Year in Review: Box Office Bonanzas

YEAR IN REVIEW FESTIVITIES BEGIN NOW! 
Cue: confetti, trumpets, fainting women, ornery cinephiles, and orgasmic actressexuals™. This is Part One of Millions! Hundred$ of Million$

We'll start with the commerce and work our way to the art. So herewith the tops in various money categories for your mental ledgers.

Top Per-Screen Arthouse Opening
BLUE JASMINE $102,011 (6 Theaters)
Runner Up: INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS $101,353 (4 Theaters)
* Disclaimer both AMERICAN HUSTLE & FROZEN beat these numbers but those were fake-outs clearly on their way to wide mainstream moviehouses, rather than intended as platform specialty films.

Woody Allen's 'Streetcar meets Madoff Scandal' hit started even stronger than his biggest modern hit Midnight in Paris. It didn't end up making as much but then Blue Jasmine was a fair bit more depressing and riches to less riches is elemental to its DNA. Meanwhile the Coen Bros, like Woody Allen but with more regular crossover potential, can always bank on a hardcore fanbase to sell out those initial shows.

Katniss, McConaughey & McCarthy, Iron Men and Naked French Lesbians after the jump

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Happy Birthday, Leo! (And a Monologue)

Andrew here  to join the Wheeler clan in wishing Leonardo DiCaprio a happy birthday…

…although, he doesn’t seem especially delighted at the well-wishes.

Is that image from Revolutionary Road a dismal birthday scene or what, though? Sometimes I imagine if I had a bloggers' party to celebrate Leo's actorly talents the soiree would be just as dismally attended. Am I wrong?

As odd as it may sound, I often find myself feeling sorry for Leonardo DiCaprio. Sure he's got good-looks, money and the perceived love of millions of fans, yes, but of the actors in his demographic he always seems the least likely to be considered a good actor. If I were to say that he’s my favourite actor under forty, I always expect raised eyebrows in response, and they are generally forthcoming. DiCaprio is not the most diverse actor in his demographic, but I'm often suspicious of attaching quality necessarily to variation. He has specific gifts and even more specific flaws. Many actors are at their best when they exploit their gifts but considering my favourite performance of his for today's monologue, I find I like Leo best when he exploits his flaws.

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There is No Frontrunner For Best Actor

By and large pundits seem to have narrowed down the Best Actress category, sadly before all the films have even premiered, to about 6 or 7 women... but many of them won't be able to win for their roles (when you've already won it's more difficult to build a "more" case - this ain't the Emmys) so the fight for the actual statue will probably not be bloody at all. Here you go, Cate! The supporting categories (both male and female) are still hugely competitive as far as nominations go but again the winning could well be set in stone as soon as the nominations are facts rather than assumptions.

Will Oscar feel sentimental about Dern or Redford?

But Best Actor just can't be narrowed down. Not yet at least. [more...]

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Oscar Chatter: If It's Yours To Lose, You Can Still Lose

Each year as the first "wow" factor players emerge in the Oscar race, pundits (professional and amateur alike), jump all over themselves to declare "winners!" in each of the acting races several months in advance. I always want to pass on analgesic creams when this begins to happen but then I'm more patient than some Oscar fans and prefer the slow sexy fight for nominations to the wham bam foregone conclusions of Oscar night.  If you believe the internet Cate Blanchett has it locked up in Best Actress (on the strength of her work in Blue Jasmine) and Oprah Winfrey has it locked up in Supporting Actress (on the rush of excitement that's greeted Lee Daniels' The Butler and her against type work... if you can have a type when you rarely act.) The only trouble is that no one has seen their competition. And your competition is half the equation at least as to whether or not you'll win. (One example: Does Reese Witherspoon's Walk the Line win in a highly competitive year? I think not.)

Oscar loves a drunk. Can Cate & Oprah both win while boozing it up?

