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Entries in The Heat (11)

Wednesday
Oct232013

Golden Globes: Got Any Comedy/Musical Predictions?

a comedy?Despite bold statements every year about who is campaigning in which Golden Globe category, the news is usually fluid so don't get too attached to anything you hear. Awards strategists are free to change their mind. As it stands now, August: Osage County and Before Midnight are planning Comedy campaigns and Blue Jasmine is aiming for drama. Curious, right? Dark laughs are flexible, don'cha know, and they can find traction in either category. We here at The Film Experience have long mourned the death of the Comedy or Musical category in the way we also mourn the death of the Supporting Oscar categories in that they too rarely serve their original purposes: which was to honor achievements that would otherwise be overlooked in the annual awards-focus on prestige drama and movie stars, respectively. It says a lot about the Comedy Acting categories for example that you can only make room for actual comedic triumphs IF a prestige drama with a few laughs or songs opts out.

BEST ACTRESS, COMEDY OR MUSICAL
The two most likely to succeed players IF they're deemed comedies though some feel they won't be are  Emma Thompson and Dame Judi Dench for Saving Mr Banks and Philomena respectively. Regardless, I think you can ink in Julia Louis Dreyfus for Enough Said, the year's most acclaimed romcom. If August's current campaign plans hold, you might see Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep taking up the entire rest of the category for their bitter duel! Why Julia? Well, supporting campaigns sometimes get promoted in this category if its a movie star who is actually a lead (see Catherine Zeta Jones nom for Chicago) and nobody thinks of megawatt Julia as a supporting player. But if you account for all five of those women (which you might not need to given rumored drama campaigns for Philomena & Saving Mr Banks -- which are the type of properties that could easily swing either way) there's no room left! Speaking of category confusion... if it's not Julia, the Globes could go with another actress they've been known to love with abandon. Remember that weirdass nomination for Scarlett Johansson for A Love Song For Bobby Long in 2004? (It's okay. nobody else does either) She could surprise here given that revelatory comic sparkle in Don Jon. And that would not be an unworthy call.

Potential Spoilers: If they're willing to lean pure comedy they've got a ready made nominee set in Sandra Bullock & Melissa McCarthy from The Heat but it's tough to say which of those two might win favor since the HFPA often ignores pure laffers when sorta-funny dramas are around and votes could easily split anyway. McCarthy has the reviews and that new stardom (with two big hits in 2013) but Bullock has the Gravity and is arguably the biggest star of all at this moment. Plus, you know how they love double dipping! Greta Gerwig's Frances Ha or Julie Delpy's Before Midnight would be a really smart worthy choices but neither seem like the type of actor that the magpie-like HFPA, always looking for super-shiney-famous, would lock right up for a nomination. Paulina Garcia in Gloria, should the film win a qualifying run, would be another brilliant choice but it seems so unlikely given all of the beloved big names in the mix.

Am I missing any possibilities?

BEST ACTOR, COMEDY OR MUSICAL
There might be no beating Bruce Dern for Nebraska unless the Golden Globes are itching for a major movie star to reward instead of someone who has paid his dues. The only other sure thing is, I'm guessing, Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis since he covers the "musical" part and the film, if not Isaac, is really funny at times -- it was directed by the Joel and Ethan Coen after all. Will Her end be declared a comedy despite its melancholy? If so then Joaquin Phoenix for sure.

But who else? Will Will Forte join Dern for a double Nebraska nod with the dearth of possibilities or might James Gandolfini win posthumous favor for Enough Said? Will they take Ethan Hawke for Before Midnight? There's also Joseph Gordon Levitt in Don Jon, Ben Stiller in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty? Will Ferrell in Anchorman 2? Robert Downey Jr in Iron Man 3 or Johnny Depp in The Lone Ranger (hey they'll nominate mega-stars for anything)

THE FILMS?
Will they fill up the film category with only potential Oscar BPs: August: Osage County, Nebraska, or the either/or category types like Her, Before Midnight, Philomena and Saving Mr Banks. Or will they throw some thankyoufortheLOLs and songs honors to more straightforward comedies Anchorman 2, The Heat, Don Jon, This is the End, or At World's End and the two musicals Inside Llewyn Davis & Black Nativity. You never know how they'll swing in this category because they also might opt for charmers like Frances Ha (shut up I can dream), Enough Said, About Time or The Way Way Back.

