"Thor" - 2011 - movie review

Kenneth Branagh's "Thor" opens with Natalie Portman's scientist character Jane Foster combing the night skies of the desert southwest in search of an elusive phenomenon she can't explain. She believes it to be an Einstein-Rosen bridge but can't prove it. Suddenly it appears and while trying to chase it down she instead runs down a mysterious lone figure who seems to materialize out of the chaos around the phenomenon.

By opening the film with his characters gazing heavenward Branagh states in no uncertain terms that Thor is not your everyday superhero. This is entirely appropriate because he isn't. Thor is a god. One of the principal gods in Norse mythology and treating him as a mere superhero would be, to a certain extent, blasphemous. By extension, Thor is not your everyday superhero film either. It has more in common with Beowulf than Batman, though to be sure Thor is not a tragic character.

After the opening scene the film moves to Asgard where, after a short primer on said Norse mythology, the events that led to that mysterious figure appearing out of a light tunnel in the desert are played out.

Thor is about to inherit the throne of Asgard from his father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), when his ascension is rudely interrupted by a small band of Frost Giants (the Asgardians mortal enemies) who break into Asgard's weapons vault. After the raid is thwarted Thor vows revenge. Odin attempts to rein in his impetuous son but Thor will have none of it. He and his closest companions (the Warriors 3) as well as his younger brother Loki sneak into the Frost Giants homeworld and nearly start a war. Odin intervenes just in time to save the day and then strips Thor of his power (manifested of course in his mighty hammer Mjollnir) and banishes him to earth. At the last minute Odin casts a spell on Mjollnir stating that only he who proves himself worthy will be able to take control of it and wield its power and then sends it through the light bridge to earth after Thor. 

Back on earth the man Foster hit with her truck rises from the ground babbling about hammers and bi-frosts and speaking with a kind of formal bravado that makes him seem, well, cartoonlike. Foster's assistant gets spooked by the large, wierd guy and tases him and the group take him to a local hospital.

Meanwhile, events in the desert bring Agent Colson of SHIELD sniffing around. Colson confiscates Jane Foster's computers in the name of national security. Out of ideas and with little clue as to what's going on Foster sidles up to the only guy who might possibly have a clue: the big, crazy guy she nearly ran over. Her colleague Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) attempts to warn her off citing the fact that this guy seems to think he's some kind of Norse god but Foster reluctantly decides to give him a chance.

The rest of the film deals with Thor having to come to grips with his situation and learning humility, Loki's attempts to grab the throne of Asgard in his absence, Foster and Selvig coming to grips with the possibility that maybe this big, wacky dude really is who he says he is and Colson and company nibbling at the edges of the narrative ever reminding us of the 'bigger picture'.

Branagh's direction is rock solid throughout: fluid yet never gimmicky. He coaxes excellent performances out of his cast, which is first rate and no doubt made his job a lot easier. Comedic elements (like Thor's interesting way of displaying approval of a good cup of joe) are subtle and deftly handled, never overplayed or over the top and never distracting. There is real chemistry between Hemsworth and Portman who once again demonstrates why she deserves a place near the top of the A list of actors working today. Remarkably though she doesn't overwhelm relative newcomer Chris Hemsworth who has genuine acting chops. His performance hits all the right notes and Branagh gives him plenty of space to demonstrate his range, which is impressive. The art direction and cinematogrphy heed the gravitas inplicit in making a film about a god, even one who's spent a few decades slumming through the comic book universe. This is a story that just wouldn't have worked had the cimematography been narrower in scope. A character of Thor's dimensions needs a stage the size of the desert. Patrick Doyle's soundtrack while not remarkable does what a good soundtrack should do, it suggests while staying out of the limelight.

Thor is far and away the best of the "Avengers" setup films. Some of that has to do with the strength and depth of the source material but Thor is more than the sum of its parts. It's big ideas and big characters bathed in golden light and played out on a stage with one of those enormous, multi-layered atmospheric background paintings. It never stays too long in small places, never strays seriously into self-parody but never forgets to be fun.

