“Adapt or die.” Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) lives her life by this creed. Since she was a baby, her father Erik (Eric Bana), a rogue CIA agent, has trained her to survive anything. In their cabin above the Arctic Circle, Erik taught Hanna languages, geography, history – and how to kill. Now a teenager, Hanna is ready to leave her rugged lifestyle and see the world she’s only heard of. 

But Marissa (Cate Blanchett), a high level government operative with a vendetta against Erik, will stop at nothing to kill Hanna. With Marissa and her assassins on her tail, Hanna’s quest for freedom becomes a fight for survival. In the real world of hunter and hunted, Hanna’s skills are put to the test, and this time, death awaits the slightest mistake. 

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Joe Wright has enjoyed a successful and acclaimed directorial career, from his feature length debut with the latest “Pride and Prejudice” to the acclaimed “Atonement.” In “Hanna,” Wright’s abilities shine bright. From a sterile CIA compound in the Moroccan desert to a dilapidated fairytale-themed amusement park in Germany, Wright’s locational choices fit his action perfectly. And the Chemical Brothers’ soundtrack complements beautifully. In one scene, Hanna wanders through a trashy subway. The strings accompanying the scene blends with the crazy babbling of the homeless Hanna passes, mixing and rising like an orchestra tuning before a performance. Hanna’s fear and loneliness are perhaps at their peak here, and both are beautifully mirrored in the scene’s every aspect. 

Occasionally Wright’s cinematographic choices overreach – one fight for instance occurs in ridiculous, unnecessary slow motion – but by and large his camerawork captures the beauty of the life and landscapes that Hanna is seeing for the first time. 

Fairytales feature prominently in the film. Key scenes occur in a fairytale theme park. Hanna’s only keepsakes from a mother she never knew are a strip of photo booth pictures and a warn copy of “Grimm’s Fairy-tales.” Early in the film she opens the book to the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and its hardly a stretch of the imagination to see Melissa as a wolf, hungry for Hanna and her “hunter” father. I see “Hanna” as Wright’s fairytale – his coming-of-age story for the generations. 

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When many people think about “Robin Hood,” they probably conjure up images of a rebel causing trouble for the sake of his fellow man in the forest. They probably imagine a strong and charismatic leader standing up against a cold and overpowering government. The idea and the legend of “Robin Hood” are powerful and inspirational but unfortunately, the new movie about the famous outlaw is bleak and disappointing.

The new Ridley Scott film tells the story of Robin Hood in the period before he was known as an infamous outlaw. Oscar winner Russell Crowe plays Robin Hood, a brilliant archer and warrior. After a dying man asks Robin for a favor, Robin fulfills his duty to him and eventually becomes involved with the dead man’s wife, Marion Loxley (Oscar winner Cate Blanchett). After their romance grows, Robin Hood returns to battle to fight for the country he loves against forces that wish to undermine it.

Unfortunately, the movie has little sense of the adventure that Robin Hood is often known for and the characters in this film are not well-developed. For example, I was struck by the frantic pace of one of the early battle scenes and how little I cared about the characters battling in it. Many of the figures in this story are well-known but this movie fails to bring them to life. Although there were some strong supporting actors in this film (including William Hurt and Max von Sydow), the leading actors were disappointing. For one, Russell Crowe is far too serious in this film to have a good time with the role and he fails to create a memorable depiction of Robin Hood. (more…)

With a reported $225 million budget and a timeless tale at his disposal, for whatever reason director Ridley Scott chose to spend all that cash and legend on a hopelessly dreary prequel and origin story. On paper, the idea itself is an interesting one, and while the execution looks great – looks like $225 million — the telling fails where Robin Hood should most shine: The Department of Rousing. The point of the Robin Hood legend is not just to encourage us to fight for our God-given right to liberty, but also as a reminder that at every chance we have a duty to mock wrongful authority, ridicule pomposity, and give tyranny the high, hard middle finger; all while wooing a fetching Maid Marion, of course.

Robin Hood is about righteous defiance as practiced by a charming scoundrel. But unfortunately for those moviegoers expecting summer adventure and laughs, what you would think would be the obvious is completely lost on Scott and his screenwriter Brian Helgeland.  Instead, they allow the story to get bogged down with a protagonist exhausted by war, no villain for him (or us) to focus on, and a needlessly complicated narrative involving false identities, palace intrigue, double agents and two wars.

Things open on a promising note.  The date is 1199 and Robin (Crowe) is an archer for King Richard who is pillaging his way through France on his way back to England after the Crusades. Nothing happens you haven’t seen a hundred times before in one of these Medieval romps, but Scott knows how to structure, shoot and edit big action set-pieces like few others so the ole’ castle storm is exciting. 140 minutes later, however, you discover the hard way that this is where it all peaked. (more…)

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“Gladiator” meets “Braveheart” — Nothing wrong with that.

