Movie Nation

Looks kind of like Ryan Gosling walking through an empty movie theater, doesn’t it?

Some people are using the “B” word to describe “Blade Runner 2049” and its “Maybe it’ll clear $50,” “Whoops it’ll be lucky to reach $40” and “Uh oh, it better clear $30” opening weekend. A 40% drop in expectations is disastrous, as it means the picture won’t clear $80 in the U.S.

Fanboys and fangirls are a fickle bunch, and the sci-fi crowd has already been burned by a lavishly over-praised “Alien” prequel this year. Were they wary? Distracted? Or are they grossly exaggerated in their influence and enthusiasm or, um, sophistication?

Building a picture that lacks much in the line of humanity, zero urgency and a main villain (Jared Leto) who serves no purpose — and tucking all that into a lovely two and a half hour stroll through a dystopian future that seems all but assured since the last election isn’t paying off. The breathless reviews are ALL based on its look. Not so much the tone, performances and connection with the audience. I see it as a top 15 film, not a top ten one.

Let’s leave it at that. It could hang around and do “Arrival” numbers, all-in.

Is Ryan Gosling Big Box Office? Not yet.

“The Mountain Between Us” survived a fate worse than box office death, losing its opening weekend to a “My Little Pony” niche (tiny tots, and Pony perverts) animated pic. “Mountain” did $10 million. Kate Winslet hasn’t worked enough in recent years — not as a leading lady — to make her a safe bet to open a picture. Idris Elba is doing a lot of films, none of which are very good. He’s a movie star, not a box office star. James Bond was his best bet to change that, and that probably won’t happen as he’s ageing out of that window.

High per screen numbers for “The Florida Project,” which won’t open in Florida and the rest of “flyover country” until next weekend.

The reviews have been of the swooning variety, despite the obvious shortcomings “Blade Runner 2049” has as…a MOVIE. Chilly, inhuman, all the empathy of an iPad.

Then there’s the fact that it is a long long LONG delayed sequel to an iconic but cult-ish film from the early 1980s.

But the $45-50 million opening weekend predicted seemed like a given. Not any more. A robust Thursday gave way to a more modest Friday, and Deadline.com is shoving its projections down to $36 million. 

That’s an “Alien: Prometheus” sized take.

Wow.

It is wiping “It” off the map and sucking up all the BO oxygen. But “My Little Pony” is clearing $11 million, and “The Mountain Between Us” is bombing (as expected) at under $10.

“American Made” and “Kingsman” are still neck and neck (with “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” having come out a week before and thus toting a much heavier purse), “Victoria and Abdul” is healthily inside the top ten, as is “Battle of the Sexes.”

The locally-filmed “The Florida Project” is winning the per-screen race, on just four theaters and piling up the cash. It opens wider next weekend.

Another darkly-comic tale of the seedy side from the creators of “Nightcrawler.” Denzel Washington plays a once-heroic activist lawyer still stuck in the ’70s — his clothes, his attitudes, his interaction with a “Not hearing you, Black Man” legal system.

And then he loses his gig and his moral compass. Colin Farrell co-stars in this November dramedy — more dramatic than funny, think “The Night Of.”

Every other potential moneymaker from October moved off this weekend. Because everybody knows that 30 year gap sequel or not, “Blade Runner 2049” is a brand that’s going to suck all of the oxygen and cash out of the box office this weekend.

“The Mountain Between Us” is basically a sacrificial lamb led to the slaughter — $10-12 million for the Idris Elba/Kate Winslet weeper.

Will “2049” clear $50 million? Box Office Mojo seems to think so.

The Box Office Guru figures “2049” will earn $49 on its opening weekend.

Based on Thursday night’s numbers ($4 million), it should be in the $45 million range. Word of mouth may bump it up, or suppress it. As I said in my review, it does tend to lack a character we can wholly empathize with, a beating heart — emotion.

In any event, Warners’ film will supplant Warners’ “It” as the big movie of the weekend and should give it a run for biggest blockbuster of the fall. “American Made” should top “Kingsman” and maybe even “It,” as it has most of the week.

