Movie Nation

“What’s that smell?” Vin Diesel seems to be asking with that look.

“Smells like MONEY.”

“Fast & Furious 6” has set itself up to earn $110 million this weekend, based on late Thursday all-day-and-night Friday numbers. Unless audiences bail on it later in the weekend, it will set a franchise record and help make this the biggest Memorial Day at the movies ever.

It will come close to $90 million over three days, $110 million over four.

“Hangover III” is a big-brand-name franchise, too. But bad reviews and weak word of mouth are suppressing turnout. That one looks like a $53 million opening weekend hit.

The telling days for the animated “Epic” will be Saturday and Monday, kids-go-to-the-movie days. Right now, it’s looking like a $44 million picture, but Sunday AM’s read will be the telling one.

“Star Trek” has lost over half its audience and is headed for a $37 million weekend take. “Iron Man” continues to plug along, “Gatsby” just passed $100 million North American box office and will be close to $120 by Monday.

He wanted to get $2 million from fans and other backers to finally make a follow-up to his sensitive indie hit “Garden State.” But when Zach “Scrubs” Braff used the crowd-funding site Kickstarter to do finance “Wish I Was Here,” which he co-wrote, will direct and star in, he stirred up a hornet’s nest of resentment. He already has “access” to talent, production companies, distributors and money, the arguments went. He made a boatload of cash off “Scrubs.” Why isn’t he spending his own money? Kickstarter should be for those just starting out. Wannabes. Or so the reasoning of wannabes went.

But the “Veronica Mars” folks led the way. Fans financing a movie they want to see from somebody they adore. I get it. So, apparently, does Woody Allen.

Now Braff has concluded his campaign, cast Kate Hudson and Mandy Patinkin in his tale of an actor trying to figure out who he is (OK, this sounds so indulgent I may throw up a little after typing it). This project will get a lot of attention when he’s done with it, a leg up for him getting distribution or at least getting it into Sundance. If he blows it, if the script, which no studio would back, as-is, even with his “name,” he’ll be done. Failing — and with Kate Hudson on board, the odds are not good — will be disastrous.

“Epic” and “Hangover Part III” are battling for second place — $50 million each is the projection.

But “Fast & Furious 6,” which sounded like (from audience reax) a $100-120 million hit when I saw it a week or two back, is bowling them over already. That’s based on deadline.com’s Wed./Thursday midnight projections.

“Star Trek” has trekked off “Into Darkness.”

Larry’s an awkward hoodie-wearing teenager, one of those bookish types who narrate their own stories in novels and films. And Juliet is his blond ideal, a vision who could “suck a man dry with those eyes.”
Larry is bullied, with one classmate in particular taking pleasure in beating him down. A new friend, Johnny, sticks up for him. Which makes him catnip to Juliet.
If only she could see Larry’s wounded soul, the scars he hides underneath that hoodie. Maybe she’d be touched and he’d have a shot.
“The Lesser Blessed” takes a dark but somewhat conventional high school melodrama and sets it on an Indian reservation in Canada. It’s a revealing portrait of lives on the edge of poverty (no casinos here, apparently) and the limiting, two-fisted world a sensitive soul world like Larry might never escape.
Larry (Joel Evans, haunted, gaunt and out-of-place) has a secret, one glimpsed in flashbacks. It’s a secret his mom (Tamara Podemski) shares, one they keep from mom’s soulful on-again/off-again boyfriend (Benjamin Bratt).
But kids at high school know it. That’s why the creep Darcy (Adam Butcher) taunts Larry with a lighter. Fire means something to Larry.
The pleasures in this narration-reliant story come from the people and the place they call home, the details director Anita Doran includes in her adaptation of Richard Van Camp’s novel. In this bleak world, grudges last a lifetime. In this school, the guy who stops Darcy from beating up Larry, Johnny (Kiowa Gordon) is the one punished.
But house parties without adult supervision have the same outcome as any where else in North America — kids drinking, kids experimenting with drugs (“hot knifing”), kids hooking up.
The performances are pretty sharp, with Bratt lending professionalism and gravitas to the proceedings, playing a man who wouldn’t mind being a dad — if the kid and his mother would let him. But the situations feel contrived, the romantic pairings a bit arbitrary.
Strip away the narration, and this would be more cinematic. Take away the setting and this is fairly routine stuff. But “The Lesser Blessed” is a colorful, well-mounted reminder that high school life isn’t just the province of The Disney Channel and those who move to LA to get on it.

MPAA Rating: R for drug and alcohol use, violence, language and sexual content – all involving teens
Cast: Joel Evans, Benjamin Bratt, Chloe Rose, Kiowa Gordon, Adam Butcher, Tamara Podemski
Credits: Written and directed by Anita Doran, based on a Richard Van Camp novel. A  Monterey release.
Running time: 1:26

Steven Soderbergh is probably wishing he’d never let slip this whole business of him retiring and all. Maybe he was still mad over Sony firing him from “Moneyball.” Maybe he was having a bad day.

And then there was all the talk leading up to his “final” movie, the Liberace thing “Behind the Candelabra” on HBO this weekend.

Now there’s talk of him filming a ten episode period piece in the “Boardwalk Empire/GAngs of New York” vein — “The Knick,” set in New York in 1900. Clive Owen would star, Soderbergh would direct it. All of it.

Here’s a link to the story about the study, which implies that women critics are outnumbered and that since women critics are more likely to review films made by or about women (there’s an observation that surprised me. I thought we all reviewed whatever came down the pike, no matter who made it), this could hurt female filmmakers and “chick pictures,” or movies aimed at a female audience.

Not exactly an exhaustive study, simply focusing on Rotten Tomatoes critics. Most of us are there, and they’re a bit arbitrary on how they place you and who they call “top critic.”

This AM on 740 AM Mikey Bianchi and I will chat up the long holiday weekend’s movies.

I’ve  endorsed as “dumb but fun” “Fast & Furious 6,” which has some of the best reviews this overlong franchise has ever earned. Silly movie, almost plotless, but great action beats — epic chases and fights.

“Epic” kind of earns an animated shrug. It’s OK. I can’t believe “Monsters University” didn’t go for this date. “Epic” is weak tea from Fox/Blue Sky. But it could do well.

And “Hangover Part III” won’t shock you, unless you go expecting beaucoups laughs. There aren’t many.

Enzian has one last weekend of “Mud,” and they’re bringing “E.T.” home for a Sunday matinee should you need something to do with the kiddies.

That chat is this morning at 745 or so on 740 The Game. Be there.