Audiences who meet Lisbeth and Mikael, the damaged heroes of director David Fincher’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” will wonder why Larsson’s saga took up so much oxygen in the first place.

The American version of the popular European film, drawn from the trilogy of best sellers by Stieg Larssons, is a solidly constructed thriller with enough sex, danger and escapism to keep audiences engaged. But Fincher’s film is nothing if not perfunctory, and it doesn’t help that the director falls back on the same drab color palette he used to better effect in last year’s hit “The Social Network.”

Daniel Craig stars as Mikael, a disgraced journalist who lucks into a sweet gig after losing his shirt in a libel suit. An avuncular old man named Henrik (Christopher Plummer) hires Mikael to solve the decades-old case of a teen girl’s mysterious death. The girl happens to have been Henrik’s niece, part of an extended family with more skeletons in its closet than that “Poltergeist” graveyard scene.

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“Beginners” is a love story that refuses to follow any of the cinematic rules regarding romance.

Writer/director Mike Mills’ film, available Nov. 15 on Blu-ray and DVD, tracks the bond between a sad-eyed cartoonist (Ewan McGregor) and a flighty actress (Melanie Laurent). It’s the story nestled in between that makes the difference, a father-son bond complicated by the former’s coming out at the ripe old age of 75.

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Mills tells his story with a blend of movie tricks, from bursts of narration to a Jack Russell terrier whose thoughts are printed on the screen. It’s both raw and frustrating, for as much as the film romance formula demands to be broken, “Beginners” isn’t constructed well enough to fully commit to its atypical storytelling.

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Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday.  Sure, Canada and a couple other nations have adopted their own weird versions of it too, but the notion of a nation setting aside a day to give thanks for its blessings could only arise in a nation that has been so abundantly blessed.  In its land, its people and its animating spirit, America has much to be thankful for even in a time of war, economic blight, and a government that too often seems to see its blessings as curses and its greatest strengths as flaws.

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But America’s abundance does not apply to movies about Thanksgiving.  Certainly some exist, but if you review a list of movies about Thanksgiving, the sad fact is that there are very few good ones.  Many are PC retellings of the original Thanksgiving story – one guess as to who the villains are (Hint:  It’s the dudes with buckles on their hats).  Others are tiresome melodramas about “quirky” families that reaffirm their bonds over plates of turkey, with “quirky” — meaning “annoying.”  (more…)

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Dreamworks Animation have definitively proven that Digital 3-D is a blockbuster format. Not only has Monsters vs. Aliens seized a monstrous $58.2M in opening weekend ticket sales, Real-D (the technology provider) and Dreamworks have revealed that $25M or so of that gross was generated specifically from 3-D and IMAX 3-D. Fox is reporting that fully 43% of the total take was from the estimated 2,218 Digital 3-D screens.

MONSTERS VS. ALIENS tore up the box office this weekend - especially in 3-D

That means that the Per Screen Average for the movie in 3-D was about $11,700, while the 4,800 or so traditional 35MM 2-D engagements had a Per Theatre of just an estimated $4,780. Exhibitors who figured out a way to overcome the credit crunch and pay the estimated $100,000 to convert a traditional theatre into one that can show Digital 3-D made a killing this weekend.

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This week’s Sunday Matinee is dedicated to Hollywood.

Because it’s Oscar Sunday and the whole world is focused on the Kodak Theatre and the red carpet parade about to happen, it seems fitting that Broadway throws Hollywood a bone today.  Also, considering every other Broadway show these days seems to be a staged version of a popular movie, (“Shrek”, “Wedding Singer”… Really?) it seems appropriate to shine a little light on a Broadway Musical that has been adapted to film.  (more…)