Movie Nation

“Quartet” is the aging opera singer retirement home comedy by Dustin Hoffman, with Maggie Smith et al still hitting the high notes — if not as singers. Michael Gambon, Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins — Dustin put a lot of Brits and others to work. Americans? Not so much.

“Stoker” is causing a stir at Sundance, and stars Mia Wasikowska who becomes infatuated with the “Uncle” (Matthew Goode) who comes to stay with her and her mentally unhinged mother (Nicole Kidman) after her father dies.

And “Side Effects” is a four-handed thriller about the wife  (Rooney Mara) of a convict (Channing Tatum) whose prescription drug treatment (Jude Law is her doctor) has, um “Side Effects.” Medical ethics, drug dependency and the changing nature of oversight of physicians and drug companies are subtexts in this one, with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Polly Draper and Vinessa Shaw also in the cast.

Deadline.com reports that worldwide Movie Business revenues for 2012 were up 2.1% from the year before, some $62.4 billion.

That’s box office sales, DVD, BluRay and download sales, satellite, cable and network TV revenues, some 37 countries reporting in.

Revenues had dropped when DVD sales fell through the floor a couple of years back, and they’re recovering, according to IHS Screen Digest Cross Platform Movie Market Monitor. Discs sales continue to fall, though not as precipitously. But box office and other places movies can be sold rose.

I got a pretty good sized chuckle out of the all-star actioner “RED: Retired, Extremely Dangerous” a couple of falls back.

And there are familiar laughs in this trailer to the sequel. Seriously, I don’t know why anybody using John Malkovich (he’s become a Summit Entertainment favorite) doesn’t look at these films, see the silly possibilities, and come right out and say, “THAT’S what I want.” Because the man can be menacing and sympathetic, but he’s in his glory in over-the-top parts like this.

We tend judge to filmed stories of survival on an epic ordeal scale. How excruciating was what the people went through in this tale endured?

That puts the German production “North Face” on the short list of greatest mountaineering movies ever made, a vivid recreation of an agonizing climb that tested four young men to their very limits in 1936 Switzerland.

You wouldn’t think a film about German soldiers and Austrians competing to be the first to conquer the North Face of the murderous mountain the Swiss named “The Ogre” — Eiger — could be so compelling.

Nazis and Nazi sympathizers struggling against mountain and the elements? Who cares? Alpine settings were a favorite symbol of Nazi iconographers, in particular Nazi filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl. What’s novel about this?

Co-writer/director Philip Stolzl took this true story of a campaign than failed, and crafted a romantic, heroic and tense movie, with great cinematography and nerve-wracking suspense.

Florian Lukas is Andi Hinterstoisser and Benno Furhmann is Toni Kurz, two outdoorsy young Berchtesgarden Bavarians who aren’t quite into Army life — even though that’s what the Fuhrer wants. They tolerate the training their hometown mountain division demands only because it keeps them close to climbing.

It’s the Olympic summer of 1936, and dramatic failures to climb icy, sheer side of the Eiger have inspired German propagandists, including Berlin newspaper editors, to recruit young Aryans to do it as the crowning “gold medal” of that glorious year.

Since newspaper clerk Luise (Johanna Wokalek) has history with the lads, she’s recruited to go talk them into attempting it and get her first scoop as she does.

She has history with Toni climber, which complicates things. And Toni sees that attempt as vain and suicidal, and won’t go for it. But when they hear that French, Italians and Austrians are making their way to the Eiger to have a go, they’re inspired.

All they have to do is quit Hitler’s Army — Wait, was it really that easy? — make their way to Switzerland and gain lasting glory.

Luise is dragged along by her reporter/editor (Ulrich Tukor) to cover the quest, to play up the glorious virtues of the young people of the German Reich.

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We count Monday figures, too, when summing up the long and always lucrative Martin Luther King holiday weekend at the movies.

So nothing’s truly official until the last farthing to counted Monday night.

But right now, “Mama,” looks to have made $28 million, just through Sunday — figure $32-35 by Monday.

And “Broken City,” the new Mark Walhberg action drama, is at $9 with a fond hope of clearing $10 by Monday night.

“The Last Stand,” a retro Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner with sidekicks, catch phrases, bad acting and decent action — won’t even do that well. It’s sitting just over $6 million, now. No way that movie covers cost, not in this country anyway.

Maybe overseas they’re still into the creaking old action figure.

“Silver Linings Playbook” has ridden an Oscar bounce into the top five.

“The Hobbit” is on the cusp of dropping out of the top ten.

“More men have walked on the moon than have played James Bond,” a wag notes in the terrific History of Bond documentary, “Everything or Nothing.”

And almost to a one, each regarded this as the role of a lifetime, a dream opportunity, an iconic character who would, if nothing else, leave them set for life, financially, thanks to the most successful franchise in film history.

But getting them all together in one movie to talk about their experience of the part, how their interpretation of the role fit their times, was nigh on impossible before “Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of James Bond,” a terrific new “officially sanctioned” Bond history timed to help celebrate 50 years of Big Screen Bond.

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J.J. Abrams wants to tell the sordid tale of Lance Armstrong, Just Another Cheater From Texas.

OK, that’s MY title. Abrams (“Super 8/”Star Trek”) could do a film based on Armstrong’s sullen early years racing, his battle with cancer, his miraculous comeback and ascent to the podium — winning all those Tour de France titles.

He’s basing it on an upcoming book on the cyclist, a complete history of his infamy – “Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong.”

Interestingly, all the TV and radio (NPR) newscasts interviewed the British journalist who spent so much effort and took so much heat — direct abuse from Armstrong — in trying to expose him over the years, is NOT the person whose work Abrams has optioned. David Walsh was his name. He picked a New York Times writer with enough — but not nearly as many — years on the beat.

BIG Friday and early Saturday for “Mama,” the better-than-average horror film starring Jessica Chastain, a couple of pitiful little girls and the “thing” they would rather call Mama than Jessica Chastain.

Some $10 million Friday alone.

That suggests Jessica will beat her own Oscar contender at the box office — “Zero Dark Thirty” will do better Sat. and Sunday, but it looks like “Mama” will clear $20 and “Zero” will be mid-teens.

“The Last Stand” did a measly $2 million — hey Arnie — those are Streisand “Guilt Trip” numbers.

Funny thing, when I posted my review of “Last Stand,” I was the first to slap down this retro actioner down. It had a 100% rating from assorted critics — early posters. I got a bit of snarky hate mail. Now? Not so much. Beaten down to “Rotten” territory.

Pity that didn’t happen with “Django,” but hey — some people’s kids.

“Broken City” will be lucky to pull in $10 million. Mark Wahlberg’s quest to “own” (my word) MLK Weekend at the movies –– year over year — fails.

“Django,” “Les Miz,” still doing decent business in the middle of the box office pack.