Movie Nation

The only thing new under the sun is the history we’ve forgotten.

Only the names of the tyrants and their treasonous stooges change.

“Mr. Jones” is a 1930s journalistic thriller from Agnieszka Holland (“Olivier, Olivier,” “Europa Europa”) that stars James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, Peter Sarsgaard and Kenneth Cranham and starts rolling out this fall in the former Eastern Bloc, in the West later. Because Poland (Oct. 25 opening) is more tuned in to what happened then and what’s going on now than the rest of us.

I was checking around town to see if any movie had been smuggled in by a small studio to one of America’s Vacationland’s many mega-multiplexes last night when I noticed something one doesn’t normally see.

All these showtimes for one movie “greyed-out” over the weekend. “Joker” was pre-sold and selling out for big chunks of its opening weekend.

Even at the Disney Springs AMC. It’s not just locals, but people on vacation at the priciest theme park of them all are setting aside time — FAMILY time — to see a disturbing, R-rated parable about America as it is today.

Add that up nationwide, and now Deadline.com is upping its “Joker” opening weekend prediction — more reliable Sat. AM than Friday afternoon — to $94 million, obliterating the last comic book movie (“Venom”) to hold that October opening weekend record ($80.222 million), a record set just last year. The Hollywood Reporter is going all in on a $95 million weekend.

Friday — including $13 million plus Thursday night — the film set a $39.9 million opening day record.

This is the biggest opening the film’s director, who also directed “The Hangover” (Todd Phillips) franchise, has ever opened. Joaquin Phoenix? Same for him, and an almost certain Oscar nomination for best actor because A) he’s that good and B) Hollywood loves a winner.

Predictions for that opening were in the $80-85 range, but this Warner Brothers gamble could reach $100 million if more of those showtimes turn grey over the weekend.

We will have a clearer picture later today.

“Abominable” is holding enough of its audience share to manage a $12 million second weekend, a very distance second place.

“Downton Abbey” may yet hit $75 million, overall, by midnight Sunday on its way to a $100 million take.

“Hustlers” will be over $91, and will hit $100 million NEXT weekend.

“Judy” added 1000 screens but only upped its take by $1 million, to $4.1 over last weekend’s opening.

Two Indian films have cracked the bottom of the BO charts — the Bollywood star vs. Bollywood star action pic “War,” and the period piece “Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy” are on enough screens to clear $1 million or so each.

Let’s just say that two of the guys behind Orlando’s most famous film shot in Maryland are behind the camera in this “black hole” anthology, in theaters and on demand Oct. 25.

It’s in the tradition of “V/H/S” and other different stories/different directors horror packages.

Creepy enough for you?

Think of the simpler than simple terrors of “The Mist,” “Christine” (demonic car), “Cujo” (demonic dog), “Pet Sematary,” Firestarter.” Stephen King never had to get too fancy or complicated to find his horror hooks, and set those hooks in us.

The novella “In the Tall Grass” takes us back to the general “Children of the Corn” idea, that there’s menace in a vast grassy field that turns into a supernatural maze (“The Shining”) the moment you step into it.

Yes, his son Joe Hill co-wrote it, but there’s ground the master has covered before here. Thank goodness the film that comes from it is tight enough to let us skim by the over-familiar and find some chills.

Laysla De Oliveira plays the very-pregnant Becky in “Grass,” driving cross-country with brother Cal (Avery Whitted) to start over in San Diego, when a blast of morning sickness makes them stop in America’s flatlands.

There’s a weathered, abandoned church across the road, with cars in the parking lot. But in the field next to where Cal pulled over, there’s a child’s cry.

“HEEEeeeeeeeelllllp!”

The grass? It is tall. So when Becky answers back, the child’s “I’m LOST in here…I’ve been stuck in here for DAYS!” makes just enough sense.

Becky overhears a woman trying to shush the child, but no matter. It’s “Cal to the rescue,” as he plunges in. And disappears.

Becky has just enough time to establish that favorite trope of modern horror — darn it, “No SIGNAL?” — when she follows.

And damned if she doesn’t lose track of Cal just as Cal has lost track of the child.

Calling to each other while standing still makes no difference. They sound as if they’re wandering further apart.

Panic, darkness, and then a grubby kid (Will Buie Jr.) comes upon Cal. That’s the same moment that the kid’s dad (Patrick Wilson) stumbles into Becky.

The father is a realtor. Trustworthy?

The kid? He’s got answers, explained in Stephen King creepy child-speak. “The tall grass knows everything,” he says. There’s this big “rock.” “That’s how we got in…that’s how it works” he says, not really explaining himself.

And even less reassuring — “The field don’t move dead things around.”

How long has this child been here? How long have WE been here? The look on Becky’s face asks the most important question of all.

“WTF?”

That killer 20 minute opening segues to the arrival of Travis (Harris Gilbertson). He’s looking for Cal and Becky. He’s her baby daddy, and he’s on their trail.

And when he sees their car, covered in dust parked in that same abandoned church parking lot, he too will be drawn into the field.

I like the way “Splice” and TV’s “Hannibal” director Vincenzo Natali dangles logic and hope in front of through Travis. He mulls it over, and decides to try and climb the church steeple to look over the field, first.

He goes in with his backpack. He marks a trail, tying off the grass.

As someone who muttered all the way through “The Blair Witch Project,” Hike to WATER, FOLLOW the WATER out like good little Scouts,” I relish those “just what I would do” touches.

Of course it’s to no avail. But heck, wouldn’t be much of a horror movie if mere nature lore and hiking common sense could save you.

The film loses much of its lean, mean narrative drive when we get into group dynamics — who can you trust, who has been drinking the tall grass KoolAid — and the whole supernatural mumbo-jumbo “explaining” what they’re dealing with, and how they can escape it, takes over “In the Tall Grass.”

Wilson is the stand-out in the cast, but the kid is terrific and De Oleira makes an OK case for this being a break-out movie for her.

It’s not great, just a tad more interesting than the muddled “It” sequel and more engrossing (and brief) than TV’s “Mr. Mercedes.”

Let’s hope King passed along to his son not just a career, but the best advice he himself ever followed. KISS — keep it simple, Stephen.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, violence, profanity

Cast: Laysla De Oliveira, Avery Whitted, Patrick Wilson, Will Buie Jr.Will, Harrison Gilbertson, Rachel Wilson.

Credits: Written and directed by Vincenzo Natali, based on the Stephen King/Joe Hill novella. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:41

Her big decade was the ’60s, when she made movies and starred in the groundbreaking African-American TV series “Julia.”

I caught up with Diahann Carroll in the ’90s, when she toured with a concert cabaret act.

Regal but modest, sure of her place in cultural history and perfectly happy with it.

https://t.co/HLKhbHVHCT https://t.co/PjTrxTeDIW https://twitter.com/DEADLINE/status/1180158277683834880?s=17

The master speaks. In this case, to The Guardian, as borrowed by The Wrap. A me. As The Guardian is a notorious online content thief, fair is fair.

“Theme park rides” and roller coasters. Not “cinema.”

I tend to agree, although a few folks have taken a shot at delivering something new within the genre. “Joker” doesn’t have guys in tights or endless digital fights. So there’s that.

It doesn’t take more than five minutes of the Mexican comedy “Solteras” (Ready to Mingle)” to make one wonder “Which millenium is this set in?”

It’s about “desperate” single women, mostly in the 30-40 age range, who lose faith in Tinder and Match.com, in long-term beaus who never “put a ring on it,” and attend a “How to Find and Close the Deal with a Husband” workshop.

However that plays South of the Rio Grande, north of the border, it’s a seriously outdated social expectation and a romantic comedy trope that was worn out and abandoned at about the time Monica finally got her ring on “Friends.”

To get anything out of “Mingle,” you have to ignore the current “women don’t need men” thinking, resign yourself to some pretty stale rom-com tropes and repeat, in Spanish (with English subtitles) “pelicula chica.” It’s an old fashioned chick picture, so let’s roll with it and see where it takes us.

Ana (Cassandra Ciangherotti) is dumped in the middle of a wedding, chosing the worst possible moment to wonder why “I’m the last single (soltera) of all my friends” to her beau of ten years, Gabriel (played by Pablo Cruz).

Months of drinking and crying later, she hears the news that her “ugly” cousin has just gotten engaged, and uses threats to figure out Tamara’s (Lucía Uribe Bracho) secret.

“I took a workshop!”

Ana decides to check it out, is encouraged by the “Hola, guapa!” (Hello, gorgeous!) greeting from the receptionist, but a bit put off by the knowitall “Love Coach,” Lucila (Gabriela de la Garza). And she can’t see herself as “desperate” as the four women she sees there — a frumpy drunken doormat, a divorcee racing against time, a wallflower and sexy but perhaps delusional about her beauty bombshell who can’t get all the way to the altar.

It’s only when Ana takes one last, hopeless run at Gabriel that she realizes she’s as desperate as the rest. She’s all-in on lessons that begin with “Maybe YOU’RE the ones who don’t take yourselves seriously” and progress to a makeover (“You are looking for a husband, not a job…Men only notice looks…It’s in their DNA!”), to leaving “your comfort zone…No more pilates. Find a class with more men in it.”

Dating small-talk rehearsals, learning what to conceal and what to flat-out lie about.

All very retro. Throw in the “bad dates” montage, a staple of such movies since forever, not the least bit funny in this film. Add a LOT of culture clashing lines about waiting for a man to cover one’s bills and “let you live it up,” lives put on hold until this threshold is crossed (one woman has been paying for her wedding dress, in installments, for years) and you’ve got a film that may resonate with someone demographically or culturally more “old fashioned.”

To everybody NOT around when “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” made its theatrical run, this is so stale and dated it is grating.

Cinagherotti has her Kristen Wiig’ish charms, but the “types” that surround her — including the greying architect (Juan Pablo Medina) who starts to look like “the one” if Ana can only set the hook — are dull, more a collection of cliches than actual characters.

Too slow, too few funny lines to go with a couple of promising comic situations, “Ready to Mingle” turns out to have been the wrong title to translate this tie-the-knot-of-die comedy to. They left out the “Not.”

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, near nudity, adult situations, alcohol abuse

Cast:  Cassandra Ciangherotti, Gabriela de la Garza, Irán Castillo, Juan Pablo Medina, Flor Eduarda Gurrola and Pablo Cruz

Credits: Directed by Luis Javier Henaine, script by Luis Javier Henaine and Alejandra Olvera Avila. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:37

It’s already blowing up in Korea, Europe. A $155 million worldwide opening is what prognosticators are predicting for Warners’ latest not-quite-canonical DC comics adaptation.

And thanks to pre-sales that were through the roof, “Joker” is starting off this first weekend of October with a $10 million Thursday night. 

Projections were for a “Venom” record breaking $80 million opening weekend. The “Venom” record was $80,255,000 and was set just last year.

A $10 million+ Thursday night  could up the ante and push “Joker” over the top.

An R-rated, incredibly violent “No wonder he turned out this way” origin story for Batman’s cackling villain could be Oscar bait for Joaquin Phoenix, and a real game changer for the Dark/Darker/Darkest Knight franchise.

Box Office Mojo is calling for an $85 million opening, but with all those presales…

“Lucy in the Sky” is opening in limited release on just 37 screens, so it won’t see the top ten. Reviews won’t help that Oscar bait make a dime. 

“Judy,” meanwhile, rolls out on another 1000 screens, so we’ll see if Roadside Attractions’ release strategy pays off. Box Office Mojo figures it will only do about as much business as it did last weekend — another $3.1 million or so. But there’s lingering affection for Garland, even if those who know her best are dying off. And Zellweger has been selling the heck out of it. It needs to stick around and clear $20 million, I figure, for it to be a boost to her Oscar chances. One bad weekend and it’s “Maybe not.

“Downton Abbey” came in second to “Abominable” last weekend, but returned to the top every day (save Thursday and Friday) this week, and will be at $75 million by Sunday night. It will hit $100 million before all is said and done.

