In “Scream 4,” the recently-released thriller directed by Wes Craven, a publicist refers to Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) as a “victim for life.” For Prescott, who was attacked and nearly murdered in the original “Scream”  trilogy, the characterization rings true. In “Scream 4,” victimhood and the publicity that accompanies it are major themes as a new killer emerges in Woodsboro, the site of the original murders.

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On a publicity tour to promote her new book “Out of Darkness,” Prescott returns to Woodsboro where she reunites with former tabloid reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and Dewey Riley (David Arquette). Weathers and Riley are married and while the former is writing a novel, the latter spends his time as the town sheriff. Even before Prescott starts signing books at a local store, a new killer has already struck. That killer is soon hunting down some of the local teenagers and trying to murder Prescott.  

As I previously noted, I enjoyed the original “Scream” trilogy. Like a lot of horror movies, the series features a lot of violence and gore but the stories are well-told. The trilogy was created to serve a certain audience and they do that well. While “Scream 2” was the best of the original trilogy, “Scream 3” was the weakest. “Scream 4” should be rated beneath the original two “Screams” but above “Scream 3.”

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And the Oscar doesn’t go to…

An incurably snarky acquaintance of mine has recently introduced me to the word “suckage.” Apparently this magic word can qualify as a noun, verb, adjective, and with a little creative thought, a personal pronoun as well. While I am not sure I agree with the idea that this is the Swiss army knife of words, I think that this is the perfect word to express how I feel about whatever process is used to figure out who gets honored with an Oscar statue.

While there is always a healthy debate over who won the industry’s most aesthetically unpleasing award, there is not often a lot of discussion about the folks who were completely snubbed by an academy dedicated to the principals and values of “suckage.”

Here are 10 people, films, or entities that should be displaying Oscar on their mantles but aren’t.

Ray Harryhausen
Anybody watching Ray Harryhausen work would think he was just a middle aged man playing with dolls. While this is probably not uncommon in Hollywood, especially in any residence owned by somebody from the Sheen family, what was really going on was a master craftsman at work. Ray may not have invented the stop motion technique, but he certainly perfected it. During his prime he was a one man “Industrial Light and Magic” who inserted world class special effects into mediocre (at best) films. His long shadow fell over, and influenced an entire generation of special effects enthusiasts and without his groundbreaking work the world would probably not have films like Jurassic Park and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is a crime against nature that, other than a special technical Oscar, this man was never honored for his magical work in a specific film. 

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#8: The Last House on the Left (1972)

How’d we get into the sex crime business anyway? My brother, Saul, a plumber, makes twice as much money as I do and gets three weeks’ vacation too.

There are suspense films, there are horror films, there are monster movies, thrillers, chillers, and plenty of splatter-fests… and then there’s the primal experience of watching a nightmarish assault on your own emotional senses unfold before your very eyes; a nightmare you can neither stop nor turn away from. Writer/director Wes Craven’s stunning debut with producer Sean Cunningham (“Friday the 13th”) is, believe it or not, based on Ingmar Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring,” a film set in the 14th Century about a young girl raped and killed by three murderers who unwittingly turnaround and make the mistake of asking their victim’s parents for shelter for the night. I haven’t seen this film – watching Bergman’s stillborn ruminations on death makes me long for its sweet release – but those bare bones of a plot do match “Last House,” which audaciously opens by telling us that what we’re about to see is based on a true story.

Please let that be creative invention.

On the edge of 17, Mari Collingwood (Sandra Peabody), a fetchingly wholesome and beautiful girl who lives with her loving mother and doctor father in the quiet countryside, decides to celebrate her upcoming birthday by leaving the safe confines of hearth and home for an adventure in the big bad city with her more rebellious friend Phyllis (Lucy Grantham). Like a lot of kids that age, the idea is to score a little dope and rock out the evening at a “Bloodlust” concert. No harm no foul, right? Not in Craven’s world.

The two girlfriends enjoy an ice cream and stroll through the mean streets towards the concert when they chance upon the ferret-faced, bashful and rather harmless looking Junior Stillo (Marc Sheffler), who throws off just enough of a hippie-cool vibe that the girls tentatively approach him about the weed. At first Junior isn’t interested and blows them off. But just as they’re about to walk away and escape safely into the rest of their lives — into what’s sure to be a long and idyllic existence in the suburbs shared with loving husbands and adoring children, something changes Junior’s mind and he calls them back. The drugs are inside, he informs them, and into Hell they walk. (more…)

#11:  The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

There are many qualities that make for a classic horror film, but nothing enhances the emotional power of the overall experience like a director who can successfully plant a sense of pure dread deep in your gut and hold it there. With “The Hills Have Eyes” writer/director/horror master Wes Craven (“Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Scream”) not only accomplishes this within the first few minutes, he does something even nastier. About halfway through, in a harrowing attack sequence, the filmmaker tells us in no uncertain terms and in the harshest way possible that all bets are off, there are no rules, and that you better hold tight because anything can happen.

With a budget of only $230,000 (over the years, the film would eventually gross an incredible $25 million), this visceral piece of unashamed exploitation tells the story of an extended Ohio family on their way to California who stupidly (and fatally) decide to bypass the interstate in order to check out an old silver mine that, even if it exists, does so uncomfortably close to a nuclear testing site deep within the desert of the American Southwest.

The crusty old owner of a ramshackle gas station (John Steadman) tries to warn our typical American family off, but Dad’s a retired cop afraid of nothing and the warning only seems to encourage him. And so with his chirpy wife, teenage children Bobby and Brenda, grown daughter Lynne (Dee Wallace), her husband and an infant (who will play a crucial role), Dad rolls into the heart of no man’s land pulling a mobile home all under the watchful eyes of a family of starved mutant cannibals who don’t appear to be completely opposed to incest. (more…)

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…)

The explicit portrayal of rape in Last House on the Left (2009) is repugnant and coarsening and wrong. Director Dennis Iliadis dwells on the act long past the moment in which we get the point; long past when we have been emotionally affected. The scene quickly becomes exploitation.