Alternately they could always pull a Tourist like head-scratchers and go with something unacceptable (categorically) or critically planned like Oz the Great and Powerful, Red 2, The Family or The Lone Ranger!

What does your crystal ball tell you?

Sunday
Jul142013

Box Office Notes: Pacific Rim & Sandra Bullock

giant fucking robots, the multi-franchise franchiseThis week's box office results are an example of why we can't have nice things. The top two films are both sequels. Audiences didn't get super worked up about the "original" opener, Guillermo del Toro's monster movie Pacific Rim. Yet the people decrying the general moviegoing public for "rejecting originality" -- a claim I keep hearing on twitter and on blogs -- have failed to admit that Pacific Rim looks JUST like Transformers Meets Godzilla in its advertisements. Which is not, you know a hallmark of the truly original, to look like a mashup of two excessively familiar things. Now, before I'm stomped by giant metallic or clawed kaiju feet, please note that though I haven't seen it I'm sure that Pacific Rim doesn't play like a Transformers sequel since one can't really mistake the filmmaking style of del Toro for Michael Bayisms. But audiences don't buy tickets based on how a movie is but how its perceived to be.

This wasn't a rejection of true originality. It was just a third place finish indicating half-interest in something that looked familiar but didn't sound familiar. Maybe they should have just called it Pacific Rim 2? Wouldn't it be awesome if some new franchise hopeful did just that, skipping the first film and testing the public's Pavlovian response to titles that end in numerals?

TOP O' THE CHARTS
01 DESPICABLE ME 2 $44.7 (cum. $229.2)
02 GROWN UPS 2 $42.5 *NEW*
03 PACIFIC RIM $38.3 *NEW*
04 THE HEAT $14 (cum. $112.3) Review
05 THE LONE RANGER $11.1 (cum. $71.1) Review

Of Note:  Fruitvale Station, which eerily opened on the weekend of the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin fiasco, opened to a big per screen averages but given the timid amount of screens it didn't make the top fifteen of the box office. If they're aggressive in expansion you'll undoubtedly see a lot of editorial attention in the media.

And Finally...
We'd just like to say "congratulations" to Sandra Bullock who has her umpteenth $100 million hit with The Heat. No, she didn't deserve an Oscar to commemorate her career but applause she does deserve in an industry that's notoriously resistant to appreciating its actresses. You have to hand it to her: she's been a draw for 20 years now and that's true staying power. Here, courtesy of box office mojo are her biggest hits (adjusted for inflation)

SANDRA'S TOP TEN
01 THE BLIND SIDE (2009) $264 
02 SPEED (1994) $230
03 A TIME TO KILL (1996) $195
04 THE PROPOSAL (2009) $174 
05 MISS CONGENIALITY (2000) $151 
06 WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING (1995) $147 
07 TWO WEEKS NOTICE (2002)  $124 
08 * new entry * THE HEAT (2013)  $112
09 DEMOLITION MAN (1993) $111 
10 HOPE FLOATS (1998) $101

What did you spend your money on this weekend?

