Adding screens and footage to “Spider-Man: Far from Home” chased “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” out of the top ten. Finally.
“Don’t Let Go” WAY underperformed and “Angel has Fallen” won the last weekend of the summer — with Labor Day still to be counted –$11 million plus.
New releases did nothing, “Official Secrets,” a Brit import, did $20,000+ per screen, “Peanut Butter Falcon” missed it’s best chance at the top ten.
“Major back injuries.”
Hoping for the best for Kev Hart.
Not being “cute” with the photo choice. Just the most readily available.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/01/comedian-kevin-hart-injured-in-southern-california-car-crash
Hunkering down in the Fla. coast, within sight of the Kennedy Space Center.
First comes the wind, then goes the wifi. Then the power.
Guessing this latest storm is killing my “It Chapter 2” screening. So long as that’s all it kills…
Disney owned the summer with a string of billion dollar hits. Nobody else did nearly as well at the year to date is 6% down, summer to summer down 2%.
Putting this much of the Hollywood business under one roof –Walt Disney/Marvel Studios/Pixar/Disney Animation/Lucasfilm — is bad news.
Sony earned a $billion from a “Spider-Man” sequel.
Staggering numbers nothing original came close to. When the public decides it’s over comic book films, “Star Wars” or animated classics remade, if it happens all at once, the Mouse will be in deep.
And that day is coming.
https://t.co/ODZNVyvOwu https://twitter.com/THR/status/1167954223029374976?s=17
Not a good weekend for John Travolta in the movies.
It’s been obvious for a few years now that JT has a future… in streaming and cable.
His big screen career has been on a slide, but selling a single ticket per showing in 52 theaters as “The Fanantic” opens is news he needs to see, writing on the wall that he needs to read.
Cable. Netflix. Hulu. Amazon.
https://t.co/bLpa9rWPm1 https://twitter.com/THRmovies/status/1167908302354669570?s=17
My hat is off to any filmmaker who attempts a period piece, and the look and feel of “The Riot Act” is striking and believably late 19th century.
A tale of love, murder and revenge that borrows from “Hamlet,” it’s a bit of a stiff as a thriller, despite the attention to detail, the lovely pools of light much of the action (onstage and off) is photographed in.
Veteran character actor Brett Cullen stars as Dr. Pearrow, who lords over the small city (Arkansas, Missouri would be a fair guess) where his stern word is law and his money talks.
He owns the local opera house, thanks to his lucrative practice. And when we meet him, he’s bawling out a tenor (Brace Harris) who has had the temerity to come-on to the doctor’s daughter. Jamison, the singer, is married, just another actor passing through town.
“If I were you, I would catch that late train tonight!”
Yeah, he will. But Allye Pearrow makes her getaway to join him, only to be wounded when her monstrous father guns down Jamison in her arms.
Two years later, a mysterious vaudeville troop has been booked at the opera house, where jack-of-all-trades “foreman” August (Connor Price) is good enough to do everything from book acts to sweeping up, but not good enough to warrant free passes to the shows he books.
And his grudge against the boss is nothing compared to the one a masked member of a “dumb” (no dialogue) act in the show carries. She’s got a British accent that comes and goes. Arkansas finds its way in there, now and then.
It’s ALLYE! And as she’s part of an act in which a duo carries out a very realistic shooting, we can see where this thing is going WAY too early.
Lauren Sweetster of “Winter’s Bone” and “Get Happy!” plays Allye, and the fact that she’s a dead-ringer for Cybill Shepherd probably gets her plenty of call-backs.
The script doesn’t give her a lot of chances to show us much, and she makes little of those opportunities. It’s a glum character given a one-note (and a dull note) performance.
There’s this very theatrical storyline that has Dr. Pearrow tormented by anavenger, masked in burlap, backstage at the theater. A “ghost” is haunting a guilt-ridden man, and there’s a show going on with a play within the play promising a finale we’ve seen set up far too early for its own good.
“Hamlet.”
Which suits, because this is a very stagey show — actors “speechifying” because that’s what the script gives them to perform.
“My father has never seen far enough past himself to SEE his daughter!”
Writer-director Devon Park, who still counts his internship in the camera department on “The Help” as a highlight among his credits (short films), even filmed this like a play — that “pool of light” thing I mentioned.
There are non-starter script elements about “the progressive agenda” of this color blind vaudeville troupe (an African American strongman) and a potential love story between Allye and August.
