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! 

Thanksgiving Linkovers

Good afternoon! I only had one piece of pumpkin pie last night so it absolutely cannot be counted as an unqualified success of a Thanksgiving. So, desperate for leftovers (I wasn't even sent home with any spare pie!), I turn to good blogs, the whip cream of this internet pie.

Film Dr. a pictorial primer on Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
MNPP JA's living vicariously through Amanda Seyfried fixation continues unabated
Towleroad homoerotic Skyfall poster 

In Contention the first of countless top ten lists, Cahiers du Cinema finds Holy Motors at the top
DP/30 Jake Gyllenhaal talks End of Watch. Which I still haven't seen. I am a bad Gyllenhaalic this year. (I also missed Won't Back Down) 
Awards Daily Sasha interviews Ang Lee (Life of Pi)
LA Times Tracy Letts says he didn't alter much about August: Osage County for the screen in his screenplay. So... it's three hours long then? 
MovieLine Noomi Rapace does her best Mick Jagger in a new music video. But is it Mick Jaggery enough? 
Empire Marisa Tomei may co-star in a new Hugh Grant romcom. I can see that pairing totally working.

Finally...
Timothy Brayton, easily one of the best (and most completist-friendly) online film critics, has ranked every single Bond film (with each link going to a new review) the Bond Girls and each James Bond. That's a lot of 007. 

Yes yes. I'll post the results of the readers poll here soon -- sorry for the holiday delay -- but before we are totally Bonded out, knock back a martini with Tim's reviews and lists.

Breaking Box Office Part Two

The big and unavoidable story this weekend was that the Twilight series finely came to an end with Kristen Stewart vamping out and nobody using red eye autocorrection on their cameras. I've also heard that the story ends in a stupid way that satisfies both Team Edw---  anyway, I've heard how the last book ends and I'm as incredulous as this elephant. 

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME LEE PACE WAS IN THIS MOVIE?

Box Office Top Ten
01 THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PT. 2  $141.3 *NEW* 
02 SKYFALL $41.5 (cum. $161.3) Review
03 LINCOLN  $21 (cum. $22.4) Podcast
04 WRECK-IT RALPH  $18.3 (cum. $121.4)
05 FLIGHT $8.6 (cum. $61.3) Review

Skyfall's global gross of 669 million (thus far) makes it the most successful Bond ever. All that and it's only in its second American weekend with a big holiday weekend just around the corner (Happy Thanksgiving in Advance!). Of course if you adjust for inflation, as you should with such a long running franchise, the picture is different and the mid sixties Sean Connery entries (particularly Thunderball and Goldfinger) are still the peak of Bond's popularity... though the series has an uncanny ability to gross in the same-ish ballpark pretty much every time out.

In other box office news: Anna Karenina (or whatever you want to call it) and Silver Linings Playbook both opened on a dozen plus screens to solid business; Argo tied The Town's final $92 million domestic gross in its sixth weekend but it's still going pretty strong and it took The Town twice as long to hit that total; The Sessions expanded considerably but is no longer playing to packed houses. 

Which film did you see and was the ticket price worth it?

Ready to Wear

So practical!

I hope he wears this to every Twilight premiere this month.

Link on a Hot Tin Roof

Movie|Line Posters for Jean Dujardin's latest film, the sex comedy Les Infidels, have been deemed too racy for France. For France? Really? This surprises me.
Guardian has a funny piece on blaming Twilight for everything but particularly the explosion of supernatural characters. Saturation point!
Coming Soon I am really scared of this new photo of Emma Stone from The Amazing Spider-Man. Emma Stone is gorgeous and only 23 years old. She doesn't need photoshopping and definitely not photoshopping that makes her look like a CGI creation! 

In Contention wonders if it might be Brad Pitt's year after all. STOP TRYING TO GET MY HOPES UP.
IndieWire sexually explicit Serbian drama Klip wins big in Rotterdam
Awards Daily When Jessica Chastain met Meryl Streep. 
Washington Blade has a good piece on Madonna reemerging in the Lady Gaga era and what it all means. I love that Matthew Rettemund calls it "homosexual civil war" but Matt and I both agree it's silly. There's no rule that says you can only enjoy one pop diva at a time. I certainly have never been monogamous with my actressexuality and I never will be. Boring!

Finally, RIP to Ben Gazzara, the original "Brick" from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Paul Newman took over his part for the movie version but Gazzara had an enduring career in all three Actors Playgrounds: film, stage and television. On the movie side he was part of the winning cast of Anatomy of a Murder (pictured right) but he'll most likely be rememberd as a key star in John Cassavettes repertory of actors. I always love reading Sheila O' Malley's pieces on stars who have passed on. Here's a small taste...

He was in his 40s when he found himself on the cutting edge of the independent film scene in America. He wasn’t a young, hungry guy. He was middle-aged. Married. With a kid. They all were married, with kids. It wasn’t a hipster sensibility, or a Bohemian type of “let’s make a movie with my friends” kind of thing. They were artists. Who understood compromise, they all had had extensive careers, but nothing compared to the roles that Cassavetes gave them. Gazzara had already been around forever. He had worked with Hitchcock, for God’s sake. And Kazan. So to take that risk … to sit in the theatre watching Cassavetes’ Faces and admitting that he felt jealousy. Jealousy of Cassavetes’ talent, and also – an ambition: I must work with that guy."

And as always the Daily Notebook has a collection of quotes and obits.