Thursday
Jul042013

'The Heat' Winners

Congratulations to the winners of The Heat (reviewed) poster contest though sadly none of you took up my offer to recreate the poster for your entry. I know TFE readers are creative from previous contests people. Don't pretend otherwise and let me down next time ;)

The winners are: 

  • FRANK in NY
  • JEREMY in NY
  • MIKE in MO
  • STEPHANIE in CA
  • TAYLOR in CT

Your prize packs* are on the way from the studio!
(*Sandra & Melissa sold separately but currently flying off the shelves)

 

Sunday
Jun302013

Reviews: I'm So Excited & The Heat

This review was originally published in my column at Towleroad

and i know i know i know i know i know i want you i want you ♫

Here's a film you'll never see on an airplane. Pedro Almodóvar's latest, I'm So Excited!, takes place (almost) entirely aboard an airplane like some lost "bottle episode" of an aborted Almodóvarian sitcom. But the stewards and pilots are less concerned with fastening your seat belt than unzipping your pants and more interested in spiking drinks than pouring them. It's arrived just in time for Gay Pride Weekend and what great timing; this is by far the gayest thing Pedro has done since Bad Education (2004) in which Gael García Bernal famously both tucked his junk for drag duties and showed it off in wet underwear poolside.

I think it was the internet critic David Poland (of Movie City News fame) who dubbed that earlier film "fag noir" and took some heat for that but I personally don't think Almodóvar would have minded. In fact, for a long time I miscredited the tag to Pedro himself. Pedro's characters are often outrageously hedonistic from nympho nuns to homicidal hotties to transgendered hookers and even the sanest among them act on melodramatic or comic impulse without shame or apology. In short, to appropriate a quote from Rich Juzwiak they're 'as faggy as they want to be'. And that's just the ladies! [more...]

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Jun302013

Box Office: Cop Ladies vs. Cuddly Monsters vs. Zombie Swarms

This week's box office battle found swarms of zombies, feisty lady cops, cuddly collegiate monsters, paramilitary armies and indestructible men in Kryptonian bodysuits loudly fighting for the souls of the US moviegoer, while sacrificing their ear drums to the angry cinema gods. As incredible as it sounds, Brad Pitt's Zombie Apocalypse might be the quietest movie in the top five this week. They build the silence into the story and we thank them. Give them a Best Sound Mixing nomination as mark of gratitude, plz.

Yes, I made this title with The Heat's official 'cat font'. Don't judge.

01 MONSTERS UNIVERSITY $46.1 (cum. $171) Review
02 THE HEAT $40 *NEW* GIVEAWAY CONTEST
03 WORLD WAR Z  $29.8 (cum. $123.7) Review
04 WHITE HOUSE DOWN $25.7 *NEW*
05 MAN OF STEEL $20.8 (cum. $248.6) Superheroes and National Security
04 THIS IS THE END  $8.7 (cum. $74.6)
07 NOW YOU SEE ME  $5.5 (cum. $104.6)
08 FAST AND FURIOUS 6 $2.4 (cum. $233.3)
09 STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS $2 (cum. $220.5) The Dumbing Down of Star Trek
10 THE INTERNSHIP $1.4 (cum. $41.7)

11 IRON MAN 3 $1.4 (cum. $405.4) Reviewed
12 THE PURGE $1.2 (cum. $62.7)
13 THE BLING RING $.8 (cum. $4.3) 
14 EPIC $.8 (cum. $103) 
15 BEFORE MIDNIGHT $.6 (cum. $5.7) 5 Reasons Why...  

In wide release: The Heat's $40 million bow makes it the biggest opening ever for Melissa McCarthy and, more impressively, Sandra Bullock who has had a lot of sturdy opening weekends over the past two decades. (ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY CONTEST) Incredibly Iron Man 3 is still hovering near the top ten, and is now the 5th highest grossing movie of this young decade (with The Hunger Games as its next target... just 3 million away).

In limited release: Joss Whedon's quickie Much About About Nothing adaptation crossed the $2 million mark at the box office; The hot arthouse debut was Pedro Almodóvar's I'm So Excited! (ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY CONTEST) which won $100,000 on just five screens. Unfortunately without the starpower of Penélope or Antonio and with lesser reviews than Pedro tends to wins, it's unlikely that this one will do as well as usual for him; And finally Before Midnight is losing theaters rapidly now and when adjusted for ticket price inflation will be the lowest grosser in the series. I was hoping for some sort of crossover miracle but the fanbase hasn't grown or its target audiences is too lazy not to wait for DVD. (le sigh)

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?