21 did better than I expected. That’s about as exciting as the weekend b.o. got. Now everybody’s whining about this March not having a 300. Like every March has a 300. Just wait until Watchmen next March, bitches. Oh, and somewhere between Indiana Jones, Prince Caspian, Speed Racer and Iron Man I think maybe you’ll make that money back in May alone.

4/4

Wide

LEATHERHEADS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Old-timey football romcom.

WILL IT SUCK?
I’ve zero interest in football movies, but I know what happens when George Clooney directs. He could make a Larry the Cable Guy film and I’d go see it.

Early buzz is mixed.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Ironically, George Clooney does not do well in romantic comedies. $36mil.

SHINE A LIGHT

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Scorsese finds a way to fit in the 5 Rolling Stones songs he hasn’t put in one of his films yet by making a concert movie.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good and why not? The last time this guy made a concert film it was The Last Waltz. Trailer gets me pretty psyched, what with the behind-the-scenes bickering and the fact that they’re going to do “You Got the Silver.”

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Concert films do not do well. Unless Mick Jagger is Hannah Montana. Is Mick Jagger Hannah Montana? $6mil.

NIM’S ISLAND

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
It’s Jodie Foster! And she’s in a kid’s film!

WILL IT SUCK?
Interesting pedigree. A writer from The Wonder Years worked on the screenplay and co-directs with his Little Manhattan co-writer. He also directed Little Manhattan. He knows how to write for and work with kids, is what I’m saying. Still looks cheesy. But virtually all kids films look cheesy to me.

Early buzz is good.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
It’ll be interesting to see how Foster draws in this genre, but fantasy has seen diminishing returns of late. $66mil.

THE RUINS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Tourists vs. really nasty vegetation.

WILL IT SUCK?
A Simple Plan novelist Scott B. Smith adapts his own novel once again. And it stars Jena Malone. So I have a little more faith in this than, say, The Eye.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Kind of rare to see a major studio (ex-studio? what the hell is DreamWorks now?) back a horror film (especially an R-rated horror film) instead of funneling it off to some subsidiary, but I think they’ll be glad they did. $54mil.

Limited

MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Wong Kar Wai brings his indie sensibilities stateside.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is mixed, and even the positive reviews seem to find fault (mostly with Wong’s screenplay, not his direction).

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
If the filmmaker’s following doesn’t produce a turnout, the interesting casting (Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz) might. $3mil.

THE FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Balloon follows some kid around while he tries to imagine a better life.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good and, yes, the title’s a reference to the 1956 Lamorisse flick.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Aside from hardcore Juliette Binoche fans and the five people in the room who’ve heard of that 1956 Lamorisse flick, I don’t see this having that big a draw. $1mil.

Next Week: You know what’s really working well for Hollywood these days? Horror remakes.

Sorry blogging has been so scarce, but I’m still getting through loads of stuff I recorded at SXSW. Here are two new podcasts and one new video with some very cool people…

Onion Web Editor Baratunde Thurston

Internet Superstar Singer/Songwriter Jonathan Coulton

PostSecret Founder Frank Warren Video Interview

Philly Film Fest starts a week from Thursday (!) Here’s what I’m looking forward to.

I knew Owen Wilson wasn’t as popular as he used to be, but to lose to Shutter?

3/28

Wide

21

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Shortened version of 24. No? Okay, how about an MIT professor trains his students how to count cards? True story.

WILL IT SUCK?
You’re gonna have to do better than the writer from Be Cool and the director of Win a Date With Tad Hamilton and Monster-in-Law before I get psyched, much as I love seeing Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne get their movie on. Early buzz is mixed.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Spacey’s as much of a draw as he used to be. $51mil.

RUN, FAT BOY, RUN

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Simon Pegg tries to run a marathon.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is mixed, but even those who like it seem to admit it’s formulaic. Interested, though, to see what Simon Pegg co-writing with Michael Ian Black produces.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
I’d like to think this was going to be some sort of breakout hit, but I think it’ll fall somewhere in between. $24mil.

STOP-LOSS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Okay, everybody who’s done with their military service please step forward. Not so fast, Ryan Phillipe!

WILL IT SUCK?
After Boys Don’t Cry, I’m not really going to question Kimberly Pierce’s ability to write and direct a film. Plus, you’ve got Joe Gordon Levitt and Timothy Olyphant joining the (imho underrated) Phillipe in the cast. Early buzz is mixed.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
We pretty much have to accept that, at this point, Iraq movies are going to have to be labors of love, not profit. $12mil.

SUPERHERO MOVIE

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Do I really have to explain the Genre Movie series anymore?

WILL IT SUCK?
You’ve probably figured that out, too.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
This, sadly, is also a foregone conclusion. $37mil.

