Labor Day Weak End

After a summer of Superheroes and super blockbusters, the Labor day weekend box office brought the season to an unofficial close with little more than a whimper. The top grossing movie Tropic Thunder pulled in a mere $14.3 to take the crown and boost it’s total to $86.6 million. Pulling up in 2nd place despite being maligned by it’s own director was The Hulk, oops I mean the latest Vin Diesel smash things movie, Babylon A.D. Apparently, viewers don’t mind watching the former bouncer shoot guns and beat up people if it’s a hot day out and they don’t want to think while enjoying air conditioning. It also goes to show you that one man’s failure is another man’s popcorn thrill ride.

Speaking of popcorn thrill rides, perhaps the most artistically viable one of the summer, The Dark Knight leapt over the $500 million mark making it the second top grossing movie of all time behind Titanic with a holiday intake of $11 Million. We’re not sure if come Oscar time how much attention it’s going to get, but it certainly deserves it more than that aforementioned chick flick that owns the all time top gross marks. It’s not often that a summer smash makes a dent during awards season, but that could all change thanks to both The Dark Knight and Wall-E, both of which have a chance to rack up some major award points when the time comes.

The rest of the weekend top five was rounded out by the Anna Faris comedy, The House Bunny and the Don Cheadle thriller, Traitor, neither of which were too far behind the top spot and still stand a chance to make a dent as part of the September landscape with precious few films slated for release next week.

This blog is published by The Film School & Acting School at the New York Film Academy. Visit our website to learn more about our exciting curriculum!

The Leftovers

Summer’s just about over and while it has been a fruitful season for filmgoers, there’s hardly anything ripe to pick from this at this weekend’s box office. Taking a look at the new releases, barely anything gets our blood pumping. Normally mentioning the words “race to the death”, “former Playboy Bunny” and “Rocker” could conjure up some excitement but the films attached to both of those simple premises don’t live up to the high standards that have been set by this summer’s other fare. That being said, maybe it is time for a little mindless entertainment…and there are probably worse things than watching the delightful Anna Faris star in a comedy that’s not one of those Wayans Brothers Scary Movie travesties.

The House Bunny is a comedy that follows a discarded Playboy Bunny after she’s been kicked out of the mansion and fend for herself…she chooses to dispense her “hot girl wisdom on a hapless sorority…while they in turn, teach her about life”…or at least I think that’s how the pitch on this movie went. It doesn’t sound so bad…if completely innocuous.

Death Race pits Jason Statham in yet another slam-bang action fest. He’s a prisoner, he’s in a race…and guess what? The winner of the race isn’t supposed to die. Somehow Joan Allen got roped into this movie. Maybe it was a slow month for Oscar-worthy scripts when she decided to take the plunge. I could see this movie picking up some pretty decent box office numbers and even running away with #1 as it just seems like the kind of action flick that people flock to on slow weekends, though apart of me wishes people go catch Tropic Thunder instead.

Also new in theaters is the new comedy starring Rainn Wilson, The Rocker. I never thought I’d say the words Rainn Wilson and starring in the same sentence. In all honesty, this looks like a movie that Will Ferrell didn’t want. As much as people enjoy Rainn Wilson on the office, I’m not so sure he has the appeal to hold an entire movie on his shoulders. I’ll let other audiences and critics make the call because I’m saving these $12 for candy and comic books.

I could talk at length about the film The Longshots starring Ice Cube, but I don’t want to give it’s director Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst the satisfaction of any sort of credit for doing anything since his ability to sustain a career is one of the things I hate most about the Pop Culture world…that and he once cut me off driving down Sunset Strip.

That leaves us to the limited releases…and this is perhaps where the artistic ray of light shines down on us this weekend. In addition to a Cirque Du Soleil performance movie, The long awaited Hamlet 2, hits the big screen in selected cities and I’m pretty excited. Any film with a premise as off the wall as making a sequel to Hamlet with Jesus and Hillary Clinton at least deserves my attention. Though the buzz I’ve caught on the film is a little disappointing, I’m excited to let my own judgment do the judging.

So there you have it…it’s quite the diverse week at the theater. The only way to find out if it’s just a weekend of Hollywood dumping its leftovers is to make it out to the movies and see for yourself.

This blog is published by The Film School & Acting School at the New York Film Academy. Visit our website to learn more about our exciting curriculum!

Tropic Thunder

Ben Stiller typically only plays three roles in his comedic films. He’s either an insanely uptight average lovelorn male (There’s Something About Mary, Along Came Polly);the intensely brooding egotistical villain (Dodge ball, Happy Gilmore); or an intensely brooding egotistical yet well-meaning dummy (Zoo lander). It’s this latter role he slips into for Tropic Thunder, but rather than suffocate us with one character’s parade of stupidity, under his own direction, Stiller uses his character’s shortcomings as a device to set the plot of one of the best comedies in years into motion.

Tropic Thunder is the tale of a Hollywood war movie gone so over budget with a cast so out of control in the early stages of production that the director (Steve Coogan) has no choice but to resort to drastic measures to get it on track again. In order to deal with the massive egos of a comedy superstar (Jack Black), an Oscar-winning method actor (Robert Downey Jr.), and a past his prime action hero (Stiller), that are hindering his production and a lack of confidence from the studio head (masterfully played by Tom Cruise), the director takes the advice of the films on set war hero (Nick Nolte) and takes his actors off the comfort of the set and into the thick of the war zone to complete his Vietnam masterpiece.

