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13 articles
2 hours ago
Fast & Furious 6 weekend box office: Biggest Fast and Furious domestic opening ever? (Photo: Dwayne Johnson in Fast & Furious 6) Fast & Furious 6 will easily top Memorial Day weekend at the North American box office. According to studio estimates found at Box Office Mojo, the Justin Lin-directed action thriller featuring Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Vin Diesel, and Jordana Brewster earned $38.2 million at 3,658 locations on Friday — including $6.5 million from 2,409 late Thursday and midnight screenings. Fast & Furious 6 vs. Fast Five Reportedly budgeted at $160 million, Universal’s Fast & Furious 6 will in all likelihood boast the biggest opening weekend ever of any Fast and Furious movie. In its first three days out in late April 2011, Fast Five scored $86.19 million at 3,644 locations. Fast & Furious 6 could easily reach $92-95 million and possibly go as high as $100+ million by Sunday evening. For the four-day haul, Fast & Furious 6 could score $120 million. Is Fast & Furious 6 on its way to becoming a major blockbuster? »
- Zac Gille
Cannes' Queer Palm Goes to Sexually Graphic Drama
4 hours ago
Gay erotic thriller Stranger by the Lake wins Queer Palm at Cannes Film Festival (photo: Pierre de Ladonchamps, Christophe Paou in Stranger by the Lake) Writer-director Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake / L’inconnu du lac has won the 2013 Queer Palm handed out to Cannes Film Festival movies featuring gay, lesbian, bi, tri, multi, transgender, etc. characters. Stranger by the Lake was screened in the Un Certain Regard sidebar. Set near an idyllic lake where hot-and-heavy gay cruising takes place during the summer season, Guiraudie’s sexually charged thriller revolves around Franck (Pierre de Ladonchamps), a young man who falls in lust with brawny suspected murderer Michel (Christophe Paou). Strand Releasing will handle the distribution of Stranger by the Lake in North America. Stranger by the Lake: Mixing explicit sex with explicit love As quoted by Agence France Presse, Alain Guiraudie explained the (purportedly) graphic sex scenes in Stranger »
- Andre Soares
24 May 2013 9:11 PM, PDT
Fast & Furious 6 box office: Best opening ever of a Fast and Furious movie? (Photo: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker in Fast & Furious 6) Fast & Furious 6 will easily top the North American box office on Friday, May 24. According to very early, very rough estimates found at Deadline.com, the Justin Lin-directed action thriller starring Dwayne Johnson, Paul Walker, and Vin Diesel, should collect $35 million at 3,658 locations — including $6.5 million from late Thursday and midnight screenings. For comparison’s sake: Fast Five, which opened in late April 2011, earned $3.8 million at midnight screenings. (Check out: Fast & Furious 6 Memorial Day Weekend Box Office: $120 Million?) Oh, but wait. Fast & Furious 6 had the advantage of late-Thursday, pre-midnight screenings, and although the latest Fast and Furious movie is clearly ahead of its predecessor, we’re comparing melons and watermelons here. That’s much like claiming that Fast & Furious 6 will have by far the biggest opening ever of a Fast and Furious »
- Zac Gille
24 May 2013 7:30 PM, PDT
Jerry Lewis Max Rose panned: Cannes Film Festival 2013 Jerry Lewis and Charles Chaplin both made comedies. What else do they have in common? One possible answer: Claire Bloom, Chaplin’s Limelight "discovery" (Bloom had already been featured in the 1948 British drama The Blind Goddess) and Lewis’ leading lady in Max Rose. (Photo: Jerry Lewis in Max Rose.) Jerry Lewis’ first movie since Funny Bones (1995), Max Rose was screened yesterday at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Written and directed by Daniel Noah, whose previous directorial effort was the little-seen 2001 thriller Twelve, Max Rose stars the 87-year-old Lewis in the title role: a former jazz pianist who, following the death of his wife (Claire Bloom), discovers that his marriage may have been less than ideally monogamous. Max Rose: Jerry Lewis’ ‘best script in 40 years’ — critics, however, considerably less impressed At the 2013 Cannes press conference, Jerry Lewis called Max Rose the “best script I read in 40 years, »
- Zac Gille
Watch WB Stars Lose It as They Flub Their Lines
24 May 2013 3:30 AM, PDT
