Movie Nation

This one, based on the seizure and rescue of the crew of the Maersk Alabama, opens Oct. 11.

Here’s what I remember about the one time I interviewed the great Chinese director Zhang Yimou. The director of “Ju Dou,” “Raise the Red Lantern,” “Hero,” “House of Flying Daggers” etc. talked about never calling his leading ladies to the set before noon so that “I can photograph them at their most beautiful, after a long sleep — no puffiness around the eyes.”

The man loves his ladies.

He’s embroiled in a big sex/paternity scandal in China, where he’s accused of having seven children by three different women.

Your average NBA team has five guys under contract who fit that description. But In China, where having more than one child is a crime, where finding ways to get around that is an art, he’s in real hot water.

“Iron Man 3” will win this weekend at the box office. Easily. It did $175 for its opening, so even a HUGE fall off suggests $60-70 million on its second weekend.

The Guru figures it’ll manage $75 million.

Box Office Mojo guesses it’ll do another $71.

There is enormous buzz, and a lot of debate over the new “Great Gatsby” Baz L. is serving up.

Here’s a VERY generous suggestion from Box Office Mojo — $40- million plus? Leo & Spiderman & Carey & Baz have generated that kind of heat. It could happen. And it’s in 3D, so the take will be higher, per ticket sold.

The Guru thinks only $31.

I expect it to easily clear $30. But then, I liked the film and I’d love to see this sort of daring rewarded.  Reviews won’t help it. All that swooning over a comic book movie, and this weekend critics have gone all highbrow and sniffed at the fact that “it’s NOT the book.” No, movies have to stand on their own and movies reflect their time more accurately than the time of the novel they’re based on.

I think Mojo is low-balling expectations for “Peeples,” which has reviews that will not hurt it and will pick up decent word of mouth. I am thinking $20 million, or close to it.

But The Guru also is basing his $14 million prediction on the number of screens (just over 2000). So we’ll see.

I’ll be defending myself for liking Baz Luhrmann’s take on “The Great Gatsby” this am on 740 The Game. 

The Leo DiCaprio/Tobey Maguire/Carey Mulligan film has earned mostly, but far from overwhelmingly, negative reviews. It isn’t the book, but it does have empathetic performances, a dazzling design and a real sense of that age and the movie’s big themes. It works, I think. Leo’s best work as an adult. But you have to go with it, and a lot of people won’t.

“Peeples” is a pretty funny “Meet the Parents” clone, with Craig Robinson, Kerry Washington, David Alan Grier and that kid from “Everybody Hates Chris” all landing lots and lots of laughs. This is has earned better reviews than “The Great Gatsby,” believe it or not.

“No One Lives” is a standard issue horror picture about rural, murderous thugs kidnapping a couple (Luke Evans is the guy), and slowly figuring out they made a mistake. They’ve nabbed Dexter. Or a guy like him.

The Saturday matinee classic at Enzian is “The Graduate,” the essential ’60s masterwork that heralded the director’s decade — the 70s.

And of course, we’ll talk about Enzian’s “Gone with the Wind” Mother’s Day showing. Got brunch plans? Don’t want to have to talk for four hours while you do? GWTW.

It’s not the 20th Century any more. So the studios that merged back in the days of silent cinema (20th Century and Fox) are changing their name/logo.

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“Peeples” is an African American “Meet the Parents” that slips musically-minded funnyman Craig Robinson into the Ben Stiller role. A formula comedy about screwing up your first encounter with your potential in-laws, casting Robinson in it is like replacing Stiller with Jack Black among the Fockers.
Yeah, that might work. And here, formulaic or not, it’s funny.
Robinson plays Wade, an enterainer for kids who sings songs about learning to “use your words” and not pee your pants. How he ended up with stunning U.N. lawyer Grace (Kerry Washington) takes a  bit of a stretch of the imagination.
Until you meet her parents. Not that she’s anxious to let Wade meet “The Chocolate Kennedys.” She does her family weekends in Sag Harbor without her live-in lover.
But Wade, egged on by his “doll doctor” brother (Malcolm Barrett, hilarious) decides to follow her to the Hamptons and surprise her, and her folks, with a proposal.
The moment he meets her father, “The Judge”, he realizes the folly of his plan. Judge Peeples is played by the criminally under-employed comic David Alan Grier. He’s a stiff, a prickly martinet who so intimidates his family of over achievers that they all lie to him rather than upset his notion of family.
Daphne, his wife (S. Epatha Merkerson in a rare comic turn) is a retired, vampy soul-singer with substance abuse issues. Young son Simon (Tyler James Williams of “Everybody Hates Chris”) is a genius and a social misfit who acts out by stealing — from everybody.
Daughter Gloria (Kali Hawk) is a TV reporter who won’t tell Dad she’s in love with her camera-woman (Kimrie Lewis-Davis). And Dad has his own secrets, which Ward stumbles into as he blunders his way into a domestic situation fraught with peril.
Robinson (“The Office,” “Hot Tub Time Machine”) is in his ease, here, surrounded by funny people so that he doesn’t have to carry the movie. But reacting to every new discovery about the Peeples, and about his girlfriend’s secret past, he’s a stitch. She dated a LOT of rich, older men in Sag Harbor. How’d he find out? In the market.
“I met Uncle Ben and Bojangles up in here. Who else did you date? George Washington Carver? W.E.B. Dubois?”
Writer-director Tina Gordon Chism earned her directing debut with pretty good scripts to “Drumline” and “ATL.” She packs this script with potentially funny characters and obvious and awkward situations and makes the most of most of them. Tyler Perry produced “Peeples,” and he could go to school on how makes things low, funny and broad, but never too low or too broad.
The laughs follow an overly familiar path, but it’s great to see Grier, one of the bright lights of the seminal TV sketch comedy “In Living Color,” button down this judge and find ways to break formula and make him hilarious.
And if these Peeples don’t make Robinson a comic leading man, they at least predict a comic franchise that Perry can produce without having to don a dress.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, drug material and language
Cast: Craig Robinson, Kerry Washington, David Alan Grier
Credits: Written and directed by Tina Gordon Chism  . A  release.
Running time: 1:35

Bill Bryson’s “Walk the Appalachian Trail to Find Yourself” memoir “A Walk in the Woods” is the next directing job Robert Redford has in mind for himself.

And since he met his match — in age, experience and temperament — in Nick Nolte in a nice chewy scene in “The Company You Keep,” Nolte will be his co-star, according to THR.

The last time we talked, he was floating through the glories of “The Social Network,” a full-on awards season phenomenon.

Jesse Eisenberg could pick and choose what he wanted to do after that one. Like a few actors — Kevin Spacey comes to mind — he suggests intelligence and cunning, which kind of rules out him ever playing stupid (Spacey has tried, and failed at that). And he’s aged out of the naive and innocent thing he did so well in his youth (“Zombieland” was his last lovelorn young guy role, unless you count the evil genius Zuckerberg).

“Now You See Me” looks like an all-star sleeper this summer, something to pull us in when we take a breather from comic book movies.

Questions for Jesse? I’m always looking for suggestions, and I’m all ears. Comment below.