Twilight / Snow White and the Huntsman star Kristen Stewart comes off as admirably self-possessed (“I don’t care about the voracious, starving shit eaters who want to turn truth into shit”) in Vanity Fair, even when bemoaning the photograph that changed her life: “You can Google my name and one of the first things that comes up is images of me sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe with my ex-boyfriend and my dog. It was [taken] the day the movie came out. I was no one. I was a kid. I had just turned 18. In [the tabloids] the next day it was like I was a delinquent slimy idiot, whereas I’m kind of a weirdo, creative Valley Girl who smokes pot. Big deal. But that changed my daily life instantly. I didn’t go out in my underwear anymore.” [ Vanity Fair ]
Twilight / Snow White and the Huntsman star Kristen Stewart comes off as admirably self-possessed (“I don’t care about the voracious, starving shit eaters who want to turn truth into shit”) in Vanity Fair, even when bemoaning the photograph that changed her life: “You can Google my name and one of the first things that comes up is images of me sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe with my ex-boyfriend and my dog. It was [taken] the day the movie came out. I was no one. I was a kid. I had just turned 18. In [the tabloids] the next day it was like I was a delinquent slimy idiot, whereas I’m kind of a weirdo, creative Valley Girl who smokes pot. Big deal. But that changed my daily life instantly. I didn’t go out in my underwear anymore.” [ Vanity Fair ]
Brava to the dewy-cheeked Kristen Stewart , who opened Snow White and the Huntsman , the weekend’s number one movie, by swinging a sword and championing girl power without having to kiss a single vampire! (Those two hunky human suitors and the riveting fabulosity that was Charlize Theron didn’t hurt either.) Nice to see girls ruling while boys drooled over the box office — well, their male-driven movies ( Men in Black 3 , Avengers , Battleship ), anyway. Tell us what you saw this weekend as we go to the receipts! 1. Snow White and the Huntsman Gross: $56,255,000 (new) Screens: 3,773 (PSA: $14,910) Weeks: 1 Well, well, well. Stewart’s first big non- Twilight movie made a strong showing over the weekend, outdoing Men in Black 3 ’s debut with the one-two-three punch of KStew, Chris Hemsworth, and Charlize Theron. Coming in with the fourth biggest opening of the year, the dark fairytale soared on dazzling visuals even if audiences only gave it a “B” CinemaScore rating. 2. Men in Black 3 Gross: $29,300,000 ($112,300,000) Screens: 4,248 (PSA $6,897) Weeks: 2 (Change: -46.3%) Foreign tallies will help Will Smith and Co. get over their 46.3 percent drop-off – even at only $112 million domestically, the sci-fi threequel has topped $386 million globally, and counting. Still, it’s not quite time to get MIB4 in gear, seeing as the reported production budget was a whopping $225 million alone. 3. The Avengers Gross: $20,273,000 ($552,737,000) Screens: 3,670 (PSA: $5,524) Weeks: 5 (Change: -44.7%) $1.35 billion worldwide and counting. That is all. 4. Battleship Gross: $4,810,000 ($55,123,000) Screens: 3,144 (PSA $1,530) Weeks: 3 (Change: -56.5%) Say bye bye to Battleship as it continues sinking ever faster down the Top 10. Universal’s thanking their lucky stars for the foreign markets right about now, as domestic take has totally a paltry $55.1 million in three weeks. 5. The Dictator Gross: $4,725,000 ($50,835,000) Screens: 2,649 (PSA $1,784) Weeks: 3 (Change: -49.1%) Still just the third-best performing Sacha Baron Cohen movie to date. N/A Piranha 3DD Gross: $179,000 (new) Screens: 86 (PSA $2,081) Weeks: 1 Well, they tried . Kinda . [Figures via Box Office Mojo ]
Elizabeth Olsen looks modestly dressed in her Victorian-era full-length dresses and hats for her role in the erotic thriller Therese Raquin , which she is currently filming in Budapest, Hungary. Olsen plays the title character Therese Raquin in this project, directed by Charlie Stratton and also starring Harry Potter ‘s Tom Felton and Jessica Lange. Her character is apparently forced into a loveless marriage with her sickly cousin Camille, played by Fenton. Young, beautiful and sexually repressed, Therese casts off innocence for a sizzling affair with her husband’s best friend Laurent, played by Drive actor Oscar Isaac. Needless to say, her dress gets ripped off on numerous occasions, according to The Daily Mail , which featured a number of photos of Olsen on set. Lange plays Therese’s controlling aunt, Madame Raquin, and the story crescendos as Therese’s dalliances with Laurent produces disastrous outcomes. “Some of the film’s themes will include the subjects of imprisonment and punishment, temperament and the human animal,” noted The Daily Mail. Olsen, 23, won praise last year for her starring role in Sundance indie Martha Marcy May Marlene and she will be seen this week in the Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener starrer Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding , which opens Friday. [via Daily Mail ] [Photo credit: WENN.com]
Also in Monday morning’s brief roundup, the American Black Film Festival will celebrate Think Like a Man , Moonrise Kingdom and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel reign in the specialty box office, while The Avengers passes a new milestone. And the team behind 21 Jump Street take on resuscitating a floundering project. American Black Film Festival to Fete Think Like a Man Think Like a Man opened to $33.6 million on just over 2,000 screens and became Screen Gems’ highest opener ever targeting African-American audiences. On Friday, June 22, the 16th Annual American Black Festival in Miami Beach, FL, ABFF will celebrate the success of the hit film in an event that will include the film’s producer Will Packer, his business partner Rob Hardy, the film’s director, Tim Story as well as select cast members. Around the ‘net… Specialty Box Office: Moonrise Kingdom and Marigold Hotel Shine as Newcomers Fizzle Among specialty releases, holdovers held the spotlight the first weekend of June. Memorial Day weekend’s record-breaking opener Moonrise Kingdom retained its crown atop the box office in the specialty arena, averaging just over $53K per theater in 16 locations, Deadline reports . Carousel of Hope to Throw George Clooney Bash The group which fights childhood diabetes will host an October gala featuring George Clooney. The biennial fundraiser is the “glitziest, most elaborate event on Hollywood’s charity calendar.” The 26th Carousel of Hope ball, set for Oct. 20 at the Beverly Hilton, Variety reports . The Avengers No. 3 Film of All Time Disney said its latest superhero blockbuster is now the third largest grossing film domestically, surpassing The Dark Knight ‘s $533M. The Avengers passed $538.1M domestically and over $793M internationally making its total over $1.3 billion, Deadline reports . Michael Mann to Lead Venice Jury The director/producer will serve as the leader of the main jury at the 69th Venice Film Festival taking place August 29 – September 8. Also a TV producer ( Miami Vice he directed Manhunter, Heat and Collateral, among others, Variety reports . 21 Jump Street Directors in Negotiations for Carter Beats the Devil Phil Lord and Chris Miller are trying to get Carter Beats the Devil off the ground. Based on the historical mystery novel revolving around magician Charles Carter and written by Glen David Gold, the project has been on Hollywood’s hit list since it was published back in 2001, but it has nevertheless floundered despite heavy-hitters efforts, THR reports .
This is why you should leave the zombie play to professionals in the movies, kids. And whatever you do, don’t go around pretending to be a member of the face-eating living dead IN MIAMI, where folks are on high alert for crazed strangers and bath salts with good reason. Unfortunately, this jerkwad internet pranker is reveling in the attention and boasts that his most irate victims only got in a few hits before he begged off as a jokester in undead clothing. He also has a prank video in which he pretends to fart on people , so by comparison this is some real highbrow stuff. That said, face-eatin’ is so hot these days, it can’t be long until we see a movie based on the recent rash of real life cannibals. Here’s my pitch: Found footage horror follows internet prankster who terrorizes unsuspecting citizens of Miami in zombie guise, only to find that the actual zombiepocalypse has begun; he is then eaten by zombies. Any takers? [ Vitalyztv via @MelAddington ]
You might guess most folks flocking to theaters this weekend for Snow White and the Huntsman are the legions of diehard fans of Twilight ‘s Kristen Stewart , who stars in the fantasy adventure as the sword-swinging Snow White. Maybe, even, they’ll come for co-star Chris Hemsworth — he of Thor and Avengers fame. But surprise, surprise — who’d have thought the big draw, at least for folks who hit opening day today, would be neither of SWATH ‘s up-and-coming talent? PMC Studios’ Beyond the Trailer (owned by Movieline’s parent company PMC) caught up with some early Snow White adopters at the AMC E-Walk today, and they told Grace Randolph they were there to see the Evil Queen — Charlize Theron . What’s more: At least one woman says she actually saw the film despite K-Stew. Also: Props to the older lady at 3:50 dropping truth bombs about dead ugly people, who wants to buy presents for Hemsworth’s children (even though they’d most certainly be impossibly beautiful Hems-spawn, but whatevs). Surprised at all the Charlize love? Agree with the consensus that KStew’s performance pales in comparison to Theron’s near-camp extravaganza? Or are you REALLY in it just to see Hemsworth swing that axe around a forest? For more movie news, commentary, and reviews, check out Beyond the Trailer on YouTube.