Son of a bitch! George Brent and other Warner Bros. stars forget their lines (photo: George Brent ca. 1940) The Warner Bros. outtakes from the studio’s 1939 and 1940 productions (see below) feature a whole array of movie stars and supporting players not getting things quite right while the cameras were rolling. Perhaps the biggest "star" — i.e., the one featured the most — in the montage is George Brent, who curses right and left after not getting his lines right in several scenes. But not to worry; "son of a bitch" is the strongest exclamation we get to hear. (I’m assuming stronger fare is to be found in the outtakes’ outtakes.) Besides George Brent, the Warner Bros. bloopers montage has Paul Muni joking around while forgetting his lines during the making of We Are Not Alone; Miriam Hopkins having her dramatic moment in The Old Maid ruined by a young maid »
- Andre Soares
Hangover Franchise in Desperate Need of Rehab: Movie Review
23 May 2013 10:32 PM, PDT
The Hangover Part III review: ‘Unnecessary sequel’ that’s ‘sporadically and barely’ amusing (photo: Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms in The Hangover Part III) There was a time, and this time now seems very long ago, when The Hangover was a near-cultural phenomenon. It became (for a while) the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever, it made Bradley Cooper a star, and it proved the movie industry could find a place for oddball comic Zach Galifianakis. That was four years and, as it turns out, two disappointing sequels ago. The hope going into The Hangover Part III was that co-writer and director Todd Phillips would make amends for the universally disliked The Hangover Part II. That dream is neither denied nor fulfilled. Instead, we get another unnecessary sequel that’s amusing in the way that many crass bro-comedies are amusing, which is to say sporadically and barely. As Phil (Bradley Cooper »
- Mark Keizer
On The Road Available Online and New Stewart/Hedlund Featurette
22 May 2013 6:18 PM, PDT
Watch On the Road online at SundanceNow (photo: Sam Riley, Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund) On the Road, Walter Salles’ film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s semi-autobiographical novel, is now available on SundanceNow. Initially screened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, where it drew mixed reviews, and later reedited for the Toronto Film Festival and the North American market, On the Road stars Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy, the upcoming Inside Llewyn Davis), Sam Riley (the upcoming Byzantium and Maleficent), and Kristen Stewart — who seemed to be everywhere in 2012: besides On the Road, Stewart was also seen in Rupert Sanders’ summer hit Snow White and the Huntsman, opposite Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron, and, in her final appearance as Bella Swan, Bill Condon’s late fall hit The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, co-starring Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. (Scroll down to watch new On the Road featurette, with Kristen Stewart and Garrett Hedlund. »
- Andre Soares
More Rules Changes for the 86th Academy Awards
21 May 2013 3:37 PM, PDT
Oscar 2014: (Flexible) maximum of two winners in Best Animated Feature Film category (photo: 2013 Best Animated Feature winner Brave) The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced another rule change for the 2014 Academy Awards. This latest change affects the Animated Feature Film category. According to the Academy’s press release, from now on there will be "a maximum of two award recipients" for Best Animated Feature Film, one of whom must have a producer credit. And that’s where things get a bit confusing. Despite the "maximum of two" Oscar recipients, "the director and/or key creative individual shall continue to be a recipient, and in the circumstance of a two-person team with shared and equal director credit, a third statuette may be awarded." In other words, it’s a flexible two-person maximum. Last year, at most two individuals were listed per nominated film in the Best Animated »
- Andre Soares
20 May 2013 5:21 PM, PDT
Alfred Hitchcock San Francisco: Guided tour through the sites of Hitchcock’s movies The San Francisco Silent Film Festival has arranged for San Francisco City Guides to lead "a special, Sfsff-only edition" of its "Alfred Hitchcock’s San Francisco" guided walking tour. This particular two-hour Hitchcock tour will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 15, atop Nob Hill. From there, the tour will visit the sites of three Hitchcock films: Vertigo, The Birds, and Family Plot. (Photo: Alfred Hitchcock ca. 1960.) The San Francisco Silent Film Festival press release adds that Alfred Hitchcock tour participants will "have plenty of time" to go from the tour’s end at Union Square to the Castro Theatre so as to catch the 1:00 pm screening of Hitchcock’s 1928 silent Champagne. Note: Space for this special "Alfred Hitchcock’s San Francisco" tour is limited. Registration is free — though donations are encouraged — and will be done on a first-come, »
