Regular readers of my Daily Call Sheet know that one of this summer’s tentpoles I was most excited to see was “Cowboys and Aliens.” The concept, trailer, and director (Jon Favreau) really sold me, and who doesn’t love them some cowboys and aliens? Much to my surprise, though, the $165 million sci-fi epic opened and flopped… hard, once again confirming my long-standing rule never to embarrass myself with public box office predictions.  After the fact, the failure was attributed to a film that just wasn’t very good, but that doesn’t explain why what looked like a no-brainer would open to a paltry $36 million weekend. Now that I’ve actually seen the Blu-ray (which hits stores today), it’s all starting to make sense.

What audiences sensed, I think, is exactly what’s wrong with the movie itself and that’s the casting. While Daniel Craig impressed us in “Casino Royale” and especially “Layer Cake,” he just doesn’t register as the mysteriously dangerous stranger who shows up in a corrupt Western town. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of Craig. Bogart’s a legend, but not every legend looks comfortable wearing a cowboy hat. Craig does look the part, but what he is missing requires some explanation.

As The Man With No Name, Craig fails to register. The story really does rest on his ridiculously toned shoulders, and this is where things falter most and also where I’m about to get a little unfair. As much as I would like to, it’s impossible for me to separate my love and knowledge of film from what Hollywood’s producing today, and when it comes to this kind of “town” Western and this kind of character, Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s “Fistful of Dollars” (1964) is the standard. As is Eastwood in his own masterpiece “High Plains Drifter” (1973), and I would even include Bruce Willis in “Last Man Standing” (1996), Walter Hill’s imperfect but still memorable updated remake of “Dollars.”

The stranger has to carry a sense of mystery about him that’s both unspoken and intriguing. Without a word of exposition, we have to want to know who this guy is and what makes him tick. Is he the good guy? Is he the bad guy? Moreover, there has to be a sense of unpredictable danger — the sense that this man is capable of anything. Lastly, a wicked sense of humor doesn’t hurt.

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Cowboys & Aliens is a highly enjoyable film with a good heart. It’s a great way to while away a couple of hours, and audiences will be the better for having been exposed to its themes. It could have been a classic, however, had the filmmakers done a bit more homework about how great movie Westerns of the past were assembled.

Directed by Jon Favreau (the Iron Man films, Elf, Zathura) from a script by multiple hands, Cowboys & Aliens has plenty of energy and action and is quite enjoyable, but it suffers from a curious lack of interesting plot twists and a rather glaring casting misstep. Most classic Westerns, contrary to contemporary beliefs, were given excellent, complex plots with strong character motivations. Unfortunately, the plot of Cowboys & Aliens is relatively simple.

We know from the film’s title and trailers that aliens are going to attack in the Old West, and it’s axiomatic that once that happens, the earthlings will fight back. So, no surprises there. Once the Western-standard mysterious stranger Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) arrives in town, we know the aliens won’t be far behind. And once he poses a challenge to the rule of the Western-standard arrogant ranch king Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), we know that the two will reconcile at some point in order to fight the aliens together.

The same is true of the choices made by Dolarhyde’s arrogant idiot son, Percy, Indian guide Nat Colorado (Adam Beach), and the tribe of Apache Indians who capture the small band of people fighting the aliens. Colorado is a likeable character, thanks to Beach’s understated performance and his character’s interesting and laudable longing to be a valued member of the society and in particular of Dolarhyde’s ranch team. Unfortunately, he’s not seen all that much.

The Apaches inject dramatic energy and an amusing element of political incorrectness in their savage, unruly celebration after capturing a group of white settlers. But none of them are given complex or particularly unusual characters. Of course, although classic Hollywood Westerns showed the Indians in a much more positive light than contemporary film historians acknowledge, they weren’t always given characters as complex as the protagonists’, just as is the case here. That’s natural to any story: the subsidiary characters aren’t explored as deeply as the main ones. And in Cowboys & Aliens, as in the best Westerns of Hollywood’s golden age, the Indians are shown making real, reasoned choices, which is a nice throwback to the classic Western approach.