Filmmaker Chris Eyre made his name with his 1998 debut Smoke Signals , a delicate indie adapted from a short story by Sherman Alexie about two young men living on the Coeur D’Alene Indian Reservation who go an a road trip to retrieve the belongings of one’s recently deceased estranged father. It was a small, wistful thing that offered a look at characters and a community that don’t get a lot of time on screen. Hide Away, Eyre’s newest work — since Smoke Signals he’s made four features that have mostly headed to TV — is in the same emotional vein as that first film, but heads away from the rez for a setting that’s more figurative and characters that are more generic (by choice, though it’s also a problem). It’s a slender story of mourning that manages some lovely bits of mood while also being dreary and a little preposterous in its spareness. Josh Lucas does a heroic amount to ground Hide Away in real feeling in the lead role, an unnamed man who is in mourning for reasons we slowly start to understand, one related to the wife and kids we see him with in gauzy flashbacks. “Are you divorced?” people ask him. “No, I’m not,” he responds numbly. He’s told by the man from whom he buys a boat at the start of a film that a lot of divorced guys apparently do what he’s doing. He doesn’t know anything about boats — what he’s looking for is an escape, a refuge — which is why he ends up with a sailboat in barely functioning condition, the Hesperus, named for the evening star. Arriving in a black suit like he either fled straight from a business meeting or a funeral, the would-be mariner pokes around the decrepit vessel on which he plans to live, and starts learning his way around. Hide Away , which was written by Peter Vanderwall, was shot and is set in a real place — on Grand Traverse Bay in Michigan — but the film strips away most identifying details, leaving the dock on which the man’s ship is moored to seem like an outpost at the end of the world. The cinematography, by Elliot Davis, makes the place look fancifully lovely, with its still, reflective water and open skies, its winter storms and cloud banks. There’s a town nearby — the man heads in sometimes to buy groceries or booze — but he doesn’t really interact with it, having chosen solitude. A few people come and go around the dock, including a guy (Jon Tenney) who actually is divorced and using his recent boat-ownership to get women, but otherwise the man’s alone. Lucas is saddled with a lot of scenes in which he’s by himself on screen, and for the most part does an admirable job of conveying someone who’s so haunted by grief that he needed to leave the world behind without actually talking about what he went through. His moments of grief — staring out, sleepless, at night; drinking himself into a stupor at Christmas while lit-up boats past by — feel rough and believable, especially in the way he courts death by acting carelessly while never actually wanting to do the deed himself. Lucas turns the man’s repair of the ship into a series of bits of physical comedy — running out of the shower after it breaks, trying to raise the sail, setting off smoke alarms when starting a fire in the stove. He makes the repetition of work into something believably soothing, makes it seem like a process through which you could genuinely start to heal. But all the interactions the man has with the few visitors he encounters and friends he makes are leadenly infused with meaning. There’s the beautiful waitress (Ayelet Zurer) at the restaurant by the dock who seems to have taken up residence there exclusively to offer comfort sex and a more maternal caring to the broken wanders who end up nearby. There’s the older man (James Cromwell) who offers words of wisdom with regard to his own sorrow — it’s “not a recipe I recommend a young man follow.” There’s the former work colleague (Taylor Nichols) who drops by to insist the man come back to his software company, offering to set him up to telecommute. And there’s the pretty check-out girl (Casey LaBow) who inexplicably comes to him for shelter after her boyfriend beats her. The entire world seems there only to patiently nurture the man back to mental health — as if he’s in some kind of extremely elaborate sanatorium in which patients are led to think that this whole recovery-by-way-of-fixing-a-sailboat thing was their idea from the start. Hide Away has more clunky moments than it does elegantly minimalist ones, the worst of which is the glimpse of what actually happened to the man’s family. It’s over-the-top and unnecessary, given that we’d already gotten the idea about why the guy feels such guilt and grief. In shaping a film so deliberately around things left out, it would have been better to give the audience the benefit of the doubt and leave a little more mystery to the nameless man and his pain. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
