The original film of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was quite representative of New York City in the mid-1970s. Tony Scott’s remake, which opens this weekend, doesn’t have that same sense of space, but even worse than its lack of local relevance is its out-of-date plot, which has John Travolta causing panic on Wall Street in order to make hundreds of millions in a stock scheme. Never mind that the economy is currently in such a state that the terrorist’s plan may be fruitless. Even before the recession this should have seemed antiquated. As David Edelstein writes in New York magazine, “Why would he need to do something so…so…1974 as hijacking a subway train to do what a lot of hedge-fund managers do before breakfast?”
The plot is also tremendously unoriginal, enough to assume Travolta’s character is a huge James Bond fan. But someone familiar with 007 villains, or any other would-be economic terrorists, would have to realize his own scheme would fail. To illustrate why it’s useless to attempt this kind of thing, we present you with ten classic films involving stock market scams, most of which are unsuccessful. …Read more
Just how much money will the new Star Trek movie make? That’s a question a lot of people are asking today, as we enter the reboot’s opening weekend with favorable reviews and a successful Thursday night (estimates show it made $7 million from advance screenings). Here’s how I put it into perspective: the only Trek installment I ever saw in the theater is Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which is the only film in the franchise to gross more than $100 million. And now I’m planning to see J.J. Abrams’ movie, at least to see if it’s actually that much better and cooler than the rest of the franchise. And I think there are a lot of other people out there who are just as curious as I am.
That people are predicting this thing to make nearly as much money in its first week as Voyage Home earned in total should be more ridiculous an idea than it is. However, rebooted franchises, like Halloweenand Friday the 13thhave previously surprised us with relatively huge openings, so it’s not terribly unlikely that Star Trek could gross at least $100 million by Monday morning. Then again, without the appeal of humpback whales and a modern day setting…
Let’s see what the other bloggers have to say after the jump:
In the subversive new comedy Observe and Report, Seth Rogen plays one very angry mall cop. But despite what you’ve figured out from the trailer, the character is not set off by a pervert flasher, nor is his violent behavior necessarily triggered by his decision to stop taking his medication. No, he’s simply incensed by Hollywood’s depiction of mall cops. If the movies aren’t stereotyping them as idiot police rejects, like in this year’s other mall security guard movie, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, they’re replacing them with also-flawed, laser-shooting, head-exploding robots, as in Chopping Mall. When Rogen is seen bashing skateboarders’ skulls, he’s not merely fed up with teenage hooligans wrecking his own place of employment; he’s also obviously reacting to the scene in Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol where David Spade gets away from a real cop and a mob of irate shoppers after skating recklessly through a mall (there are also skateboarding villains in Paul Blart).
On top of all this, Rogen’s character is likely tired of all the destruction caused to malls in the movies. And after seeing damage caused by police cars, aliens, robots, zombies, time travelers, terrorists, and Arnold Schwarzenegger (multiple times), he’s just so hard on the offensive, because he feels he has to be ready for anything. Unfortunately, teens and perverts are all he’s got. So, to illustrate the kinds of threats he seems more pumped up to handle, we’ve selected the ten best action scenes set in a mall: …Read more
Though the third Fast and the Furious installment, Tokyo Drift, wasn’t a huge box office disappointment with its $63 million domestic gross, it was significantly less successful than its predecessors, The Fast and the Furious ($145 million) and 2 Fast 2 Furious ($127 million). A fourth film would normally see an even bigger drop in box office receipts, but next week’s Fast & Furious has a good chance of actually being the highest-grossing film in the series yet, due to the return of original cast members Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordanna Brewster and, most importantly, Vin Diesel.
With the expectation that Fast & Furious will be enough of a hit to save the franchise, we take a look at ten other films that similarly kept their respective series going, either because of an increase in profits or a surprising increase in quality, following one or many disappointing installments. …Read more
When I heard Quantum of Solace director Marc Forster say in the promo trailer that he tried to make the Bond film he always wanted to see, I thought “Uh-oh.” But my “Uh-oh” turned to “Oh, shit,” once I got to the screening and saw Paul Haggis listed in the credits as one of the writers, my distaste for Finding Neverland Forster trumped only by my loathing of faux-deep Haggis. And yet none of this mattered in the least because I was going to see Quantum of Solace for one reason and one reason only: to watch Daniel Craig get naked. (Heck, I’d have happily sat through Crash a dozen times if Haggis had tossed in a naked Daniel Craig every once in awhile!)
You see, ever since Craig’s debut in the remake of Casino Royale, the dusty old, 007 series was offered a prime opportunity to expand its audience for the first time in decades. Not only would hardcore Fleming franchise fans and massive car explosion enthusiasts be lining up for tickets; there was now a third audience of those like me, indifferent to the Bond legacy and shaky cam chases alike, but hot and bothered by Mr. Craig. And Forster and Haggis, not surprisingly considering their very un-sexy track record, blew it.
