Thompson on Hollywood

Weekend Box Office: Alice in Wonderland Trounces Weak Remember Me and Green Zone

Anthony D'Alessandro reports on the weekend box office, which brought major disappointments in Green Zone and Remember Me, which opened in second and fourth place (full b.o. chart below):

By Anthony D'Alessandro
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March 14, 2010 5:00 AM
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#SXSW Perfect Venue for Kick-Ass

SXSW has a casual young, male vibe. At the Kick-Ass opener, the fest's Janet Pierson and director Matthew Vaughn were both wearing jeans and sneakers. So it makes sense SXSW was perfect venue for Kick-Ass, which has a primarily young male --and less female-- appeal. It's a nasty hard-R super-hero spoof designed to outrage and delight. And it will destroy at the b.o. when Liongsate opens it April. (It opens first in the U.K. in two weeks.)

By Anne Thompson
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March 13, 2010 2:10 AM
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Star vs. Star: Remember Me's Pattinson vs. Mother's Won Bin

TOH columnist Tim Appelo assesses the relative merits of opening weekenders Rob Pattinson and Won Bin:

By Tim Appelo
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March 13, 2010 1:49 AM
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Green Zone: New Clip

It doesn't surprise me that Green Zone is being targeted as a leftie movie. That's because the film--from Brit Paul Greengrass--wears its politics on its sleeve. To me, the film bears the ring of truth, and made me fighting mad. But politics aside, the exhilarating filmmaking alone makes it a must-see.

By Anne Thompson
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March 13, 2010 12:54 AM
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Time Cover Boy Hanks' The Pacific Launches Sunday on HBO

I confess: I am at SXSW wishing I had time to watch the DVDs for The Pacific that HBO delivered the day I left town. At $200 million (more than Rome), the ten-part series is the most expensive HBO has ever made, and earned Tom Hanks the cover of Time (like HBO, a Time Warner company). It's the flip side to Hanks and Spielberg's brilliant and harrowing World War II series Band of Brothers, which broke out Damian Lewis.

By Anne Thompson
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March 13, 2010 12:21 AM
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Gibson and DiCaprio Do Vikings

Mel Gibson the movie star returned to Hollywood with the routine thriller Edge of Darkness, which grossed a disappointing $42 million domestic. Next up, Gibson takes a riskier acting turn in Jodie Foster's indie The Beaver, about a man who talks to a hand puppet.

By Anne Thompson
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March 13, 2010 12:07 AM
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SXSW Preview: Rodriguez, Kick-Ass, Predators

Gold Film/Interactive Badge and packet of party tickets in hand, I'm plugged into a power strip in the main courtyard at the Austin Convention Center. (The wi-fi sucks.) On my way downtown, I drove the wrong way onto several one-way streets, including a train track. I am safely parked in the convention lot, which costs $7 a day, but the guy let me in for free when I offered an out-of-state check.

By Anne Thompson
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March 13, 2010 12:06 AM
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SXSW: Texas Film Hall of Fame: Tarantino Acceptance Speech

For ten years the Austin Film Society's Texas Film Hall of Fame has handed out awards to the state's own--and deserving outsiders like Quentin Tarantino, who after 17 years of premiering his films and doing his QT Fests in Austin, was inducted by best buds Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez, who gave him a cowboy hat. (His speech is below.) "I start relaxing tomorrow," he said. Another refugee from the exhausting Oscar race was Jason Reitman, who on a whim took off in his car to decompress and wound up here to watch some movies (he's shown his shorts here in the past) before heading home to rework the first draft of his new screenplay.

By Anne Thompson
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March 12, 2010 2:33 AM
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Lipsky Returns to Distrib Roots

Distributor-turned-filmmaker Jeff Lipsky--who co-founded October Films with Bingham Ray-- is returning to the fray, bent but unbowed. Here's his announcement: