Good piece today by Christian Toto in the Washington Times on Woody Allen’s critical darling “Midnight in Paris.”  I found the film to be quite the disappointment; as Toto notes, Allen takes a bludgeon to America and the Tea Party, but more irritating still is that–aside from the eye candy–the movie is basically one joke repeated over and over from beginning to end.  Aside from a couple of very funny scenes with the talented Michael Sheen, the premise runs thin within the first 45 minutes.  The payoff is also a letdown.  Furthermore, the pompous underlying theme is that Allen equates today’s crop of artists with history’s all-time greats.  Is Allen subtly suggesting he is the Hemingway or Fitzgerald of our time?  Well, he’s not not suggesting it.

[I]n finding artistic and commercial renewal across the pond, Mr. Allen often has flattered European vanities by ogling the sights of their storied capitals with his camera. Unfortunately, in “Midnight,” he also has pandered to European stereotypes of the Ugly American.

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The cross-cultural comedy concerns a burned out Hollywood screenwriter named Gil (Owen Wilson) who hopes a trip to France will inspire him to finish his novel. Gil fantasizes about Paris in the 1920s, a time when artistic giants such as Ernest Hemingway, Cole Porter and F. Scott Fitzgerald roamed its streets.

One mysterious car ride later, Gil finds himself magically transported back to the Lost Generation golden age of his daydreams.

“Midnight in Paris” taps into a timeless American attraction to the City of Light as a cultural beacon, a place even ordinary artists can visit and emerge reborn. Throughout the film, Mr. Allen treats the city’s creative minds, native and transient alike, as intellectual titans.

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In high school I worked at a gas station, where I served as full-time clerk and part-time shrink to some of the friendless and overly talkative customers. One sticks with me. A father from a neighboring town came into the store on the anniversary of his daughter’s death. She was killed when a classmate hit her while speeding home from school one evening. I must have been the first person to ask him about his day, so he told me about it. I remember listening awkwardly, trying to empathize with a man whose loss was more terrible than anything I could really comprehend. 

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Shawn Ku, the up-and-coming writer/director of “Beautiful Boy,” deliberately thrusts that feeling on viewers. In “Beautiful Boy,” Bill (Michael Sheen with an American accent) and Kate (Maria Bello) struggle to cope with the loss of their son Sam, who went on a horrific shooting rampage on his college campus before turning the gun on himself. The tragedy amplifies the problems in their already strained relationship and forces them to address who they are as individuals and as a couple bound together by their son’s horrific actions. It’s Columbine, Virginia Tech, Columbine, from a side you never hear – a side so horrific and painful it’s almost impossible to imagine. 

The film is Ku’s reflection on what it’s like to be an awkward part of a family’s sorrow. Ku was the last person to see a friend of his before he died (of natural causes), and Ku thus assumed a strange role in the mourning cycle of his friend’s family. “I was the one his parents clung to for any sign that his troubles and disappointments were released before the end,” Ku said of the experience. 

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The movie of the summer won’t be in theatres, going instead straight to DVD on June 15.

That’s a shame, because Unthinkable, a ripped from the headlines suspense thriller, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Carrie-Ann Moss, Michael Sheen and Brendan Routh, asks the sorts of questions we should be asking in our era of terror. It has all the hallmarks of an excellent 24 episode, save one — the threat seems far too real and it isn’t clear that the FBI is tough enough to save us.

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The movie opens to grainy footage of Sheen in a warehouse.  The camera flickers on, Sheen stammers something, grows dissatisfied and the he turns the camera off. At first blush, these seem like outtakes, until he regains himself. “In the name of Allah, the merciful, and his Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, my name is Yousef Atta Mohammed. My former name is Stephen Arthur Younger.”

It’s a scene we’ve seen before – on the news, but never from Hollywood. Younger is all American: ex-military, a Muslim convert, and a nuclear weapons specialist, who has placed three nuclear weapons in three American cities. Paid by Iran to smuggle fissionable material out of Russia, he went rogue, surfacing once more in America where he allowed himself to be captured. He is our very worst fear, a fear which seems all too plausible after Ft. Hood. (more…)

I am forecasting a coronation for Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) at Sunday’s Academy Awards. My final predictions call for Slumdog wins in 8 of the 9 categories it is competing in including Best Picture and Best Director: Danny Boyle. The only place I think it will fail is in the Sound Mixing category where The Dark Knight (Warner Bros) may trump it.

Slumdog Millionaire is about to win the Hollywood's Grand Prize

The “Battle Royale” of the night is Mickey Rouke from The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) vs. Sean Penn in Milk (Focus) in the Best Actor category. There have been two ties in major categories in Academy Award history. The first was in 1932 when Frederic March in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde shared Best Actor with Wallace Beery for The Champ. (March had one more vote, but in that era, any finish within 3 votes was rules a tie.) Then in 1968, Katherine Hepburn for The Lion In Winter and Barbara Streisand for Funny Girl tied for Best Actress. If there was any justice, Rourke and Penn would share the award. In any other year, either of them would be a lock. Forced to make a pick, I’m going with Rourke.

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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 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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Liam Neeson is officially a full-fledged action star. The Irish-born actor has often played heroes, whether it was Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece Schindler’s List, the wise Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace or determined sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in 2005’s biopic Kinsey, Neeson has always had a knack for playing the earnest-but-flawed good guy. In his new movie Taken (Fox), writer/producer Luc Besson and director Pierre Morel have turned him into a Dad with the “mad skills” of a super-spy – think Mike Brady crossed with Jason Bourne.

The result is a well-reviewed (56% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) action film that will help to satisfy blockbuster-hungry audiences waiting for Warner Bros’ Watchmen (due March 6). Taken has scored big on its opening weekend. After grabbing an estimated $9.4M, the movie surged on Saturday to $11.62M (up almost 24% from opening day) and, despite today’s Super Bowl, the film could reach $24.62M according to studio estimates. That will be more than enough to win the Super Bowl 3-day, and positive word-of-mouth could get this one into the $70M-$75M range domestic.

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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…)

Michael Sheen has two movies in release this weekend. The classically-trained Welsh actor plays Lucien in the wildly commercial Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (Sony), opening on about 3,000 screens, and he plays David Frost in Frost/Nixon (Universal), expanding to about 800 playdates.

He is a classically-trained stage actor, who has starred in heavyweight UK productions of Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Amadeus and The Dresser, was somehow overlooked by both Hollywood Foreign Press and Oscar voters when he starred as Tony Blair in 2006’s The Queen. (He was outshined by Helen Mirren, who won every acting prize imaginable). This year, he is in the shadow of Frank Langella’s towering portrayal of President Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon.

As an aside, The Queen was the second in screenwriter Peter Morgan’s Tony Blair trilogy. The first film was called The Deal for British television and tells the story of the rivalry between Blair and current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. (This is a great title to put in your Netflix or Blockbuster cue.) The final film will be called The Special Relationship, which will focus on the intimate friendship between the British PM and President Bill Clinton between 1997-2000. Sheen has signed on, but there is no word on who will play Clinton. Morgan says the idea for the third film began to germinate when he heard that Blair and Clinton were alone together when Vice President Al Gore conceded the 2000 election.

In the meantime, Sheen will almost certainly have the #1 movie in America this weekend with Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. This is the third Underworld movie, but it is a prequel set in the dark ages with Sheen as Lucien, a young werewolf, who leads a war against Bill Nighy as Viktor, the leader of the vampire race. (more…)