My Best Friend’s Igor
In a stunning demonstration of how we can all just get along, three of seventy-two films opening last week took the top spots with respectable hauls all within $3mil of each other. Although what I find even more surprising is that The House Bunny has legs (I swear that pun was not intended).
BTW, Burn After Reading is about a mid-level Cohen Bros. movie, although it contains one of my favorite lines from a Cohen Bros. movie. Something like, “Well, keep an eye on the situation and get back to me when…um…it all makes sense.”
9/19
Wide
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Black cop terrorizes his white neighbor. Awesome!
WILL IT SUCK?
Sam Jackson and Patrick Wilson is strong casting. Period. And I’m curious to see what director Neil LaBute does with the material. Granted, he hasn’t hit one of out of the park since In the Company of Men. But one of the screenwriters wrote Dreamscape. Dreamscape!
Early buzz is so not good.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Hard to see this doing better than the similarly-themed Changing Lanes. $34mil.
WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Little Children this ain’t.
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Jason Biggs hires Dane Cook to look so bad that he looks good to Kate Hudson by comparison. It doesn’t work.
WILL IT SUCK?
Back in the day, director Howard Deutch was helming the girlier selections from the John Hughes oeuvre like Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful. Later he would direct sequels to movies that desperately didn’t need them, like Grumpier Old Men and The Whole Ten Yards. This looks more like the latter.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Is there any reason this should do better than Good Luck Chuck? Kate Hudson, you say? Fair enough. $44mil.
WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Remember when Kate Hudson was an Oscar nominee?
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Remember the Mad Science Fair from that one episode of The Tick? Well, this is what would happen if an assistant entered.
WILL IT SUCK?
From writer Chris McKenna, who’s penned some American Dad’s. I don’t usually pay attention to the voice cast, but you gotta love Eddie Izzard playing a character named Dr Shadenfraude.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
It is best not to underestimate family fare in September, especially when it has no competition. $71mil.
WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
I think Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda have got that covered.
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Kind of like The Sixth Sense meets Always. But funny.
WILL IT SUCK?
When David Koepp writes and directs (Stir of Echoes, Secret Window), he tends to be more consistent than when he just writes (everything from Carlito’s Way to The Shadow). Here he’s co-writing with Zathura scribe John Kamps. So there’s potential.
Early buzz is fantastic with more than one favorable comparison to Topper. Damn.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Can Ricky Gervais open a film? Under ideal conditions, yes. With fifty million competitors, not so much. $26mil.
WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
No. But he deserves a nod for the series finale of Extras, even though it wasn’t a movie.
Limited
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
True story of an 18th Century duchess (Keira Knightley) who ended up in a loveless marriage. I understand that happened occasionally back then.
WILL IT SUCK?
Strong cast: Along with Knightley you’ve got Ralph Fiennes and Charlotte Rampling. Some good scribes up in here, too. The guy who wrote Stage Beauty and Casanova joins the guy who wrote After the Wedding.
Early buzz is good.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The last two times they put Knightley in an indie period piece, it worked out well. $20mil.
WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Knightley got a Best Actress nod for Pride and Prejudice and while she wasn’t nominated for Atonement, the film was, seven times over including Best Picture.
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Ed Harris & Viggo Mortensen vs. Jeremy Irons, Western-style.
WILL IT SUCK?
Did I mention Ed Harris is directing, too? Yeah. It’s like that. Early buzz is solid.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Even in wide release, Westerns are a tough sell. $14mil.
WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Let’s see. The last time Ed Harris directed a movie, Marica Gay Harden won an Oscar and he got a Best Actor nod. Oh, and this has Little Miss Nod-bait Renee Zellwegger up in here, too.
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Stuart Townsend’s retelling of the events of November/December 1999 when demonstrators and police clashed at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle.
WILL IT SUCK?
The writing/directing debut of Townsend, whom you might know from such films as Queen of the Damned and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Or not. Early buzz is good.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The question is, do people still have an interest in this event? $6mil.
WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
If Bobby couldn’t generate politicized event heat with its thousand actors, I don’t see this ensemble doing much better.
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Two brothers enter the Rio de Janeiro military police.
WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is mixed about the latest from co-writer/director Jose Padilha. Audiences seem to think it’s even better than his Onibus 174, while critics have a more mixed response. Note: One of the writers penned City of God. Let the Fernando Meirelles comparisons begin.
Took the Golden Bear at Berlin and won just about every Cinema Brazil Grand Prize category out there.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Unless these films get huge buzz, nobody sees them. $500,000.
WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
I think he’s one or two films away from that, unless Brazil decides to submit this for Best Foreign.
A THOUSAND YEARS OF GOOD PRAYERS
(Delayed from July)
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
The latest from Wayne Wang has a father (Henry O) visiting his daughter in the States as she goes through a divorce.
WILL IT SUCK?
Director Wayne Wang started out great guns with The Joy Luck Club and Smoke then took the express to Suckville with limp romantic comedies like Maid in Manhattan and Last Holiday. This appears to be a return to form.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
I don’t see how moving this to an even more crowded weekend is going to help. $250,000.
WILL ANYBODY REMEMBER IT AT OSCAR TIME?
Even Smoke didn’t get any Academy love.
Next Week: Shia LaBeouf grows facial hair.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
You better not be kidding with the Dreamscape comments, because that movie f*cking ROCKED. And if you disagree I’ll send a snake monster into your dreams to scare you to death.