Movie Monday: The Roommate
Is it time for Hollywood to begin biting their collective, metaphorical nails? D-grade horror film The Roommate snagged box office honors this week with $15.6 million, but the real scare might come from the weekend’s cumulative bottom line. Revenue was down 25% compared to the same time last year—a familiar refrain thus far in 2011. […]
Movie Monday: The Rite
The faith-inflected frightfest The Rite scared up $15 million to claim No. 1 at the box office this weekend. It proved Anthony Hopkins, at the age of 73, can still be a pretty scary guy. In a way, from Plugged In’s perspective, The Rite wasn’t nearly as frightening as second place No Strings Attached—the sexually […]
Oscar: The Movie World’s Kingmaker
Oscar, America’s favorite naked golden statuette, bestowed its shiny favor on a handful of films this morning, honoring the fighter in all of them, their true grit. From their inception and through the more than 127 hours of their making, they’ve inspired us, enthralled us and occasionally even depressed us. They’ve toyed with us, told […]
Movie Monday: No Strings Attached
Get ready, America, for the year of Natalie Portman. Portman’s No Strings Attached (which also stars camera pitchman Ashton Kutcher) roped in box office honors this weekend, threading its way to $20.3 million. It’s one of two films she has in the top 10 this week (the other is Black Swan, settling in at No. […]
Movie Monday: The Green Hornet
The box office had less Grit, more guns over the weekend, as The Green Hornet buzzed to $34 million and the weekend win—with, of course, receipts still to be counted for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Thanks in part to a bevy of 3-D screenings (which accounted for nearly 70% of Hornet’s sting), the Seth […]
We Could Be Heroes
I recently wrote a review of NBC’s new show The Cape (a kinda dumb but kinda fun superhero show) and noted our hero fell in cahoots with a band of odd-but-likeable bank robbers. I said that while the show features a man trying to “do the right thing—the heroic thing—within the bounds of his imperfect […]
Plugged In … There’s an App For That
Well, Plugged In’s iPhone app has been up and running for about a month now, and we’ve heard that a few of you have even downloaded the thing. This is gratifying to me personally, as I spent months slaving over code, making sure that— My editor reminds me that I, personally, had next to nothing […]
Movie Monday: Season of the Grit
Forget the new releases: Cinemagoers this weekend favored an old movie based on an older movie set in the old, old West. The Coen Brothers’ True Grit triumphed at the box office after playing second fiddle the last two weekends to Little Fockers. Grit rustled up $15 million, according to boxofficemojo.com, compared to Little’s $13.8 […]
Movie Tuesday: A Little Gritty
We’re back in the office after a day off, and it looks like the new year’s starting off much as 2010 ended, at least as far as movies are concerned. Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro’s rather foul comedy, Little Fockers, was technically the repeat winner at the box office this weekend, according to the […]
Should Old Box Office Receipts Be Forgot …
Well, 2010 is closing shop, making it a natural time to take stock of the year behind us and look forward to the year ahead. And if entertainment studios are doing the same thing, they may look at the year-end box office figures and have an important New Year’s resolution: To make more family films. […]
