cum. $.5)
20 THE TREE OF LIFE [overheard / thoughts] $.3 (cum. $11.6)
25 BEGINNERS [review]  $.2 (cum. $5)
39 THE DEVIL'S DOUBLE new $.09
53 THE FUTURE new $.02 

Sarah's Key a Holocaust drama starring TFE favorite Kristin Scott Thomas has been surprisingly robust with ticket sales thus far at only 33 theaters. Should we have been considering this one long ago?

I included The Devil's Double and The Future because I missed critics screenings but I'm totally curious about both (would love to hear your thoughts if you've seen them). Plus, we hadn't checked in on the lower ranks of the charts in some time. Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, keeps puttering along in arthouses (widest release peaked at 237 theaters) and it might even eventually gross as much as the first two days of Zookeeper (!) which, as one friend soberly notes, '...is why we can't have nice things.'

'Sarah's Key' and 'Beginners' are arthouse hits

Beginners has been a small and sturdy arthouse attraction itself, roughly akin to Winter's Bone at this point in its life (2 months) in terms of both gross and theater count. But can a 5 million grosser summon up enough energy to grow legs and stride through the often brutal precursor awards season without, one presumes, a lead performance and director with similar awards hopeful traction? Do you think Christopher Plummer has a good shot still or did the film need to catch on with more fervor for what might be a lone supporting bid?

Review: Captain America The First Avenger

Exhausted by superpowered heroics yet? The summer has already brought us Norse gods (Thor review), dangerous mutants (X-Men review), and intergalactic policemen (Green Lantern review) and we still haven't reached the finish line. Here comes Captain America: The First Avenger, the last superhero to storm the box office beach. Summer's end goal: total world domination by the spandex nation. 

Cappy might be arriving a month too late for his own good, if he was hoping to be greeted by cheers and patriotic parades. The new would be blockbuster would've made a great fit for Fourth of July opening -- damn those giant robots! Given that the studios like to frontload the summer they didn't do this on purpose but I'm pleased to report that they saved the best hero for last. No, really. Cappy is just swell. 

And not just because of that spectacular literal swelling that you've already seen in the TV spots when Chris Evans emerges newly muscled from that sci-fi silly metal cocoon.

... read the rest at Towleroad

P.S. OSCAR POSSIBILITIES?
I didn't discuss this in the review but Oscar hopes for genre pictures are always based on the perceived merits of said pictures only after they're multiplied by box office success. If the film isn't a substantial hit, you can probably count only on Best Original Song, a fun pastiche "Star Spangled Man" by Oscar favorite Alan Menken, which I've included below for your listening pleasure, and some random technical nod. But if it is a hit AND they prefer it to Thor (which I'd bet they will given the World War II period angle IF it's a hit) you could see Make Up due to the Red Skull (that category though... anything goes... impossible to know from year to year what they're actually looking for), Visual Effects if they like Chris Evan's transformation and the shield action... and maybe Sound or even Costume Design. Anna B Sheppard is a true wizard with this time period -- though they weirdly ignored her for Inglourious Basterds -- and the evolution of the good Captain's look is well handled. Can't wait to see how they update this look for The Avengers next year. "Avengers Assemble" and so on. Carry on.

"Star Spangled Man"

Complete the Sentences

My favorite movie of the year so far is _____________________

Ugh. I just hate  ____________________

I can't wait to see  __________________ 

If I had Captain America's shield, I would ___________________ 

____________ will win the Oscar for ___________ in February but they really should've won for ____________.

Linkie the Pooh

Antagony & Ecstacy as part of his Blockbuster History series, goes the way of British Children's Literature (thanks Harry Potter) to discuss that great adaptation of Peter Pan in 2003. He has a fair point about Jeremy Sumpter's career since and I am alarmed to note that I didn't even realize it was the same actor when he had that one season key role on Friday Night Lights.
Scanners considers the Netflix pricing dilemma and the problem of aspect ratios. This makes me crazy too. Most television screens are wider now. Why does pan & scan still exist?
The Daily What shares my favorite new photo of a movie theater. I'll share it again.

I bring this up because at last night's Captain America: The First Avengers screening there was no air conditioning in a huge warehouse size movie theater here in Manhattan and it was, shall we say, sticky and smelly. If the reviews are terrible, blame the broken AC.

In Contention Captain America may find itself with a Best Original Song nomination. I'd be pleased. It sure was a fun ditty from Alan Menken and added to the film's period detail well.
Twitch Ubiquitous Oscar winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black gets another high profile gig with yet another Oscar winning director for Under the Banner of Heaven. I think it's official: DLB has the best agent in Hollywood. How many screenwriters have kept their moment in the sun despite being behind the scenes going for this long?
Salon Matt Zoller Seitz talks to his 9th grader daughter about his generation's defining franchise (Star Wars) and hers (Harry Potter). It's an interesting discussion though the conclusion worries me (visual superiority should never be considered "small consolation" in A MOVIE) and yet again reveals what damage George Lucas did to his intergalactic baby by screwing it up so badly in the Aughts. 
Super Punch omg. This 80s movie tee. I want. I want it hard. Someone buy it for me.
BoingBoing speaking of buying me things... like donations (see righthand sidebar) well, actually this has nothing to do with anything but what a fun concept. When this online store sells something, their Wario doll freaks out, with eyes lighting up and steam coming out his ears. Now I'm picturing all the actress dolls I should have and what they should do if i ever make any money...

