MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, which won the Sundance US Dramatic Directing award for Ava DuVernay last night, is in no rush.  The films moves with deliberation as it establishes its leading character and her difficult situation:  Ruby (Emayatzy E. Corinealdi) isn’t a single mom, but she might as well be, with husband Derek (Omari Hardwick) […]

>Courtesy of the London oddsmakers (averaging a variety of books at easyodds.com), there appears to be little suspense ahead for the Best Picture and Best Director races at this year’s Academy Awards and almost no races at all for Best Supporting Actor and Actress.  Currently, The Artist is heavily favored to win Best Picture, with […]

>The seventh weekend of the year should generate about $142 million for the top 12 films — up 9% from last year’s comparable weekend and up over 20% from the four-year average for this weekend.  Nicolas Cage should lead a crowded field, although the second Ghost Rider should be down significantly from 2007’s original.  The […]

Based on Friday’s and Saturday’s grosses, the first weekend of 2014 now looks like $132 million for the top 12 films Friday-Sunday, not as high as it appeared yesterday but still up 5% from comparable weekends the past few years.   Opening at 2,867 theaters Friday, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones from Paramount grossed $8.7 million Friday and […]

  The rest of this slow week, as the studios bask in their holiday releases and the networks very gradually emerge from hibernation, we’re going to take a look at what 2013 has in store for us at the movies.  (April-June is here, July-September is here, and October-December is here.) Januaries are typically ugly for […]

The two openers this weekend will be forgotten in several days or weeks, while Oblivion has a good chance of staying at #1 in its second weekend and 42 will be the other holdover still above the significant $10 million weekend mark.  But that’s about it for the box office.  The top 12 films this […]

>The 22% drop for GREEN LANTERN on Saturday is fairly disastrous:  Thor, X-Men and Pirates 4 all dropped about 8% on their first Saturdays, and Super 8 actually increased.  (Hangover 2 and Kung Fu Panda 2 opened on Wednesdays, so their weeks had a different dynamic.)  Obviously, this indicates terrible word of mouth for the […]

  TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON – Worth A Ticket – But Only If You Insist On Seeing It This is what gives ulcers to control freak movie directors:  despite Michael Bay’s well-publicized orders to theater projectionists, at tonight’s premiere IMAX showing of TRANSFORMERS:  DARK OF THE MOON in West Los Angeles, the 3D system […]