The Sun says “Lord of the Rings”: (more…)

The vocal, sanctimonious Free-Polanski uproar is merely a symptom of an entertainment culture infected with a moral cancer – a culture that regularly practices up on the screen what we’ve heard them preach this last week on behalf of a confessed child rapist.

Last year Miramax released “Doubt,” a high-profile piece of Oscar-bait starring Academy Award winners’ Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Streep plays a puritanical nun on a moral crusade to expose a Priest (Hoffman) who she believes is sexually abusing a 12 year-old boy. Both characters are portrayed as unsympathetic (especially Streep’s) but in just a couple scenes the boy’s working-class mother (Mrs. Miller, played by Viola Davis) is established as the moral center of the film – the only one truly interested in the welfare of her child. When Mrs. Miller’s informed that her son’s being molested, the Moral Center Of The Film responds that her 12 year-old boy is gay, a social outcast, and beaten regularly by his homophobic father … so maybe the best option for him is a sexual relationship with a forty-something child predator.

Starring Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, and written and directed by Oscar-winner Alan Ball, last year’s “Towelhead” is a film Roman Polanski might have seen many, many times while wearing a rain coat. The protagonist is 13 year-old Jasira (played by the then barely eighteen Summer Bishil) and the story surrounds her sexual abuse at the hands of a number of men, including Eckhart’s Gulf War Vet. Rather than the repeated abuse damaging the young girl, the filmmaker portrays the rapes and molestations as a healthy and sexually liberating experience. More than once the audience is “treated” to lingering shots of Jasira’s bare legs as she discovers the joys of the orgasm while masturbating to photographs of naked women.

Kate Winslet won last year’s Best Actress Oscar for her role in “The Reader,” in which she plays a “sympathetic” Nazi guilty of mass murder who seduces and then engages in a steamy sexual affair with a 15 year-old boy. The sex scenes between this mature woman and a child lean heavily on the erotic, as opposed to the creepy. (The “sympathetic Nazi” issue we’ll save for another post.) (more…)

Hollywood is off to a staggering, record-breaking start in 2009 led by Clint Eastwood’s most successful wide opening ever, a French action import and a chubby guy on a Segway. Hot on the heels of the biggest January in history with over $1 billion in domestic sales, February has exceeded $750M in the US. The industry’s all-time best January followed by the all-time biggest February on the books puts total domestic box office for the year at almost $1.8 billion.

“Everything is working.” That’s what one studio exec told me today. “With the exception of the Jonas Brothers, it seems like almost every release is out-performing expectations.” January 2009 has gone down as the all-time 8th-best month in modern box office history. It started with excellent holiday holdovers. Six movies, technically released in 2008, did major chunks of their business after New Year’s.

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Tyler Perry’s decidedly un-Oscar Madea Goes to Jail (Lionsgate) is the box office story of Oscar weekend selling a massive $14.65M in opening day tickets with a possible $38M in sales expected for the weekend. But what about the Best Picture nominees, the supposed cool kids on the box office block?

Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) is the odds-on Best Picture winner, and it expanded to about 600 additional playdates this weekend for a total screen count of 2,224. The other four contenders for Hollywood’s biggest prize, however, are on a combined 2,508 screens. That means that they are essentially done with their theatrical engagements in the US (barring a truly shocking upset). Even if you wanted to see the other four nominees, you might have trouble finding them at your local multiplex – especially if you live outside a major city.
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On Sunday, the Academy Awards will be handed out at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, and there are some clear favorites. Slumdog Millionaire, the feel-good Danny Boyle Mumbai opus made for just $14M, is a heavy favorite to win Best Picture. It’s hard to imagine Slumdog missing out on Hollywood’s biggest prize, having won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA Award and just about everything in between.

But, in the world of gambling, you always want to look for value. What are the films and performances with longer odds that would be worth a wager on Sunday? My purpose here is to establish a betting line for each of the six major categories, and then find the value bet in each category.

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There was not a great deal of drama surrounding this year’s British Academy of Film & Television Arts Awards, commonly known as the BAFTA Awards. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) is a movie with deep roots in the UK. Director Danny Boyle was born in Manchester, England, lead actor Dev Patel is the star of the popular British television series Skins, and the movie is a gigantic hit in the British Isles with an impressive $20.6M (US dollars) in box office for Pathe, since its release there on January 6.

BAFTA Winner Mickey Rourke

The two major uncertainties entering Sunday’s ceremony were whether Kate Winslet, twice-nominated for Best Actress, would split her own vote and miss out on her second BAFTA Award and who would prevail in the Sean Penn-Mickey Rourke battle for Best Actor. Aside from that, it seemed like a Slumdog sweep, and that’s exactly how it played out.

