One night a year, all crime is allowed — and the society benefits from this with low unemployment, low crime, and a regular “Host” like existence. Ethan Hawke and Lena Heady play parents trying to keep home and hearth together during America’s annual Hell Night, when people purge themselves and others are purged from the population as a consequence.
“Evil Dead” managed the best horror film opening in ages, pulling in $26 million in ticket sales for its first weekend, guaranteeing this remake of Sam Raimi’s career-launching shocker/laugher.
“Mama,” the year’s best horror film thus far, opened with $28 million back in January and eventually earned over $70, domen
“G.I. Joe: Retaliation” has earned another $21 million, “The Croods” another $20.
“Jurassic Park 3D” cleared $18, right at the high end of expectations and enough to justify (eventually) the $10 million conversion of this 20 year old blockbuster to 3D.
Tyler Perry’s latest did another $10 million, which means “Temptation” won’t hit $50 million, all-in.
“The Host” is over $19 but it won’t manage $25, when all is said and done.
“Oz” is over $212, “Olympus Has Fallen” is over $71 and will make money until “Pain & Gain” opens.
Halle Berry’s “The Call” is nearing $50.
A well-written screen character doesn’t betray his motives early on. Thus, when itenerant handyman Noah (Marc Menchaca) offers to help the overwhelmed Diane (C.K. McFarland) with her son, Auggie (Tobias Segal), who has muscular dystrophy, it seems like simple, saintly compassion.
And speaking of saints, Diane is dealing with not just Auggie, but an ex-farmer husband Bob (Ron Hayden) who appears to have Alzheimer’s and is prone to wandering. And then there’s embittered daughter Lainey (Frances Shaw), who smokes and drinks and sulks and is no help at all. Diane works at a supermarket, dragging Bob along to work to babysit him, leaving Auggie on his own with Lainey.
Until Noah shows up. He tries to connect with Auggie, “August,” whom he calls Gus. He puzzles over Lainey and laughs at Bob’s occasional, accident joke.
Everybody is trapped in Llano, Texas, trapped in lives of abject misery with nothing to look forward to in the bleaker-than-bleak “This is Where We Live.” Why Noah would inject himself into this situation is a mystery this film — co-written and co-directed by Menchaca and Josh Barrett — sets about telling us — eventually.
McFarland makes a moving Ma Joad figure in this drama, weeping when no one is watching her at work, fretting over the fact that her “boy” is no longer a boy, even if she takes offense at Noah’s efforts to take what he thinks Gus wants into consideration.
Her one break is that odd moment when her husband reminds her who he once was.
“There you are!”
Menchaca is properly cryptic as Noah, though his drunk scenes could use some work. Segal gives a lot of “cute” touches to Gus, who is written as a poet trapped in a barely functional body. Segal unfortunately never lets you forget there’s an “actor” inside this character’s infirmity.
It’s a downbeat “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” without the laughs, with only the occasional sharp, sad observation about life and relationships.
“When you don’t feel, things kind of fall apart.”
But for all its sure-handed sense of place, its occasional grace notes of loss, grief and misery, “This is Where We Live” fails to seize and break our hearts, keeping its glum characters at arm’s length and doling out “hope” in tiny, cloying teaspoon-size servings.
Screenings: www.floridafilmfestival.com
Jackie Robinson played himself, and Ruby Dee played his wife in the mild-mannered 1950 bio-pic “The Jackie Robinson Story.”
The insults hurled from opposing players and “fans” include “liver lips” and watermelon cracks and holding up shoeshine boxes. “Hey boy, gimme a shine.”
The Branch Rickey and teammate and radio announcer (Red Barber) are all wrong. But it’s the real Jackie, soft, almost-mousy voiced, intense, hustling, and in every sense, “a gentleman,” which is what Rickey saw in him and chose him to integrate America’s Passtime.
I’m watching it on Bounce TV — but it’s on Youtube, too. Here it is.
In Brian Helgeland’s “42,” opening Friday, Chadwick Boseman plays Jackie.
Lots and lots of Chloe, and Julianne Moore. “I wanna be normal.” In October, she fails. Julianne is horrifying.
Jason Bateman knows why he gets work. It’s how good he is at being the EveryMensch/EveryMan, the guy “things happen to” in a comedy.
It’s right there under the category marked “trademark” on his biography on the Internet Movie Database — “a put-upon everyman.” In that guise, he’s sort the surrogate for the audience.
“There is perhaps a relate-ability to what I do or what I look like,” Bateman says. “I enjoy playing that sort of guy, because there’s a lot of responsibility there. I’m a player who wants the ball, and if I’m being asked to be the eyes, the ears, the proxy for the audience, that’s the ball.”
Bateman is handed the ball a lot these days. He co-starred with Melissa McCarthy in the year’s biggest comedy hit, “Identity Thief,” playing the victim of a scam artist. And he was handed the ball again in the ensemble drama “Disconnect,” playing a workaholic tuned-out father whose son is the tragic victim of cyber-bullying.
“I don’t get offered a lot of dramas, but I wasn’t surprised that I got offered another role who turns out to be a sort of surrogate for the audience.” The viewer experiences the horror and rage any parent would feel at realizing their child, unbeknownst to them, was living in agony because of what others are doing to him on the Internet. Bateman, “neatly cast against type” (Variety) lets us see a scary side of himself that his put-upon farces never do.
“I know how to be funny. But under all that is just another human being, and anger and simmering rage is much easier to play since there’s not another layer on top of that. In comedy you’ve got to believable AND put the funny layer on top of it. Strip away the funny stuff and you’ve got just another normal guy going through something that’s challenging.”
The father of two (he’s married to Amanda Anka, the daughter of singer-songwriter Paul Anka), the star of “Horrible Bosses,” “Extract” and a Golden Globe winner for “Arrested Development” found an easy way to “get to that place” where he’s a frightened and furious father.
