Results tagged “jesseeisenberg”

       

In a bit of a surprise, Zombieland roared to the top of the weekend box office. Despite a relative lack of stars, the black comedy pulled in $25M to easily top powerhouse Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ($16.7M | $82.3M). The re-release of Toy Story | Toy Story 2 in 3D proved potent as the Pixar dinosaurs raked in $12.5M in their re-debut. Ricky Gervais continues to struggle as a big-screen star as his Invention of Lying brought in only $7.3M in its opening frame. High-concept bomb Surrogates rounded out the top 5 ($7.3M | $26.3M).

                     

Can we officially say that the Coen Brothers are the best filmmakers in America? Can we also say that A Serious Man is the best film released so far this year? Yes and yes. My gut told me that the zombie genre had run its course after the great 28 Weeks Later, but Zombieland finds new ground to cover. Well, not really but it is a hell of a lot of fun and not just because of the huge, unexpected and delightful surprise in the middle of the film that I won't ruin for you (though even mentioning its existence does sort of spoil it, huh? Oh, well!)

                            

When I think of my favorite movies of the last twenty years, the most curious inclusion is probably Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco. Now that it's been given the Criterion treatment (it's been out of print on DVD for years), I can't recommend it highly enough. If only Stillman would actually write and direct another film (Disco was his last and that was eleven years ago!). I enjoyed Adventureland so much at Sundance that I watched it again when it landed in theaters. Equally sad and sweet and funny, it was poorly marketed as a straight comedy and never really found an audience. I imagine that it will on DVD, though. Sunshine Cleaning was okay, but had that "deliberately quirky" vibe coursing through it. Duplicity was one of several failures earlier this year that probably marked the beginning of the end of the big-budget, adult-targeted film. Shame that.

       

Wow! How bad of a release day is it when 12 Rounds and Jonas Brothers: The Concert Experience are the two high-profile releases? Ugh. For the first time in I don't know how long, I couldn't find 20 DVDs worthy of inclusion in this space. Two Lovers is probably the best pick, but it suffers from a surfeit of Gwyneth Paltrow. Maybe the most intriguing DVD out today is Transmorphers: Fall of Man. I'm sure it sucks, but any film that piggy-backs on the marketing largess of the rancid Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is aces in my book!

Defying all expectations (and good common sense), Fast and Furious roared to the top of the weekend box office chart with an April-record haul of $72.5M. Last week's champ, Monsters vs. Aliens, came in a very distant second ($33.5M/$105.7M), but easily outdistanced A Haunting in Connecticut ($9.5M/$37.2M), the awful Knowing ($8.1M/$58.2M) and the hilarious I Love You, Man ($7.8M/$49.2M). In the latest indictment of America's cultural decline, the wonderful Adventureland limped to a weak, sixth-place finish ($6M).

There is one movie that everyone should see this weekend and that movie is Adventureland. Alternately funny and touching, it is another rousing success from director Greg Mottola (LAist review here). That said, there is another movie that probably everyone will actually see and that is Fast & Furious. I admit it -- I liked the first title in this series. It had a Point Break-ish quality to it. But is this latest reboot really necessary? Pass.

After more than a decade in the wilderness following his fine 1996 debut, The Daytrippers, director Greg Mottola roared back into public consciousness in 2007 with the wonderfully foul Superbad. His follow-up to that, Adventureland, is a much gentler work that should cement his position as a sought-after director for years to come. Based on Motttola's teenage experiences working at an amusement park in the 80s, the film is a wonderful conflation of two disparate genres: daffy comedy and genuinely affecting coming of age flick.

Does anyone else have the same feeling about Monsters vs. Aliens that I do? Namely, "Gee, I wish Pixar had made this movie instead of DreamWorks." It's either very sad or very cynical that two fine actors like Martin Donovan and Virginia Madsen are doing rote horror pics like The Haunting in Connecticut. The premise of 12 Rounds is that a criminal is manipulating a cop after the cop kills the criminal's girlfriend. Is it just me or does that seem like a reasonable response? Skip The Education of Charlie Banks and wait for next week's very similarly-toned Adventureland. Spinning Into Butter stars Sarah Jessica Parker. So...I won't be seeing it.

The first time I attended the Sundance Film Festival in 2007, I stayed until the festival's conclusion on Sunday. Never will I make that mistake again. While it did allow for a more leisurely pace, all the excitement (and most of the people) had left Park City by mid-week. So this year I once again planned an early Friday morning arrival and a late Tuesday night departure. I was able to see thirteen films, party three nights out of four and sit five feet away from Damien Rice during his amazingly casual concert at the ASCAP Music Cafe.

Similarly to last year (and probably owing to the largely liberal bent of the festival's programmers), there were a significant amount of films about the Iraq War at Sundance this year. Perhaps the most despairing (both in content and execution) was first-time director Oren Moverman's The Messenger. The film stars Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson as a pair of psychologically damaged Army soldiers who are tasked with the grim responsibility of informing families that their son or daughter has been killed in action.