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MARLEY & ME Again Tops Box Office

 

Marley & Me topped the North American box office for the second consecutive weekend with $24 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.

David Frankel’s comedy starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston easily dominated the competition all week long, bringing its domestic total to an impressive $106.5 million after barely two weeks in release.

At No. 2, Adam Sandler’s latest comedy, Bedtime Stories, picked up another $20.3 million, reaching a total haul of $85.3 million. In the film, Sandler plays a hotel handyman whose bedtime stories become true the next day.

Meanwhile, David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button picked up $18.4 million in third place, lifting its cumulative gross to $79 million. Starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, the movie tells the story of a man who mysteriously ages backwards.

Bryan Singer’s WWII drama Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise, clung to the No. 4 spot with a weekend gross of $14 million and a total of $60.6 million.

Following in fifth place with $13.8 million was Jim Carrey’s Yes Man, which brought its domestic total to $79.4 million after three weeks in release.

At No. 6, Sony’s drama Seven Pounds took home $10 million for a cumulative gross of $60 million. Starring Will Smith, the movie follows an IRS agent who decides to drastically change the lives of seven strangers.

Also staying put in seventh place was The Tale of Despereaux, which reached a total gross of $43.7 million after this weekend’s earnings of $7 million.

Things changed a bit at the bottom of the top 10. Doubt climbed to No. 8 with $5 million ($18.7 million total), while Keanu Reeves‘ The Day the Earth Stood Still slipped to ninth place with $4.8 million (cumulative of $74.2 million).

Also moving up was Danny Boyle’s acclaimed drama Slumdog Millionaire, which finished tenth with a weekend gross of $4.7 million and a domestic total of $28.7 million.

Source: Box Office Mojo (www.boxofficemojo.com)

 

Marley Beats Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, and Tom Cruise

YES MAN Tops Weak Box Office

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL Tops Box Office

FOUR CHRISTMASES’ Second Weekend at the Top of the Box Office

FOUR CHRISTMASES Tops Box Office

Kansas City Film Critics Awards 2009

 

Best Film: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Foreign Language Film: Let the Right One In (Sweden)

Best Documentary: Man on Wire

Best Animated Film: WALL*E

Robert Altman Award for Best Director: Darren Aronofsky - The Wrestler

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Best Actress: Meryl Streep - Doubt

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Original Screenplay: Robert Siegel - The Wrestler

Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire

Vince Koehler Award for Best Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror Film: The Dark Knight

 

Kansas City Film Critics Circle Site

Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards: 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Film Awards: 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

 

Producers Guild Awards 2009

Vancouver Film Critics Awards 2009

Golden Beetle Awards 2009

Best Films of 2008: LA WEEKLY/VILLAGE VOICE Poll

Golden Globes 2009: Presenters

Pat Hingle

 

Pat Hingle, best known for his recurring roles in Batman movies, died Jan. 3 at his home in Carolina Beach, N.C. The cause was myelodysplasia, a blood disorder. He was 84.

During his 50+-year career, Hingle appeared on Broadway, films, and television. Among his more notable film roles are those of a cadet in the 1957 film adaptation of Calder Willingham’s gay-themed drama The Strange One, Warren Beatty’s father in Splendor in the Grass (1961), a sadistic gangster in Stephen Frears‘ The Grifters (1990, above with Anjelica Huston), and Police Commissioner Gordon in the Batman movies of the 1990s. Additionally, Hingle incarnated J. Edgar Hoover in the 1992 HBO drama Citizen Cohn.

Among Pat Hingle’s other screen credits are The Ugly American (1963), Bloody Mama (1970), Norma Rae (1979), Sudden Impact (1983), The Quick and the Dead (1995), and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006).

 

Edmund Purdom

Lost Pola Negri Film Found

Ann Savage

Agnieszka Holland Retrospective at MoMA

Matteo Garrone, GOMORRAH, and the Camorra

Producers Guild Awards 2009

 

2009 Producers Guild of America’s Golden Laurel Awards
2009 Producers Guild of America feature-film and long-form TV nominations: January 5, 2009
2009 Producers Guild of America winners: Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles on Jan. 24, 2009
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

 

The Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award
in Theatrical Motion Pictures
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Kathleen Kennedy & Frank Marshall
Ceán Chaffin
THE DARK KNIGHT
Christopher Nolan
Charles Roven
Emma Thomas
FROST/NIXON
Brian Grazer
Ron Howard
Eric Fellner
MILK
Dan Jinks
Bruce Cohen
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Christian Colson
The Producers Guild of [...] Continue Reading…

Vancouver Film Critics Awards 2009

 