If you could distill essence de chat into a few well-chosen pen strokes, you’d end up with something like Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol’s superb animated adventure A Cat in Paris , a picture whose modest demeanor only underscores how expressive and imaginative it is. This isn’t the kind of big-budget animation we get from the major studios: It’s richness of another sort, a feat of hand-drawn animation that relies on spare but succinct character design and a dazzling sense of perspective — rather than a volley of cultural in-jokes — to tell its story. The picture sparkles, but in the nighttime way — its charms have a noirish gleam. Most of the picture does, in fact, take place at night, beginning and ending with the nocturnal Parisian perambulations of a wily striped cat named Dino. Dino “belongs” to a little girl named Zoe. He pledges his devotion by bringing her little gifts from his nighttime hunting jaunts. Actually, he keeps bringing her the same gift: One dangly, limp dead lizard after another, but Zoe is delighted by them and saves them all in a little box, much to the annoyance of her new nanny. What almost no one knows is that Dino doesn’t go out at night just for fun, or simply out of a feline sense of duty. He’s also a cat burglar, assisting a sneaky but noble local jewel thief, Nico, on his midnight rounds. The plot becomes more complicated — to the extent that it’s complicated at all — by the fact that Zoe’s mother, Jeanne, is a detective with the Paris police. She’s consumed with concern for Zoe, who hasn’t spoken since her father was killed by a square-shouldered, square-headed thug named Victor Costa. She’s also riven with grief, and she’s determined to avenge her husband’s death by catching Costa, who, it turns out, has a new scheme: He plans to steal a precious, valuable and huge antiquity, the Colossus of Nairobi, a hulking totem that’s being brought to the city for an exhibit. Meanwhile, though, Jeanne has peskier problems: Jewels keep disappearing from various households in the city, thanks to Nico and an accomplice with four silent, velvet paws. A Cat in Paris is being released in the states in two versions, an English-language one (in which Marcia Gay Harden, Anjelica Huston and Matthew Modine provide some of the key voices) and a subtitled French one (which features, in the role of the nanny, the voice of actress Bernadette Lafont, who, for those who keep track of such things, played Marie in The Mother and the Whore ). If you’re bringing children and are lucky enough to have bilingual ones, I recommend the French version, since it is simply more French; to hear the English language pouring forth from these characters’ mouths feels just a little wrong. But the visuals of A Cat in Paris resonate in any language, and it doesn’t hurt that the picture features a stunning, stealthy Bernard Hermann-style orchestral score by Serge Bessett. (The music in A Cat in Paris is finer and more resonant than that of any live-action picture I’ve seen this year.) This is Felicioli and Gagnol’s first full-length feature — it was a 2012 Academy Award nominee — and it clocks in at a very trim but visually rich 70 minutes. The filmmakers’ drawings are both meticulous and highly stylized: They render the rooftops of Paris (what is it about city rooftops in general, and Paris rooftops in particular?) as a dusky, velvety patchwork, an invitation to adventure — they take great delight in the city’s highs and lows, in the contrast between tall and short. Their palette features an array of oranges, from muted citrus tones to deep sienna, and lots of deep, nighttime turquoise. And they dot the picture with small but inventive visual touches: When a character dons night goggles, the figures around him are rendered as stark white lines on a flat black surface. And the gargoyles of Notre Dame feature in the climactic chase sequence, a bit of travelogue whimsy that’s nonetheless dramatically gripping, perhaps even a little dizzying for those who are hinky about heights — it doesn’t matter that you can’t really fall off a cartoon building. And then there’s Dino, an utterly bewitching arrangement of orange and chocolate triangles (with a pink one for a nose). Dino isn’t a cute cartoon cat — there’s an element of mystery and devilishness about him, suggesting that Felicioli and Gagnol understand true feline spirit. They also understand feline loyalty, which is a contradiction in terms only to those who don’t understand (to the extent that understanding is possible) these elusive, magnetic creatures. Dino comforts the distressed Zoe by visiting her in bed, sliding under her arms as if he could pretend she’d never notice. And in a way, she doesn’t notice — somehow, suddenly, Dino is simply there , a presence who changes, only ever so slightly, the nature of the room around him. That’s the quiet province of cats everywhere — not just those who are lucky enough to live in the animated city of Paris. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
“Even though the media exhibit enormous sophistication and historical perspective in a thousand different ways — not that I can think of a specific example right now — they are far too often bedazzled by the sheer novelty of a story. If you watch cable news, for example, you know all too well that if there are two child kidnappings in the same month, the first one gets far more attention than the second. This same law applies to box-office bombs. With Battleship , the fascination with Hollywood flop sweat had already worn off. When I asked a veteran showbiz reporter why his publication had spent so little time covering the demise of Battleship , he joked: ‘I guess we all had the same reaction — didn’t we just write that story already?'” [LAT]