"Hugo" - 2011 - movie review

"Hugo" is Martin Scorsese's deeply heartfelt ode to film, it's origins, it's early pioneers and his own history within the medium. It's a movie that flirts from the outset with nostalgia but never falls over the edge into that thematic abyss. Released in both 3D and 2D I chose to see the 2D version.

Hugo Cabret is the son of a Paris watchmaker in the 1920's whose mother dies when he is a baby and whose father dies when Hugo is 10 or so. Hugo is taken in by his uncle, a civil servant whose job it is to keep the clocks in one of Paris's mighty train stations running. Shortly after taking Hugo in and teaching him the ropes the uncle disappears. Hugo stays however believing that as long as he keeps the clocks working no one will notice that his uncle has gone AWOL. Hugo lives in the long forgotten clock keepers apartment at the station and emerges from it's walls only to steal food and to scrounge parts for his big project: the restoration of an automaton his father had found in a museum storeroom shortly before he died.

One day the owner of the station's toy shop catches Hugo attempting to lift a windup mouse and demands Hugo empty his pockets. In one of his pockets he carries the notebook his father had been keeping which contains detailed schematics of the automaton. Upon seeing this the store owner is stricken and demands to know where Hugo got it. Hugo refuses to tell him and as a result the old man confiscates the notebook and vows to destroy it.

Hugo follows the shop owner home pleading for his notebook back but the old man is resolute and eventually closes the door in his face. Hugo spots a girl on the upper floor of the old man's home and gets her attention. She comes out to talk to him and promises to make sure the old man (who is her guardian since she too is an orphan) doesn't destroy it. Over the course of the film a friendship will develop between the two kids that has lasting and profound effects on those around them.

It turns out that the old man is actually the film pioneer Georges Melies, long thought dead but actually clinging on to a woefully unsatisfying existence as the proprietor of the toy shop. He's constantly miserable because he's living an inauthentic life, forced by historical events to give up movie making and take up permanent residence behind the toy store counter.

As I said earlier the film manages to avoid the pothole of nostalgia and it does so by being about something other than the breathtaking visuals of a Paris that never really was. That "other" thing is purpose. The story is set in post World War I Europe where the search for "the meaning of it all" was a daily past time that mostly yielded naught but disillusionment. Hugo realizes that meaning is perhaps not all its cracked up to be and that purpose is the real driver of the human spirit. Where meaning can be twisted to fit even the most odious ideology, purpose, that feeling we have that we know what we should be doing, rarely ever changes. It's when people are removed from their purpose or prevented from ever taking it up in the first place that societies begin to develop cracks. This theme of purpose also feeds directly into the reading of Hugo as an autobiographical film for Martin Scorsese. He realized early on what his purpose was and pursued it with gusto. As a result he's given us some of the most stirring, brutal and yet truthful films of the past half century. When he shows us a morose and bitter Georges Melies he's also speculating on what he might have become had he made the "safe" decision and pursued a more traditional career path. Yes, art is risky, but where is the safety in bitterness? Where is the safety in feeling you've wasted your life?

The cast all do a stellar job in support of Scorsese's vision here starting with Ben Kingsley as the aged, embittered film maker who, through the intervention of a young boy, finds renewed purpose in his end days. Asa Butterfield as Hugo demonstrates a range not found in many young actors and Chloe Grace Moretz plays his young, adventure craving friend to continental perfection. Sacha Baron Cohen is reigned in by his role as the Station Inspector and manages to bring depth to what could have been a fairly cardboard character. The rest of the cast, including Jude Law and Christopher Lee, bring a joi de vivre to their performances that demonstrate how thoroughly everyone involved bought into the film.

The film is beautifully rendered using state of the art techniques. While this may seem a strange thing to say about a Martin Scorsese movie it's actually not so odd at all when you consider that Melies is widely considered to be the father of special effects and as an ode to him... well, you get it. Scorsese himself demonstrates a deft hand with the actors in a movie which required just that.

Hugo isn't a movie for young children. To really appreciate it you have to understand something about people and how easy it is to get sidetracked or totally lost in life. No, Hugo is a film for adults, wherein Scorsese fires a warning shot across the bow of anyone out there who might have a strong sense of purpose but who is considering tossing it aside in the name of safety and security.

"Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do... Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose... it's like you're broken." - Hugo

Amen.

"Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" - 2011

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is assigned to track down and stop a ruthless Russian scientist who's decided it's time for a global housecleaning. The wackjob in question wants to start a nuclear war in order that the world might come back stronger in it's aftermath. While infiltrating the Russian state archives in search of vital information Hunt is framed for blowing up the Kremlin and spends much of his subsequent time avoiding arrest by the bumbling Moscow police. He chases the rogue Rooskie scientist from Moscow to Dubai (where we get a pretty spectacular sequence on the outside of the Burj Kalifa) and from Dubai to Mumbai while the countdown ticks down to worldwide obliteration.

That's the basic premise of the newest installment in the Mission Impossible series. It's strengths are the strengths of any decent modern action movie: high production values, fantasy tech, well modulated action sequences, exotic locales and Bond girls, or Bond-type girls. It's weaknesses are the weaknesses of many a modern action movie: poorly crafted characters and extreme implausibility. Because of a surplus of the latter Ghost Protocol never really got off the ground for me and belongs more in the company of recent eye-rollers like "Columbiana" than alongside what I am increasingly coming to believe is the gold standard for 21st century actioners: Martin Campbell's "Casino Royale".

That movie proved once and for all that you can tell an implausible tale in a way that almost seems plausible and thereby allow the audience to relate to (and by extension care about) the characters. Achieving that plausability is a matter of knowing when to let up on the miracles and when to pull one out of the hat. Campbell understood this. Ghost Protocol director Brad Bird seems to have missed the memo. If Campbell's Bond didn't have this or that invaluable piece of tech handy he simply broke down the door and beat the crap out of whoever was on the other side. Not the MI team. Even when they're disavowed and the entire MI program shut down they still don't have to improvise, they just access a completely tripped out rail car in the middle of Moscow loaded with everything they'd ever need to do anything. Maybe I was the only one in the theater who groaned when this happened, I couldn't tell because my groan was so loud it drowned out just about everything else.

It's because of this kind of bullying of my suspension of disbelief that I was never able to invest in either the story or the characters. I just knew that when the chips were down they were never really down. Just wait a second and somebody will pull something no one has ever concieved of before, some situation-specific super tech, out of a briefcase and all will be well.

So I sat through the movie enjoying my popcorn a lot more than the story, appreciating the quality of the cinematography, appreciating that Jeremy Renner has a presence Tom Cruise can only dream of and trying to concentrate on the technical wherewithal required to pull off a scene like that which occurs on the exterior of the Burj, though I really didn't care one way or the other if Ethan Hunt plunged to the ground.

"Immortals" - 2011

"Immortals", Indian director Tarsem Singh's entry into the world of the sword and sandal epic, lacks the sly humor of "300", the compelling characterizations of "Gladiator" and the Krakken of "Clash of the Titans" (let's face it was there another reason to see that movie?)

What else can one say about it? Well, it's not actually Greek mythology, the Immortals aren't actually immortal (the film makes it pretty clear that only statues are immortal) and the story - such as it is - is a mess.

For some reason King Hyperion decides it's time to get his hands on the Epirus bow so that he can bring down the myth of the gods once and for all. Thing is, there are so many disbelievers inhabiting the ancient Greece of this story that it seems the myth of the gods was brought down a long time ago or never effectively sold to begin with, so what's the point?

We're given no background on Hyperion at all. Where does he come from? How did he acquire such powers of ultimate badassness? Why is he intent on releasing the Titans when (if he knows his state sponsored religion - as he flatly states he does) he knows that by doing so he'll trigger the clause in the human/gods contract that allows Zeus and Co to enter the fray on the human side? Oh wait! It's because he doesn't believe in the whole Titans/gods thing to begin with so he knows he has nothing to fear. That's right. But, wait a minute, if he doesn't believe in all the supernatural fairy tales then why is he seeking the Epirus bow; a mythical weapon if ever there was one? And why is he intent on releasing the Titans which he doesn't believe even exist?