2009 Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards
2009 Vancouver Film Critics Circle award nominations: Jan. 4, 2009
2009 Vancouver Film Critics Circle award winners: The Railway Club in Vancouver, Jan. 12, 2009
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

 

BEST FILM
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E 
BEST CANADIAN FILM
C’est pas moi, je le jure!
Heaven on Earth
The Necessities of Life
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Edge of Heaven
Let the Right One In
Tell No One

BEST BRITISH COLUMBIA FILM
Fifty Dead Men Walking
Edison and Leo
Stone of Destiny
BEST DIRECTOR
Danny [...] Continue Reading…

Edmund Purdom

 

Edmund Purdom, best known for his roles in the musical The Student Prince (above, 1954) and the period epic The Egyptian (1954), died in Rome on Jan. 1. He was 84.
The super-handsome English-born Purdom never quite made it to the top despite his two big mid-1950s hits. Perhaps the reason for his lack of success in Hollywood had to do with the fact that he left his wife for minor actress Linda Christian, with whom he moved to Italy, not long after they appeared together in the 1954 MGM musical Athena.
Now, what Purdom was doing [...] Continue Reading…

National Society of Film Critics Awards 2009

 

2009 National Society of Film Critics Awards
2009 National Society of Film Critics award winners: January 3, 2009

An animated film won the National Society of Film Critics 2009 Awards. No, not WALL-E, but Ari Folman’s anti-war documentary-ish Waltz with Bashir, about Israel’s disastrous 1982 invasion of Lebanon. It’s hard not to believe that current events — the Gaza conflict has been going on since late December — influenced the vote, though war or no war in the Middle East, Waltz with Bashir has been garnering nearly universal praise.
Waltz with Bashir, which had previously won the Los Angeles [...] Continue Reading…

Guldbagge Awards 2009

 

2009 Golden Beetle Awards
2009 Swedish Film Institute’s Golden Beetle (Guldbagge aka Golden Bug) award nominations: December 30, 2008
2009 Swedish Film Institute’s Golden Beetle award winners: Cirkus in Stockholm, January 12, 2009
A jury of 31 members picked the 2009 Guldbagge Award nominees.
("*" denotes the winner in each category)

Jan Troell’s Everlasting Moments, a Golden Globe nominee and Sweden’s entry for the 2009 best foreign-language film Academy Award, received eight Golden Beetle nominations, including best film, director, actor, actress, and screenplay. Set in the early 1900s, Everlasting Moments follows a young working-class woman (Finnish actress Maria Heiskanen) who [...] Continue Reading…

Best Films of 2008: LA WEEKLY/VILLAGE VOICE Poll

 

J. Hoberman in The Village Voice:
"All hail Andrew Stanton’s WALL-E — even us! Sometimes, the movies really are universal. And so a major studio’s mainstream, multiplex, mega-million-dollar-grossing, Oscar-friendly “summer movie” resoundingly won the ninth annual Village Voice–L. A. Weekly poll of (mainly) alt-press critics, named on 35 of 80 ballots.
"Unlike last year, when Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood materialized in late December to snatch the prize from the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men and David Fincher’s Zodiac, there was no [...] Continue Reading…

National Film Registry

 

The National Film Registry, Library of Congress
1) ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948)
2) ADAM’S RIB (1949)
3) THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938)
4) THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)
5) ALIEN (1979)
6) ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)
7) ALL MY BABIES (1953)

8) ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930)
9) ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955)
10) ALL THAT JAZZ (1979)
11) ALL THE KING’S MEN (1949)
12) AMERICA, AMERICA (1963)
13) AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973)
14) AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)
15) [...] Continue Reading…

Golden Globes 2009: Presenters

 

Below is the (growing) list of guest presenters at the 2009 Golden Globe Awards. In the US, the awards ceremony will be telecast live on NBC Sunday, January 11 (8 - 11 p.m. EST) at The Beverly Hilton.
They are: Cameron Diaz, Jessica Lange, Chris Rock, Simon Baker, Drew Barrymore, Glenn Close, Sacha Baron Cohen, Aaron Eckhart, Laurence Fishburne, Ricky Gervais, Jake Gyllenhaal, Salma Hayek, Blake Lively, Jennifer Lopez, Amy Poehler, and Seth Rogen.
Steven Spielberg will also be present to receive this year’s Cecil B. DeMille Award (which was supposed [...] Continue Reading…

Buster Keaton, SUNRISE, THE CAT AND THE CANARY: San Francisco Silent Film Festival Screenings

 

