It may have been the worst reviewed of all chapters in The Twilight Saga, but Breaking Dawn: Part 1 has successfully sought revenge at the box office: The film blew past $700 million in global box office haul this weekend and, with receipts not even counted yet in Japan and China, will undoubtedly soon be crowned the highest-grossing installment in the franchise. New Moon grossed $709.8 million during its run. Breaking Dawn: Behind the Scenes Look This exciting news comes just a few weeks before Breaking Dawn is released on DVD (February 11!) and also coincides with talk that the franchise could extend beyond part 2 , which hits theaters on November 18. Would you want to see The Twilight Saga continue?
Kristen Stewart has cast aside her old role on Twilight and here she is acting like a horny teenage in this video clip from the movie Welcome To The Riley’s. Continue reading →
You have to give Jon Huntsman credit–he has little to gain personally by attacking Ron Paul. The former Utah governor isn’t competing in the Iowa Caucuses and Paul isn’t expected to do well in the New Hampshire Primary, where Huntsman has placed his hopes for success. Perhaps Huntsman’s motivation is to expose the Texas congressmen as a dangerous extremist–which is what he is. Cue the Twilight Zone… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Marathon Pundit Discovery Date : 01/01/2012 02:20 Number of articles : 2
Traditionally a “guilty pleasure” is something you’d be embarrassed for the world to know you secretly enjoyed or for your Facebook friends to see you clicked on, but you know what? Around here we embrace the bad-to-godawful movies we love, and besides; what the heck does it even mean to like something ironically, you insufferable hipster? Toss away your pretentious hat, sit down in the circle of trust, take a deep breath, and join Movieline in unabashedly celebrating the inane, misguided, off-the-mark, and downright B-A-D but nevertheless shamelessly entertaining movies of the year – the Top 9 Not-So-Guilty Pleasures of 2011 . Because we all love some terrible things, don’t we? 9. Nick Nolte in Zookeeper Maybe I just cribbed from everyone’s Worst Movies of 2011 list. Maybe Nick Nolte’s work as a TGI Friday’s-loving gorilla named Bernie in Zookeeper eclipses his shattering work in Warrior on the basis of its cringe-worthiness alone. And maybe I feel so bad that poor Nolte had to sing Florida’s “Low” in character as a gorilla opposite Kevin James that it’s endeared me to his scenes. Also: Primates instantly make any movie better. Everybody knows that. 8. The year in Armond White-isms Call for his head all you want, I’ll staunchly defend notorious film critic Armond White (The man who once coined the phrase “abortionhorny” and thought Lady Gaga would make for better Lisbeth Salander casting!) to the end, purely because his reviews are so goddamn entertaining. Add to that the iconoclast take on movies, supported by left-field arguments that are sometimes so crazy they make complete sense, and you’ve got an essential voice in contemporary movie writing. Even if he raved over Adam Sandler in drag; let that be an exception. 7. The Footloose soundtrack I have no fondness for Blake Shelton’s feeble country mimicry of a Kenny Loggins cover, but Movieline’s Louis Virtel was won over by the Footloose remake’s contempo-pop soundtrack of redos. They can’t all be Karen O-Led Zeppelin covers, I suppose. Let’s hear it for the art of pop homage done toe-tappingly well enough? 6. Gerard Depardieu PeeGate At first, it seemed like French acting legend Gerard Depardieu, to quote 2011′s viral sensation the Honey Badger, simply did not give a shit. But unlike the year’s other infamous celebrity incidents (Lars and the Nazi Joke Heard ‘Round the Word, Madonna’s HydrangeaGate), this one boiled down to one man’s humble humanity (and prostate issues). So ridiculous was the tale that Anderson Cooper broke his dashing resolve to giggle through his on-air report, but think of Gerard and embrace his moment of weakness; there’s no shame in acknowledging our fragile human vulnerabilities from time to time. 5. Season of the Witch / Drive Angry / Trespass (AKA A Good Year for Nic Cage) I wouldn’t call it a banner year for Nicolas Cage himself, but it was a great year to be a Nic Cage watcher. He started out 2011 with the medieval gift of silliness that was Season of the Witch , guzzled beer from his enemy’s skull in the genre pic Drive Angry , and (with the other Nic – Nicole Kidman) bequeathed us with Joel Schumacher’s Trespass , a film Movieline’s S.T. VanAirsdale loved, and laughed through, unapologetically. All one big set-up to watch him pee fire! 4. Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family My personal conversion to the church of Tyler Perry happened earlier this year when I found myself rolling in the aisles during Madea’s Big Happy Family . Is Perry’s Madea a cartoonish, hulking hurricane of a woman? Does she reinforce unfortunate cultural stereotypes even as she doles out totally reasonable life advice? All I know is Perry – the performer, the director, the check-cashing media tycoon (and sensitive man of the world) – is some kind of genius to have made an empire out of a wig, a muumuu, and an attitude, one that further allows him a pedestal from which he geniunely consoles and encourages his fans. Hallelujer, indeed. 