“Hustlers” has also been out-performing the weakest opening Dreamworks cartoon in decades. Another $7 million this weekend will push it into the low $90s. Jennifer Lopez has herself a $100 million hit and a proper campaign could land her a best supporting actress nomination.

“Ad Astra” is staying in the top 5, still making millions but not nearly covering its budget, “Rambo: Last Blood” is fading and looks like it’ll top out at $45, maybe $50 if it lingers two more weeks.

“It Chapter Two” will clear the $200 million domestic mark by midnight Sunday, “Lion King” will close in on $550!

“Angel Has Fallen” is losing screens and its place in the top ten, and will fall shy of $75, all in.

Further down the charts, theaters are hanging onto “Peanut Butter Falcon” and that should help it clear $20 by Sunday.

“Overcomer” is dropping screens and should top out at $35 or so, a nice long run for a mediocre faith-based drama.

And way down the charts, “Fast & Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw” is finally dropping off the charts altogether, not quite hitting $175 million. Not bad.

Didn’t much care for “Surprise Me!,” a wan little romantic comedy about an event planner with commitment issues, trust issues, dead daddy issues and food issues.

It has an ending that I didn’t guess until about 25 minutes before it arrived, so I’ll give them that.

But watching the air go out of this balloon one is struck by how bland, if pretty, the cast is — mostly — and with that being the case, how does one work up empathy, that magical shortcut that puts us in the shoes of the characters going through the story on screen?

Fiona Gubelmann is Genie, our leading lady, an utterly generic pretty blonde who works for a surprise party planning company, “Surprise Enterprise.”

It’s a small Chicago concern — so perhaps she’s a co-owner, with Steven (LaShawn Banks, funny), the gay boss as almost-best-friend.

They do things like fake an apartment open house so that two grandparents can be surprised for their anniversary when they think they’re condo shopping, or fake an arrest so that BFF Danny (Jonathan Bennett) never sees his surprise birthday party coming.

The trouble with life as she knows it comes from meeting someone. Jeff (Sean Faris) is a handsome, grinning cosmetic surgeon, the type who keeps running into her, and making overfamiliar judgments about how she’s dressed — he pulls a pricetag off her blouse — and shops (at the supermarket).’

Such movies live and die on “meet cute.” This is “meet annoying.” But at least that suggests an emotional response, something this picture never achieves.

Jeff is a “never let an argument get started” type, living on giving and getting “the benefit of the doubt.” Genie “cares enough to argue.”

It’ll never work out.

Genie lost her dad, and tactlessly brings that up to her remarried mother and stepdad, has commitment issues and a weakness for baked sweets — cake, cupcakes, donuts — that suggest an eating disorder.

Which is why she starts seeing a therapist. Veteran character comedienne Nicole Sullivan (“Scrubs”) has just a few scenes and her sparkle and animation glaringly give-away what this blase’ picture lacks — life.

“All day, all night, catch the feeling before you bite!” this “Nobel Pizza Prize” laureate counsels.

Sullivan’s few scenes demonstrate that energy, pacing and casting are working against this chore of a comedy. The two guys allegedly “competing” for Genie’s attention (Danny is in the “friend” zone, even if Genie’s mother wishes otherwise) are, to be as tactful as a review can manage, dully interchangeable.

Courtship montages through the summery sights of Chicago fall flat. Only in the friendly confines of the office of therapist Ellen, with Sullivan acting with her arms, her head, her face, her eyes and her voice, does “Surprise Me!” ever come close to coming to life.

Sullivan sparkles. Nobody else does, and that smothers the movie, surprise or no surprise.

MPAA Rating: unrated, adult situations

Cast:  Fiona Gubelmann, LaShawn Banks, Nicole Sullivan, Jonathan Bennett, Sean Faris

Credits: Written and directed by Nancy Goodman. An Indie Rights release.

Running time: 1:42

The post-apocalyptic novel, by Lily Brooks-Dalton, will star Clooney, who is directing, and Felicity Jones and Kyle Chandler and now Tiffany Boone. https://t.co/G632mQL9wK https://t.co/i9x1xBP1AV