He sets up cameras and with the help of the Danny McBride’s pyrotechnic specialist rigs the jungle for battle. Unfortunately the director fails to foresee the danger of landmines, in a hilarious sequence, and the actors with script in hand are left to fend for themselves. While the cast treks through the jungle in the hopes they can make it out alive and rescue Stiller’s character, whom despite his poor sense of direction and refusal to attend the pre-film boot camp, thinks he can successfully finish all of his parts and navigate the jungle if he goes off on his own. The rest of the cast’s time in the jungle is marked by often uproariously funny arguments as to Downey Jr’s dedication to his craft, as well as typical war film soldier talk, like if the men have a girl back home that’s waiting on them.

Besides the generally side-splitting nature of most of the dialogue, the film’s biggest accomplishment is achieving what the doomed war film within the movie cannot achieve, and that’s a balance between all of the main talents. While Downey Jr. in black face more or less steals the show, Jay Baruchel and Brandon T. Jackson do more than admirable jobs as the straight man glue that holds this picture together. After all if you had the drug addled funnyman (Jack Black), the method acting expert, and the egotistical action hero (Stiller) parading around the jungle in three different directions, this film would go nowhere.

Tropic Thunder is chock full of pleasant surprises. Whether it’s Matthew McConaughey’s turn as a Tivo obsessed agent, or Tom Cruise’s ability to actually prove that he has a sense of humor…and a pretty decent one at that…there aren’t many misses in this sure-fire new comedy classic. In a summer season that’s been quite a delight already, Tropic Thunder is yet another victory for filmmakers and film goers alike.

This blog is published by The Film School & Acting School at the New York Film Academy. Visit our website to learn more about our exciting curriculum!

Star Wars Thunder Storms

Things are heating up once again at the box office. After The Dark Knight held of Pineapple Express for the #1 spot last weekend, three other rather big releases look to have a legitimate go at dethroning the last couple of weeks’ de facto #1 box office smash. For fans who haven’t been disappointed enough by George Lucas’s recent output, The animated Star Wars:The Clone Wars will surely fill in the gap of anything Star Wars fans missed between Attack of The Clones and Revenge of The Sith. Unfortunately, since both of those films were awful there really seems to be nothing too appealing about the prospect of another chapter. It’s not going to salvage the wrong that has been done. I guess on the positive side, due to it’s drawn nature there won’t be any horribly wooden live action performances thanks to Lucas’s lack of skill in directing actors. I think New York Film Academy has classes on directing actors George. It’s never too late to learn.

One filmmaker who is no stranger to eliciting excellent performances from his talent is Woody Allen, and he’s pretty much got the pick of the acting talent litter in his latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, hitting theaters this weekend; Scarlett Johanson, Javier Bardem, and Penelope Cruz in one movie. That’s one big pile of good lookin’…and they can act too! Oh…and Scarlett can also sing as word has it that her album of Tom Waits covers is actually pretty decent.

Speaking of talented ensembles, our last but not least significant release of the week is the Ben Stiller directed Tropic Thunder (which he also co-wrote with Justin Theroux). Now, I’ve had my problems with Stiller in the past, mostly because I have no idea why either Meet The Parents movies might be misconstrued as slightly comical, but the trailer alone sold me on this one with Robert Downey Jr. mining the depths of political incorrectness in blackface as “a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude.” Joining in on the war comedy high jinks is an able cast consisting of the director himself, Jack Black, Steve Coogan, Nick Nolte, and cameos from the likes of Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey. Tropic Thunder looks to have the ammo or at least the battle plan (sorry for the horrible war metaphors) to knock The Dark Knight out of the top spot. After all, I think what this nation could use right now is a quality war comedy that has nothing to do with Larry The Cable Guy.

This blog is published by The Film School & Acting School at the New York Film Academy. Visit our website to learn more about our exciting curriculum!

Pineapple Express Can’t Derail Batman

If any film was going to knock The Dark Knight from it’s perch atop the box office this week, it was most certainly going to be the Stoner Action/Comedy on Pineapple Express. While the Judd Apatow produced feature came close with $23.2 million, Batman continued to soar above expectations and ever closer to $500 Million by reeling in another 26.1 big ones. Maybe the James Franco-Seth Rogen feature would’ve fared better, if like The Dark Knight it had been playing in IMAX theaters as well. I could certainly see that appealing to the stoner crowd, an action comedy of epic proportions coming at them larger than life…whoa.

After taking in the film over the weekend I can certainly say there’s a market for it. While I didn’t enjoy the film as much as some of Apatow’s other efforts, namely Superbad, Knocked Up, and The 40 Year Old Virgin; but maybe those aren’t fair comparisons. This was a different kind of comedy. Sure there was a decent amount of pot smoke in some of those other flicks but there was something refreshingly unique about Pineapple Express. It was that rare occasion where excellent comedic chemistry is combined with a fierce action pace…maybe not quite at the level where Simon Pegg nailed it with Hot Fuzz…but the far-fetched action plot elements were well balanced by moments of wham/bam action and a measure of reality in the dialogue…whether a captor was alerting his two hostages that he could hear them planning their escape through the shoddy warehouse wall or whether Rogen is trying to escape the clutches of friendship with an overly friendly pot dealer. I can’t say we’ve all been through those situations before, but thanks to Pineapple Express you get the feeling that’s how it would go down if you were to. It’s a dose of reality in the midst of the fantastical. Reality aside the film certainly has it’s absurd moments…I think the body count borders on Rambo numbers, but already given the basis of being a comedy you’re prepared to suspend your disbelief with Franco’s Characters’ ability to depose of a police officer and handle a “high” speed chase. While the Pineapple Express is no Citizen Kane…and not even Airplane!…it’s certainly a pretty good way to spend a day at the movies.

This blog is published by The Film School & Acting School at the New York Film Academy. Visit our website to learn more about our exciting curriculum!