WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Hellboy's Fury

This weekend ushered in a rare occurrence at the North American box office. Hollywood decided to unleash three wide releases on the unsuspecting public all at once. Two at a time seems to be Hollywood’s healthy level of comfort. Either one will win or both will find their own audiences. But three? At the same time? Did they really think there was that much money to go around? Turns out, not so much. Two titles succeeded while one was forced to subside – which is a nice way to say that two scored while one flopped hard.

Pulling in over $10 million more in its opening weekend than its predecessor, HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY managed to narrowly squeeze out last week’s champ, HANCOCK. Critics across the board have embraced director, Guillermo del Toro’s follow-up to the Oscar winning, PAN'S LABYRINTH, and audiences followed, proving that the critic’s word is final. Meanwhile, proving that the critic’s word is meaningless, critically panned Hancock managed a very reasonable 47% decline in its second week. Had Sony not passed on the Hellboy sequel, it could have held down both of the top spots this week.

Sure on the surface, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH looks like a cheap way to wet the public’s appetite for more 3D projects and hardly a film that can sustain an engaging story but audiences ate it up anyway. Actually, critics did too. Mostly positive response led to a larger than expected debut in third place this week. And so the future looks bright for 3D thrills. The best part about all of this … the movie magicians have finally found a way to infuse Brandon Fraser with that last dimension his acting has always been lacking.

Now, on to the loser, Eddie Murphy in MEET DAVE. Posting his lowest numbers since THE ADVENTURES OF PLUTO NASH, Murphy flops in seventh place with a pathetic per screen average under $2K. You will get no sympathy from me, Mr. Murphy. This is what you deserve for signing on to make a project where you are the captain of a teeny tiny alien ship that crashes on earth into the body of a human version of yourself. In fact, I think you should be happy to have made as much as you did. Now, I don’t want to see you again until they revive the BEVERLY HILLS COP series. Are we clear?

All this success and all this over crowding should have meant a strong overall showing at the box office but ultimately ticket sales were down 17% over the same frame last year. In this case, more certainly did not amount to more.

NEXT WEEK: I think it’s fairly obvious to anyone with half a monkey brain that SPACE CHIMPS will take next weekend by storm. I mean, maybe MAMMA MIA! might manage a strong second place finish if the counter-programming angle works in their favour. What other options are there anyway? There’s that bat movie, THE DARK KNIGHT, but who wants to see that? Wait. This just in … EVERYONE wants to see that little bat movie.

DREAMGIRLS

DREAMGIRLS
Written and Directed by Bill Condon


A few short years ago, a little musical called CHICAGO came along and set the new standard for the modern movie musical. Picking up where CABARET left off fifteen or so years earlier, CHICAGO featured quick-paced editing that compartmentalized and sexualized many a shake and just as many a gyration. Its polished glitz and glamour announced the second coming of a genre that had been struggling for years. Long gone were the days of showcasing talent, leaving composition and aesthetic to bring up the rear. From now on, talent would be constructed to work with the visuals, allowing the musical genre to appeal to a generation that can’t hold its focus longer than the time it takes to execute a four-step combination. The bar had been raised and no film has come close to CHICAGO’s caliber since, until now. Following 1960’s girl group, The Dreams, from their humble beginnings to their ultimate dissolution, DREAMGIRLS brings the musical back to the multiplex with a brand new R&B groove to back it up. Director Bill Condon hopes DREAMGIRLS will follow in CHICAGO’s successful footwork all the way to solid box-office gold and with it, he throws his hat into the Oscar race one more time (following moderately successful bids with GODS AND MONSTERS and KINSEY). What all this repackaging suggests though is that a musical is a naturally difficult sell and though DREAMGIRLS had me bopping along, rootin’ for the girls and crying out loud, it never let me forget how much it was trying to get me to like it.

Condon paints a colorful scene, rich with deep blues and golds but all his aesthetic work is overshadowed by the brazen performances of his exuberant cast. Much has been said already but everything you’ve heard is actually true. As James Early, a womanizing, coke-snorting master of funk, Eddie Murphy is sneaky and sleazy and enjoying every minute of it. His descent from fame weathers his face but his spark always manages to find its way through the funk that finds itself watered down through the years. In many ways, Murphy’s career mirrors Early’s so the applause echoes both on and off screen. With Murphy showing new life later in his career, Beyonce Knowles shows a promise I had not expected so early in hers, if at all. Months of acting classes were a great investment for Knowles. As Deena Jones, Knowles transitions from a naïve girl hoping to succeed into a grown woman at the forefront of a groundbreaking female trio struggling to take back some control over her life, which has been directed entirely by the recording industry. It might not sound like a stretch for Knowles given her experience with Destiny’s Child but her performance as Jones shows both vulnerability and desire. Perhaps her most impressive feat is scaling back her trademark vocals to play someone who supposedly has no colour in her voice. And then there is Jennifer Hudson, this year’s breakout star. Your eye is instantly drawn to her and you wait for her to show you what she’s got. When she does, you’ll see why everyone is talking. Hudson’s voice is so powerful and exudes so much character and emotion that it brought me to tears more than once. Hudson’s Effie White gets all the best songs and the best trajectory as well but if Hudson didn’t own every aspect of this character’s fragile ego as it crumbles and falls hard, no one would care about this movie. That only leaves Jamie Foxx as Dreams manager, Curtis Taylor JR. You haven’t heard much about Foxx but that’s probably because he underplays the role so much that he ends up leaving no mark at all.


The musical is not always simply song and dance; the musical can also be meaningful. DREAMGIRLS has plenty to say and it says it directly and without shame. The bulk of its malice is pointed straight at the music industry. The first point of its one-two punch assault is in regards to the treatment of artists in the industry. Deena replaces Effie as lead singer of The Dreams because there is more chance for The Dreams to crossover with a smoother, more accessible (read, more white, but more on that later) sound and the group gets no say. One artist will rerecord another’s song and usurp all of their radio play if the label executives say so. The girls eventually lose all say over what they want to do with their own lives for the sake of their careers. In Deena’s case, this is even more abusive as her manager, Taylor, is also her husband. The second punch attacks the industry for its whitening of soul music. Often, the songs that were being rerecorded were being done so by white recording artists with more popular appeal. This is what made The Dreams so important. They were able to crossover from the R&B stations to the pop stations. While the industry was exploiting their artists and exploiting an entire race, these same black artists managed to make their own inroads towards fighting racism by appealing to white listeners who were forced to face images they were not willing to before. That’s the healing property of music, I suppose.

DREAMGIRLS is not simply a monumental musical but it is a mammoth film. It is grand in scope and large in life. Though it stumbles at times, its soul is infectious and its satisfaction is sweet. Mr. Condon, you needn’t have tried so hard. I would have liked you just the same.