EIGHT NEW FILMS — COUNT ‘EM EIGHT! — TO OPEN OVER HOLIDAY

Pity the poor studio scheduler. Each one of them knew that if they had opened a movie a couple of weeks before The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was released — never mind the same weekend that it was — their movie would be killed. Their only alternative was to release theirs after The Hobbit‘s opening. […]

SANDLER COMEDY MOST RENTED ON REDBOX IN 2011

Just Go with It, the first of two Adam Sandler movies released this year — the other was Jack and Jill — just barely kept Sandler’s streak of $100-million hits going (it wound up with $103 million; Jack and Jill only made it to $71 million), but it was the biggest hit of the year […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: 50/50

50/50 are the odds of surviving a rare form of cancer that the main character in the movie with those odds in the title is diagnosed with. It’s loosely based on screenwriter Will Reiser’s personal experiences. Given its premise the odds of its being praised by critics were probably a lot lower than those in […]

TIGHT WEEKEND BOX-OFFICE RACE PREDICTED

Box-office forecasters are hedging their bets when it comes to predicting the probable top film this weekend. Three films are opening in wide release, The Lincoln Lawyer, starring Matthew McConnaughey, Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper, and Paul, starring a CGI extraterrestrial voiced by Seth Rogen. Virtually all of the box-office prognosticators are predicting that the race […]

MOVIE REVIEWS: PAUL

British comics Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who received abundant praise — and laughter — for their previous films, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, are receiving much of the same for their latest film, Paul, with Seth Rogen in the title role of a computer-created alien. “After the sharp bite and harsh light […]