Box Office: The Secret Grudge of 47 Wolves

Amir here, with the weekend’s box office report.

For those of us who write/read/talk/think about films year around, it’s hard to remember that the general public still goes to the theatre in late December for films that have no awards potential whatsoever. I had no idea that Keanu Reeves has a film called 47 Ronin opening, in which the well-known Japanese legend is butchered so that the Lebanese-born Canadian star of Portuguese, Irish and Hawaiian ancestry can play a half-Japanese, half-British person that never existed in the real life legend. Let’s all revel in a bit of Schadenfreude that this film failed to recoup even 1/10th of its budget. And while we’re at it, let’s do the same for Grudge Match, otherwise Sylvester Stallone will never learn that boxing films starring himself are of no interest to anyone anymore, except maybe Robert DeNiro and his wallet. This one will probably peter out somewhere slightly above half its budget, too.

TOP OF THE BOX OFFICE
01 The Hobbit 2 $29.8 (cum. $190.3)
02 Frozen $28.8 (cum. $248.3) Review | Jonathan Groff
03 Anchorman 2 $20.1 (cum. $83.6) 
04 American Hustle $19.5 (cum. $60) Ensemble | Podcast
05 NEW Wolf of Wall Street $27 (cum. $34.3) Review | Scorsese's Women
06 Saving Mr Banks $14 (cum. $37.8) Drinks w/ Emma & Colin
07 NEW  Secret Life of Walter Mitty $13 (cum. $25.5) Capsule
08 Hunger Games Pt 2 $10.2 (cum. $391.1) Review | Podcast
09 NEW 47 Ronin $9.8 *new* (cum. $20.5)
10 Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas $7.4 (cum. $43.7)   
11 NEW  Grudge Match  $7.3 (cum. $13.4) 

Weirdly enough, it’s not Grudge Match that’s bringing memories of the glorious Raging Bull to life, but The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese’s latest film and his most controversial since The Last Temptation of Christ. Depending on whom you ask, this is either an absolute masterpiece or a bloated mess, but Paramount couldn’t care less. They’ve sold about $34m over the 5 day opening, which is better than most people expected for a nearly-NC17 film about America’s least likeable monsters. Wolf was able to crack the top 5 films of the weekend, which is more than can be said about The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, though the latter has the advantage of being an easier sell overseas. The Hobbit stayed at the very top of the table, but Frozen is the film with really impressive figures. It made the best of the family holidays and despite losing theatres, bettered its own gross from last week by 50%. I wouldn’t be surprised if it slashes Smaug next weekend.

Among the smaller releases, August: Osage County and The Lone Survivor have the highest profiles. The former’s per screen average isn’t particularly promising, but the film was never going to have the appeal of highbrow auteur fair that usually results in massive numbers for the NY/LA crowd.

PLATFORM BOX OFFICE (under 100 screens)
01 Her $.6 (cum. $1.5)
02 NEW August: Osage County $.1 
03 Lone Survivor $.09 (cum. $.1) 
04 The Great Beauty $.07 (cum. $.7) 
05 All is Lost $.06 (cum. $5.9) 

But neither film is particularly concerned with sales at this point. These are only qualifying for Oscars. The business end of the story will unravel later in January.

I took a break from cinema this weekend, after a 4 day stretch in which I caught up with 12 films to close the book on 2013. They ranged from real gems like The Missing Picture to literally unbearable films like The Great Beauty.

What did you watch?

Great Moments in Gayness: Their Own Private Campfire

Team Experience is celebrating Gay Pride with their favorite moments in gay cinema... Here's Craig (of 'Take Three' fame) on a certain seminal early 90s trip... Happy Gay Pride Weekend Everyone!

The open road and the “messed-up” faces along the way are what haunt lost hustler Mike (River Phoenix) most in My Own Private Idaho. In Gus Van Sant’s seminal 1991 gay road movie Mike trips through narcoleptic encounters with both male and female clients, Wizard of Oz-style barns crashing to the ground, talking porno mag covers, tableaux vivants sex scenes and Shakespeare’s Henry IV. His is an eventful, hardscrabble life filled with grit and longing. Each scene arouses memorable moments that every Idaho fan — gay, bi, straight or whatever it takes to have a nice day — surely still carries with them.

The most hopelessly romantic moment in the film and one of its best scenes is Mike’s campfire stopover. Somewhere out there on the prairie, in their very own private corner of Idaho, Mike and his ‘prince’ Scott (Keanu Reeves) make a fire and hunker down for the night. The prairie is dark and the fire’s embers glow like Mike’s unrequited feelings. He wants to set his spurs a-jinglin’, so ventures a question

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How long has it been since you've seen The Matrix?

Last weekend I decided it was time to burn through the DVD queue instead of sitting wordless at my computer. But when I opened the latest rental, The Good Fairy (1935) -- no, I can't remember why I rented it -- the disc was broken. We ended up watching The Matrix (1999) instead because when a black and white Willam Wyler / Preston Sturges comedy starring Margaret Sullavan is denied you, what other movie will do? LOL. 

Warner Bros had sent the BluRay and The Boyfriend remarked that we hadn't seen it since opening night in 1999. It seems like one of those movies we've all seen a million times but in my case that's only because it became such a pop culture staple. Not even its gobsmackingly terrible sequels could shake its grip on the zeitgeist.

The Matrix's modern blend of Alice in Wonderland, gun fetish porn, visual effects bravado, and technophobic dystopia was just what people craved in 1999 when the internet was so obviously and rapidly changing the world. It's tough to even think of a world without the web now but in the early 90s it was still something like a strange and unusual toy... unnerving even if you were hopelessly analog. Watching the movie now in 2012 is kind of a retro shock.

Six observations while watching the movie in 2012...