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival will present a special series of screenings on Valentine’s Day, Saturday, February 14, at the Castro Theatre. The screening films are the Buster Keaton vehicle Our Hospitality (1923), the Russian comedy A Kiss from Mary Pickford (1927), F. W. Murnau’s Academy Award-winning (for "Best Unique and Artistic Quality of Production") Sunrise (1927), and the haunted-house caper The Cat and the Canary (1927).
I haven’t seen either Our Hospitality or A Kiss from Mary Pickford. I’m not a silent-comedy fan so Keaton films are usually a low priority (though I’ve stone-facedly sat through [...] Continue Reading…

National Film Registry 2008

 

This year, the Library of Congress has selected another 25 American films to be included in their National Film Registry, which under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act is supposed to preserve "for all time" short and feature films that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant. (See full list below.)
Among the films selected are John Boorman’s Oscar-nominated 1972 drama Deliverance; Howard Hawks’ flag-waving 1941 war drama Sergeant York (above), which earned Gary Cooper his first best actor Oscar; John Huston’s 1950 film noir The Asphalt Jungle, starring Sterling Hayden and featuring a pre-stardom Marilyn Monroe; and [...] Continue Reading…

Connecticut Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2009: Call for Entries

 

Entries must be received by March 1, 2009 for consideration in the 
22nd CT Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (May 22 - 30, 2009).
Download Entry Form
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Version 
Microsoft Word Version 
Film Submission Rules

Entries will be accepted for preview only in 1/2" VHS or DVD format. We can show 16mm, 35mm, Beta SP and DVCam at the festival, but we can only preview film entries on tape [...] Continue Reading…

Lost Pola Negri Film Found

 

The News/Polskie Radio reports that an early (and thus far unnamed) Pola Negri vehicle has been discovered at Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia by the husband-and-wife team of Marek and Malgorzata Hendrykowski from Poznan University. Dating from the 1910s, the Polish production is a detective story set in Warsaw. The print has Italian subtitles and is said to be in good condition.
Born (Barbara) Apolonia Chalupiec in 1894 in Lipno, central Poland, Pola Negri began her show business career dancing with the Imperial Ballet in Warsaw, later enrolling in Poland’s Academy of Dramatic Arts. Following her stage [...] Continue Reading…

Oscar 2009: 281 Features Eligible

 

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that 281 features are eligible for the 2008 Academy Award for Best Picture — and most other categories, I assume. As per Academy rules, to be eligible "feature films must open in a commercial motion picture theater in Los Angeles County by midnight, December 31, and begin a minimum run of seven consecutive days."
Also, "a feature-length motion picture must have a running time of more than 40 minutes and must have been exhibited theatrically on 35mm or 70mm film, or in a qualifying [...] Continue Reading…

Paul Rudd, Jason Segel in I LOVE YOU, MAN Trailer

 

Written and directed by John Hamburg (who wrote both Meet the Parents and the godawful Meet the Fockers), I Love You, Man stars Paul Rudd (ouch!) as Peter Klaven, a guy with no male friends who must find a best man for his wedding. Peter ends up bonding with a gross-out type played by Jason Segel, which makes it understandably difficult for his fiancée (Rashida Jones) — especially if the guys don’t wear condoms. Well, okay, for better or for worse it’s not that kind of bonding.
Anyhow, in the trailer above there are jokes about dog shit and man [...] Continue Reading…

Ann Savage

 

Ann Savage, the actress who played an evil, unredeemable femme fatale who makes life hell for Tom Neal in the 1945 B-noir Detour (see clip), died in her sleep at a nursing home on Christmas Day from complications following a series of strokes. She was 87.
Savage had a minor career in films of the 1940s, with Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour as her sole claim to fame — unless one also counts her latter-day comeback in Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg, playing the director’s mother, which was released last year. Among Savage’s other features are the B musical Ever [...] Continue Reading…

Marley Beats Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, and Tom Cruise

 

David Frankel’s comedy Marley & Me raced to the top of the North American box office this weekend with $37 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. Starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston as a couple struggling to keep their dog in check, the film lifted its domestic total to an impressive $51.6 million after only four days in release.

At No. 2, Adam Sandler’s latest comedy Bedtime Stories took home $28 million, reaching a cumulative gross of $38.5 million. The Adam Shankman-directed effort follows a hotel handyman whose bedtime [...] Continue Reading…

Agnieszka Holland Retrospective at MoMA

 

Museum of Modern Art’s ongoing Agnieszka Holland retrospective continues until January 5, 2009. Holland, best known for her World War II era drama Europa Europa, The Secret Garden (above, lower photo), Washington Square, and Total Eclipse (above, top photo), directed and wrote a number of lesser-known films in her native Poland. Among the upcoming MoMA screenings are several efforts from her Polish period, including the 1981 political dramas Fever and A Lonely Woman, both of which were banned in Poland at the time; in addition to the US-made Anna (1987), directed by Yurek Bogayevicz and written by Holland, which [...] Continue Reading…

Pedro Almodóvar’s BROKEN EMBRACES Inspired by Darkness

 

Penélope Cruz, seen above in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, will not look like this in Pedro Almodóvar’s next film, Los Abrazos rotos, for the director asserts he doesn’t want his leading lady to "repeat those [hairstyles] she has worn in other films."
 