- Andre Soares
Oscar Alert: Julia and Judi, and Meryl Too
20 May 2013 11:30 AM, PDT
Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts in August: Osage County: Duel of the Oscar winners [See previous post: "Oscar 2014 Watch: Harvey Weinstein Cannes Film Festival Coming Attractions."] More Oscar 2014 bait: August: Osage County, directed by John Wells, and starring three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep (Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, The Iron Lady) and Oscar winner Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich). Is it mere coincidence that Streep’s seventeenth Oscar nomination and third win was for her portrayal of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady — distributed by The Weinstein Company two years ago? Either way, Streep’s Oscar 2014 competition should be fierce, as Julia Roberts doesn’t seem to be wearing any makeup in the family drama. (Photo: Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts in August: Osage County.) Adapted by Tracy Letts from his own play, besides Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, August: Osage County also features Oscar nominee Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear), Dermot Mulroney, Star Trek Into Darkness‘ Benedict Cumberbatch, »
- Andre Soares
TWC's Coming Attractions: Oscar 2014 Watch
20 May 2013 11:30 AM, PDT
Cannes Film Festival 2013: Harvey Weinstein’s Academy Awards Preview Show (Photo: Fruitvale Station, with Michael B. Jordan) Harvey Weinstein’s Cannes Film Festival Coming Attractions Special, a showcase of upcoming The Weinstein Company releases, is now regarded as one of the Croisette’s key film events. Because it provides a hint at who or what will win the Palme d’Or? Get real. Even at Cannes, it’s all about the Academy Awards. This year, Cannes Official Competition Jury Member Nicole Kidman was Weinstein’s co-presenter. And no, there wasn’t any influence peddling involved. Kidman was there because she is the star of The Weinstein Company’s upcoming Grace of Monaco, in which she plays another K-named movie star, Grace Kelly. And let’s not forget that 11 years ago Kidman won a Best Actress Oscar for The Hours, distributed by — at the time — the Weinstein-ruled Miramax. Two movies »
- Andre Soares
Rhys Meyers to Be Cast in Next Star Wars Installment?
19 May 2013 11:42 PM, PDT
Jonathan Rhys Meyers to star in Star Wars: Episode VII? Jonathan Rhys Meyers is "in talks" to star in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII, according to Latino Review. Best known for his role as King Henry VIII in the Showtime series The Tudors, which also features upcoming Man of Steel Henry Cavill, Rhys Meyers has already been featured in one Abrams movie: Mission: Impossible III (2003), in which he supported Tom Cruise. (Photo: Jonathan Rhys Meyers in The Tudors.) At this stage, it’s unclear which role Jonathan Rhys Meyers would play in Star Wars: Episode VII, now a Walt Disney Studios production. The next installment in the highly popular franchise is reportedly to continue the Star Wars saga where Return of the Jedi left off. Having said that, in case Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, and Anthony Daniels (perhaps a little rustier?) are indeed returning to the Star Wars fold, »
- Zac Gille
Life Imitates Art Imitating Life at Cannes
19 May 2013 6:15 PM, PDT
Cannes Film Festival 2013 highlight? (Photo: Bérénice Bejo, Tahar Rahim in Asghar Farhadi’s The Past) So far, what’s the most memorable event at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival? Perhaps the screening of Asghar Farhadi’s Palme d’Or competitor The Past, starring The Artist‘s Bérénice Bejo (replacing Marion Cotillard) and A Prophet‘s Tahar Rahim? Variety‘s Justin Chang called Farhadi’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning A Separation "an exquisitely sculpted family melodrama in which the end of a marriage is merely the beginning of something else, an indelible tapestry of carefully engineered revelations and deeper human truths." (Scroll down to check out The Bling Ring cast Cannes 2013 photos.) Or perhaps Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davies, which impressed The Independent film critic Geoffrey Macnab with "the sure-footed way the Coens combine comedy, music and brooding film noir elements"? Or maybe the fact that Carey Mulligan had »
- Andre Soares
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