By this point I don't have a clue but I continue to watch as he goes on a first rate pillaging campaign anyway in an attempt to find the oracle who can tell him how to find the Epirus bow which is part of a mythology he doesn't believe in so that he can release the Titans he doesn't believe exist and thereby bring down the myth of the gods that no longer holds any sway over the majority of people in any event. Uh, sounds good to me.

Along the way he invades a town he states he has no interest in and makes the mistake of killing Theseus' mother in front of Theseus. This prompts Theseus (one of those countless disbelievers that populate the film) to take on the cause of protecting the entire discredited political system Hyperion is laying siege to simply because his mom bought into one part of it and Hyperion killed his mom.

So let me get this straight: what we've got is a villain attempting to find a weapon he doesn't believe exists in order to bring down a system nobody buys into anymore which is defended by a hero who doesn't believe in the system he's defending. Okay. If you say so.

As Hyperion Mickey Rourke spends most of his time channeling Brando from Apocalypse Now (I kept expecting him to say to Theseus; "You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill" but alas...). Granted he's not given a lot to work with, what with all the predictably pompous dialogue and artful posing but he is given a slew of really interesting hats to wear which serve to redeem his character.

Speaking of hats; the aesthetic choices exercised by the creative team are, lets say, interesting. For instance, Zeus has a permanent five o'clock shadow (like he doesn't have time to shave on the eternally dull summit of Mount Olympus?) and the minotaur - who is supposed to be half human, half bull - is instead half human half Picasso sculpture. And speaking of the Minotaur, the only available burial crypt in Theseus' home town just happens to be in the middle of the labyrinth, where for some strange reason there's a 6 foot tall blob of rock that no one seems to notice plopped in among all the geometric precision, and it's apparently been there for some time.

Though the violence in "Immortals" is appropriately symbolic the creative team have chosen as their primary symbol that of the baseball-bat-meets-pumpkin. There are more exploding heads in this single film than may have actually occurred in the entire history of the human race. I find it a curious symbol to hang your pseudo-mythology on but that's just me.

I'm not going to go into how it all wraps up. You already know the end of a film like this before you sit down with your popcorn. Good triumphs over evil (evil being all those things the powerful used to attain power and now want the rest of us to swear off of) and a child is born to ensure a sequel (should the box office warrant it).

Still, with all that said, as long as you don't go into Immortals with any expectations you may emerge thinking "Man, all those exploding heads were really cool!" which is, as far as I can tell, exactly what the film makers want you to think. Either that or "Man, Freida Pinto's body double has a really nice butt!" which works just fine for me.

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" - 2011

The British had an empire once. Not that long ago. The Germans saw to its destruction and the Americans filled the void left by its collapse. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy takes place in the aftermath of that collapse, in a cold war London where the bureaucrats of MI6 yearn to be relevant once again. So blind are they in their pursuit of favor from their "American cousins" that they open themselves up to infiltration and manipulation by agents of the world's other post World War II superpower, the Soviet Union.

"The Circus", as it's called by its denizens, has a mole right near the top. MI6's enigmatic leader (known only as "Control") is on to his presence and in an attempt to discern his identity unwittingly sends an agent into a setup in Eastern Europe. Control's man is captured and believed killed and Control and his right hand man, George Smiley, are forced out in disgrace leaving the Circus with no defenders.

That is until a low level operative by the name of Ricky Tarr surfaces with a story to tell about a woman he met in Istanbul. Tarr's story catches the ear of high level politicians who want to know what the hell is going on at the Circus. In order to ascertain the veracity of Tarr's tall tale they reach out to the disgraced and initially unwilling Smiley and empower him to assemble a small covert team to dig for the truth. What Smiley discovers is Control's mole theory and the movie follows his efforts to expose said mole.

The film captures the ashen inertia of late 60s/early 70s London with grimy precision. It seems like nothing has received a fresh coat of paint since before the war. It's a former imperial capital shrouded in cigarette smoke and swaddled in musty woolen overcoats. Rarely has victory ever tasted so much like defeat. In this regard the filmmakers have succeeded brilliantly in creating a sense of place just as believable as that created by the BBC for the first filmed version of this story back in 1979 when most of the grime and inertia where still there to be filmed first hand.

That 1979 version, starring Alec Guinness as the taciturn but razor sharp George Smiley, spent 5 hours telling a tale that in this new version is compressed into 2 hours. And I'm afraid that this new film makes a pretty convincing argument that the original's length (or at least something close to it) was probably necessary to tell the tale properly. Why? Because this is not a tale of Jason Bourne hurtling himself through a digitally interconnected global village. This is a tale of paper files and personal contact, of the Dover to Calais ferry, soft rain showers, furtive glances and of pieces moved about the chessboard of superpower relations in moves that take years to develop and years more to uncover. The film certainly tries to give inertia its due in the performances, many of which are splendid. Where it drops the ball is in trying to make up for the time consumed by all those long looks and carefully choreographed, character-building interactions with editing that cuts such huge chunks out of the narrative that the story becomes almost incomprehensible after only 15 minutes. And this is a shame because the film sports one of the strongest casts in recent memory and I'm pretty sure that if the film were given an appropriate run time we'd be looking at Oscar nominations for several of the leads, most notably Gary Oldman, who gives Sir Alec a run for his money. We might even be looking at this as a serious candidate for Best Picture.

Hell, given the competition numerous Oscars might still be in the cards but it's far from a sure thing because unless you go into the movie with a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the story you'll probably emerge scratching your head; impressed but puzzled.

I'm not the kind of guy who sits around waiting for "the director's cut" or "special extended version" of this or that film to be released but in this case I'm going to make an exception.

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Dec 30 - Jan 1, 2012

1) Mission Impossible 4	$29.4 Million
2) Sherlock Holmes 2	$20.8 Million
3) The Chipmunks 3	$16.3 Million
4) Girl w/the Dragon Tattoo	$14.8 Million
5) War Horse	$14.4 Million
6) We Bought A Zoo	$13.2 Million
7) Adventures of Tintin	$11.4 Million
8) New Years Eve	$6.3 Million
9) The Darkest Hour	$4.1 Million
10) The Descendants	$3.3 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Universal's "Little Fockers" which held on to the top spot for a second week with a $25.7 million haul.

Top 10 box office hits of the year 2011

All in all business at the domestic box office was the lowest since 1995. Something tells me it had a lot to do with virtually no big movies being produced that weren't followed by a number. Just to drive that point home it should be noted that 8 of the top 10 worldwide box office hits of the year were sequels and it's a trend that doesn't show any signs of letting up. On the bright side global box office hit an all time high this year so somebody is going out to the theater and that's all that really counts.

1) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2	$1.32 Billion
2) Transformers: Dark of the Moon	$1.12 Billion
3) Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	$1.02 Billion
4) Kung Fu Panda 2	$665.7 Million
5) Twilight: Breaking Dawn Pt 1	$653.7 Million
6) Fast Five	$626.1 Million
7) The Hangover Part 2	$581.5 Million
8) The Smurfs	$562.5 Million
9) Cars 2	$551.9 Million
10) Rio	$484.6 Million

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Dec 23 - Dec 25, 2011

1) Mission Impossible 4	$29.5 Million
2) Sherlock Holmes 2	$20.2 Million
3) Girl w/the Dragon Tattoo	$12.7 Million
4) The Chipmunks 3	$12.5 Million
5) The Adventures of Tintin	$9.7 Million
6) We Bought A Zoo	$9.3 Million
7) War Horse	$7.5 Million
8) New Years Eve	$3.3 Million
9) The Darkest Hour	$3 Million
10) The Muppets	$2.1 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Universal's "Little Fockers"
which debuted in the top spot with a $30.8 million haul.

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Dec 16 - Dec 18, 2011

1) Sherlock Holmes 2	$39.6 Million
2) Chipmunks 3	$23.2 Million
3) Mission Impossible 4	$12.7 Million
4) New Year's Eve	$7.3 Million
5) The Sitter	$4.6 Million
6) Twilight: Breaking Dawn 1	$4.1 Million
7) Hugo	$3.7 Million
8) Arthur Christmas	$3.5 Million
9) The Muppets	$3.5 Million
10) Young Adult	$3.4 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Buena Vista's "Tron Legacy" which debuted in the top spot with a $44 million haul.