“If I have a scene like that coming up, I pop out my iPhone and start flipping through pictures of my kids. That will get me in a very soft and vulnerable place, and we’re off.”
The coincidence of starring in back to back films about online privacy, or the lack of it, has him joking that “This is my theme, everything I’m doing this year is about that issue.” But of course, he’s starring in the long-awaited return of the cult TV show “Arrested Development,” with new episodes on Netflix beginning May 26. You might expect that for Bateman, 44 and seven years removed the series, his main emotion in revisiting that dysfunctional extended-family comedy would be relief. Fans, a lot of them journalists, have been nagging him and everyone from the show about a possible reunion for years.
“That show is what I owe the second half of my career to,” the one-time child star (“Valerie’/”The Hogan Family”) says. “Those were my favorite people (Michael Cera, Portia Di Rossi, Will Arnett) to work with. I never got tired of the questions, and when the offer came to go back there, they didn’t have to ask me twice.”
In the future, there’s a possible “Arrested Development” movie, and a definite “Horrible Bosses 2.” But Bateman, who has long modeled his career on that of former child star and “Arrested Development” narrator/producer Ron Howard, just finished his big screen directing debut. He first tried his hand at directing as a teen on “The Hogan Family” on TV. Directing and starring in “Bad Words,” where he plays a sore loser from a spelling bee who carries his grudge into adulthood, “was a dream I’ve had since the first time I walked onto a set. It was thrilling to have that responsibility, and I have to say, some day, I could see myself doing that full time.”
Directors, he adds, have a much easier time “just being Joe Dad-Joe Husband in every day life. And that’s who I really am, I think.”
Seriously? That sounds like a plan. “Arthur Newman” comes out later this spring.
On April 6, the Disney Channel Rocks attraction at Walt Disney World shut its doors, and the last theme park reference to the glorious and profitable “High School Musical” franchise was gone.
But Ashley Tisdale, one of those who came to fame in the movies — as singing, sniping “mean girl” Sharpay — isn’t shedding a tear and isn’t looking back.
“It’s been a few years, so we’ve moved on and I guess the fans have, too,” Tisdale says, referring to 2011’s Sharpay swan song, “Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure.” “But we had a great run.”
Tisdale, 27, a New Jersey native and in “the business” since age 3, knows you can’t get sentimental over past work. She still does Disney projects — her Blondie Girl Production company just produced a Disney Channel film, “Cloud Nine.” But Tisdale left her “Disney Darling” (Saturday Night Magazine) image behind when she posed nude for Allure magazine a couple of years back. She even guest starred on the cable biker drama “Sons of Anarchy” last year.
And now she’s taken on “the blond” role in the “Scary Movie” franchise, in essence replacing Anna Faris, who appeared in several of the earlier films in the series. Tisdale was surprised by the extremes the producers went to in order to ensure their horror parody “was totally up to date.”
In January, “I went to see ‘Mama’ (the year’s biggest horror hit) on opening weekend. Scared me to death. But at one point, I realized ‘Jessica Chastain’s a step-mom to these awful little girls. That would have fit perfectly in our film. Too bad we’ve wrapped.’
“Couple of weeks later, the phone rings, ‘Yeah, we’re doing re-shoots, adding ‘Mama’ to the movie.’ And they even got a reference or two to ‘Evil Dead,’ just working off the trailer to that one.”
Tisdale got to do a version of horror’s favorite stunt these days, a “money shot” that turns up in films from “Paranormal Activity” to “Evil Dead” — an actor or actress dragged suddenly out of the frame and into the darkness.
“They strap you in this harness, put your costume over it and yank you. It’s pretty simple. They don’t have to surprise you with it. Your reaction’s where the acting comes in. You’ve got to give them that terrified face as you’re pulled away from the camera. And you want to get it right the first time, because it’s not fun, getting yanked like that.”
Tisdale grew a worldwide fan base, thanks to “High School Musical” and the record deal (two solo albums thus far) that came from that. But she’s happy that the comically terrified mom — “STEP mom. let’s not get carried away” — she plays in “Scary Movie 5” “is a me that people haven’t seen before. This is a lot edgier than anything I’ve been in before, and hopefully it’ll surprise people.”
She is set to co-star in a big budget version of the “Rapture” series, “Left Behind,” with Nicolas Cage, which could start shooting in May. And after that? “Maybe back into the recording studio, just to see what happens.”
Horror films, even the biggest ones, rarely cross that $25 million opening weekend threshhold. Few clear $20, much less $25. But “Evil Dead” did a great Thursday midnight and an $11 million+ Friday suggesting it could clear $27 million by the time this weekend is done.
Decent reviews didn’t hurt it.
HOWEVER, the track record is that movies from the fanboy corner of the audience do most of their business Friday and fall-off big-time Saturday.
“Jurassic Park,” back in theaters in 3D (and IMAX 3D, thus much higher prices) is pulling them in, too. It’s pulling in close to projections — $18 million. Meh. Considering the ticket prices, that’s not a slam dunk, even for a 20 year old movie.
“G.I. Joe” and “The Croods” look to be neck and neck (kids’ movie, Saturday is the true “tell”), at the $21-$22 million spot.
“Olympus Has Fallen” will clear the $70 million mark by the time the weekend is done.
Tyler Perry’s “Tempation” has done its usual TP second weekend plummet.
“The Host” and “Admission”: are officially flops.
“Crimson Peak” promises to be a twist on the traditional ghost story, and Guillermo DEl Toro is casting away for it even as he waits for “Pacific Rim” to hit theaters.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Jessica Chastain and Emma Stone are the big names lined up so far.
Charlie Hunam was previously announced for it.
