> Although Sundance still has several days to go, and surprises could spring up at any time (yesterday The Surrogate, a drama with John Hawkes as a man in an iron lung who decides to lose his virginity to a sex therapist played by Helen Hunt, came out of nowhere to win a huge $6M […]

> Well, that didn’t last long. After an Oscars+1 day where Best Picture winner THE ARTIST had the smallest Monday decline of any movie in the Top 10,  by Tuesday the glow was gone.  On a day when almost every Top 10 film was significantly up, ccording to Box Office Mojo, Artist had an increase […]

> How long before the Hunger Games sequels start arriving in 3D? THE HUNGER GAMES:  On its current trajectory toward a $350-375M US total, THE HUNGER GAMES (Lionsgate/Summit) will end up among the 15-20th biggest movies of all time, outgrossing all the Twilights and every Harry Potter except Deathly Hallows Part 2.  At $61.1M, it […]

  People have been accusing Julian Schnabel’s MIRAL of being propaganda for the Palestinian cause, but in a way that’s an insult to propagandists, who are usually focused and effective at what they do.  Miral is more of a mess than that, a no-doubt heartfelt story about one of the most historically complicated situations in […]

    I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT – Not Even For Free:  You Don’t Want To Know   The recent movie I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT most resembles is The Nanny Diaries, which is odd because it was a flop for Harvey Weinstein and The Weinstein Company, and yet Weinstein’s studio […]

  TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY:  Worth A Ticket – An Epic of Betrayals   John LeCarre is (I guess one should say “arguably”) the greatest of all spy novelists, and his 1974 TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY is “arguably” his finest work.  Incredibly, the 1979 BBC miniseries adaptation lived up to the level of the novel, […]

      SILENT HOUSE:  Watch It At Home – A Curiosity   SILENT HOUSE isn’t the first feature-length film to provide the illusion that it’s all been shot in a single continuous take.  The most famous was Hitchcock’s Rope, but in his era, it was technologically impossible to actually shoot for 90 minutes straight, […]

MUCH stronger than we forecast, the 26th weekend of 2012 is looking like $196 million for the Top 12 films Friday-Sunday, up only 2% from this weekend last year but up 15% from the multi-year average for this weekend.  R-rated comedy is just what the audience wanted.  Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane struck gold with […]