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After winning the day Friday, “The Smurfs” (which somehow has an audience) managed to dip down and line up neck and neck with the under-performing “Cowboys & Aliens.” Meanwhile, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” is on course to be the fastest worldwide billion-dollar grosser, and is likely to take the domestic crown, […]
Entries from July 2011
BOX OFFICE: ‘Cowboys’ and ‘Smurfs’ photo finish
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 11:38 am · July 31st, 2011
Filed in: Box Office
Tell us what you thought of ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 8:24 pm · July 30th, 2011
I missed the screenings of “Crazy, Stupid, Love” and haven’t made it to the theater to see it since it released this weekend. But, by request, here’s a place for those thoughts if you’d like to share. I have to say, though, that the split in opinions on this one have me really intrigued. So […]
Filed in: Daily
Tell us what you thought of ‘Cowboys & Aliens’
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 10:15 am · July 30th, 2011
I already glossed over my feelings on Jon Favreau’s “Cowboys & Aliens” at Comic-Con. In short, I find it to be an incredibly taxing exercise with zero character development, vacant of energy and held together by incredibly lazy screenwriting. But for the sake of the western, I hope it does well at the box office. […]
Filed in: Daily
Starting the prediction game
Posted by Guy Lodge · 3:18 pm · July 28th, 2011
Right, I stayed out of the Oscar prediction racket for a while — partly to give myself a vacation from any such thoughts after 2010’s long, wearying season, and partly because I found myself struggling to blindly sort a pile of late-year prestige titles that struck me from afar as a little lean. The latter […]
Filed in: Daily
Telluride guessing game
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 10:34 am · July 28th, 2011
(UPDATED: 8/29) Now that the Toronto and Venice line-ups have been unveiled (though we have a few more Toronto announcements to come), I figured I’d take a few stabs at sussing out the Telluride crop this year. I haven’t been a good journalist and called around or anything. Just spinning my wheels. One studio that […]
Filed in: Daily
‘The Ides of March’ banner poster
Posted by Guy Lodge · 9:02 am · July 28th, 2011
Hitting the internet simultaneously with that well-received trailer yesterday was this unusual poster for George Clooney’s Venice curtain-raiser “The Ides of March.” It’s always nice to see designers attempting something a little more conceptual than the norm — indeed, the simple split-face gimmick here could almost be taken as an ironic rebuttal to floating-head convention. […]
Filed in: Daily
Venice competition includes Polanski, Cronenberg, Alfredson
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:07 am · July 28th, 2011
These days, so much media speculation precedes the announcement of any major festival lineup that the eventual unveiling comes almost as an anti-climax — or at least it would do if the long-expected films weren’t so appetizing in the first place. As was the case with the Toronto lineup on Tuesday, the just-revealed programme for […]
Filed in: Daily
‘The Ides of March’ trailer
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 8:47 pm · July 27th, 2011
George Clooney’s “The Ides of March” is set for a Venice premiere in September. It may or may not make it to Telluride, but in any case, I’ve been hearing lately that Evan Rachel Wood and Philip Seymour Hoffman are killer in the film. (Marisa Tomei, I’m told, doesn’t figure in as much.) Anyway, judging […]
Filed in: Daily
‘Descendants,’ ‘Moneyball,’ ‘Twixt’ among Toronto premieres
Posted by Guy Lodge · 10:00 am · July 26th, 2011
As usual, there are few surprises in the newly unveiled lineup for September’s Toronto Film Festival — which is largely because, as usual, the lineup consists of pretty much everything. We know by now to expect a cherry-picked selection of proven successes from previous festivals, including Cannes (“The Artist,” “Drive,” “We Need to Talk About […]
Filed in: Daily
Three days left to catch ‘Melancholia’ in LA
Posted by Guy Lodge · 6:49 am · July 26th, 2011
I should really have drawn attention to this earlier, but as Jeff Wells pointed out on Hollywood Elsewhere, Lars von Trier’s Cannes hit “Melancholia” began a one-week, once-a-day screening run at Los Angeles’ out-of-the-way Laemmle Fallbrook 7 theatre on Friday — a handy opportunity for local film buffs with free afternoons to sneak a look […]
Filed in: Daily
‘Avengers’ assemble in concept art revealing Hulk
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 9:02 pm · July 24th, 2011
Okay, one more superhero dip before we leave Comic-Con behind. Click for larger, expanded version.
Filed in: Daily
COMIC-CON: It all ends
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 5:34 pm · July 24th, 2011
Well, like I said. Another year, another Con. For a convention I expected to be a bit more laid-back than usual, it sure was anything but. I guess I put that on myself by hustling back to LA for a concert and back down again to wrap things up, but even having covered just a […]
Filed in: Daily
BOX OFFICE: ‘America,’ f*** yeah
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 4:22 pm · July 24th, 2011
So “Captain America: The First Avenger” managed to hold the Harry Potter buzz wave to one weekend crown by coming out on top this week. I think it’s a pretty solid number given the givens, but anyway, my eyes are on that #10 spot. Woody Allen’s locomotive keeps chugging along. (Courtesy: Box Office Mojo)
Filed in: Box Office
COMIC-CON: ‘Haywire’ trailer
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 4:00 pm · July 24th, 2011
I missed Relativity’s panel featuring Steven Soderbergh’s “Haywire” and the John-Cusack-as-Edgar-Allan-Poe flick “The Raven.” This was very much a bummer, seeing as “Haywire” star Gina Carano has been a personal crush ever since she suited up as, well, Crush, in the rebooted American Gladiators. So the trailer, released via Apple, is the first of the […]
Filed in: Daily
COMIC-CON: Andrew Garfield’s touching ode to Spidey
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 11:42 am · July 24th, 2011
Just a few Comic-Con clean-up odds and ends before I officially bid this year’s convention farewell, starting with this. I missed the Sony panel Friday but this nugget was clearly the best part of it, from what I can tell.
Filed in: Daily
‘Moneyball’ poster
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 11:35 am · July 24th, 2011
I’m still in a bit of wait-and-see mode on “Moneyball.” It could be an awards play, it could just be a bit of bankability in the fall movie season, but I do dig the one-sheet that hit the net this week. The trailer hit last month. Check out the full poster after the jump.
Filed in: Daily
COMIC-CON: Francis Ford Coppola takes Best in Show
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 3:20 pm · July 23rd, 2011
My Comic-Con coverage came to a close this morning with Francis Ford Coppola’s first appearance here in 19 years, and a glimpse of his latest film, “Twixt.” There’s still the “Cowboys & Aliens” screening tonight, but reviews will be embargoed, so my big send-off is the master himself. And what a send-off it was. “Twixt” […]
Filed in: Daily
COMIC-CON: Refn’s ‘Drive’ is a bullet of vision
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 11:40 am · July 23rd, 2011
I’ve had to sit on my feelings on Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive,” which had a special screening here Thursday night, because I haven’t found a window to write about it. That’s either good or bad, I don’t know, because the film has just continued to grow in my mind, but I don’t want to over-inflate […]
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