Daniel Craig’s James Bond in Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale might eschew gadgets in lieu of a hard punch to the nose, but it’s hard to argue that the best Bond gadget in recent years isn’t the invention of the Blu-ray DVD. Now the classic Bond films have started appearing in the format with upgraded images, sound, and a slew of special features. Casino Royale was previously released on DVD as one of Sony’s first “must have” discs to show off your Blu-ray player (which was probably a Sony PlayStation3), but now they’re visiting a smattering of different Bonds in this first release.
As I’ve learned in my adult life, there are sometimes those moments that you realize you’re probably unhealthily obsessed with something. For me, that moment came when I was seriously considering purchasing a $2,999 framed collage featuring signatures of all the actors who had played James Bond in the “official” movies, along with various playing cards, casino chips, photos and what not. I ultimately had to pass on it, and my wallet was grateful after the fact.
Thankfully there are much more affordable ways to feed this obsession, some of which can be documented in the series of Bondcasts that I used to host with Athena Stamos at Cinematical. One of those ways has been collecting the James Bond movies on DVD. There have been not one, nor two, but now three different collections of Bond issued on DVD, and while I really miss the menu screens from the first set, (”Please activate your remote control to activate the Goldfinger Special Edition DVD” — complete with an extremely Bondian gadgetlike interface), you can’t argue that Blu-ray is definitely giving the previous James Bond films a shot in the arm.
Despite critical disappointment with the latest Bond installment, Quantum of Solace had the franchise’s best opening ever, by a lot. The previous installment, Casino Royale, debuted with only $40.8 million, and Bond’s former best opener, Die Another Day, debuted with $47 million. Quantum’s take was $70.4 million, which was unfortunately $400,000 too high for a really good headline. As for the other significant UK/USA co-production, Slumdog Millionaire earned a smashing weekend per-screen average of $35,000 and has grossed $418,000 since Wednesday.
Can Todd Haynes please make a sci-fi film now? By selling half their stake to a venture capital fund, Killer Films is looking to produce films with bigger budgets, though I’m guessing Killer staple Haynes will probably remain a part of its “smaller indie movies” output.
How on Earth does Guillermo Del Toro have time for another screenwriting gig? His latest project is a dark, stop-motion Pinocchio for the Jim Henson Co. Hopefully it won’t look anywhere near as creepy as Steve Barron’s 1996 version.
Ian Fleming would have been 100 years old in May of this year, but he sadly passed away in 1964 at the age of 56. He published 11 different James Bond novels after creating the character in 1953’s Casino Royale, and also published two collections of James Bond short stories. However, his most famous character has lived on despite the death of the creator, and after 22 movies he shows no signs of slowing down. Here’s a look at the ways in which Bond has continued to exist in the book world through different several different writers, reboots, and reimaginings.
Maxim has namedQuantum of Solaceactress Olga Kurylenko “the hottest Bond Girl ever.” How does one even make such an assessment, when there are so many memorable Bond Girl moments? Remember Ursula Andress, rising from the sea in a bikini? Or Halle Berry, rising from the sea in a bikini? Or Famke Janssen sex-attacking Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye? (Oh, Famke. You really know how to pick a paycheck.)
If you answered “Sure. Whatever.” to one or both of those first two examples, I have a statistic that I’d like to share with you. Did you know that there’s an extremely high rate of death amongst Bond Girls who have worn a bikini? It’s true. Based on my extraordinarily scientific research, out of 11 Bond girls who had “bikini moments,” to borrow the terminology used on JamesBondWiki, five died before the end of the film. That’s 45 percent, making the wearing of a two piece bathing suit in the company of James Bond just about the most dangerous activity a woman could engage in anywhere on the planet at any time in history.
In the hopes that future Bond Girls will learn the lesson of their forebears and stay away from the skimpy garments of death, I’ve compiled a five point dossier on how and why these bathing beauties met their mortal ends.
I had a chance to see Quantum of Solace last night, and while I didn’t enjoy it as much as Casino Royale (is Daniel Craig already wearing out his welcome as the new Bond?) it does have some spectacular action sequences. However, if the Blonde Bond wasn’t enough to shake up the franchise for long, what could happen if Bond were re-imagined by some of Hollywood’s top filmmakers? There are a lot of different things that could be done with the character if someone were given free rein to reinterpret Bond as they saw fit.
After the jump, we imagine the five hypothetical films that five wildly different working filmmakers might make if Bond were put in their hands. We’ve taken a bit of license here (although not a license to kill), so use your imagination with the Bonds that could be, no matter how extremely loosely interpreted.
