Month: April 2012

Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel‘s The Five-Year Engagement is a tank…a dead manatee. Yesterday it earned a lousy $3.4 million in 2,936 situations, averaging $1158 per screen. That forecasts a $10 million weekend haul, or about 50% of what Universal, its distributor, was looking for. So what happened? Was it the prospect of sitting through … Read more

This Sunset Strip footage, shot around 1948 or ’49, is mainly of the Sunset Plaza area. Commercially restrained, to say the least. None of the riff-raff atmosphere of 2012, or of ’92 or ’82 for that matter. The traffic isn’t anywhere near as congested as it is today. And those cars! And that young dark-haired … Read more

“It’s hard to say whether Sound of My Voice is a wholly bogus and pretentious indie enterprise or a weirdly compelling bit of low-budget storytelling,” writes Movieline‘s Stephanie Zacharek, an obviously bright critic and a fine writer whom I don’t trust any more. “Probably it’s a little of both — this is the kind of … Read more

Alfred Hitchcock‘s Dial M For Murder may well have been composed so that 1.85 projections would look presentable, but that doesn’t mean that a 1.78 or 1.85 version will look better than the basic and very pleasing boxy proportion that people have been watching for decades. I’ve been examining Dial M for Murder all my … Read more

It’s been suggested (but not confirmed) by HE reader Pete Apruzzese that the 1.85 fascists may have their way with a possibly forthcoming Bluray of Alfred Hitchcock‘s Dial M For Murder. I’ve seen this talky 1953 drama, which was originally shot in 3D, countless times on broadcast TV, VHS, DVD and theatrically, and each and … Read more

I’m flying to Berlin next Thursday and hanging there nine or ten days before heading down to the Cannes Film Festival so I haven’t much time to see Dark Shadows. It has to be Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. I’m currently pleading my case so we’ll see. If they refuse to budge I can see it … Read more

I was never much of a baseball fan, but even I knew a little bit about Bill “Moose” Skowron, the slugger and first baseman who peaked from the mid ’50s to early ’60s with the N.Y. Yankees. But I never really knew his batting or fielding record — I just knew his name. For Moose … Read more

I’m sorry because I don’t like to get out the whip when there’s no need, but this is what I wrote last September after seeing Bruce Beresford‘s Love, Peace and Misunderstanding (IFCFllms, 6.8) at the Toronto Film Festival: “If you’ve ever been stuck in some hippy-dippy atmosphere or environment that you couldn’t escape from…if you’ve … Read more

It’s pleasing to note that Richard Linklater‘s Bernie, which I liked even more after catching it a second time, is doing reasonably well with critics — 77% on Rotten Tomatoes and 73% on Metacritc. Some have issues because it’s not any one thing — not a comedy or a study of bizarre closeted psychology or … Read more

Every so often I have the feeling that money is just pouring out of me. Everything I do and everywhere I turn I’m bleeding 20s, 50s and 100s. Hundreds, thousands. Sooner or later this awful feeling attains critical mass and I have to stomp on the brakes and shut down because I just need the … Read more