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First and foremost, “Cowboys & Aliens” is a Western. It features cowboys, gunslingers and, of course, a woman at the center of the storm. These distinct characters and the beginning of the story set up the movie like a normal Western until a few alien invaders get in the way. That is when “Cowboys” combines two film genres and becomes a story about a typical group of cowboys who must defend the Earth from a group of extraterrestrial visitors.

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“Cowboys” begins with a befuddled outlaw named Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) waking up in the middle of the desert with a strange mechanical bracelet attached to his arm. Lonergan doesn’t remember who he is or where the bracelet came from but he does remember how to defend himself, which he does when a group of cowboys surrounds him. Eventually, he heads into a local town where some of the townspeople remember Lonergan and his criminal past.  Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), whose gold was stolen by Lonergan,  arrives in town shortly after Lonergan is arrested.  While Lonergan and Dolarhyde’’s rebellious son Percy (Paul Dano) are preparing to be transferred to another prison, aliens attack the town and kidnap some of its people. The story then revolves around the cowboys and their efforts to fight against the extraterrestrials.

Jon Favreau, who previously directed the first two “Iron Man” films, is smart enough to focus this film solidly in one genre before switching gears. Before the aliens attack, “Cowboys” works as a typical Western and could have succeeded as one. The characters are well-drawn and both Ford, whose gruffness reminded me of his work in last year’s “Morning Glory,” and tough-guy Craig were well-chosen leads. The strong supporting cast includes Sam Rockwell, as a man whose wife is abducted, and the underused Dano, who was so memorable in 2007’s “There Will Be Blood.”

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Ed. Note: Please make Deanna feel welcome here at Big Hollywood . Hopefully, this is just the beginning of a beautiful relationship. –JN

When you discover you just spent more than $10 to see pretty much the worst movie EVER made, can anything give you comfort?
I didn’t think so … especially when my mind started wandering about 15 minutes into ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ and the thrill of seeing Daniel Craig in chaps had worn off …

Then, I had one of those moments. It was the moment I realized that greatness could arise from the ashes of a ridiculously dumb movie plot … the hope came in the person of Harrison Ford.

Because seriously, no matter how old he gets, Harrison Ford can still work it …(kinda like Sean Connery … always sexy) … But a bad movie is still a bad movie … so, I slipped into stupid-movie, nap mode … then … it happened AGAIN. …

This ridiculously asinine excuse for a movie (thank you, Stephan Spielberg) about aliens stealing town folk from an old west mining town to ‘see how they tick’ so they could annihilate the human race, started to become a perfectly normal paradigm of how the left is infiltrating every aspect of our lives. And in case you hadn’t figured it out yet … the left are the aliens and us red-blooded conservatives are the cowboys.

Basically, in the sandstone hills and mountains of what looks like Texas or New Mexico, the aliens have imbedded this colossally large space ship underground and it sticks up out of the ground like a tower (and totally doesn’t blend in, btw).

The aliens, on occasion, swoop into town in their metal spaceships and throw out these rope lassos from the sky and round up people, pulling them bungee cord style behind their spaceships.

Once aboard the mothership, the townspeople are forced to stare into the light for some sort of brainwashing before being dissected by the brutally disgusting aliens whose hands come out of their chests in this terriblby grotesque manner.

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Even in a world where most movie heroes have to take on superpowers before they can fight properly and often find themselves toeing the PC line while saving the world, it’s good to know that some movie concepts are just good, clean, ridiculous fun. And riding onto the nation’s movie screens this weekend is a perfect example of just that kind of film: the new Western/sci-fi hybrid genre mash-up “Cowboys & Aliens.”

The “plot” couldn’t be more basic, yet it took nine people to assemble the script, which opens on tough-guy cowboy Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) waking up in the desert with a nasty gash in his belly and a mysterious iron bracelet on one arm.

As he struggles to remember what led to his desert awakening, Jake is confronted by three horsemen who threaten to turn him in for a bounty.  He still can’t remember his name or where he came from, but he does know how to open a can of whupass on the interlopers and proceeds to kill them before riding into the nearest town wearing their clothes and riding their horses.

