WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: The Reign of Payne

Calling it a reign is most certainly premature but seeing as how movies have a shelf life shorter than milk these days, winning one weekend is a lot like a reign. The reign this week belongs to MAX PAYNE, starring Mark Wahlberg. The film, which is based on a popular video game (as opposed to all the games based on unpopular video games, I suppose), pulled in $18 million after a $7 million strong Friday. This is significantly lower than Wahlberg’s summer entry, THE HAPPENING, which opened north of $30 million but that isn’t quite fair. It was summertime. The name, M. Night Shaymalan preceded the title. MAX PAYNE would probably be better compared to last fall’s WE OWN THE NIGHT or the previous spring’s SHOOTER. MAX PAYNE falls right in between these two and as long as he keeps coming out on top, than Wahlberg will continue to pull up the rear of the Hollywood A-list.


The week’s two other top entries battled it out and finished within very close proximity of each other. Ultimately though, audiences flocked to THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES like bees to honey (c’mon, you were expecting that) over Oliver Stone’s potentially premature biopic of George W. Bush, W. THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES played on 500 screens less than W. and pulled off the highest average in the Top 10. I guess people were more in the mood for something sugary sweet than something pretending to be real. This doesn’t mean that W. is a disappointment. Given that American audiences may be exhausted talking about President Bush after 8 years and that audiences have not shown a lot of support for many political films in recent years, it was not clear at all whether Stone would be able to make this work. Critics are split on his success but the film brought in a solid average and should manage a modest take overall.


As far as platform releases go, a number of films found their expansions holding up quite well. The highest per screen average of any film this week belonged to Mike Leigh’s HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. The film added but five screens and saw it’s gross increase by nearly 50% for a healthy average of $12K. Guy Ritchie’s ROCKNROLLA added a little over a dozen screens and saw its average drop from $20K last week to just under $6K now. Still, a wide release is imminent and it should play well to the action crowd. This next one I am following very closely, if only because I feel it to be one of the year’s best and I pray it finds the audience it so deserves … Jonathan Demme’s RACHEL GETTING MARRIED added another 42 screens this week and it still average over $10K per screen for the third weekend in a row. Do not miss this picture. I mean it.


Oh, wait, I forgot about SEX DRIVE. Whatever, so did everyone else.

NEXT WEEK: This should be interesting. For the last five years, a SAW movie has come out just before Halloween and built on or maintained its audience from the year before, within reason. There is no reason other than sheer exhaustion to think that this year should be any different but there’s a new kid in town. Actually, there are several of them. Disney has decided to counter program with HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3. I don’t know … I think SAW’s days are done. Warner Bros. throws its hat into the ring, why I do not know, with PRIDE AND GLORY, starring Edward Norton and Colin Farrell. And Disney gives us back THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS one more time to continue the tradition of releasing it year on year. They also just re-released it on DVD and blu-ray so why would we go see it in theatres again? Oh, right, it’s in 3D.

W.

Written by Stanley Weiser
Directed by Oliver Stone
Starring: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn, Richard Dreyfuss, Thandie Newton and Jeffrey Wright


George W. Bush: I’m so bone tired of this Saddam. He’s always misunderestimating me.

Considering that at the time that I am writing this and while W. is hitting theatres, George W. Bush is still the president of the United States, is it unreasonable to ask if it is just too soon for a film biography of his life? Do we not need a little space in order to, first of all, get over the trauma of the eight-year long Bush administration, or more importantly, in order to gain some perspective on one of the most unlikely controversial figures in modern history? Lucky for us, the man behind the lens is Oliver Stone – a man who has never seemed to concern himself with objectivity to begin with. And I say lucky for another reason as well. We are lucky this movie has been made now because it actually allows for us to see a side of George W. that we’ve never really seen before – a sympathetic side. Sure the film is an entirely fictional imagining of the man but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make for good entertainment.


Stone’s W. is not a documentary – thankfully because I can’t usually stomach watching the man on television for more than five minutes. Stone is under no obligation to be fair or well balanced. Besides, even documentary filmmakers these days seem to use the truth and objectivity as loose guidelines. Still, when W. opens with a conversation amongst the upper echelons of the Bush administrative staff as to what buzz words and catch phrases would best sell the Iraq war to the American public, you can’t help but wonder whether Stone has zero intention of being fair or whether he intends to lambast the man. In fact, up until the moment the film began, the most intriguing thing for me about this film was trying to understand why Stone was making it in the first place. What was he going to say about him? How was he going to say it? It is right after this opening, which introduces us to most of the key players in this fantastic cast, that Stone, under the structure of Stanley Weiser’s script, takes us back to meet a younger George – a much less presidential George, if you will.


We get to see George as a college boy getting hazed. We get to see George quitting job after job after job with no direction in sight. We get to see George promising ladies the world but giving them nothing but heartache. But then we get to see another side of George. We get to see him face his alcoholism. We get to see him come to find his faith again. And we get to see him fall in love with a young lady named Laura. The manner in which it all unfolds is rather conventional but still also believable, thanks to a fiery Josh Brolin as the big guy himself. Brolin got me to root for a guy I would ordinarily hiss at (not that I hiss at that many people) and he did so by personifying the man as a regular guy with regular guy hang-ups. Weiser’s script does oversimplify Bush’s psychology by implying that all of his decisions in life have been motivated by the need to prove to daddy what a good boy he can be. Still, Brolin brings more to it than that; he brings both passion and compassion to man who is generally considered to be a monster.


Was it Stone’s intention for W. to be a George W. Bush puff piece? Not at all. Without forcing Stone’s hand, the plot does follow through Bush’s election into office and right up until the point where his administration realizes that the Iraq war was going to be a lot harder than they had anticipated. It is in the war room that Stone sneaks in his now signature controversial touch. Suddenly, it makes sense why he made this movie now and why it is being released just a few weeks before the American elections that will see Bush leave office. Once you understand why you’re watching it, you realize that it was actually a lot more enjoyable than you thought it would be and that Stone has crafted a good ol’ American movie at the same time as he sticks it to American government.




GOING PAST THE MOVIE

The good folks at Lionsgate are auctioning off five autographed W. posters this weekend, in order to raise money for Stand Up To Cancer. Simply click on the eBay link below to place your bid for a W. poster, autographed by Oliver Stone, Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell and Ellen Burstyn. Remember the auction ends October 20 so get crackin'.

Autographed W. Poster eBay Auction

THE TEASE ( A Trailer Review): W.

You can never trust a trailer entirely. They want you to see the movie after all. It would appear though that Oliver Stone's hush hush George W. Bush biopic, W. (pronounced Dub-ya), seems to be taking some shape in the public eye with this first look preview. It looks to me that we're going to see how George Jr., an incredibly messed up goof in his younger years, somehow ended up being the President of the United States. I'm intrigued and certainly impressed by the overall look. You've gotta love watching the leader of the free world chugging beer through a funnel. Still, I'm not sure why they decided to list all the character names instead of wow-ing us by telling us who all the actors behind all the make-up. (Did you catch that split second shot of Richard Drefuss as Dick Cheney?) Maybe it's me but I thought names tend to get more people into theatres. Still, as you watch Josh Brolin running ragged at the tail end, you know that a fair amount of people are going to run to see what Mr. Stone has to say about it all. W. is in theatres October 17th.

Trailer Grade: B