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Dec 9 - Dec 9, 2011

1) New Year's Eve	$13 Million
2) The Sitter	$9.8 Million
3) Twilight - Breaking Dawn	$7.8 Million
4) The Muppets	$6.9 Million
5) Arthur Christmas	$6.5 Million
6) Hugo	$6 Million
7) The Descendants	$4.3 Million
8) Happy Feet 2	$3.6 Million
9) Jack and Jill	$3 Million
10) Immortals	$2.4 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Fox's "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"
which debuted in the top spot with a $24 million haul.

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Dec 2 - Dec 4, 2011

1) Twilight - Breaking Dawn	$16.5 Million
2) The Muppets	$11 Million
3) Hugo	$7.5 Million
4) Arthur Christmas	$7.4 Million
5) Happy Feet Two	$5.9 Million
6) Jack and Jill	$5.3 Million
7) The Descendants	$4.7 Million
8) Immortals	$4.4 Million
9) Tower Heist	$3.9 Million
10) Puss in Boots	$3 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Buena Vista's "Tangled" which overtook "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1" for the top spot in it's second week of release with a $21.6 million haul.

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Nov 25 - Nov 27, 2011

1) Twilight - Breaking Dawn	$41 Million
2) The Muppets	$29.2 Million
3) Happy Feet 2	$13.3 Million
4) Arthur Christmas	$12 Million
5) Hugo	$11.3 Million
6) Jack and Jill	$10 Million
7) Immortals	$8.8 Million
8) Puss in Boots	$7.5 Million
9) The Descendants	$7.3 Million
10) Tower Heist	$7.1 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 which held on to the top spot for a second week with a $49 million haul.

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Nov 11 - Nov 13, 2011

1) Immortals	$32 Million
2) Jack and Jill	$25 Million
3) Puss in Boots	$24.7 Million
4) Tower Heist	$12.7 Million
5) J. Edgar	$11.2 Million
6) Harold and Kumar Christmas	$5.9 Million
7) In Time	$4 Million
8) Paranormal Activity 3	$3.6 Million
9) Footloose	$2.7 Million
10) Real Steel	$1.8 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Megamind which held on to the top spot for a second week with a $29
million haul.

"Unknown" - 2011

An American emerges from a coma in Europe to find his life doesn't add up. He then sets out to construct a picture of himself using the ill-fitting pieces presented to him. Along the way he picks up a wandering Euro-gal who, though reluctant to help anyone, (she's had a hard life you see), nevertheless goes to extraordinary lengths to help him. What they discover sets them on a collision course with powers beyond their imagination and causes him to renounce his pre-coma life in its entirety.

You could lift that paragraph and use it to summarize "The Bourne Identity" without changing a word. The stories are so similar you could probably replace scenes from "Unknown" with scenes from The Bourne Identity and not change the movie at all. Check that. You'd have a better movie if you did that because TBI was a complete (if somewhat far fetched) movie. Unknown relies way too heavily in its second half on characters standing still and explaining everything the film makers couldn't figure out how to explain using moving pictures. It's painful to watch. In theory I don't mind a film scamming on another films storyline. It's done all the time and when it's done well I'm able to better appreciate aspects of the original movie I may have missed. But in this case the only thing that's accomplished by Unknown's glumming onto TBI's narrative is a no-holds-barred demonstration of the difference between film makers who know what they're doing and those that don't. 

Director Jaume Collet-Serra is positioning himself perfectly for a career in B-movies, territory the screenwriters know only too well and where, hopefully, they'll stay until they learn their craft. The chase sequences are lame in the extreme when compared to their Bourne brethren. The supporting characters are little more than cardboard cutouts whose mouths move and all that but whose real purpose is to fill space within the boundaries of the screen and look 'realistic' without behaving or speaking thus. The special effects look like they paid about $20 for them. Really. I don't know exactly what was said by the studio types who okayed these visual travesties, but I have an idea: "Sure it looks like crap. But it's Liam people are coming to see. Just hit render and get on with it!"

