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3 articles from 2009

23 December 2009 10:59 PM, PST | Deadline Hollywood | See recent Deadline Hollywood news »

Wednesday Pm: First look at tonight's box office... Analysis coming... Top 10 1. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (Fox) Wed $19M [3,656 runs] New 2. Avatar (Fox) Wed $16M [3,456 runs] Week 1  3. The Princess And The Frog (Disney) Wed $2.4M [3,475 runs] Week 5 4. The Blind Side (Alcon/Warner Bros) Wed $2.3M [2,760 runs] Week 6 5. Up In The Air (Paramount) Wed $1.8M [1,895] Week 4 6. Did You Hear About The Morgans? (Sony) Wed $1.M [2,718] Week 1 7. A Christmas Carol (Disney) Wed $1.M [1,245] Week 8 8. New Moon (Summit) Wed $950K [1,593] Week 6 9. Invictus (Warner Bros) Wed $777K [2,160] Week 3 10. Brothers (Relativity/Lionsgate) Wed $500K [...] »

- Nikki Finke

4 December 2009 11:20 AM, PST | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »

Critics are bestowing much brotherly affection on director Jim Sheridan's Brothers, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman but are stopping short of acclaiming it. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun Times awards it 3 stars and praises the performances, the direction, and the script. His principal reservation: "It is too finished." A.O. Scott in the New York Times also reveals mixed sentiments about the movie, saying that it "lurches between moments of fine, subtle realism and more frequent instances of blunt, blocky overstatement." In the end his conclusion is the opposite of Ebert's: "It has a vague, half-finished feeling," he writes. Claudia Puig in USA Today awards it faint praise when she calls the movie "thought-provoking." Virtually all the critics note that the film is a remake of an award-winning 2004 Danish film and several say that the earlier film was more potent. Peter Howell in the Toronto Star, although praising the actors, nevertheless warns: "Anyone contemplating whether to see Jim Sheridan's domestic drama Brothers would be wise not to see its ... predecessor beforehand." And Lisa Kennedy comments in the Denver Post: "The original was likened to a Greek tragedy. This reworking has enough tin-eared scenes to suggest a night of overheated theater." Yet the Washington Post's Michael O'Sullivan, who also finds many faults with the production, nevertheless concludes, "Like most war movies these days, it ends on a note that's far from hopeful. But it's good, and wise, and it feels true. Meaning, it hurts." »

30 November 2009 11:45 AM, PST | Movieline | See recent Movieline news »

Brothers is many things: a family drama, a study of grief, an exploration of the darkest reaches of human nature, and a remake. One thing it isn't? A war movie. At least according to the people who made it.

"Obviously a big part of the movie is the war," producer Ryan Kavanaugh told Movieline, "but we don't really see it as a war movie, per se." Is this a clever marketing ploy on Kavanaugh's part? A sly verbal manipulation to distance it from previous box office failures? Kavanaugh admits to dabbling previously in what one might call "categorically lax" marketing tactics. "I made a movie called 3:10 to Yuma," he admits, "which we called an 'adventure thriller.'" One can only wonder what kind of semantic slight of hand Kavanaugh could apply to Brothers. Sibling conflict drama? Romantic psycho-dramedy? »

3 articles from 2009