Pedro Almodóvar, on his website:
"Regarding the English translation of the original title, Los abrazos rotos, I have seen in some publications that it has been translated as ‘Broken Hugs’ and in others as ‘Broken embraces.’ I don’t have a sufficient knowledge of English to decide which is correct, or if both are, but I get [...] Continue Reading…

Metro Manila Film Festival Awards 2008

 

2008 Metro Manila Film Festival Awards
2008 Metro Manila Film Festival: December 25, 2008 and January 7, 2009.
 

Mark Reily’s period romantic drama Baler was the big winner at the 2008 Manila Film Festival, receiving ten awards including best picture, best director, and best actress (Anne Curtis). Taken from a story by Roy C. Iglesias, Baler is set near the end of the 19th century, when Spanish domination of the Philippines was about to come to a close. The film’s title refers to the locale of a pro-independence revolt. (Spanish domination, however, was replaced by American domination. The Philippines [...] Continue Reading…

Matteo Garrone, GOMORRAH, and the Camorra

 

Via Agence France Presse: "Italian army cannot defeat Mafia, says Gomorrah director," in which European Film Award winner Matteo Garrone discusses the subject of his film, a likely contender for the 2009 best foreign-language film Oscar.
"The idea of bringing the army to fight them is, for me, superficial. It’s good for the image of the Italian government, but it won’t do anything to fix the problem.
"You have to work from the inside, to create a relationship between citizens and the institutions of power. The Camorra is very strong because they live there, they grew [...] Continue Reading…

Best Films of 2008: indieWIRE’s Critics’ Poll

 

The most curious thing about indieWIRE’s 2008 poll of 105 North American film critics is that thus far only six of the top-ten films have gone on to win awards (film/director/screenplay) from critics’ groups.
WALL-E has been the top choice in the animated feature category and was even voted the best film of 2008 by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, which, spreading the wealth, also gave Waltz with Bashir their best animated feature prize. Happy-Go-Lucky took best director and best screenplay honors from, respectively, the New York and the Los Angeles critics; Still Life was chosen best foreign-language [...] Continue Reading…

Oscar 2009 Predictions: Technical/Craft Categories

 

The lists below consist of very tentative Oscar 2009 predictions based on year-end award winners/nominees.
A more accurate compilation will only be possible after the respective guilds announce their choices next January.
Oscar 2009 Predictions: Acting
Oscar 2009 Predictions: Film
 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

BEST EDITING
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E

BEST ART DIRECTION
Australia
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark [...] Continue Reading…

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• Recently Posted

  • MARLEY & ME Again Tops Box Office
  • Kansas City Film Critics Awards 2009
  • Pat Hingle
  • Producers Guild Awards 2009
  • Vancouver Film Critics Awards 2009
  • Edmund Purdom
  • National Society of Film Critics Awards 2009
  • Guldbagge Awards 2009
  • Best Films of 2008: LA WEEKLY/VILLAGE VOICE Poll
  • National Film Registry
  • Golden Globes 2009: Presenters
  • Buster Keaton, SUNRISE, THE CAT AND THE CANARY: San Francisco Silent Film Festival Screenings
  • National Film Registry 2008
  • Connecticut Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2009: Call for Entries
  • Lost Pola Negri Film Found
  • Oscar 2009: 281 Features Eligible
  • Paul Rudd, Jason Segel in I LOVE YOU, MAN Trailer
  • Ann Savage
  • Marley Beats Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, and Tom Cruise
  • Agnieszka Holland Retrospective at MoMA
  • Pedro Almodóvar's BROKEN EMBRACES Inspired by Darkness
  • Metro Manila Film Festival Awards 2008
  • Matteo Garrone, GOMORRAH, and the Camorra
  • Best Films of 2008: indieWIRE's Critics' Poll
  • Oscar 2009 Predictions: Technical/Craft Categories
  • Oscar 2009 Predictions: Acting
  • Oscar 2009 Predictions: Film
  • REVOLUTIONARY ROAD Trailer II
  • Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet in REVOLUTIONARY ROAD - Photos
  • Oklahoma Film Critics Awards 2008



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