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"The Age of Scorsese" Photos

Editorial photoshoots that recreate old movies are always good for both smiles and grimaces. The latest in this long chain of stars playing other stars (a motif we've discussed before) involves the films of Martin Scorsese in Harper's Bazaar "The Age of Scorsese" photographed by Jason Schmidt. 

I was thrilled to see two underappreciated actors (and real life marrieds) Alessandro Nivola & Emily Mortimer in The Aviator parts that brought Leo & Cate Oscar attention. For what it's worth, Mortimer has a sweet small role in Scorsese's Hugo (see previous post) as a flower shop girl to follow her sick small role in Shutter Island.

As you'd rightly expect they're adorable while discussing the shoot in the accompanying videos.

Emily: We were worried about not having chemistry in our shot. It's a still frozen in time from a movie so it's a different thing trying to... and also our faces at those angles don't necessearily look as good as Cate Blanchett and...
Allesandro: Speak for yourself.
Emily: Well, you're much more handsome than Leonardo DiCaprio. Obviously.  

Love.

Meanwhile, can we please declare a moratorium on using Jodie Foster's Taxi Driver underage hooker as a iconic look for child stars? It's like a rite of passage for them but you'd think people would get tired of tarting them up by now! So here's Chloe Moretz as. Keanu Reeves gets the DeNiro role. 

There's a few more over at Harper's Bazaar involving Goodfellas,  Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (Emily Blunt) and Gangs of New York (Christina Hendricks and Jack Huston... Christina is a definite improvement over the original but, then, it's kind of Cameron Diaz's worst performance.) 

Finally, Kate Bosworth attempts to channel La Pfeiffer (the guy playing DDL is uncredited) from The Age of Innocence.

Anyone pretending to be Michelle Pfeiffer is going to be a problem for me but ..Bosworth? Hmmm. To her credit in the video that accompanies the article, Kate echoes Elizabeth Olsen's recent confession calling LaPfeiffer "one of my favorite actresses of all time" so I guess we'll forgive her for treading on hallowed frizzy-haired ground.

20th Anniversary: POINT BREAK (1991)

By the time Point Break emerged in the summer of 1991 I was already a fan of Kathryn Bigelow having obsessed over Near Dark (1987) on VHS in, I think, 1990? I was not disappointed since Point Break has at least a couple of sequences in it that made good on Near Dark's terrifying bar massacre for the sheer "finger lickin' good" adrenaline that pumps through them. When I think of great action direction the foot chase sequence in Point Break always comes to mind if I don't get stuck in James Cameron oeuvre. With the recent rebirth of both Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and Cameron (Avatar) perhaps there is hope for action cinema still?

Online searches for Point Break screencaps reveal yet again the dearth of movie images online from the early 90s (just before the internet took over, natch) so we can't marvel at Kathryn Bigelow's generous attention to Keanu Reeve's wetsuit ass or the way his wet bangs cling so perfectly to his forehead in slow motion as if entire action sequences were shot as frame-by-frame meticulously as any frozen fashion shoot meant to be blown up on billboards everywhere.

I asked Team Film Experience to share their most vivid memories of the one arguable classic in the pretty-FBI-agent-meets-new-age-bankrobbing-surfer-guru genre. Shut up! It is so a genre.

Kurt (Cinema de Gym): Collectively, my most vivid memory of Point Break is definitely the skydiving scenes. In my teens, I went through a phase where I was totally obsessed with extreme sports and extreme sports movies, perhaps because extreme sports don't exactly require the same hand-to-eye coordination of regular sports, which I extremely lacked. Point Break was one of my big, masculine extreme sports movies, along with Airborne and Drop Zone, the Wesley Snipes skydiving movie. I totally had it my head that I would skydive as soon as humanly possible, especially since my dad had done it back in the day. My thoughts have since...changed. Now I can't imagine just jumping out of an airplane. Maybe if I magically ended up in Point Break 2...

Editor's Note: If we get 150 new subscribers today (see sidebar for TFE's budget to 'dream a little bigger darling') Nathaniel will personally foot the bill to convince Kurt to skydive and share the video for your viewing pleasure. Kurt is very handsome so wouldn't you love to see him terrified and screaming in the clouds as he plummets to possible death?!? If we reach 300 paid subscribers this week (the goal) Nathaniel, whose father has also sky-dived and who is also terrified at the thought of leaping from a plane, will do it with him. Editor's Note Pt 2: The Film Experience accepts no responsibility if anyone dies while trying this.

Craig (Take Three): What I remember most is Kathryn Bigelow showing 99% of her action-filmmaker peers of the time exactly how action cinema is done 100% of the time. 

Michael (Unsung Heroes): All my strongest memories of Point Break involve Nick Frost's anguished Keanu interpretation in the movie Hot Fuzz, so methinks I may be due for a refresher viewing of Bigelow's surf/heist opus.

JA from My New Plaid Pants: I've been meaning to revisit it but I was never a big Point Break fan as a kid. Even back then surfer talk set my nerves on edge. But the first thing I think of is that post-coitus shot of Keanu and Lori Petty in bed where she's about a hundred thousand percent butcher than he is. He looked like a pretty porcelain doll and she was this motorcycle mama that was just gonna pick him up and smash him on the floor.

Ha! I love that image, too. Whatever happened to Lori Petty? Ah well. At least she'll always have the early 90s see also: A League of Their Own and Tank Girl.

P.S. Team TFE is looking for a couple of new members to gear up for Oscar season. If you consider yourself a fine writer who is able to get interesting fun points across in short bloggy doses (no current blog is necessary if you have samples), understand TFE's voice (i.e. you "get" and enjoy the site) and live in a major market (and can thus get to screenings or festivals), contact Nathaniel at film experience (at) gmail (dot) com.