Movie Nation

“300: Rise of an Empire” didn’t get the grand reviews of the 2006 film that made Gerard Butler a star. And it doesn’t have Gerard. Or many Spartans. It’s about flabbier Greek farmers and merchants and thinkers and politicians, turned into sailors. But it’s still doing gangbuster business, based on the brand. Over $40, maybe it’ll reach $45, based on Friday’s numbers.

That’s better than projections.

A quality children’s 3D cartoon that earned good reviews and opens at the end of “The Lego Movie” run? “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” is only on track to make $32 million or so, according to Deadline.com. That’s on the low end of expectations, but here’s the wrinkle in that number. Deadline.com historically under-estimates kids’ films’ Saturday take. So we will see what we see at end of business today. Ciuld spike up to closer to $40.

The only Oscar film to get any sort of bounce out of the Academy Awards Sunday night was “12 Years a Slave,” a deserving Best Picture winner. It’s almost back in the top ten. So, not THAT much of an Oscar bounce.

“Son of God” is closing in on $50, “Non-Stop” is on the brink of $60, “Lego” looks like it will end its run in the $230-240 range.

This is a decent weekend for new movie openings and that very well may be reflected in the box office take of the first weekend of March.

Will “300: Rise of an Empire” clear $40 million, thanks to 3D ticket sales and ongoing interest in the Frank Miller history/comics franchise? Box Office Mojo says it will .

Poor reviews won’t help that one, much.

Box Office Guru figures it’ll only manage $33 million, which would still be a nice piece of change, considering the movie has no big name stars and isn’t the same thrill that “300” was.

And that should be enough to win the weekend. “Mr. Peabody & Sherman” is a seriously dated brand even if it is a seriously charming new kids’ toon. The wit and fractured history of the original Rocky & Bullwinkle featurette is intact in this funny kids’ film, which starts slowly and builds to something delightful. Parents and grandparents will be amused by the homage to a favorite TV cartoon of their past. It should do $35-40 million, but as the brand is dated, could pull in less.

The Guru again figures that it’ll do worse than the high end of expectations and thinks $31 million is more like it.

The finest preserved art deco movie palace in America is in Fargo, North Dakota, believe it or not. Since I got my start reviewing just up the road in Grand Forks, I accepted an invitation to come to Fargo’s 14th Film Festival, set in my favorite theater in America. My friend and former colleague Matt Olien is one of the founders of it and helps run it when he isn’t hosting, doing interviews for and producing documentaries for Prairie Public TV up here. Snow, for a change, makes a great climate for movie bingeing, which I plan to do here in the REAL “Fargo,” you betcha, for a few days. 

There’s a huge, scary gap between “piano lessons as a kid” and playing “the
most gifted concert pianist of his era” in a movie. But these days, Elijah Wood
lives for fear. One thing “Grand Piano” was sure to do was scare him.
“It was super intense and the learning curve was EXTREMELY steep,” Wood says
of his preparations for the thriller — weeks of refresher lessons in Los
Angeles, more weeks of rehearsals in Barcelona, where the movie was made.
“Grand Piano” lets us see Wood, as concert pianist Tom Selznick, play the
pieces he is supposed to have mastered. In a thriller where a pianist has a
sniper in the rafters, laser-sight trained on him, ready to shoot the moment he
makes a mistake, “it’s important to be as accurate as possible,” Wood says. “You
have to believe this guy can play. That said, it’s extraordinarily daunting.
“The thing that was very helpful, was that for 75 percent of the film was me
on stage and cut to a very strict timeline and time-coded to the music. I had a
very specific road map of which shots you’d see me, my hands and my face as I
played, at the same time. I had a limited portion of each piece of music to
learn. I didn’t have to focus on all of it. That made the job easier. But not
much.”

Wood was drawn to the piano-centric film “because although I’m around music
(he is dance DJ Frodo, and apparently pretty good at it) and have had
instruments my whole life, I’ve never put the time into one that the instrument
deserves.” He loved the idea of a Hitchockian thriller told in real-time, with
much of what happens in it unfolding during a single concert — piano, with
orchestra.
“And really, I couldn’t fathom what it would be like to be so technically
good with an instrument that even as this guy is hearing threats and seeing the
little red dot of the killer’s laser sight on his fingers, he can still take
care of business, musically, trying not to panic as he figures this out.”</P>
This “piano wire-taut thriller” (Austin Chronicle) owes its existence to
Wood’s varied interests, a decade past his “Lord of the Rings” heyday. He’s a
founder of SpectreVision, a production company that specializes in indie horror
films, and he will forever be in demand at as guest at fan-oriented film and
comic book festivals such as Fantastic Fest, in Austin, Texas.
“That’s where I met (“Grand Piano” director) Eugenio Mira,” Wood says. They
became friends and Wood signed on to a project that would co-star John Cusack,
as the mostly unseen, but heard through a radio earpiece, sniper.
Wood’s many trips to hip, festival-rich Austin convinced him to pull up
stakes, sell his place in Santa Monica, California and move to Texas. He was
drawn to the informality of the place, the creative environment.
“You break down that separation between filmmakers and regular people and
genuine relationships occur. Fantastic Fest is like that, and Austin is a great
place for that kind of connection.”
Reviews for “Grand Piano” have been enthusiastic, with Wood singled out as
being “ideal” for the part (The Playlist) because “he commands our empathy and
manages to remain professional and make his fingers do his bidding” (Austin
Chronicle). But it is, like many Wood projects since “Lord of the Rings” (the
cable TV comedy “Wilfred” is another) a work with modest expectations. That
suits Wood, too. But he laughs at the notion that his Hobbit money has put him
in the position of never “having” to work again.
“I am fortunate to still have many opportunities, and I don’t take that for
granted.  But I’ve always been an actor who would rather not work than work on
something I’m not fully, whole-heartedly committed to.”
And if he was always working, when would he have time for the piano?
“Oh, I’ve got one in the house, now. Not a Bosendorfer (the high-end model in
the movie). But I spending more time with it. I promise.”

