GREEN LANTERN SHINES — BUT NOT BRIGHTLY

Warner Bros.’ Green Lantern entered the crowded field of summer superhero blockbusters and busted no blocks. The film starring Ryan Reynolds debuted at the low end of analysts’ predictions with an estimated $52.7 million, good enough for No. 1, but a pyrrhic victory nonetheless, given its estimated budget of $150-200 million. The reviews were mostly […]

BOX OFFICE LIKELY TO BECOME VERY GREEN THIS WEEKEND

How green will the box office wind up being this Father’s Day weekend? Well, look no further than the predictions that Warner Bros.’ The Green Lantern will rake in $50-60 million in its debut. (Fox is also opening the Jim Carrey comedy Mr. Popper’s Penguins, but it’s not expected to earn more than $10-15 million.) […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: THE GREEN LANTERN

In the immortal words of Kermit the Frog, “It’s not easy being green.” Those words are being quoted by several critics today (Friday) in their reviews of The Green Lantern. Color the reviews dreadful. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times doesn’t mince words. “Green Lantern is bad,” she writes. What else does she think […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: MR. POPPER’S PENGUINS

It has been 47 years since Dick Van Dyke danced with four animated penguins in Mary Poppins. There are six penguins, live and computer-enhanced, dancing with Jim Carrey in Mr. Popper’s Penguins. (The 85-year-old Van Dyke said at the movie’s premiere that he thought he recognized some of them, although, he quipped, “They’re older.”) But […]

GAY ROMCOM FINALLY GETS A FIRM RELEASE DATE

After its domestic release was postponed four separate times over the past year — with some observers predicting it would never see the light of day in America — I Love You Phillip Morris now has a new distributor and its fifth release date, December 3. Roadside Attractions and Liddell Entertainment announced Thursday that they […]

CONAN RETURNS TO THE SCENE OF HIS …. CRIMES?

Conan O’Brien brought his Legally Prohibited to be Funny on TV tour to the Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Studios, a stone’s throw away from the NBC studio where he taped The Tonight Show. During his Saturday performance, he told the crowd. “This is my first time back at Universal Studios since I lost my job.” […]

GAY-THEMED ROMCOM GETS NEW RELEASE

I Love You Phillip Morris has a new release date — its fourth. When indie distributor Consolidated Pictures announced last week that it had canceled its April 30 premiere without announcing a new date, several writers speculated that it had run into recession-related problems and that the film would be returned to the shelves indefinitely. […]

“PHILLIP MORRIS” NOT ON CALL FOR THE TIME BEING

The long-delayed release of I Love You Phillip Morris, starring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor as (real life) gay con artists, has been delayed again. The film, which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009 and was screened at Cannes last May, had been set for release on March 26, then was […]