Will Smith as Robin Hood?; a Wolverine with depth?; ‘Narnia’ upsets Jesus-y types; more: leftover links
Plus: a whole ton of stuff about Wikileaks and Julian Assange…
Robin Hood
The Next Three Days (review)
How do you manage child care while doing all the footwork required to plan your wife’s prison break? It sounds ridiculous, and it should be ridiculous up on the screen. But Russell Crowe makes it work in ways that far exceed any expectations we should honestly have for such a preposterous potboiler of a concept.
tres cool: ‘Errol & Olivia: Ego & Obsession in Golden Era Hollywood’
Olivia de Havilland was 19 and Errol Flynn was 26 when they met doing screen tests for Captain Blood, and the chemistry between them — onscreen and off — was pretty much instant. Their tempestuous relationship encapsulates the heyday of the studio system, as this new book beautifully documents…
question of the day: Has this been the worst summer for movies ever, or does it just feel that way?
Even the moderate financial hits have been, for the most part, ugly, boring, and creatively tapped out, even grading on the summer-blockbuster curve.
calling bullshit on: Owen Gleiberman at EW’s The Movie Critics…
…for deciding that two female action stars constitutes a “new normal”: It’s amusing to realize, in hindsight, that Luc Besson’s funky-violent French art-house thriller La Femme Nikita, in 1990, and its rote American remake, Point of No Return, in 1993, were still treating lady-killer heroines with kid gloves. At that point, seeing an actress like … more…
more hope for a better Hollywood (from the U.K. box office)
The numbers are in for Inception’s debut in the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland: a smidge under £6 million, exactly on par with the $62.8 million it earned in North America last weekend. (That North American number is actually up from the Sunday estimates, by almost $2.5 million. That speaks to very strong word … more…
question of the day: Hardly anyone went to the movies over Memorial Day weekend: why not?
Worst. Memorial Day. Evah. Well, not ever, but in 17 years. Which means that the last time the box office was this bad over this major weekend, most of Hollywood’s target audience hadn’t quite been born yet. Neither of the two big newcomers, would-be blockbusters Sex and the City 2 and Prince of Persia: The … more…
question of the day: Will a movie based upon a videogame ever really work as a movie?
Most of us in North America won’t see Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time until Thursday-midnight screenings begin — and I won’t see it till then either, because Disney is still refusing to acknowledge my existence. But the film opened last week in the U.K. to a pathetic £1.37 million, and didn’t even win … more…
bias update: May 21
obsession: Doctor Who (because it now goes to 11) boyfriend: Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man 2 (because I’d love to hear him say to me, “You complete me,” even if that line from the trailer didn’t make it into the movie) psyched: The A-Team (because I still love it when a plan comes together) … more…
the ‘Robin Hood’ that almost wasn’t…
We should have been so lucky. The U.K. box numbers are out, and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood fared much better on its nominal home ground (for all the Brit involvement, it’s still an American-funded production keyed to a Hollywood mindset). It earned £5.8 million this past weekend, the third best opening weekend for a film … more…