I really don't want to spend any more of my one and only life thinking or writing about this film so I'm not going to. Let's just say that at the end of the reel Unknown is a complete waste of time and money. I'll be watching for the release date of the sequel so I can plan on doing something else that night.

"Rosa" - An animated short by Jesus Orellana

While this blog focuses on major studio releases and related news every so often something will catch our eye from an independent film maker that deserves attention. Such is the case with Jesus Orellana's "cyberpunk" animated short film "Rosa". Created during a single year by Orellana, a young comic artist, Rosa depicts events that take place immediately after the cyborg Rosa awakens in a post-apocalyptic future (is there any other kind these days?) to discover she is not alone. While the short is completely devoid of dialogue and makes no attempt to explain who created Rosa or her pursuers or exactly what sort of apocalypse befell the planet the short is remarkable for its detail and tone. It's been a major hit a film festivals around the world and is allegedly being developed into a live action full length Hollywood feature.

Here's the complete short.

ROSA from
Jesús Orellana on Vimeo.

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Nov 4 - Nov 6, 2011

1) Puss in Boots	$33 Million
2) Tower Heist	$24 Million
3) A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas	$12.9 Million
4) Paranormal Activity 3	$8.3 Million
5) In Time	$7.4 Million
6) Footloose	$4.4 Million
7) Real Steel	$3.4 Million
8) The Rum Diary	$2.9 Million
9) The Ides of March	$1.9 Million
10) Moneyball	$1.7 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Megamind which debuted in the top spot with a $46 million haul.

How Hagrid Survived the Hallows

Hagrid pleads his case

According to ew.com one of the extras to the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II Blu-ray edition is a lively exchange between creator J.K. Rowling and Harry himself Daniel Radcliff during which Rowling discusses the story's character arcs. At one point while discussing Hagrid she mentions that the thing that saved him from being killed off was a vision she had of the story's end with Hagrid carrying an apparently dead Harry out of the Forbidden Forest. To her this image created a perfect symmetry with the story's beginning where Hagrid carried the baby wizard to the doorstep of the Dursleys. Rowling states: "That image kept him safe". Whew!

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Oct 28 - Oct 30 2011

1) Puss in Boots	$34 Million
2) Paranormal Activity 3	$18.1 Million
3) In Time	$12 Million
4) Footloose	$5.5 Million
5) The Run Diary	$5.1 Million
6) Real Steel	$4.7 Million
7) The Three Musketeers	$3.5 Million
8) The Ides of March	$2.8 Million
9) Moneyball	$2.3 Million
10) Courageous	$1.8 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Saw 3D which debuted at number 1 with a $22.5 million haul.

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Oct 21 - Oct 23 2011

1) Paranormal Activity 3	$52.5 Million
2) Real Steel	$10.8 Million
3) Footloose	$10.3 Million
4) The Three Musketeers	$8.6 Million
5) The Ides of March	$4.8 Million
6) Dolphin Tale	$4.2 Million
7) Moneyball	$3.9 Million
8) Johnny English Reborn	$3.8 Million
9) The Thing	$3.0 Million
10) 50/50	$2.8 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was Paranormal Activity 2 which debuted at number 1 with a $40.6 million haul. (Should we pencil in Paranormal 4 as the number one movie for this weekend next year?)

The top 10 movies for the weekend of Oct 7 - Oct 9 2011

1) Real Steel	$27.3 Million
2) The Ides of March	$10.4 Million
3) Dolphin Tale	$9.1 Million
4) MOneyball	$7.4 Million
5) 50/50	$5.6 Million
6) Courageous	$4.8 Million
7) The Lion King 3D	$4.5 Million
8) Dream House	$4.4 Million
9) What's Your Number?	$3.1 Million
10) Contagion	$2.9 Million

The number one movie a year ago this week was The Social Network which held the top spot for the second weekend in a row with a $15.4 Million haul.