A modicum of suspense, a lot of clever period props (a single-horn telephone, ancient light bulbs, vintage backstage gear) and a certain inevitability inform “The Riot Act,” a title which referred then, as now, to a British sedition law (I cannot find it was ever used as theater slang the way “dumb act” was).
Those virtues or at least characteristics don’t add up to much of a movie, which is a pity. That’s a lot of good period detail wasted.
Cast: Brett Cullen, Lauren Sweetser, Connor Price, Brandon Keener
Credits: Written and directed by Devon Park. A Giant Films release.
Running time: 1:38
As New Zealand is a “bucket list” country for me, I’m always on the lookout for movies that show the islands, sans hobbits.
“Falling Inn Love” is a Christina Milian comedy about a San Francisco architect and “green” designer/builder who wins an inn on North Island in an Internet lottery.
Hey, they’re always giving away pubs in Britain and Ireland. Why not?
Thus, the stage is set for a fish-out-of-water comedy of the romantic sort. It has a few laughs, and even if the romance doesn’t have the sort of sparks that the best Netflix rom-coms manage and the supporting cast isn’t “colorful” enough to carry it, it’s just Kiwi enough to plow through.
I mean, how else are we going to get a load of idyllic New Zealand scenery, served up with a blast of Kiwi slang —“yakka,” “footie,” “The Wops,” “a squizz” — used, correctly, in sentences?
Gabriella (Milian, of “Be Cool” and TV’s “Grandfathered”) isn’t happy at work, dismissed at her firm, and uphappy in love. Longtime-beau Dean (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman) is commitment-phobic.
And then, the company folds and Dean rebuffs her ultimatum. Winning this inn in Beachwood Downs sounds like the ideal rebound.
“Your dream life awaits you in New Zealand!”
And as she’s a “Leap, and a net will appear” type — she’s off. But on arrival, she’s put out that some random hunk (Adam Demos) keeps running into her and trying to sweep “in and save the day.”
Not having it.
The Bellbird Inn? “What the…dumpster?” Yeah, the internet lottery was a bit of a scam.
So we’re set up for a comedy of DIY home (“inn”) improvement set in “The Wops” (boondocks), clumsily driving the beat-up manual transmission Land Rover, with the most competent contractor in town that very same hunk whom she keeps running into.
“Why are you everywhere I am?”
I laughed at the odd moment, here and there. There’s a goat who figures he owns the place, a rival B & B owner and assorted hardware, plant nursery, cafe (a gay couple) folks who trot out that delightful slang people like me put so much stock in.
It’s shot and cut like a TV movie, with no real edge, a dollop of sentiment and generic obstacles and objects (old love letters) to move the story along. Milian remains an engaging screen presence, if not anything like a great comedienne.
A less bland script would have helped. More edge, more slang, more contrast between the city girl (woman) and the country film.
“Falling Inn Love” isn’t unpleasant. It’s only problem is that it’s not enough of anything else, either.
MPAA Rating: TV-PG
Cast: Christina Milian, Adam Demos, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman
Credits: Directed by Kumble, script by Elizabeth Hackett, Hilary Galanoy. A Netflix/MarVista release.
Running time:
It’s what you do until the power and wifi go out.
On a holiday weekend.
Christina Milian, Marlon Wayans, take me…away? From Dorian, at least.
That’s right, cramming screeners in between stripping the boat for a blow, searches for open restaurants and gas stations.
Nobody else on the Tomatomter or Metacritic or MRQE reviewer sites is as dedicated. Or as salty.
The weekend before “It Chapter 2” is mostly holdovers, with only a couple of under 1000 screens releases added to your movie going smorgasbord.
“Angel” is still making bank. “Good Boys” heads for almost $9, over the four day weekend. “Lion King,” still in te top three.
“Overcomer” will be in the $7 million range, a 37-40% drop from last weekend.
“Hobbs,” Spider-Man” “Once Upon a Time” and even “Angry Birds 2” are still in the top ten.
“Don’t Let Go” and “Peanut Butter Falcon” — the first a 922 screen new release, the second a building “feel good” indie, are in the $3-4 million range, just outside of the top ten.
“Go” is an R rated supernatural thriller that doesn’t quite fit in the horror genre, with a known but not big name African American cast.
If Hurricane Dorian isn’t ruining your Labor Day, an easy weekend to get into a summer movie you might have missed as summer checks out.
For those of us who a long way from Coney, baby.
Florida.
Movie Nation 