Here’s a documentary that lays out a relentlessly discouraging parade of statistics — 40% of food raised is wasted, 1.4 million tons of food wasted in the U.S. every year, 24 million slices of bread tossed out in the U.K. every DAY. And then it hits us with story after upbeat story of waste bread being recycled into beer in Europe, of a composting, gardening elementary school in New Orleans’ 13th Ward — of Italy, France and South Korea keeping food waste from going into landfills.

But for all the advocacy of “Wasted! The Story of Food Waste,” its grim depictions of worldwide deforestation to aid food production, food that then all-too-often goes unharvested, or into the dumpster behind your supermarket or into the garbage at you home, your kid’s school or your favorite restaurant, it’s what is done with the food that doesn’t go to waste that gets our attention.

We see chefs in the U.S. figuring out what to do with cauliflower leaves (the biggest part of the plant), with “trash fish” caught in the worldwide trawling of the oceans and Japanese farmers learning to be selective about which re-purposed dietary garbage to feed their pigs to get the most succulent pork on Earth.

Narrator Anthony Bourdain and assorted activists, authors and journalists lament the $1500 the average America family wastes from its fridge, table or pantry every year, the laughable finality of “use by” dates (more a suggestion, in the case of dried, frozen, bottled or canned foods).

The guy who used to run Trader Joe’s shows off Daily Table, his non-profit inner city market where good but discarded or discounted food is sold in the middle of a food desert.

And the salty-tongued Bourdain (“Kitchen Confidential” and TV’s “Parts Unknown”) and equally salty pal Mario Batali, and other chefs make profane wisecracks about turning this or that discarded or lightly regarded edible item into a delicacy through deceptive naming, mere exposure of the public to the something we, “the dumba–es in the dining room,” should be eating but turn up our noses at.

Seriously, for a movie about garbage, “Wasted!” (Anna Chai and Nari Kye co-directed it) is awfully appetizing. Porgy (fish) and squash stalks never looked so yummy. And Toast Ale? Made from bread Brits and others aren’t getting around to sandwiching? Got to have it.

So if you are throwing it out when that veg or fruit just has a spot on it, stop. Not composting? Get on that. (Ask me about the papaya and avocado trees I have raised from composted seeds.)

And want to fight global warming? Stop dumping methane-producing spoiled produce into the trash can.

And see this movie. Batali gives the always-delightful Bourdain (who felt compelled to do a self-loathing rant over the closing credits) a run for his foul-mouthed money in the acerbic, poetic and pungent ways of commenting on food and what we should be doing to make sure we always have enough of it to feed everybody. Stop wasting it, for starters.

MPAA Rating: unrated, with profanity

Cast: Anthony Bourdain, Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, others.

Credits: Directed by Anna Chai, Nari Kye A Zero Point Zero release.

Running time: 1:25

Good to see Juno Temple escaping the trap that indie cinema has put her in (hookers, fallen women). Or, maybe she isn’t. Never mind.

Kate Winslet, Jim Belushi and Justin Timberlake star in what looks to be a gangsterish period piece about habitues of New York’s famous amusement park in, oh, the late ’40s. The last time Woody went out and heard real people speaking real sentences, and not this Tennessee Williams English that has cursed his pictures in his dotage, in other words.

“Wonder Wheel,” taking its name from a Ferris Wheel, makes for a good looking trailer, as always, so we are intrigued.  Kate could use a break after the death of “Mountain Between Us,” which hasn’t actually died but will come this weekend. And die.

JT? A boyish lifeguard? Hmm. At least he’s not hanging around with Andy Samberg.

If you got all your crime news from the movies, you’d probably wonder how any of us survive the mass murdering drug cartels, avoid becoming a serial killer’s prey or protect our teenage girls from being abducted into sexual slavery.

Human trafficking is both a Hollywood cause and a horrific yet titillating subject for a thriller. Somebody’s going to be “Taken,” where this “Priceless” child will end up in the “Trade.” Half a dozen movies on this theme come out every year.

Little separates “Trafficked,” a low-budget entry in the field, from the pack, save for the presence of some big names in supporting roles in the cast. It’s an ambitious, multi-national peek at the different paths young women from Nigeria, India and California find themselves trapped in a brothel in Texas.