Limited

FLAWLESS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Janitor (Michael Caine) gets executive (Demi Moore) to re-enact the eponymous 1999 Joel Schumacher film with Philip Seymour Hoffman as a drag queen who teaches Robert De Niro how to love. And by that I mean, he asks her to help him rob the bank that employs them.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good. The return of Il Postino director Michael Radford (actually, he’s made plenty of films since then, you just haven’t heard of most of them).

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Name cast gives it about as much of a chance as anything else opening this weekend. $2mil.

PRICELESS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Guy (Gad Elmaleh) tries to win the affection of a golddigger (Audrey Tautou) by becoming one himself.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good. From the writer/director of a bunch of other French comedies we’ve never heard of.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Do you really want to open your film, Priceless, the same weekend as another film with much bigger stars called Flawless? $1mil.

Next Week: I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but Martin Scorsese kind of likes The Rolling Stones.

Because sometimes I write for someone else.

Here’s my Drillbit Taylor review. Liked it more than I thought I would. Renews my faith in Judd Apatow’s producing ability. Which is a good thing since he has exactly 9,486 movies coming out this year.

More from SXSW…

Day 4 blog, Jane McGonigal is the shit.

Interview (in the podcast style) with Daniel Stamm and Zoltan Honti of A Necessary Death.

9. The Blues Brothers - 106 Miles to Chicago

“Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers has been approved.”

It is exceedingly likely that this is the only action sequence in movie history that required the FAA to decertify a Pinto. But don’t quote me on that. That fact is an example of the brilliant excess that went into the making of the climactic chase from John Landis’ 1980 tour-de-wacky.

The decertification was necessary because the film wanted to drop a Ford Pinto from over a mile in the air over downtown Chicago. The FAA had to be certain that the Pinto was not airworthy and would hit its 50′ x 50′ mark instead of turning into an airfoil and crashing into the Sears Tower or something.

The amazing degree of on-location permissions doesn’t stop there. After Mayor Daley (Richard J., not Richard M.) banned film production in Chicago, filming a sequence like this seemed impossible. After Daley’s passing (a fact noted in a choice snippet of dialogue in the film) things eased up, and Mayor Jane Byrne signed off on shooting in Chicago while the Cook County Board (with some, um, influence from “legitimate businessmen”) signed off not only on shooting in the very plaza named after the contentious mayor, but on driving the Bluesmobile right through the lobby of the courthouse there.

This film, by the way, opened up movie production in Chicago. We would have nary a John Hughes film without the doors opened by The Blues Brothers.

Shooting was performed in the exact opposite way as The French Connection operated almost a decade earlier. Not only were permissions secured, but streets were blocked off for miles by production assistants and cops numbering in the hundreds to ensure no one got hurt. The only pedestrians onscreen were stuntpeople. As a result, those cars could take Lower Wacker Drive at 115 mph with a clear conscience.

At the heart of the sequence (and pretty much all of the action in the film) is the Bluesmobile, which deserves a place with the Mach 5 and KITT as one of the most bad-ass cars in fictional vehicle history. 13 different used cop cars depicted the vehicle, including the one that was set up for months to be able to fall completely apart at the drop of a hat. To maintain the level of carnage for those and the 60 or so other used cop cars in the flick, the production maintained a 24/7 body shop. This film held the record for sheer number of cars crashed, unparalleled until its regrettable sequel.

Another landmark for the truly geeky among you, this is the first use of a pipe ramp (used to launch cars into the air) in film history. This is nice because when cars pile up in this scene, they do so for no reason whatsoever. Cars just fly into shots, already flipping. Just because.

In many action sequences, it’s the use of discretion that creates power. What is not shown. The judicious use of camera angles and the efficiency of motion. Here, it’s the exact opposite. More is more. And better. The utter devotion to excess makes this one of the greatest car chases of all time.

Even conceptually this sequence revels in size. The chase goes on all night and into the morning, as is beautifully expressed by the fading down, but not out, of the music as we fade in and out from night to day. (Another prime use of music: Wagner for the Illinois Nazis.)

Learn more about the making of the chase here.

See also: The mall chase from The Blues Brothers, cop cars vs. tractor trailers battle royale in Smokey & the Bandit 2, race to save the Pope in Foul Play

Next: We’re not done with Wagner.

You can see more in-depth, day-by-day analysis of SX on my posts for E-Gear. Here’s what I’ve got so far…

Night One

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

And here’s a podcast interview with PostSecret founder Frank Warren.

Much, much more to come.

Because on the topic of SXSW, it’s hard for me to be concise, here’s part one of the latest episode of Hotcha Zimzam (shot with my new tripod and wide-angle lens!).

No big shock that Horton won the weekend, but I am pleasantly surprised that the critical reception was so positive given the poor track record for Suess adaptations thus far.

3/21

Wide

DRILLBIT TAYLOR

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Judd Apatow Presents: My Bodyguard

WILL IT SUCK?
I want to be psyched for this. The Apatow Machine has produced some quality product so far. But the director is responsible for Little Nicky and Without a Paddle. I don’t think having Seth Rogen co-write the screenplay can compete with that.