Last weekend didn’t produce any film that earned widespread acclaim from North America’s working critics. But the arrival of March has turned the corner on that as a number of pretty good wide releases chase “Pompeii”, “Son of God” and “Non-Stop” away.

“Mr. Peabody & Sherman” is a lot funnier and sweeter than the many laugh-free trailers would suggest. Grandparents and parents can watch it with nostalgia, not a bad rendition of the ’60s cartoon that was part of “The Bullwinkle Show” or “Rocky & Friends” or “Rocky & Bullwinkle.” And adults can chuckle at the puns, the fun riffs on historical figures, etc.

Kids will like the poop and fart and “You said booby” jokes.

“300: Rise of an Empire” isn’t the pithy, profound and swaggering martial romp through digitized Ancient Greece that “300” was. But the digital fleets of war galleys, the heat of the villainous Eva Green and the blood and guts are there. Passable reviews overall, for this one. Most critics were right on the fence with it.

Wes Anderson’s gloriously fun “The Grand Budapest Hotel” opens i limited release this weekend, and it’s darker and more twee than most any film he’s ever made. His rep company returns, but it’s Ralph Fiennes’ picture, with F. Murray Abraham and Saoirse Ronan in strong support and Adrien Brody and Willem Dafoe making fine villains. Mostly rapturous reviews for this one.

And Elijah Wood stars in these surprisingly thrilling thriller “Grand Piano,” a movie that takes great liberties with what actually goes on at a classical music concert, with where the pianist sits for the concerto, and what he does while performing it. Namely, stay on stage between movements. Pretty good reviews, overall, for this one.

I had to bail out of an interview with her once, the last time “Belle du jour” was re-released in America, I think. I had a plane to catch and she was almost two hours late when I said, “Sorry,” and fled to the airport.

But we make up for it now, yes?

Catherine Deneuve has been one of the screen’s greatest, most enduring beauties — a French actress of talent, sex appeal and a self-effacing sense of playfulness. At 70, in films such as “Potiche” and “Beloved” and her latest, “On My Way,” she is still playing romantic figures, women wronged or women with overly complex love lives.

“On My Way” has her aimlessly wandering through Brittany, jilted by her married paramour, looking for cigarettes. And as this road comedy progresses, we learn just how complicated this ex-beauty queen’s life has been as she picks up the bi-polar grandson, the child of her angry, semi-estranged daughter.

Questions for the great Deneuve? Post them as comments below, and thanks for the suggestions.  

With “Mr. Peabody & Sherman,” Dreamworks Animation sets its Way Back Machine to the early 1960s and charmingly revives one of the most popular features of the old “Rocky & Bullwinkle Show” — the one about a dog, and his boy.

This winning, witty and warm cartoon captures the flavor, the tone and some of snappy pace of the TV shorts that began with the droll voice of Bill Scott intoning, “Peabody here, my boy, Sherman…”

Mr. Peabody is a Nobel Prize-winning pooch who “invented the fist-bump, auto-tune and Zumba,” and then adopted Sherman. He’s given he boy, now seven, a head-start on school by taking the kid time-traveling. The Way Back Machine has, we can see from the photos decorating their apartment walls, allowed Sherman to meet everyone from Gandhi to Einstein, Leonardo to the Wright Brothers. He’s given Van Gogh painting suggestions, caught a Jackie Robinson home run and short-circuited Ben Franklin.

“Where are we going today, Mr. Peabody?”

“Not where, Sherman. When.”

As long as Sherman keeps this a secret, nobody will be the wiser as to why he knows, for a fact, that George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree. Of course, Sherman can’t keep a secret, not even from the mean girl, Penny, who bullies him.

And that’s when the trouble starts. Actually, the first “when” is ancient Egypt. Then they check in on Leonardo Da Vinci and try to make Mona Lisa crack a smile. The movie drops in on The Trojan War.

“Sherman, I absolutely forbid you to fight in the Trojan War!”

“Awww, but all my FRIENDS are!”

Fans of the old Jay Ward TV show may take longer in adjusting to the new voices — Ty Burrell of “Modern Family” is a droll-enough Peabody, Max Charles (“The Neighbors”) is Sherman. But the witty word play and the pull-out-all-stops supporting cast start to pay off.

Patrick Warburton is WAY over the top as the Greek King Agamemnon, Stanley Tucci’s fractured Italian make him the perfect Leonardo, Mel Brooks is Einstein, and so on.

The movie takes a while to find its footing, but then the laughs come fast and furious.

“Who died and made you Pharaoh?” in Egypt.

If only Marie Antoinette has stopped licking the icing long enough to make an edict giving bread to the peasants of France.

“But you can’t have your cake, and EDICT, too.”

The animated details of this Rob Minkoff (“The Lion King”) comedy are an animated 3D feast for the eyes. The canvas wings of a Da Vinci glider ripple in the breeze, and when Peabody entertains Penny’s parents (Leslie Mann, Stephen Colbert, a hoot) with a little Jimi Hendrix, he even plays Jimi’s Fender upside down.

MPAA Rating:PG for some mild action and brief rude humor

Cast: The voices of Ty Burrell, Max Charles, Patrick Warburton, Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann, Stanley Tucci

Credits: Directed by Rob Minkoff, written by Craig Wright, based on the Jay Ward cartoons. A Fox/Dreamworks Animation release.

Running time: 1:28