When he finds that the town is ruled by the terroristic clan of corrupt cattle rancher Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), he proceeds to stir things up by humorously beating Woodrow’s son and henchmen. Just as he’s about to have to run for his life or fight to the death with Woodrow, however, a fleet of alien spaceships comes swooping in out of nowhere to blow a bunch of stuff up for no immediately apparent reason – and Jake and Woodrow have to team up and bring their respective posses together to fight back against the aliens with one cohesive force. (more…)

Thor, perhaps the most Shakespearean of Marvel Comics heroes, is a refreshingly fun adaptation of another comic character destined for franchise glory. In an inspired piece of hiring, “Thor” is directed by Kenneth Branagh, famous for his numerous Shakespeare adaptations. His unabridged version of “Hamlet” was my favorite screen version of the Great Bard’s most famous work, and though it’s no surprise that he can stage a large production, it’s good to know he can handle the physicality of a CGI-laden blockbuster as well.

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In this one, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) hails from the realm of Asgard, and is apparently more of an alien than a god or deity. Cast out of Asgard by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) as punishment for narcissism and disobedience, Thor’s stripped of his powers and banished to our little marble, landing in small town New Mexico. There, he’s confronted by a world that greets his stories of fantastic kingdoms and powers with scorn, and where his mighty hammer, containing the thundery awesomeness of his powers, remains inaccessibly stuck in a block of stone. Thor then must not only clash with a civilization that doesn’t respect his ancestry, but also with the machinations of villains back home and some surprisingly well-intentioned government agents. (more…)

“PCU” is not a great comedy, but its observations on political correctness run amuck on 1990s college campuses make it a pretty decent rental. The premise suggests a much funnier movie: Tom Lawrence (Chris Young) visits Port Chester University one weekend to determine if he wants to attend school there in the fall. Over the course of the weekend, he manages to alienate himself from every insane politically correct group on campus.

 
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Jeremy Piven is at his pre-Ari Gold best as Droz, something like a seventh year senior at Port Chester University college who is the unofficial leader of a group of campus misfits who live in a former fraternity house known as The Pit.

It’s a former frat house because fraternities have been banned from PCU, and the residents of The Pit are misfits because they are, gasp, regular people.

They are a collection of individuals, completely at odds with campus groups whose bonds are the result of a supposed shared identity, i.e., the radical feminists (the Womynists), the rich white guys (Balls and Shaft). Navigating the campus requires moving through a maze of protests and counter protests. The college president, Ms. Garcia-Thompson, is obsessed with multiculturalism and diversity, at one point suggesting that the Bi-Sexual Asian Studies program should have its own building on campus. The irony is, of course, that the denizens of the Pit are the most diverse group on campus. (more…)

Imagine the pressure of pulling off the perfect film — then immediately being expected to top yourself. That was pretty much the situation faced by Robert Downey Jr. and director Jon Favreau with “Iron Man.”

When that superhero flew into theaters in 2008, he brought the thrill of discovery back to moviegoers who had been hit throughout the decade with a wave of Spiderman, X-Men and Superman movies. With Downey Jr. taking on the lead role of super-industrialist and weapons maker Tony Stark, that film’s producers took a big chance on giving one of Hollywood’s most legendary bad boys another shot at stardom after he had wasted years of great reviews on a personal ride through a drug-addicted hell complete with time in a hard-core prison and repeated attempts at rehab.

Audiences went wild for him, as Downey brought genuine emotion, sass and swagger to his role at the heart of the expertly mounted film, which featured Terence Howard, Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow in key supporting roles. (more…)

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You’ve met couples like this before: longtime marrieds approaching 40 and facing stress from fertility problems, work-aholism, lack of communication or just flat-out losing the spark and giving up hope. In fact, you might have lived through these problems yourself. 

But in the new movie “Couples Retreat,” which not only co-stars but is co-written by real-life best friends Vince Vaughn (“Wedding Crashers”) and Jon Favreau (a popular character actor who has also directed “Iron Man”), these average middle-class American problems are given hilarious voice through vivid performances and rapid-fire dialogue. Or, more accurately, the movie shines when it focuses on those aspects of life in the first half of the film, while disappointingly falling off a cliff for much of the unfocused second half. Yet, just like a real-life marriage that lasts, the ups outnumber the downs enough to make this a satisfying if not spectacular night at the movies. 

