Weekend Box Office Results: Alice can (wonder) land in hell...

Okay, how long is this going to keep going? The success of Alice in Wonderland has officially made me root for How to Train Your Dragon to win next week. How do you think that makes me feel? I want the derivative Dreamworks 3D animated movie to topple the derivative Disney 3D movie. This is like choosing to date one gal above another because "she has more teeth." The only other news of note this box office day is that Diary of a Wimpy Kid overperformed. It's not really news that Repo Men underperformed (because that shit is weeeeeiiirrd). This weekend didn't really warrant any further reaction than this. I shall move on.

Here's the weekend results, haiku style:

1.) Alice in Wonderland - $34.5 million (Accuracy of prediction - 95%)

If I were Burton,
I'd just use the same haiku
I already wrote.

2.) Diary of a Wimpy Kid - $21.5 million (Accuracy of prediction - 75.5%)

Not a bad first week,
for a film I thought was dead.
It may get sequels.

3.) The Bounty Hunter - $21 million (Accuracy of prediction - 80%)

We'll forget this one
in a very short time frame.
Like right about now.

4.) Repo Men - $6 million (Accuracy of prediction - 67%)

Jude Law flops again
Why is it he's still famous?
His time may be done.

5.) She's Out of My League - $6 million (Accuracy of prediction - 100%)

Nothing left to say
This doesn't warrant more talk.
Um, I got nothing.

Overall accuracy of prediction - 83.5%

Yet another "B."
I suppose that's not too bad.
But no honor roll.

Okay gang, that's it for me. Happy Monday. Stay positive for the week ahead!

Movie Review: Repo Men

Seriously, this is a weird movie. It would be so easy to dismiss it as garbage, but it just isn't. It isn't a bad movie. It's like a Frankenstein's monster made up of about 7 good movies that somehow don't work together. Here's the best analogy I've got: Brad Pitt's got good features, right? But if you tore off his face and wrapped it around another dude's slightly differently shaped dome, it wouldn't work. Basically, the parts of this movie are all good, spectacular at times really...but they add up to something that's just flippin' weird. Anyway, here's my review.

Dude, Where’s My Segue?
Repo Men is worse than the sum of its parts

In the mood for a Matrix-style, sci-fi action orgy inspired by the Korean cult classic Old Boy? Do you have a hankering for a David Cronenberg–esque marrying of bodily mutilation and simulated sexual intercourse? Are you yearning for a throwback buddy cop movie? A tragic love story? Howsabout some philosophical speculative fiction pontificating on contemporary issues like debt, health care, runaway corporate greed and the violence of everyday life extrapolated to the Nth degree? You can see it all for the cost of one ticket and most of your sanity.

Director Miguel Sapochnik’s Repo Men is a mediocre movie made up of about five great ones. On their own, each 20-minute segment is remarkable and never dull; however, when combined, it’s practically gibberish. It’s as if writers Eric Garcia and Garrett Lerner sat in a room going “you know what else would be cool?” It’s like reverse pointillism, where each of the dots is beautiful but the painting gets uglier the further back you step.

The set-up is simple: Some time in the unspecified future, corporations have perfected artificial organs to the point where they save countless lives. The catch is that they’re stupid expensive, with a robo-heart costing nearly a million bucks. When customers fall behind on payments, Remy (Jude Law) and his war buddy–turned–repo partner Jake (Forest Whitaker) show up, knock ‘em out, cut ‘em open and reclaim the organs.

The men engage in this grotesque and graphic occupation on the grounds that “a job is a job,” a phrase repeated until the audience is sufficiently bludgeoned with the “all actions have consequences” message. Remy realizes these consequences when an accident forces him to become a recipient of a fake heart and leaves him deeply in debt to his former employers, fronted by his boss Frank (Live Schreiber). Afflicted with a crisis of conscience, Remy hops ship, hooks up with a cracked-out lounge singer (Alice Braga) and attempts to right his wrongs with copious blood letting.

Every time the film seems ready to settle in to a pattern, it gets ADD. Law and Whitaker, who both turn in surprisingly strong performances given the madcap material, must have gotten thematic whiplash. Law in particular goes from family man struggling with the morality of his occupation (think unscrupulous insurance agent…only he actually kills people) to star-crossed tragic lover of a woman who had logged all of two minutes of screen time. The only consistency is visual, as Sapochnik made one hell of a directorial portfolio, proving he can shoot still, quiet moments as effectively as he can lens graphic sex or violence.

Undone by a clunky script, the “twist” ending finally proves too much, and Repo Men gives up the ghost in the machine, figuratively and literally. Had Garcia (a first-time film writer) and Lerner (who has only penned TV shows) been aided by a seasoned cinematic screenwriter, we may have been talking about a burgeoning cult classic. Instead, we’re left scratching our entertained but confused noggins and asking “what the hell was that?”

Grade = C+

Fearless, Flawless Box Office Predictions

If the adage in real estate is "location, location, location," the adage for movies is "scheduling, scheduling, scheduling." Nothing is positioned to compete against Alice in Wonderland. Now, the rationale from the other studios is "boy howdy, look at all the money that movie is making, I'm glad we didn't open anything against it!" What they don't realize is that it's making that much money because they didn't open anything against it. In a move akin to Pepsi saying "you know, a lot of people are buying Coke, so why don't we just wait until they're done spending money on that," Hollywood often confuses wisely avoiding the first or second weekend of a big film with stupidly abandoning a whole month. What's happening right now with Alice is positive to me in one way and one way only: It's making Summer-type money in the first three weeks of March. As I've said before, if you release something people want to see, even if it's off-season, even if other things are in the theater, people will go see it. In this case, I wish people didn't want to go see Alice, but you get the idea. That's my very topical box office rant. I now return you to your predictions:

Here's how I see the weekend, haiku style:

1.) Alice in Wonderland - $38 million

Lessons can't be learned
by T. Burton and J. Depp
with this much success.

2.) The Bounty Hunter - $17 million

This looks like a turd.
Aniston's career is crap.
Hmm..."Friends" reunion?

3.) Diary of a Wimpy Kid - $15 million

The books are well known,
but the movie has no hype.
That does not bode well.

4.) Repo Men - $10 million

Jude Law has talent
but is kind of a creeper.
That won't help him here.

5.) Green Zone - $7 million

More Iraq War flop...
People would rather forget
how bad we effed up.

WILDCARD - She's Out of My League
- $6 million
Forgive me for this:
She's Out of My League...and this
is out of my list