Finally, MaryAnn at the long-running Flick Filosopher reminds us of a deeply entrenched problem in our popular culture this this simple graphic...

... and it's accompanying article. It'd be an easier argument to ignore if we didn't see it so often. Think of Pixar only now getting a female lead after 25 years in the animation biz.

I haven't seen the new Winnie the Pooh yet but I loved the character and his whole world as a child. Will I still? Have any of you seen it?

Deja Vu: Oscar On Franchise Tides Pt. 2

Though I was about to pronounce 2011 unusually sequel-infested, it might not be much different than any other year. Perhaps it's just the Animated Feature category that has made it feel that way with so many high profile continuations. The difference might just be in how much it seems to be confusing the Oscar Prediction Process. Generally speaking in The Academy's 83 year history, they haven't been much for remakes and sequels and long running series. But times they are a-changing and have been since oh... Star Wars? You can't really stay totally immune to the repetitive charms of franchises if 65% of the movies released are series of some sort, as if the cinema were just one giant television and we all eagerly awaited the next episode of Fill in the Blank: The Further Adventures of That Pt.3.

Franchises have been part of Hollywood forever. From left to right: The Thin Man (7 films), James Bond (22+ films), Tarzan (80+ films), The Pink Panther (11 films), Star Wars (6 films), Batman (6+ features), Aliens (4+ features), The Godfather (3 films). But they haven't always been Oscar magnets

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas shook Hollywood up in the 70s, not just by creating "summer movie season" as we know it but also by opening the floodgates to repetitive Oscar charms. Previous long running franchises like Tarzan or James Bond hadn't managed much in the way of Oscar attention, perhaps viewed more as popcorn entertainments than quality filmmaking. The six-film Star Wars saga amassed 22 nominations and 10 statues, the four-film Indiana Jones adventures amassed 13 nominations and 7 statues. The most obvious ancestor and ultimate champion of this new form of long-form Oscar pull was The Lord of the Rings; over just three films it managed 30 nominations and 17 statues which was even more than The Godfather trilogy (29 nominations and 9 statues)

Two of the world's most popular franchises return this year. What will Oscar do with the Boy Wizard and Captain Jack this time around?

Jack Sparrow (3 films | 11 nominations | 1 win)

• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
  5 nominations (Actor, Makeup, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects) 
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
  4 nominations (Art Direction, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects*)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
  2 nominations (Makeup, Visual Effects)

The Academy has been quite generous with this series though they snubbed its quite awesome first film costumes by the strangely never nominated Penny Rose. But will they tire of it now that it seems like the series will never leave us? Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides can probably count on a Visual Effects nod since the series has never faltered there but maybe it'll pick up Sound Editing and Makeup too if they're not shouting "Enough already!!!" in unison.

Harry Potter (7 films | 9 nominations | 0 wins)

• Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone (2001)
  3 nominations (Art Direction, Original Score, Costume Design)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
  N/A
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
  2 nominations (Original Score, Visual Effects)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
  1 nomination (Art Direction)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix(2007)
  N/A
• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009)
  1 nomination (Cinematography)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 (2010)
  2 nominations (Art Direction, Visual Effects)

As you can see from the list, there's not much statistical basis to support the wishful thinking (in some quarters) that AMPAS is itching to reward the entire series this year as it finally closes in its eleventh year of hogging the world's money with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2.  The series best bet for a first (!) statue is obviously an Art Direction career-win for Stuart Craig who has done marvelous work on the series. Here's how much they love his work on the series: they even nominated him last year the year in which he arguably did the least. The most perplexing nomination in the series history in terms of 'why then and what does it mean?' would have to be the cinematography nomination for Half Blood Prince. A cinematography get is a big deal and that one does make you wonder how many sixth place finishes, just outside of nomination range, Potter has managed over the years. If the answer is MANY then we might see them rewarding the franchise with a series best showing.

We can probably save the discussion of the third Transformers films and the tech situation with all those superhero films for a later time though let it suffice to say for now that the credits for Thor and particularly Captain America: The First Avenger are stacked with former Oscar players in categories like Original Score, Art Direction, Costume Design, Makeup and Film Editing. Who knew? Marvel ain't playin' around.

VISUAL CATEGORY First Oscar Predictions of Year new
AURAL CATEGORY First Oscar Predictions of Year new
Previously: Animated Feature | Actor | Supporting Actor | Screenplay