“Couples Retreat” kicks off with uptight couple Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristin Bell of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) begging their other friends – workaholic Dave (Vaughn) and his neglected wife Ronnie (Malin Akerman of the underrated remake of “The Heartbreak Kid”), and high school sweethearts-turned-bored middle-agers Joey (Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis of “Sex and the City”), and just-separated Shane (Faizon Love) and his ridiculously young new girlfriend Trudy (scene-stealing Kali Hawk) – to join them on a retreat to the Club Med-style resort of Eden. If they can get a group of four couples together, they can all go half-price – which sounds great to the three seemingly healthy couples, as long as they’re assured they won’t have to go through couples counseling.  (more…)

She has a hit TV show on the Disney Channel, a pair of albums that have debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, a concert tour with 69 sold-out arenas in North America, and now a second #1 movie in as many years. Miley Cyrus is the biggest teen star in the world.

With most of Hollywood (including myself) expecting an opening in the mid-$20M’s for Hannah Montana The Movie (Disney), Miley has surprised “grown-ups” with her box office clout once again. The picture opened with a heavily front-loaded $17.39M on Good Friday then dropped 40% on Saturday to an estimated $10.34M, and it will reach an estimated $34M by the end of Easter weekend, making it the all-time #2 opening for the bunny holiday weekend. My Friday night early 3-day projection was for $33.6M, but then I raised my number to $39M on Saturday. As it turns out, I should have stuck with my first pass. These young skewing movies are tricky to project, and the Easter Weekend, where Saturday traditionally drops from Friday, makes it even more complicated.

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Easter weekend 2009 will almost certainly be an all-time record-breaker for Hollywood with a pair of new releases that could be among the top six bunny holiday openings of all time. Although neither Hannah Montana: The Movie (Disney) or the new R-rated comedy Observe & Report (Warner Bros) will challenge 2006’s all-time Easter weekend opening champion Scary Movie 4 ($40.2M), both new offerings look very solid in pre-release industry tracking, and they will be joined by some strong holdovers.

Universal’s Fast & Furious is likely to cross the finish line first for a second consecutive weekend, following up last weekend’s almost $71M with about $30M, which would mark a 58% drop. Still, it must be considered a triumph that the re-teaming of Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez may have $120M in US sales after just 10 days. That will mean that Fast & Furious will have almost doubled the domestic gross of The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (the last film in the franchise), and this souped-up thrill ride could be headed for $160M US.

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With 400,000 Americans showing up every year at the Indy 500 and 200,000 more buying tickets to see NASCAR’s premiere event The Daytona 500, you would think that the most creative minds in Hollywood would be looking for a way to cash in with more movies about car racing and car culture. NASCAR has an estimated 75 million fans, and it is second only to the National Football League in terms of television ratings, so where are all the good racing movies?

Jordana Brewster is reunited with Vin, Paul and Michelle in FAST & FURIOUS

Universal seems to have answered that question by getting its successful street racing franchise back into the fast lane this weekend with Fast & Furious. The movie, which reunites Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez for the first time since 2001’s original surprise blockbuster, has exploded to a high octane $30.11M or so on Friday and that could mean a $70M opening weekend. That would make it the all-time #1 opening for a car racing movie.

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Universal’s Fast & Furious will be “burning rubber” this weekend at America’s multiplexes as the original street-racing cast reunites after some sub-par chapters of the franchise.

The original The Fast & The Furious hit theatres in 2001 under the direction of Rob Cohen who had shown a knack for action with Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story ($35M US cume) and Sly Stallone’s Daylight ($33M US cume) and a savvy feel for bigger-than-life characters in his Golden Globe winning biopic The Rat Pack (which, if you’ve never seen you should put in your Netflix cue and prepare to be amazed by Don Cheadle’s turn as Sammy Davis, Jr.). In tow, he had a 34-year-old Vin Diesel in only his second starring role following the surprise low budget hit Pitch Black ($39M cume) and 28-year-old Paul Walker, who had just starred in Cohen’s forgettable The Skulls. Also in the cast was Jordana Brewster (As the World Turns) and a pre-Lost Michelle Rodriguez, whose most notable credit was a gritty little indie called Girlfight.

