Movie Nation

Abandoned but never quite forgotten, “All the Boys Love Mandy Lane” finally reaches theaters seven years after it was finished. A graphically violent, sexually explicit teen horror tale, it was close to being ahead of its time, in its time. Now, it plays like a quaint, fairly obvious period piece — from 2006.
The reason it was worth releasing was its rising star, Amber Heard, just at the beginning of her big-haired blonde bombshell appeal. “Zombieland,” “Drive Angry” and the new film “Machete Kills” were years ahead of her. But even back then, you could pick her out as star in this cast. And not just because she had the title role.
Mandy Lane is the freshman who “got (bleeping) gorgeous” over the summer before her sophomore year. The boys don’t try to hide their lust. She’s loyal to best friend Emmet (Michael Welch of “The Twilight Saga”). But dragging him along to a pool party leads to tragedy.
Not for Mandy, though. She’s still the most eligible virgin when, nine months later, the cool, rich and over-sexed among her junior class invite her out to a rich kid’s ranch.
There’s Red (Aaron Himelstein), Jake (Luke Grimes) and Bird (Edwin Hodge) all aiming “to be the first to get with you.” And their promiscuous pals Chloe (Whitney Able) and Marlin (Melissa Price) are there to apply peer pressure.
Handsome ranch hand Garth (Anson Mount) is the wild card.
Their primitive cell phones (dumb phones?) don’t work, the drinking, pot smoking and whippet huffing starts and before you can say “What happened to the lights?” and “Let’s go for a midnight swim in the river where we saw all the snakes today,” kids start dying horrible deaths.
Heard was utterly beguiling, even at 20, when her bag of tricks was limited to overripe lips, tight clothes and constantly pulling her big hair out of her big eyes. You can see why the boys go mad.
The rest of the cast is game, but forgettable. The murders cooked up by director Jonathan Levine, who went on to make “The Wackness” , “50/50” and “Warm Bodies” are only modestly creative.
But the sense of the secret lives of naughty teenagers, the overcast glow of the daylight scenes and snarky, snappish dialogue (screenwriter Jacob Forman did not go on to bigger and better things) make “Mandy Lane” watchable. It doesn’t live up to the legend that “lost” films sometimes generate — think David O. Russell’s Jessica Biel satire, “Nailed.” But it’s no worse than most of the mediocre horror films that beat it into theaters over the past seven years.

MPAA Rating:  R for strong disturbing violence, pervasive drug and alcohol use, sexuality/nudity and language – all involving teens
Cast: Amber Heard, Luke Grimes, Anson Mount, Whitney Able, Michael Welch. 
Credits: Directed by Jonathan Levine, written by Jacob Forman. A Radius/TWC release.  
Running time: 1:31

Honest truth? Ask any guy with a sailboat, and this is the romantic image he had of himself that made him go out and buy one.

Dashing, wind-lashed, hair flowing in the breeze — Robert Redford at the helm.

“All is Lost” is an almost-dialogue free drama, a metaphysical interior thriller about a man at war with the elements and a crippled boat.  It is “Gravity” at Sea. Which is not a bad thing.

Redford, at 77, plays a character too caught up in recovering from one blow after another to fret over his own mortality. But that’s exactly what he’s contending with.

Questions for the screen legend in what could be his last best shot at a Best Actor Oscar, Robert Redford? Comment below, and since I live on a sailboat myself, I’ve got that corner of the interview covered.

Thursday night was decent, Friday was good and Saturday ticket sales for the weighty sci-fi “Gravity” put the film on a course to set a new opening weekend record for October.

Did you see it? In IMAX and 3D? If so, you contributed to a staggering $55 million opening for Sandra Bullock’s latest hit. The Cuarons, father Alfonso and his screenwriting son (buy the kid a credit, whydoncha?) had a little to do with it, too.

“Runner Runner” hit $7.6 million, not even enough to come in second for the weekend. A Ben Affleck bomb.

“Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2” held much of its opening weekend audience, “Rush” and “Prisoners” continue to hold onto audience, “Blue Jasmine” and “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” linger in the top 20 — maybe long enough for awards consideration.
And a Christian music film, “Grace Unplugged,” looks to better “Metallica Through the Never” — in a week or two.

The right comparison for “Gravity” and its box office potential, the experts said, was “The Heat,” the last big Sandra Bullock blockbuster. And they predicted a $40 million weekend accordingly.

Wait, I said. The best comparison is not to big Sci-fi openings? Not “Avatar,” as in sci-fi EVERYONE is going to want to see in 3D?

