THE HELP – Worth A Ticket:  The Story May Be Soft, The Acting Isn’t   THE HELP is–and I mean this in a good way–a big-screen Hallmark Hall of Fame.   It’s a long, absorbing, emotionally satisfying piece of mainstream Hollywood moviemaking that skims the surface of its difficult subject–the life of black maids […]

Based on Friday’s grosses, Weekend #40 of 2013 looks like a decent $109 million for the top 12 films, down 18% from last year’s atypical weekend but up 10% from the average for the same weekend the past few years. Opening at 3,575 theaters Friday, Gravity from Warner Brothers grossed $17.4 million Friday and is on track for […]

  THE BIG YEAR:  Watch It At Home – Very Small Pleasures   THE BIG YEAR is an amiable, good-natured comedy that’s so insubstantial it seems to fly out of your memory even as you’re watching it.  If it had been a low-budgeted indie that turned up at a film festival, it might have felt […]

> Fox is adopted a very interesting strategy on its upcoming Cameron Crowe/Matt Damon/Scarlett Johansson drama WE BOUGHT A ZOO.  The movie doesn’t open until December 23, but the studio will hold national “sneak” previews on November 26, in the teeth of Thanksgiving weekend.  (Reportedly screenings will also include a Q&A with Crowe and as […]

The 32nd weekend of 2012 is looking like a halfway decent $138 million for the Top 12 films Friday-Sunday — despite being down a moderate 4% from the same weekend last year, this weekend is actually up 8% from this comparable weekend over several years.             The Bourne Legacy from Universal […]

> For anyone attending the Toronto International Film Festival that begins in just over 2 weeks, today was a crucial day:  the release of the Festival schedule.  (TIFF also announced some not-shabby final additions to its roster of titles, including Gus Van Sant’s Restless and Jonathan Demme’s third and latest Neil Young documentary.)   Now […]

>Three films join the worldwide box office tracking chart this weekend.  With a profile similar to Tintin‘s (very good overseas appeal but limited domestic interest), The Secret World of Arrietty is just outside of the top 10 movies over the last three months.  The anime import from Japan has grossed $126 million overseas, but we […]

>Twilight’s latest, Breaking Dawn Part 1, is opening close to what we expected, but Happy Feet Two was not as able to weather the storm as strongly as we projected.  Overall, the weekend is running 20% ahead of the same weekend last year, not a bad accomplishment given Harry Potter was in the mix last […]