The male categories are less clear though we've already heard quite a few "Leonardo DiCaprio finally has it for The Wolf of Wall Street!" (on the strength of his meme-worthy dancing and lively charisma in the trailer) and some have floated Bruce Dern as your future Supporting Actor winner for Nebraska... though his campaign remains a question mark. Nebraska, we know, is one of those Two Lead/Same Gender films that Oscar's acting branch has forgotten how to parse. Nobody ever tried to suggest that Salieri or Amadeus were supporting each other or that the true lead of Thelma & Louise was Thelma OR Louise but they would if those films opened today because times have changed and fans and campaign managers got increasingly shameless. 

So will any of these four win? Quite possibly, sure. But they could also all lose. One or more of them might not even be nominated! We haven't seen most of the competitive sets and until the great winnowing of December begins when the precursor awards race in to borify the entire race... let's keep an open mind and enjoy the wide world of possibilities!

OSCAR CHART UPDATES
Best Actress - Will Amy give Cate B a run for her money with Meryl maybe dropping out?
Best Supporting Actress - Can Sally Hawkins and Octavia Spencer stay in the conversation as Oprah sucks up all the late summer oxygen?
Best Actor -It might come down to Leo vs. Matthew unless Old Hollywood rallies for career honors for Dern or Redford or someone else surprises. Oh god, please let there be surprises this year!
Best Supporting Actor - only the editors know... seriously... nothing has happened yet. (sigh)

more updates to follow on the remaining charts

Highest Paid Actors Don't Challenge Themselves

From Forbes list of money-hoarding actors, they've worked it out like so for the past 12 months of income... (in millions of course)

01 Robert Downey Jr $75
◅ 02 Channing Tatum $60
03 Hugh Jackman $55
04 Mark Wahlberg $52
05 Dwayne Johnson 'The Rock' $46
06 Leonardo DiCaprio $39
07 Adam Sandler $37
08 Tom Cruise $35
09 Denzel Washington $33
10 Liam Neeson $32 

I like their write-up of DiCaprio...

DiCaprio's films might not be very cheery (the actor often dies in the end) but they are super profitable. The 2013 adaptation of The Great Gatsby, from director Baz Luhrmann, seemed like a tough sell. But with DiCaprio at the helm, the film easily topped $250 million at the box office making it Luhrmann's most successful movie ever. DiCaprio's biggest hit is still the 1997 film Titanic which is the second-highest grossing film of all time. And yes, he dies in the end.

Two things immediately pop out at me about the list. First, that Channing Tatum has had a very good couple of years and it turns out it pays to make your pet project on the cheap and share in the profits (Hi, Magic Mike). Too many dream projects become costly albatrosses for filmmakers and stars. Second, only a few of these men are using their powers for good. Most of them rarely challenge themselves or support quality filmmakers and seem to live solely to service the box office dollar. This second and more debatable point makes me reconsider my annoyance with Leonardo DiCaprio. While it's true that I think his talent has been calcifying by too many similar choices in roles and performance, he very clearly is interested in doing quality work and hanging with A list auteurs. He's thinking about legacy rather thank his bank account so good for him. There's reason to hope and I happily admit that in the trailer he seems to be attacking that Wolf of Wall Street role with more vigor than usual. Perhaps I grossly underestimated in my first Best Actor predictions a couple of months ago?

Denzel and Viola in "Fences" which won them both Tony AwardsThe things some of these men could accomplish if they had a little of Clooney, Damon & Pitt's taste for quality and experimentation and for something bigger than just their own paycheck. Hugh Jackman, a terrific star and personal favorite of mine for example, doesn't step outside of the mutant mutton chops nearly as often as his talent and range suggests he should.

And, I mean, Denzel Washington alone could make Viola Davis's career into what it's supposed to be simply by pressuring Hollywood into making Fences right now. With great power comes great responsibility, Denzel! Didn't you watch Spider-Man? As we get further and further away from the massive success of The Help, the less and less likely it is to happen without Hollywood saying "Oh, can we get Halle Berry instead?" And that'd be a crying shame because money isn't everything. Especially in the realm of drama where quality and skill of execution can help with profitability since automatic money isn't made as it is in genre films which have built in audiences regardless of quality.