Very early buzz is good.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
None of the other films have an Owen Wilson, but he’s not a Wedding Crashers-level draw right now. $66mil.

TYLER PERRY’S MEET THE BROWNS

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Single mom (Angela Basset) gets to know the family she never knew she had. And Tyler Perry puts on a new, different funny costume.

WILL IT SUCK?
You know what? At this point, you either like Tyler Perry or you don’t. A lot of people don’t.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
But enough people do that you do NOT bet against him. $56mil.

SHUTTER

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
White Noise, but with photographs.

WILL IT SUCK?
This is the first time I’ve seen a J-Horror style movie that isn’t actually a J-Horror remake. It’s an original screenplay. For that reason alone, I want to like it.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
In a year when even Jessica Alba can’t open a horror flick, don’t have high hopes for Joshua Jackson. $24mil.

Limited

UNDER THE SAME MOON

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Mexican kid crosses the border to find his mum in L.A. NOW will you build a fence, Congress?

WILL IT SUCK?
Some detractors, but mostly good reviews. Much better notices than Under the Cherry Moon.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Unless Fox Searchlight and Weinstein Co. really play up the illegal alien angle, I don’t think anyone will notice. $2mil.

PLANET B-BOY

WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Doc about a worldwide breakdancing competition.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is good. I love me some breakdancing, so I’m already sold.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Nobody’s heard of this. $500,000.

Next Week: You know what we need? Another one of those Genre Movies like Epic Movie or Date Movie or Meet the Spartans.

10. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - The Battle for Helm’s Deep

“So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?”

The magic that Peter Jackson brings to his adaptation of the Tolkein classic, and this 2002 installment in particular, is to take the story as seriously as any war epic. For Jackson, the battle for Helm’s Deep might as well be the storming of the beach at Normandy, and the payoff is one of the most intense battle sequences in fantasy film history.

The technology here allows this to be an unprecedented battle scene. Even in the days of Cecil B. DeMille you could only muster crowds in the hundreds or maybe thousands. Here, with CG, you can get tens of thousands fighting at once. Of course, that number could go on forever and produce diminishing returns, but Jackson offers us a variety of images so that we don’t miss the trees for the forest.

Part of the technique Jackson employs is to use handheld cameras to put us in the shit. Nothing new there, except that handheld and fantasy almost never go together. Here it ups the brutality beyond that of the many other battle sequences the series has to offer. It also balances the epic, sweeping shots that (very wisely) remind you of the geography of the battle.

Speaking of geography, Jackson makes a conscious effort to remind us where each of our heroes are and what they’re doing during the battle, a deliberate rule set during editing with the foreknowledge that watching a bunch of extras fight, no matter how cool the moves, wouldn’t hold our interest for long.

Jackson contrasts the action of his warriors with the inaction of the Ents, where the talking trees come off like the U.N., deliberating during the slaughter. He also cuts to the civilians waiting inside the castle, whose faces remind us what’s at stake.

And he’s smart enough to make room in the carnage for absolutely bad-ass maneuvers like Legolas’ shield-surfing.

Not unlike #42, the rising tension comes from the seeming inevitability of our heroes’ defeat. Whatever battlement they’ve established, Saruman’s forces have the numbers or the ingenuity to find a way around it. One of the most impressive of these is the explosives they set to breach the wall. Usually I don’t like seeing the same explosion over and over again from different angles, but this one is just astounding enough to warrant replays.

Though it’s not readily apparent, this sequence owes a debt to Xena and Hercules. Years of those shows filming in New Zealand produced an army of stuntmen already living in the area. These performers were trained by professionals with next-gen fight choreography job titles like Cultural Fighting Styles (Tony Woolf) and Mocap Combat Choreographer (Carrie Thiel). Each group of characters (Orcs, Elves, Rohan Warriors) got their own fightings styles. Each stuntman had to learn each style, since there were not enough stuntmen to have each one learn only one. They then endured the four months it took to shoot this sequence, most of that at night in the rain.

The sophisticated approach to the action in this scene was married to the 70 or so years of experience embodied in swordmaster Bob Anderson, who doubled for Errol Flynn, played Darth Vader when he battled Obi-Wan and choreographed this series. His work in this sequence is part of the reason it holds together so well. He understands a certain fundamental action ethic, saying in one of the 472,095 hours of LOTR DVD extras, “Any sort of swordfight has a story of its own within the main story.”

Three things to look out for: That guy without an eye, really doesn’t have an eye. (Apparently it did wonders for his self-esteem to show it.) One of the soldiers throwing a spear is Peter Jackson. And keep an ear out for a Wilhelm scream.

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three (with a little overlap):

See also: The rest of the trilogy, all of The Seven Samurai, all of 300.

Next: The only comedy to crack the top ten.