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There is a phenomenon known as “the Oscar bounce.” When a movie receives Academy Award nominations, especially one of the five coveted Best Picture slots, ticket-buyers generally follow. The Oscar seal of approval used to mean something to the rank-and-file moviegoer, but that seems to have changed.

Only one of this year’s Best Picture nominees has inspired any real passion from the broad public. The almost-certain Best Picture winner is Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight), and its devotees, including critics and members of the Academy (not to mention yours truly), have made it a word-of-mouth smash hit. The Danny Boyle-directed feel-good Bollywood fusion movie made for a meager $14M added another $2.05M or so on Friday and is charting a 3-day course for about $7.4M. That will give the Slumdog a $77.4M take, and it could reach $90M-$95M before it’s through in American theatres.

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The Drew Barrymore-produced romantic comedy He’s Just Not That Into You has made the jump from catch-phrase to self-help book to movie hit. With an all-star cast this classic ‘chick flick” appears to be winning the weekend after posting a spectacular $10.5M in opening day ticket sales. That should mean a 3-day start of $27.4M or so, easily out-pacing holdover Taken (Fox) and three other new wide releases. With this kind of opening, Not That Into You could reach almost $60M by the end of next weekend (a 4-day Presidents/Valentine’s combo), which would forecast a potential $90M in US ticket sales.

The new movie developed by New Line and now released by Warner Bros is based on the book of the same name co-written by former Sex & the City scribes Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo. The line itself has come to be a reassuring fallback for women in the dating scene (and I’m guessing single guys have adopted the mentality as well in the rough-and-tumble world of dating).

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The chubby guy on the Segway rallied for a come-from-behind win over the Beckinsale-less Underworld sequel, but regardless, it was a 1-2 finish for Sony. When I originally predicted that Paul Blart: Mall Cop as the likely weekend winner over the MLK 4-day, some online sites questioned my pick. Even I didn’t expect an opening close to $40M, and now the Kevin James vehicle has surprised again.

The Adam Sandler-produced comedy has broadened its audience, showing real family appeal. That led to stronger Saturday and Sunday matinees for a stellar $21.5M by Monday morning. That gives the movie a 10-day cume of just shy of $65M, which is impressive considering that it was budgeted at just $26M. After success as a supporting star in movies like Hitch ($179.5M cume) and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry ($120M cume), it appears that James can open a movie without the help of Will Smith and Adam Sandler. Mall Cop dipped only 32% from last Friday-thru-Sunday (and that was part of a 4-day weekend, which can often lead to a sharper drop). (more…)

Nobody is ever completely satisfied with the Academy Award nominations, but with several key snubs, Oscar voters may have ensured that the 2009 telecast hits an all-time ratings low.

Investor Warren Buffet coined the phrase “skin in the game” to describe a situation where executives use their own money to buy shares in their company. The so-called Oracle of Omaha likes companies where insiders have their own money invested because they work harder, care more and generally are more emotionally invested.

The problem with the Oscars is that voters are nominating films that relatively few people have seen. The five movies nominated for Best Picture this week – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Reader and Frost/Nixon – have combined to gross just $186.7M. The Dark Knight passed that box office total early in its fifth day of release. (more…)

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

SUNDAY MORNING: Dog lovers everywhere united to make Fox’s Marley & Me the #1 Christmas weekend movie with an expected $51.18M in the Thursday-thru-Sunday period for a Per Theatre Average of $14,888. Pre-opening industry tracking pointed to a clear win for Bedtime Stories (Disney), but it was the lovable lab who finished on top.

As an aside, all of us who read John Grogan’s extraordinarily well-written novel should have seen this coming. The book is a joy, and anyone who has a dog, or has ever had a dog, could easily identify with the struggles and pleasures of having a 4-legged member of the family.

The success of Marley slightly mitigates a disastrous year for Fox. Its year started out well enough riding the huge success of 2007 release Alvin & the Chipmunks into January ($70M of Alvin’s gross landed in this calendar year). The January 18 release of chick-flick 27 Dresses scored for Katherine Heigl ($76.8M in the US), then Jumper was a good solid February hit, topping $80M, followed by the wildly successful Horton Hears a Who ($154.5M domestic). Little did Fox know that when the Ashton Kutcher-Cameron Diaz comedy What Happens in Vegas played solidly to the tune of $80.2M domestic starting in May, it would be its last legit hit until Christmas’ Marley & Me. This is a huge, redemptive win for Fox, and its sentimental tear-jerker of a dog movie could near $100M domestic by Sunday.

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