3. Lonely Island’s “Jack Sparrow” All you need to know, if you don’t already, is that Jorma Taccone, Andy Samberg, and Akiva Shaffer – AKA Lonely Island – wrote an inspired ditty and snared icon of yesteryear Michael Bolton to sing the hook. Only ginormous film fan Michael Bolton turned it into a song about Pirates of the Caribbean , Forrest Gump , and all of his favorite movies — an ode to the cheesy, cliched movies we all love. Instant karaoke classic. 2. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Love it or hate it, the Twilight Saga is what it is. And when Robert Pattinson started chowing down on Kristen Stewart’s pregnant belly in the kooky denouement of Bill Condon’s vampire sequel, shit started getting so, so real. AND THEN THE WOLF GUY FELL FOR THE BABY AND OH MY GOD YES. 1. Abduction Speaking of Twilight , the universe that Stephenie Meyer created inadvertently led, in turn, to my number one most enjoyable film experience of the year: Sitting through the entirety of Abduction . Terrible line readings, second unit typos, Taylor Lautner’s posturing ’80s action-inspired swagger – it was all there, and it was all insanely terrible and great at the same time. Does this border on liking Abduction ironically? Maybe, but I couldn’t help it. Just know this: Every second of feeble-handed acting, directing, and writing held my attention rapt and engaged my senses; I came alive imagining the winding thicket of talent, dollars, and choices that could’ve churned out such a product. Was any of it intentional – was John Singleton just fucking with us all? Probably not, but still; this holiday season give yourself the gift of watching Abduction and soak in the glory of the ultimate Bad Movie We Love of 2011. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Depending on whom you ask, Christmas is a time of cheery togetherness or sharing in the misery. The latest holiday effort from RiffTrax is a bit of both. The RiffTrax team — Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett — will take to Ustream tonight to revisit a Christmas gem they made fun of a year ago, Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny , for the communal enjoyment of bad-movie fans.
Now, the Second Sino-Japanese War may not seem like the perfect backdrop for Christian Bale to showcase his heartthrob chops, but it appears there’s a romance nestled in this very expensive, ornate chronicle of the Japanese invasion of China. The Flowers of War is China’s official submission to the Oscars, and it won’t take long to see why: This thing is too gigantic and textbook-serious to be ignored.
“For a film that claims to be sexually responsible, the Twilight movies are awfully dependent on teenage sex to attract viewers,” James Franco, actor/director/writer/student and now film critic, reveals in his write-up of Breaking Dawn – Part 1 in the Paris Review . “The actors prance about like pieces of meat, their disturbingly developed bodies on full display; Taylor Lautner’s rippling teenage chest is just a little better than the child beauty-pageant stars at the end of Little Miss Sunshine .” For Franco’s complete thoughts on Team Jacob vs. Team Edward and Bella’s nightmare pregnancy, click here . [ The Paris Review ]
What the saying again? You can fool some moviegoers all the time and all moviegoers some of the time, but you can’t fool all of them all the time? Something like that — maybe we should ask Warner Bros., Garry Marshall and all the stars stuffed so ruthlessly into New Year’s Eve , who recycled the model that earned the aromatic Valentine’s Day a $56 million opening weekend and found less than a third of that crowd ready to fall for it again. Still, it will be enough for first place on a pillow-soft weekend. Your Friday Box Office is here.
A light week in new releases yielded an opportunity for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 to claim its third consecutive Friday crown, all while The Muppets , Hugo and Arthur Christmas fought for what remains of holiday table scraps. Your Friday Box Office is here.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn might have held onto the #1 slot during the Thanksgiving frame, but holiday buzz lifted those plucky Muppets to a strong second place showing; with $24.7 million over three days, Jason Segel, Kermit, and Co. should ride the Rainbow Connection all the way to a very nice pile of green by weekend’s end. Meanwhile, Happy Feet Two continues to slide and Aardman Animation’s fellow wintry offering Arthur Christmas opened with a modest $4.5 million Friday. Martin Scorsese’s 3-D fall family flick Hugo , on the other hand, enjoyed a strong debut on a fraction of the screens. Maybe audiences weren’t quite ready to ring in the yuletide cheer?