With the number of indie-arm buyers depleted since Sundance by something like 1700%, Anne Thompson looks at the options remaining for films looking to get bought as Toronto.
Further info on Quantum of Solace’s move to a November 14 release: the goal is to repeat the success of Casino Royale, which opened on November 17 and “still was playing in about 1,100 theaters between the following Christmas and New Year’s.”
Will The House Bunnymatch the take of tween sensation The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2? Or will those hurting from “the lousy economy and high gas prices” prefer to see criminals crash cars in Death Race?
If Sony’s looking to woo the people who loved Casino Royale, shouldn’t they have put all the action shots up front? Or am I the only guy who thought the last Bond film was a little underwhelming after that awesome opening chase sequence? Considering its ranking as the second best (as far as critics are concerned) action movie of this decade, I’m probably in the minority, but I was honestly bored throughout most of the movie.
Fortunately, Quantum of Solacelooks like it might have a little more action. It’s the usual 007 movie stuff — lots of running, speedboats, hand to hand combat — but better familiar spectacle than extensive poker sequences. And so, just as I’m super-excited about The Dark Knightdespite being a little bored with Batman Begins, I’m looking forward to Bond 22 despite my feelings about the previous installment.
Over the weekend, Wantedhad a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com. It’s since gone down to 81% (at the time of this writing — and with top critics it’s down to 67%), though that’s still pretty good for a movie that initially looked like just another Matrixknockoff.
But will the good reviews make for great box office? Last night, while viewing the latest trailer in a theater with some friends, I mentioned that Wanted was receiving great reviews. Nobody believed me at first, and then they didn’t care; they still thought it looked terrible.
Good reviews rarely help an action movie, and bad reviews rarely deter audiences from seeing them. However, if we look at the top 5 most critically acclaimed action movies, it’s clear that people do often prefer a good action film to a bad one. The next 5, on the other hand…
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) Rotten Tomatoes’ “T-Meter” score: 94% (top critics: 98%) All Time Domestic Box Office Rank: #9 ($377 million) Sample Critic Quote: “The film event of the millennium.” (Richard Corliss, Time) My Analysis: In terms of both reviews and gross, it is possible that, yes, this final LOTR film was the film event of the millennium only three years in. It even won the Oscar for Best Picture, as well as ten other Academy Awards. However, we do have a few hundred years left, and Corliss’ assessment is likely to be challenged one of these centuries. …Read more
At least once a month I see another headline claiming that Amy Winehouse is singing the title track to Quantum of Solace(aka Bond 22). But with the latest story, from BBC News, I finally understand why the internet rumor mill keeps on pumping out the claim without word of a confirmation. According to music producer Mark Ronson, he and Winehouse are merely recording a demo of a song they hope winds up on the Quantum of Solace soundtrack:
“They asked Amy, and I think Amy said that if she did it, she’d want to do it with me. So hopefully something will come of it,” he told the station’s Music Week’s show.
“The demo sounds like a James Bond theme, hopefully. But I don’t know if it’ll get used.”
He added: “I’m sure there are loads more really famous people that probably we’re competing with and we don’t know about. I’m not sure.
“But hopefully I’ll still be alive for at least 12 more Bond themes. If we don’t get this one maybe we’ll get another one.”
“Daniel Craig’s James Bond spends the entire film trailing — i.e., ‘cruising’ — villains, the homoeroticism especially apparent with the hot baddie at the airport who checks out buff Bond in the kiosk mirror while seductively trying on shades.” At The House Next Door, Lauren Wissot offers three reasons why the DVD release of Casino Royalewas the Best Gay Porn moment of 2007.
Michael Guillen eats dim sum in San Francisco with Carlos Reygadas, thus making me a very jealous girl three times over.
As if we needed it, Kyle Ryan offers one more reason why Alvin and the Chipmunks is “pure, unadulterated evil.”
Two New Jersey prison inmates staged a “Shawshank Redemption style prison break.” And it worked. More details at BoingBoing.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Just how much money will the new Star Trek movie make? That’s a question a lot of people are asking today, as we enter the reboot’s opening weekend with favorable reviews and a successful Thursday night (estimates show it made $7 million from advance screenings). Here’s how I put it into perspective: the only Trek installment I ever saw in the theater is Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which is the only film in the franchise to gross more than $100 million. And now I’m planning to see J.J. Abrams’ movie, at least to see if it’s actually that much better and cooler than the rest of the franchise. And I think there are a lot of other people out there who are just as curious as I am.
With the number of indie-arm buyers depleted since Sundance by something like 1700%, 
Over the weekend, 
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