This poison goes down smooth because Last House is creepy, frightening, and well-executed, as horror movies go. The movie looks as good as any other mid- to big-budget Hollywood picture. The acting is above-average for this kind of thing, the villains are creepy (though made oddly sympathetic at times), and the updates to the original story make the plot far more believable than it was in the amateurish, junk-pile original from 1972. (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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As expected Disney’s Race To Witch Mountain enjoyed a huge Saturday surge for just over $11M in tickets sold, and the reboot of the 70’s franchise will finish with about $25M for the 3-day. Overall, Race posted the year’s seventh-best Saturday performance.

TOP 10 SATURDAY GROSSES IN 2009
1. March 7 – Watchmen – $18.3M
2. February 21 – Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail – $16.6M
3. February 14 – Friday the Thirteenth – $14.3M
4. January 17 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop – $13.2M
5. January 10 – Gran Torino – $12.1M
6. January 31 – Taken – $11.65M
7. March 14 - Race To Witch Mountain – $11M (estimated)
8. February 7 – He’s Just Not That Into You – $10.9M
9. January 17 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop – $10M
10. January 17 – Gran Torino – $10M
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As Watchmen (Warner Bros) falls, “The Rock” appears to be racing to a weekend win. Disney’s Race To Witch Mountain, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, is off to a solid start with $6.8M or so on opening day, and, with its expected surge in family matinee audiences on Saturday and Sunday, it will likely triumph with a possible $24.25M.

Meanwhile last weekend’s winner Watchmen staggered to a second Friday of only $5.4M or so, and I am projecting only $15.75M for the 3-day. That marks a 71% drop. Anything over $20M would have been acceptable, but the bottom has fallen out of this movie, and it will now struggle to reach $100M domestic. When the foreign and DVD are added, it may make a small profit, but it will likely be negligible. The superstitious might suggest that Watchmen writer Alan Moore’s alleged curse may be to blame, but the reality is that word-of-mouth has been more negative than for any movie in recent memory.

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The remake of Wes Craven’s classic 1972 low-budget gut churner gets itself into trouble almost immediately in an early sequence. Krug (Garret Dillahunt) is on his way to jail when his very own Manson Family (a wild-child girlfriend and slithering brother) spring him. But a successful escape doesn’t satisfy these sickos and rather than call it a day and run like hell, they pause to sadistically murder two police officers already injured way beyond being able to give chase. Within the first few minutes the full horror of what this vicious crew is capable of unfolds.

But the best horror unfolds slowly. This is what made the first half of the original so watchable (the second half is even better). We knew the 1972 gang was dangerous only through radio reports, but when we meet them they’re obviously twisted but also rather buffoonish. Even the girls don’t take them seriously when they’re first kidnapped. Because we haven’t seen with our own eyes what the kidnappers are truly capable of, until the final, awful moments we hold on to the idea that the girls might be let go or even outwit their captors. Unlike the remake, the visceral is emotional, not visual. The horror comes from the death of hope and the slow realization that this depraved nightmare isn’t going to end. (more…)

One of the coolest ways to use the social networking platform Twitter is to find out what people are thinking, saying and Twittering about in real time. Here’s a small sampling of Tweets from the opening weekend of Watchmen (Warner Bros).

The Watchmen = Epic fail!

If you haven’t seen The Watchmen yet, I’d urge you to read the graphic novel first. Well, actually, I’d urge you to JUST read the GN. lol.

Watchmen.undecided,confused as superhero film with

very little superhero action.Convoluted story,but overall watchable. My opinion only

I was bored while watching Watchmen

Just got out of Watchmen…. Ouch, would spend the 9 quid on – can’t even find the humour, brain switched off 1 hour into the 3- BIG YAWN (more…)

The comments in yesterday’s “Melrose Trek” post ran about 9 to 1 against me, which begs the question of how so many can be so wrong…. Honestly, I don’t oppose remakes on some sort of general principle, it’s the meterosexualizing of iconic characters and lack of respect for the source material that galls, and if “Superman Returns” existed that would be my prime example of what can go so horribly wrong.

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This Friday comes a remake to look forward to; a do-over of Wes Craven’s “Last House on the Left” (1972), one of the all-time classic horror flicks. Some have come close, but when it comes to the pure art of creating a sense of oppressive, grinding dread that stirs the guts with a spoon, there’s no other film like it. Just watching the trailer again (it’s only a movie, it’s only a movie, it’s only a movie…) gives me the willies, and anyone who knows me will tell you I don’t throw the word ”willies” around lightly. (more…)

After I posted my original Early Estimates column on Big Hollywood last night, I received a Facebook message from Platinum Dunes partner and Friday the Thirteenth producer Rob Fuller saying “I hope you’re right.” My Friday estimate last night was for a robust $20M, and Variety is reporting $19.3M this morning. “We were hoping to do $10M-$11M yesterday,” he told me this morning.  “In our wildest dreams we couldn’t have imagined that.”

I originally projected $51.25M for the 4-day weekend on Friday night, amd some analysts have the new Jason Voorhies saga sailing higher basec on early rerturns (I am now projecting $47M for 4 days). The combination of Valentine’s Day and a school holiday Monday for President’s Day make predicting the movie’s long weekend haul a tricky call, but regardless, this is great news for Warner Bros, which has the domestic distribution rights, Paramount, handling international distribution, and Platinum Dunes.

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