The Nativity Story, 2006, dir. Hardwicke
I find it amusing that the director of thirteen and Lords of Dogtown is directing this, but alas... it looks sorta blah. Well, I haven't really seen much advertising for it to be honest. It's got Keisha Castle Hughes who is hilariously pregnant (but due to the ol' fashioned way I'm afraid) as Mary. It also has two actors I quite like in the form of Shohreh Aghdashloo (who won my 2003 Gold Medal for House of Sand and Fog) and up-and-coming actor Alexander Siddig (who was a Best Supporting Actor honourary mention and a Best Breakthrough nominee last year). Maybe on DVD...? Surely it's better than The Passion of the Christ though, right? RIGHT?
A Scanner Darkly, 2006, dir. LinklaterI'm torn over whether to see this one. It seems like one of those movies that I could easily sweep under the radar, but it certainly looks interesting. The animation is... interesting. The cast is... interesting (how many pot heads can they fit in a cast list?). The whole thing just seems interesting. But, interesting enough to plant down $10? I do love the poster's tag line though: “Everything is not going to be ok.”
Manderlay, 2005, dir. Von Trier
So I'm torn. I still really wanna see this and have been waiting for over a year for it... but... it's apparently really really bad. Not even Margaret Pomeranz liked it and even asked for Von Trier to stop his trilogy after this one. And when Pomeranz doesn't like a Von Trier movie then you're in trouble. What to do... what to do...
The Guardian, 2006, dir. Davis
I suppose if we have to put up with this in order for Kevin Costner to make more Upside of Anger-type movies then I suppose I can deal. At least the commercials are pretty.
Hunt Angels, 2006, dir. Morgan
This is one of the best Australian films of the year. I reviewed it over here. It's a docu-drama. It is a documentary in that there are talking heads and such and it uses stills and archival footage, but it's a drama in that actors play roles (Ben Mendlesohn and Victoria Hill are the leads) who recreate scenes (in front of green screens) and it tells a tale with a fictional narrative. It's all very fun to watch with all the actors placed inside actual photographs from the period. It's nominated for a bunch of AFI awards including Best Documentary and won Best Documentary at the FCCAA awards last month.
Open Season, 2006, dir. Allers, Culton & StacchiOh, goodo! You can never get enough of the mix-matched animated talking animal subgenre, can you?! Oh, you can... never mind...
Rampage, 2006, dir. Gittoes
A sort of psuedo-sequel to Gittoes earier documentary Soundtrack to War. In that one Gittoes discovered how music played a part in the war on Iraq. In Rampage he goes into the "ghetto" of Miami and involves himself in the culture of one his Soundtrack subjects. Rap music ensues.
Unaccompanies Minors, 2006, dir. Feig
Wow. Never let me huff and puff about how we don't get enough movies at the same time as America. Because we're getting Paul Feig's (???) Unaccompanies Minors (starring Wilmer Vanderrama!) a whole week before the USA!! Wow! That totally makes up for getting Manderlay 8 months late, Marie Antoinette 3 months and so on and so on... Let it be known that after 17 votes on IMDb it has a rock-solid average score of 1.4/10. WAY TO GO!
Time to Leave [Le Temps qui Reste], 2005, dir. Ozon
Another year, Another Ozon.
Lower City [Cidade Baixa], 2005, dir. Machado
From IMDb: "Lifelong friends Deco and Naldinho, who own a small steaming boat in Bahia, meet strip-dancer Karinna. Both men fall for her and their friendship is deeply shattered." Okay then. So, it's sorta like Y Tu Mama Tambien on a boat.
1. Borat! (1)
2. The Prestige (2)
3. The Santa Clause 3 (2)
4. Jackass Number 2 (3)
5. A Good Year (3)
6. Saw 3 (4)
7. Deck the Halls (1)
8. The Departed (7)
9. The Descent (1)
10. Catch a Fire (1)
What a stale box office. A Good Year, still in the Top 5, only made $312,000. That'd be like the #5 movie at the US box office making $3.12mil. Pathetic. Borat! however tops the charts with huge results in it's first week of release after one week of preview screenings (and considering the turnout last night when I saw it, it'll be #1 again next week too).
Everything else is stale until we get to #7 onwards. Deck the Halls debuts sorta pathetically, but these sort of movies never do that well in Australia (our Christmas is summer so nobody really cares for snow-themed movies). The Descent does alright at #9 and Catch a Fire at least manages a Top 10 spot here, unlike the US, but still quite pathetic results.
Debuting at #12 is Dhoom 2 with more solid results. Bollywood films continue to great in their opening week and then fizzle right away (except for the rare few). The Black Dahlia debuts at #13 with about $160,000. It's average of a little over $3000 beat the averages of the debuters, because it was only on 52 screens.
4 comments:
I myself have no desire to see Manderlay. I was THIS CLOSE to seeing it once last year, and now I'm glad I didn't. I'd prefer to believe it doesn't exist... like Hannibal and The Little Mermaid 3.
I was also torn on Scanner Darkly though. Still haven't seen it, despite its run at my local art theater... I'll probably catch it on DVD.
OMG Glenn!! Lower City has nothing to do with Y Tu Mama También!!
This film has 3 of the best Brazillian actors and it was filmed in my city, Salvador. It's an honest and somewhat realistic portrait of life at the piers and poor side of the city, the part the tourists don't go, therefore is neglected for the government. But what is mostly interesting about this is how crazy and obsessive the characters become.
It's an evolving and dark movie [not in a pretentious Donnie Darko way], you might get surprised. Besides, Lazaro Ramos and Wagner Moura are perfection.
hahah, i know they're not related but the plots sound sorta identicle and I'm ignorant like that.
Lol... nah, I was just drama-queening to start a conversation.
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