Movie Nation

Based on Friday night’s numbers, “Texas Chainsaw 3D” will collect maybe $25 million this weekend, enough to slip past “Django Unchained” and all the rest on this first weekend of 2013.

“Chainsaw” — the “massacre” is silent — did over $10 million late Thursday and all day and night Friday.

It’s on a LOT of screens, it’s in 3D, and it’s the only “new” movie to go into wide release this weekend.

“”Django” did over $6. “Hobbit” right around $6 and “Les Miserables” in the $4-5 range. That puts “Django” finally ahead of “Les Mis” in the US box office. Both films opened Christmas Day, but “Django” has held onto audience longer.

“Promised Land” opened wider and cracked the top ten, dropping  “Silver Linings” out of it.

Both will clear the $100 million mark — or come very close —  by the end of the weekend.

Flight, Written by John Gatins; Paramount Pictures

Looper, Written by Rian Johnson; TriStar Pictures

The Master, Written by Paul Thomas Anderson; The Weinstein Company

Moonrise Kingdom, Written by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola; Focus Features

Zero Dark Thirty, Written by Mark Boal; Columbia Pictures

Argo, Screenplay by Chris Terrio; Based on a selection from The Master of Disguise by Antonio J. Mendez and the Wired Magazine article “The Great Escape” by Joshuah Bearman; Warner Bros. Pictures

Life of Pi, Screenplay by David Magee; Based on the novel by Yann Martel; 20th Century Fox

Lincoln, Screenplay by Tony Kushner; Based in part on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin; DreamWorks Pictures

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Screenplay by Stephen Chbosky; Based on his book; Summit Entertainment

Silver Linings Playbook, Screenplay by David O. Russell; Based on the novel by Matthew Quick; The Weinstein Company

The Central Park Five, Written by Sarah Burns and David McMahon and Ken Burns; Sundance Selects

The Invisible War, Written by Kirby Dick; Cinedigm Entertainment Group

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, Written by Alex Gibney; HBO Documentary Films

Searching for Sugar Man, Written by Malik Bendjelloul; Sony Pictures Classics

We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists, Written by Brian Knappenberger; Cinetic Media

West of Memphis, Written by Amy Berg & Billy McMillin; Sony Pictures Classics

The first movie to go into wide release in 2013 misses, by mere days, a qualifying run for the 2012 Oscars. Thus “Texas Chainsaw 3D” can’t enjoy the hype of the just-as-bloody “Django Unchained.”

Well, there are other differences.

“Chainsaw 3D” – They no longer use “Massacre” in the title. It’s either implied or, well they don’t want to give the movie away – picks up the “story” where other recent massacres have left off. “Chainsaw 3D” makes some effort to find a reason for Heather, played by that stunning specimen of bare-midriffed beauty, Alexandra Daddario, to drag three of her 20something friends to Newt, Texas. She’s a surviving member of the slaying Sawyer clan, the inbreds who gave birth to and protected the hulking monster Leatherface. A brief opening sums up the “end” of the Sawyers, the lynch mob that rightfully burnt them all to a Texas BBQ crisp.

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There’s an inner nine year-old in us all, dying to get out, to laugh at pratfalls, slaps, eye-pokes and fart jokes.

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 At some point during the filming of the heist thriller “Stolen,” in which he plays an FBI agent chasing an elusive master thief (Nicolas Cage), Danny Huston must have said “Waaaaaillll shoo’. I’m-o wear me this hear porkpie hat from heyah on out. See if I don’t, Cher.”

Kind of goes with the accent he seems to acquire the longer his character, Agent Harland, stays on the case. Huston tries his hand at New Orleans folksy. His assistant is inept. How inept?

“Couldn’t find a couch in a livin’ room.”

His advice to the lovelorn Will “Gum” Montgomery (Cage)?

“Like my Granny Harland said, ‘Love makes time pass But time is certain to make LOVE pass.'”

Words to live by. If only Huston had committed to this chatty, drawling take on the guy from the get-go. But that’s a problem the whole movie suffers from — a lack of commitment.

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“Step Up: Miami Heat” taps into the dance “flash mob” phenomenon and moves to Miami to give us the sunniest and most entertaining of these kids-gotta-dance musicals.

The flash mobs — in traffic, dancing on the roofs, hoods and trunks of low-rider vintage cars in Miami traffic, disrupting museum openings and a developer’s planning meetings, are a brilliantly choreographed, well-shot and sharply-edited treat.

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