A big Thursday night and blockbuster Friday ($17 million) are suggesting that $50 million, as I predicted, is going to be closer to the mark. A short, 90 minute film on a ton of screens, many in IMAX and most in 3D, it could blow up further on Saturday and Sunday, based on word of mouth.

Which is bound to be great, because every critic in America cannot be wrong. Especially not me (OK, feeling my oats this AM).  It cost abut $100, so Warners is learning what a safe bet Alfonso Cuaron can be. And remember, Alfonso insisted to me that EVERYBODY see this in IMAX 3D with Dolby ATOS sound. You have your orders.

“Runner Runner” is bombing. Fox must have re-cut this mess and decided, at some point, to give up on it. It may hit $8 million, Deadline.com says.

Reviews are breathless, which is fitting. And not just from me.

But will “Gravity,” Alfonso Cuaron’s intimate, real-time real scenarios space epic, have the box office to match the critical huzzahs?

 Variety says “Yes,” with a $40+ opening for the 3D movie. It’s short, it will show many times in many theaters, it is in 3D (higher prices) and on every IMAX screen available, and it has great hype and big stars. I think that’s low.

But Box Office Mojo also figures low $40s for this Bullock/Clooney classic.

Box Office Guru correctly points out that Sandra Bullock’s summer comedy blockbuster “The Heat,” a mediocre film, pulled in $40 on its opening. That seems to be what everybody is basing their projections upon. Bullock’s star power.

It’s science fiction, GREAT science fiction. It has fanboy hype AND Bullock drawing power AND 3D and IMAX ticket bonuses. I figure $50+. Then again, blog traffic is a big indicator to me how much interest there is in a film. Do fanboys hate Bullock more than they love Cuaron and sci-fi? Sunday night we’ll know.

Reviews for “Runner Runner” have warned viewers of the stench of this chopped up, miscast mess. Will it do 10-$11 million, as some are predicting? I don’t see it.

“Cloudy/Meatballs” will fall off this weekend, hopefully “Don Jon” won’t.

Beware the horror movie that lists its “special effects” team too high in the credits. It’s a dead giveaway. “This is what we spent our money on” and “This is what we’re proudest of.”
But hats off to Spectral Motion and effects maestro Mike Elizalde. The ghosts in “Nothing Left to Fear” are the only things to fear in this pedestrian spook fest.
They could have pitched this as a “reunion” of the on-and-offscreen paramours of the late TV show “Men in Trees” — Anne Heche and James Tupper. But who remembers that?

They play a preacher and his wife who move their family — two sassy, profane preacher’s daughters, Becky and Mary (Rebekah Brandes and Jennifer Stone) and a younger son (Carter Cabassa) — to Small Town, U.S.A., for a fresh start. Preacher Dan (Tupper) was recruited by Preacher Kingsman (Clancy Brown) to take over his flock upon retirement.
Kingsman seems a tad young to retire, which isn’t the first clue that all is not as peaceful and pastoral as it seems here. The hunky farmhand Noah (Ethan Peck) rattles the newcomers by slaughtering a sheep and letting it bleed out in front of the girls.
“Ewwww.”
And there’s all this forbidding music underneath even their welcome to the parsonage, where the congregation pitches in to help the Bramfords unpack.
But Dan was “called by a Higher Power” to this town of church socials, county fairs, romantic walks along the railroad tracks (Noah and Becky) and little old ladies who bake cakes with Satanic teeth in every slice. You bite down on that cake, and evil things are set in motion.
“Has the choice been made?” Kingsman wants to know. Yup.
“Nothing Left to Fear” doesn’t preserve its sense of mystery and only once or twice — at the very end — discovers any sense of urgency to the proceedings. Director Anthony Leonardi III is more interested in the slow, small-town courtship between a 20something hunk in a truck and hormonal city teen (Brandes) and lingering shots of the rebellious and fetching two preacher’s daughters, slowing the picture to a snail’s pace in between Becky’s nightmares and visions. She senses something is going on amid the tired plot points and beyond-banal dialogue.
Cue Spectral Motion and the effects team. Faces contort into long-jawed horrors that Edvard Munch would be proud to call his own, eyes hollow out into sockets and black bile streaks up bodies as they’re possessed. By something.
Nobody seems that upset by what is going on, even the preacher and family who find themselves, in the third act, under ritualistic, supernatural assault. And if they’re not that scared, why would we be?
But at least the effects are cool.

MPAA Rating: R for disturbing violent content and some language
Cast: Rebekah Brandes, Anne Heche, Clancy Brown, Ethan Peck, James Tupper, Jennifer Stone. 
Credits: Directed by Anthony Leonardi III, written by Jonathan W.C. Mills. An Anchor Bay release. 
Running time: 1:40