Mali (Jessica Obilum) tells how her mother compared prostitution to farming — “A man” must be endured for a few minutes, whereas “planting sweet potatoes takes all day, in the burning sun.”

Amba (Alpa Banker) and her pal are comparing notes about the colleges in America that are getting them out of New Delhi . Children of affluence, they cross the wrong punk, are assaulted and Amba finds herself drugged and dragged across the world.

“Two planes, three trucks, one speedboat and one wooden rowboat” later, she’s stuck “owing” the creep in charge, Simon (Sean Patrick Flanery) “500 men” before she’ll be let go.

Anne Archer plays the nun running a group home for orphans in rural California, where Sara (Kelly Washington) is celebrating her 18th birthday. A helpful social worker (Ashley Judd) is there for the party, and to whisk Sara away to a life working on cruise ships. Not really.

All three endure beatings and witness murders on their journeys, but are wholly reassured when one and all comfort them with “It’s just business, honey.” Each is treated like chattel, man-handled, brutalized and killed if they don’t heed the threats.

There is no bystander who will see their plight and rescue them, no relative tracking them down, no help from corrupt border country law enforcement (Patrick Duffy plays the Texas Rangers honcho totally in on the scam).

Mali counsels “Don’t think about who you used to be…You lie back and survive.”

But with drug cartels partnered in an unholy girls for guns for drugs triangle trade, even the youngest among them has to know that promises of release are empty. They either escape or die.

The script is by Siddharth Kara, a Harvard academic who is Director of the Program on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.  So whatever the screenplay lacks in originality, suspense or action beat plausibility, it has that “This sort of thing really happens” authority about it.

The rarer than rare good lines are given to the most interesting of the victims, Mali.

Actor turned producer and now director Will Wallace didn’t get lessons on pacing, or learned the wrong lessons from the likes of Terrence Malick, whom he’s worked with. The plot, for all its tried and true conventions, has eye-rolling leaps in logic and sort of lumbers between star cameos until we reach a far-fetched if generic conclusion.

All manner of well-intentioned pictures are being made on this awful subject, faith-based movies to simple Liam Neeson thrillers. But whatever its worthiness as a cause worth wiping out, you’ve got to bring something new to the table to make your movie stand out. And casting Anne Archer as a nun, Ashley Judd and Patrick Duffy as villains and Efren Ramirez of “Napoleon Dynamite” as a sympathetic Gypsy bartender in the brothel isn’t it.

MPAA Rating: R for disturbing violent content including sexual assaults, language, and some drug use

Cast: Kelly Washington, Jessica Obilum, Alpa Banker, Ashley Judd, Anne Archer, Patrick Duffy

Credits: Directed by Will Wallace, script by Siddharth Kara.  An Epic release.

Running time: 1:39

This year isn’t over yet, but I’m underwhelmed by the trailers of the animated movies opening between now and Christmas. And if those hunches prove true, this will go in the books as perhaps the worst year for major studio animation since the great Animation Wars started with Dreamworks, then Sony and others challenged Disney and Pixar for those parents-take-the-kids-to-cartoons cash.

Sony’s “Peter Rabbit” opens next year, not long after the similarly British “Paddington 2.” Peter and his pals party in Domhnall Gleeson’s house? Actually, that would be a funny touch — Domhnall, who is in “American Made” and seemingly every other picture to come along these days, coping in his “real” life with a critter calamity.

One always suspected that he screams like a little Irish girl.

James Corden voices Peter. This looks loud and fractious in style, with realistic renderings parking the animals in the real (British) world. Might be all right, but not judging from this.

It snows on the people-and-advertising choked streets of Los Angeles. San Diego has been reduced to “Waste Management District” for greater LA. Drone strikes are directed by smart glasses targeting systems, you’re never alone so long as you can afford a hologram, the cops drive flying Peugeots and things still go better with Coca-Cola.

But what are we to take from the chilly magnificence of “Blade Runner 2049?” Can we develop empathy for characters we know, entirely too soon, either don’t exist or do not have the “child of woman born” bonafides?