Vin Diesel returns for FAST & FURIOUS

The result was box office jet fuel. Seemingly out of nowhere, The Fast & The Furious scored a scalding $40M opening weekend and reached $144.5M domestic and over $200M worldwide. But Diesel, whose signature line in the original movie is “I live my life one quarter of a mile at a time,” didn’t like the script for the sequel (or they wouldn’t pay his asking price depending on who you ask). That led to the 2003 sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious directed by Academy Award nominee John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood) starring Walker along with rapper Tyrese Gibson and Eva Mendes. Despite Diesel’s conspicuous absence, 2 Fast still delivered $127M in the US. (more…)

It is an excellent weekend for Dreamworks Animation. Although the credit crunch prevented financing that would allow exhibitors to undertake the digital conversion of more of its theatres, Monsters vs. Aliens is benefiting spectacularly from the 2,075 or so standard Digital 3-D engagements and the added 143 Digital IMAX runs. The audaciously ambitious animated send-up of 50’s B-movies has used the “bleeding edge” of technology to milk an estimated $16.7M in opening day ticket sales. The which could translate to $58M or so for the 3-day weekend.

MONSTERS VS. ALIENS towers over previous 3-D releases from Hollywood

If that number holds, and, if anything, they could drift higher as family audiences flood America’s multiplexes, Monsters vs. Aliens will be the all-time third-best opening in the month of March.

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Jeffrey Katzenberg has been the film industry’s strongest proponent of 3-D over the past few years, and this weekend his advocacy will start paying dividends for Dreamworks Amimation. Monsters Vs. Aliens will debut with 4,104 playdates. That makes it the 13th-widest release in modern film history, and it becomes the biggest non-summer debut of all-time.

Jeffrey Katzenberg - The Pied Piper for Digital 3-D

ALL-TIME WIDEST NON-SUMMER RELEASES
- with summer defined as May 1 – August 30 -
1. 3/27/09 – Monsters Vs. Aliens – 4,104 playdates
2. 11/07/08 – Madagascar 2 – 4,056 playdates
3. 10/01/04 – Shark Tale – 4,016
4. 3/31/06 – Ice Age: The Meltdown – 3,964
5. 3/14/08 – Dr. Suess’ Horton Hears A Who – 3,954

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It was another good weekend for Summit Entertainment. The distributor behind last year’s meteoric hit Twilight has scored a solid hit with the Alex Proyas-directed Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage. Despite shaky word-of-mouth and negative reviews, the sci-fi thriller got a solid 9% bump on Saturday for a $9.7M second day, and it will likely finish its opening weekend with a possible $24.8M.

As a production company, Summit is responsible for some monster hits, including commercially and/or artistically successful films like Once (Oscar nominee for Best Picture), American Pie ($102..5M domestic), Memento (Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay: Chris Nolan), Mr. & Mrs. Smith ($186.3M domestic) and In the Valley of Ellah (Tommy Lee Jones nominated for Best Actor). But as a distributor, they got off to a slow start. (more…)

Early box office returns are pointing to a weekend win for Knowing from Summit, but I will put my money on I Love You, Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) to generate more in US ticket sales over the long haul. The Nicolas Cage sci-fi thriller has grabbed an estimated $8.95M to start the weekend, and it will likely finish at $24M or so. That is, unless word-of-mouth catches up to it first.

Will reviews and word-of-mouth catch up to KNOWING?

Reviews for Knowing, written and directed by Alex Proyas, the inventive filmmaker behind the visually striking 1998 film Dark City and the 2004 Will Smith mega-hit I, Robot, has received overwhelmingly negative reviews (25% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but thanks to Twitter, real-time movie-goer reactions spread like wildfire. Here are some Tweets I just grabbed off the social networking platform.

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For the last few weeks, Summit’s Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage, has appeared to be the likely winner of the upcoming box office weekend. But, my sources tell me that I Love You, Man, the new comedy starring Paul Rudd (Role Models) and Jason Segal (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) has surged in the latest pre-release industry tracking.

In the spirit of March Madness, I’m calling for the upset. I Love You, Man may not actually be a Judd Apatow movie, but it sure does look like one in trailers and commercials. The movie reportedly “rocked the house” at the South By South West Festival last week, and the buzz is very positive. I am calling for $21.5M, which would be above industry expectations.

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