Feb 2 2009 Liam Neeson Kicks the Crap Out of Everyone
Your box office report, sirs and madams:
1. Taken - $24.6 million. Now you know: never take anything from Liam Neeson.
2. Paul Blart: Mall Cop - $14 million. I'm starting to think Kevin James might have a shot at stealing the Blockbuster Comedy Go-To Fat Guy crown. Jack Black, watch your back.
3. The Uninvited - $10.5 million, barely beating a three-week-old movie about a hotel that is for dogs.
4. Hotel for Dogs - A mere $8.7 million, keeping its total gross a distant second to the other recent movie about an orphaned genius inventor named Bruce.
5. Gran Torino - $8.6 million. The eighth week of an old racist man drama easily beat a new Renee Zellweger romantic comedy (8th). That just blew up the Hollywood system.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Jan 26 2009 Paul Blart is Really, Really Popular Mall Cop
Apparently no one realized a new Brendan Fraser movie opened this weekend, and instead everyone saw these movies:
1. Paul Blart: Mall Cop - $21.5 million. Maybe let's not all see Paul Blart next weekend, just to give something else a shot. We'll divide it up: last names beginning with A-M, you get to enjoy the endless laughter this weekend.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans - $20.7 million. Nice try, Underworld, but last I checked there isn't a King of Queens vampire, which makes your movie bullshit in comparison to anything with a King of Queens.
3. Gran Torino - $16 million, putting it less than $3 million away from reaching $100 million. How did that happen?
4. Hotel for Dogs - $12.4 million. Oooh, a hotel for dogs, you say? That sounds good.
5. Slumdog Millionaire - $10.6 million. Oooh, something else about a dog, you say? That also sounds good.
Jan 19 2009 Paul Blart: Best Movie
Our best movies this previous weekend were:
1. Paul Blart: Mall Cop - $31.8 million. So that's why everyone was giving me friendly waves at my night job...
2. Gran Torino - $22 million, still astounding for a movie marketed entirely on scowling, finger guns, and a few actual guns.
3. My Bloody Valentine 3-D - $21.3 million. Expect commercials proclaiming it "the number 3-D movie in the country!"
4. Notorious - $20.5 million, 20.5 million problems! (Like that one song of the three Notorious B.I.G. hits I know.)
5. Hotel for Dogs - $17 million. What's this one about again? I forget exactly what the premise is.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Jan 12 2009 Angry, Old, Threatening Man Drama Somehow More Popular Than Miserable Comedy
The weekend box office totals, for your logbook:
1. Gran Torino - $29 million. That doesn't make any sense. So many people must have left the theater pissed that Gran Torino wasn't the one with feuding brides.
2. Bride Wars - $21.5 million. Is lady-quarreling losing its appeal?
3. The Unborn - $21.1 million. For a sequel, how about The Everborn? Some kind of disgusting freak that's perpetually being birthed. No?
4. Marley & Me - $11.4 million. Spoiler alert: the "me" in Marley & Me is all of us. Everyone loves Marley.
5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - $9.5 million, keeping the hope alive that this could still gross more than Bedtime Stories.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Nov 4 2008 'Gran Torino' Posters Captures a Magic Moment
I'll tell ya, is there anything more beautiful than when you manage to wake up early enough to catch that first glint of sunlight peeking over the wilting crags of Clint Eastwood's grimacing visage? I think not. This is what mornings were made for: silhouetted scowls.
Gran Torino Poster [IMPA]
Oct 24 2008 'Gran Torino' Trailer Will Growl Its Way Into Your Heart
After all the negativity I've thrown at Beer for My Horses and Punisher: War Zone, it might seem like I have a problem with vigilante justice in cinema. Well, that isn't the case. I simply like to see vigilante justice movies properly executed. No country music-laden montages; no spinning from a chandelier firing machine guns; just one pissed off old guy (preferably Clint Eastwood) snarling like an angry Muppet, waving around his finger gun, and occasionally washing his classic car. Now that's violently taking the law into your own shriveled hands!
My favorite part of this trailer is where it flashes back to a previous part of the trailer. You don't see that enough:
Continue Reading " 'Gran Torino' Trailer Will Growl Its Way Into Your Heart "
Mar 19 2008 Old Former Cowboy Continues to Film His Death
Like time-lapse photography of an ox's corpse, slowly drying in the hot midday sun, the leathery death of Clint Eastwood (above, happily recharging) will be chronicled at regular intervals until we can no longer stand to look. Despite the withering actor's claims he had retired from acting after Million Dollar Baby, Variety reports he will direct and star in Warner's Gran Torino. The studio is remaining tight-lipped with details (Variety calls it "tantalizingly tight wraps"!), so I can't tell you anything about the film. But I can tell you about the Gran Torino car, a Ford model manufactured from 1972-1976. From Wikipedia:
For 1972, the Torino was completely redesigned from the ground up. The Torino's all new styling had many traits carried over from the previous generation. The 1972 Torino styling emphasized the "long hood short deck" look as well as "coke bottle" styling more than ever before. The most radical change was a large eggcrate grille in an oval opening on Gran Torinos. Tom McCahill, stated "the gaping grille looks a little like it was patterned after Namu, the killer whale," but also stated that the Torino had "kind of pleasing, no-nonsense styling."
Hmm. Will Eastwood's Gran Torino carry on the legacy of looking like it's patterned after Namu the killer whale (god, I loved that whale)? Hard to say. At least we have a title, so the Academy can start engraving the awards.
Clint to drive 'Gran Torino' [Variety]