Thirty-five years after his death, and we’re still pondering sci-fi genius Philip K. Dick’s ultimate question — “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”

This long-promised, long-gestating sequel to Ridley Scott’s flawed masterpiece of the ’80s moves humanity no further down the rabbit hole of the murky nature of existence even as it deepens the dystopia that our polluted, violent, over-populated planet might be hurtling towards.

Denis Villeneuve, of “Arrival” and “Sicario,” takes the reins from Scott for the return to the brownscape of Future LA, which looks entirely too much like present-day Hengshui, China, or any mature, built-up smog-covered megacity in what used to be the developing world. Villeneuve has constructed the most-anticipated science fiction film of the year on conventional bones, with surprises that aren’t terribly surprising if you’re paying attention or if you’ve seen the trailers and TV ads.

Ryan Gosling, playing yet another detective, is the LAPD’s “K,” a Blade Runner chasing down replicants 30 years after Deckard (Harrison Ford) tracked down Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) and fell for the feminine perfection of Rachel (Sean Young).

Tyrell Corp. is no more, but a visionary industrialist named Wallace (Jared Leto) has made replicant “slaves” safe for humanity.

“We make angels in service of civilization,” he purrs behind milky-white eyes.

There are just a few outdated rogue models left to get rid of, and it’s when K is disposing of one (Dave Bautista of “Guardians of the Galaxy”) that he learns of a new wrinkle in the human/replicant continuum.

“You’ve never seen a miracle,” the dying clone tells him.

This news is so big that Madam, K’s boss (Robin Wright) considers the new hunt a threat to civilization, and news that would terrify humanity.

Which is why she leaves just one cop on the case. ALMOST makes sense, right?

K must sift through clues, visit retirees from the Blade Runner ranks, check eyeballs for serial numbers and deal with Wallace’s most fanatical minion (Sylvia Hoeks) in order to solve and survive this case.

“Blade Runner” presented a Los Angeles logically transposed into its demographic future, with overwhelming Asian and Latino influence. Villeneuve couldn’t resist making his Future LA more pan national — from the “little lady” waiting at home for K (Cuban starlet Ana De Armas) to assorted Euro and Middle Eastern bit players to the comically French product placement of Peugeot futurecars.

The Earth of 2049 is a crowded yet seemingly depopulated world — vast swaths of the empty, the deforested (eco-system collapses) and the abandoned. Visits to the San Diego junkyard are reminiscent of “Wall-E,” “Hardware” and assorted other dystopias featuring a crashed consumer culture.

It’s a largely humorless picture, with Gosling doing the hard-boiled thing in a mechanical minor key, such as when K runs into a hooker (Mackenzie Davis of “The Martian”).

“You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

“Depends. What’s your model number?”

It’s also, start to finish, pretty much heartless. The best acting moments are shared by Gosling and Ford, and by a visit to a professional “dream implant” scientist (Carla Juri).

But for all its stunning visuals and legitimate intellectual and moral heft, the picture has all the emotion of last year’s cell phone commercials.

Wait for one scene that matches the heartfelt intensity of Rutger Hauer’s demonstration of what it means to be human to Ford’s Deckard, in the rain-soaked climax of the original film. You’ll wait in vain.

Hope against hope that the director of “Arrival” will give one actor an “Amy Adams in ‘Arrival'” moment of genuine pathos. Doesn’t happen.

That leaves “Blade Runner 2049” as more impressive than moving, more thought-provoking than heartfelt — chilling in its magnificence.

MPAA Rating: R for violence, some sexuality, nudity and language

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, Jared Leto, Ana de Armas, Mackenzie Davis

Credits:Directed by Denis Villeneuve, script by Hampton Fancher and Dennis Green, based on Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”

A Warner Brothers/Son-Columbia release.

Running time: 2:40

The surest way to muck up a perfectly adorable children’s film is the insist upon doing a sequel. Whatever literary qualities “Paddington Bear” has, as a cinematic event he only gets to take us by delightful surprise once.

So. Cast Hugh Grant as the villain, bring in Brendan Gleeson and Julie Walters and Peter Capaldi and other bears…voila! A January sleeper? Could be.