Box Office Bounty For Thanksgiving

Buoyed by Twilight & 007 fanaticism, an abundance of newish Oscar contenders, and even a dusty remake for the crowd that doesn't care about Twilight or the Oscars or, you know, quality, there was something for everyone this Thanksgiving weekend! Moviegoers came out in droves for the biggest Thanksgiving at the movies ever.

So it's an extra long box office list today.

Box Office Top Twenty - Actuals
01 THE TWILIGHT SAGA FINALLY ENDS $43.6 (cum $227.3)
02 SKYFALL  $35.5 (cum. $221.1) Review & Deborah's Review
03 LINCOLN  $25.6 (cum. $62.8) Podcast Discussion
04 RISE OF THE GUARDIANS  $23.7 *NEW* (cum $32.3) Capsule Review
05 THE LIFE OF PI $22.4 *NEW* (cum. $30.5)
06 WRECK-IT RALPH  $16.5  (cum. $149.2)
07 RED DAWN $14.2 *NEW*  (cum. $21.6)
08 FLIGHT $8.4 (cum $74.7) Review
09 SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK $4.3  (cum $6.2) Beau's Review
10 ARGO $3.8 (cum $98)

11 TAKEN 2  $.9 (cum. $136.4)
12 ANNA KARENINA  $.8 (cum. $1.5) Capsule Review
13 PITCH PERFECT  $.7 (cum. $62.5) Capsule Review
14 THE SESSIONS $.7  (cum $3.9) Review
15 JAB TAK HAI JAAN  $.5  (cum. $3)
16 HERE COMES THE BOOM $.5 (cum. $42)
17 CLOUD ATLAS $.4 (cum $25.7)
18 THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER $.3  (cum $16.3) Capsule Review
19 HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA $.3 (cum $143.5)
20 LOOPER $.3  (cum. $65.5) Review

So many decisions this Thanksgiving. Alexei or Vronsky? Pumpkin or Pecan?

What did you see this weekend? If it's Here Comes The Boom, Red Dawn or Taken 2 eight weeks into its run please spend some time in the corner thinking about your life choices. If it was Hitchcock (just outside this list) my review is here but really I have to confess that I'm so deeply ashamed of it because JA wrote the most brilliant possible review anyone could have ever written about it. For real - read it! 

Review: "Hitchcock"

This review was originally published in my column at Towleroad

The first thing HITCHCOCK gets right about Hitchcock is the humor. Director Sacha Gervasi's serio-comic adaptation of the book "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho" starts with a playful dodge, beginning not with a shot of that infamous house on the hill or the Bates Motel or even a Hollywood soundstage but in the rather humble yard of a Wisconsin farm. It's home to Ed Gein, the gruesome 1950s killer who inspired Psycho. The camera pans away from Gein's (fictional) murder to reveal the iconic plump suited figure of The Master of Suspense cooly observing him (Sir Anthony Hopkins in Sir Alfred Hitchcock drag).

Hopkins addresses the camera directly as if he's welcoming you to a very special edition of television's "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" or recording a promo for his latest cinematic thrill ride. He'll break the fourth wall again to bookend this film with an even better visual joke that's absurdly hokey.

More...

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The Link is Not Enough

Thompson on Hollywood 5 things you won't learn about the making of Psycho from Hitchcock
Animation Mag GKids, that indie distributor who is bringing us great foreign animated Oscar contenders has even better news for 2013: A 25th anniversary rerelease of Grave of the Fireflies. You MUST see this movie.
I Need My Fix the motion poster for Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Fancy.
Variety ohmygod Pedro Almodovar wants to make a sci-fi movie. I'm living for this. Please do. 

The Playlist seems as if Sam Mendes might do another Bond picture post Skyfall
NY Post on exciting BluRay news for Gypsy, and many other classics
Anna Kendrick proves to her fans that she's tweeting 
Pajiba is very unhappy with Barbara Walters '10 Most Fascinating People' list. Particularly with the selection of our new Oscar host and this memorable bit on EL James of "Fifty Shades of Grey" fame:

I am sick of the way that criticism about this book has somehow morphed into derisively calling it mommy porn... My problem is the same problem I have with Twilight: the national obsession with terrible fucking writing interspersed with a cursory at best and hungrily timid notion of sex.

BadAss Digest the Marvel Studios "Phase One" box set has new features. I read through them and there's no full length documentary of Chris Evans training shirtless to get Captain America's body so there's no way I'm paying $220!
NY Post Watchmen -- you haven't heard that title in awhile, have you -- is getting a collector's edition with a super long cut and more Dr. Manhattan nudity. Too bad the movie is so stiff.
Vanity Fair Amanda Seyfried in couture... and on her relationship with Hugh Jackman in Les Miz and Dominic Cooper's eight-pack. No really.

 Off Cinema
Huffington Post Fiona Apple cancels the South American leg of her tour due to her dying dog. This is so incredibly sad and Fiona Apple is so awesome. Fact.
Gawker Anderson Cooper gets catty with a obnoxious twitter follower 

Happy Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching and big Oscar contenders are celebrating with connections both very real and carved (haha) out of thin air. Here's a Happy Thanksgiving from Dreamworks Lincoln 

...and one from Fox Searchlight's Hitchcock which you can e-mail to friends and family here.

I'm really disappointed that in this day and age of abundant web animations -- I mean even I can make little animated gifs of my drawings! -- this card didn't have movement. Hitch actually stabbing the turkey would have been sickening.

Monty Is All In For "Hitchcock"

Monty, the web's original feline Oscar pundit, has been known to ruthlessly ignore Oscar contenders, yawn in their general direction or use them as sedatives. But -- BREAKING!!! -- he has taken an immediate unmistakable liking to Hitchcock.

Swag or screeners have arrived recently for Rise of the Guardians (completely ignored but for the box it came in) Amour (ignored) and various indie contenders (ignored x 3). The second Hitchcock's silver cannister was opened he literally came running.

He circled the container. He smelled everything. He wanted to snuggle with the t-shirt. He was all about Hitchcock. (But then, he is also prone to hang outside shower curtains all silhouetted and staring and it's not hard to imagine Bernard Hermann's ♩ reeeee ♩reeeee ♩reeeeee  accompanying every claw swipe when he gets feisty.)

Will Oscar voters feel as instantaneously curious about and attached to the movie? I'm thinking yes.... at least with the former but can Fox Searchlight turn the curiousity into attachment? (I recently heard from an acting branch member who is totally in for Helen, Anthony and the movie on their ballot.) Will Monty prove prescient again? What's your guess?