Trailer - 'Serious Moonlight' Looks Seriously Flawed

Did you know that "some threatening behavior" is a reason to give a film a R rating? And would you suspect a movie written by the late Adrienne Shelly (Waitress) and directed by Curb Your Enthusiasm's Cheryl Hines would have that ratings board warning hanging over its head?

The movie is Serious Moonlight, and it stars Meg Ryan, Timothy Hutton, and Kristen Bell as points along a bizarre love triangle. It played the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and will be released in December. I loved Waitress; it's one of the better films from 2007. This, though, does not look any good at all. I'm sure there was a point where Meg Ryan was convincing, but that time seems to have passed. I mean, even in these little moments in the trailer, she seems completely disconnected with the material. The unfortunate thing in this case is that Ryan's the selling point, as she is supposed to be in most of her movies.

Click to read more ...

Box Office - Coen Brothers 'Burn' the Competition

Congratulations to Joel and Ethan Coen, who proved this weekend that their movies don't have to open in New York and Los Angeles, build positive word of mouth, and slowly open across the country. This weekend, in wide release, the Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading was the number one movie in the country, which may not have been the biggest surprise, although its near-$20 million debut was a few million more than a lot of predictions.

Our pick to take the top spot, Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys, opened in second place, followed by Righteous Kill and The Women, according to weekend estimates released by Box Office Mojo. In just three days, Burn After Reading has already outperformed the brothers' The Big Lebowski, and will surpass the domestic grosses of both Raising Arizona and Fargo within the next four or five days at the max. It may not be their biggest hit ever, because last year's No Country for Old Men made about $80 million, but it has a good shot at being only their second film to break $50 million. Tyler Perry's new drama did outperform Burn After Reading on the per-screen basis, but played in fewer theaters overall, which, along with the strong performance of Burn, kept Family from vaulting to number one. Righteous Kill, which was heavily advertising its two leads, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, had a much lower per-screen average than either of the top two films. Usually, a new release that hits over 3,000 theaters has a good shot to take number one, especially against movies that aren't in that many theaters. Currently, Righteous Kill is in the most theaters of any movie in the country, but it wasn't good enough.

Click to read more ...

Movie Review - 'The Women'

The Women

Starring Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Debra Messing
Directed by Diane English
Rated PG-13

As advertised, The Women has no male characters. Not one. There's not a passer-by, a waiter, or a cab driver in this movie that has a Y chromosome. We do get plenty of women, though - Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Jada Pinkett Smith, Debra Messing, and Eva Mendes are the principals, and we also see a fair amount of Cloris Leachman, plus a little bit of Carrie Fisher, Candice Bergen, and Bette Midler. Inarguably, this movie will attract crowds just for that reason. What a shame, then, there's absolutely nothing else to see here. The Women is trying to add a fresh coat of paint on an extremely popular TV show that scored huge numbers in theaters earlier this summer; think of it as Extramarital Sex and the City. That's not an oversimplification on my part, but rather on the part of writer-director Diane English, who has created four women of varying strength and experience and put them in New York City to explore their relationships. There's a powerful magazine editor (Bening), the lesbian (Pinkett-Smith), the bohemian baby factory (Messing), and the happily married clothing designer (Ryan). They talk about love and sex. How novel. But when we learn that Meg Ryan's happy marriage isn't so happy, and that her unseen husband has been fooling around with Eva Mendes, she begins to question everything: Should she try to work on the marriage or work on herself? Can she compromise and do both? Should she kick the scheming bastard to the curb? What's Eva Mendes got that she doesn't have? OK...maybe she doesn't need to ask herself that last question. Boiled down, that's all The Women is really about: What should Meg Ryan do now that her husband has cheated on her? Sure, there are subplots, like Bening's tenuous employment at the magazine and Messing's fifth pregnancy in what can't be more than seven years, and did we mention Jada Pinkett Smith plays a lesbian? Well, she is. And if you don't believe me, just ask her character; it's all she ever talks about. About now, you may be defending this film by saying that I'm a guy and what do I know? Of course I'd hate this. Come on: I really liked the first Traveling Pants movie. That should be all I need to say. However, I'll add that I deeply enjoyed the musical 8 Women, which not only had just as many female characters but was also a musical...in French, and that the original George Cukor film The Women, based on the Clare Boothe Luce play, is a far superior version of the exact same story. Minus the lesbian. Wisely, Diane English gave Cloris Leachman a handful of scenes. Even at 82, any movie featuring Leachman is improved by her performance. Unwisely, English had made less of a movie and more of a soft collection of independent scenes. Many of them go nowhere and all of them add up to a terribly insufficient ending.

Fearless Forecast: Tyler Perry 'Preys' on 'Burn' and 'Righteous Kill'

With all the movie stars hitting theaters this weekend - everyone from Clooney and Pitt to De Niro and Pacino to Meg Ryan - I have a feeling the box office will belong to Tyler Perry. A few weeks ago, I read an article about Perry's remarkable success; Forbes has its eye on him to become one of the next billionaires in show business. Last year, for example, he made more money than Tom Cruise, Jennifer Maniston, and Bon Jovi... combined. You can't do that working outside the system, as Perry does, without loads of fans. They usually pick smart weekends for his new movies; you'll never see Madea go up against Batman, for example. This week, there are a lot of new flicks, but none of them have that $40 million opening aura. So it's a perfect time to release another Tyler Perry film, in this case, the drama The Family That Preys. Of the other major releases, I expect Burn After Reading to do the best business. It's been as heavily marketed as any Focus Features movie I can remember, the Coens just won Oscars, and Clooney and Pitt onscreen together is usually a good formula. Positive reviews should help, too. Righteous Kill is selling De Niro and Pacino, and that's about it. In fact, I saw a commercial last night that said: "De Niro...Pacino...What else do you need to know?" Unfortunately for Righteous Kill, those guys aren't big, big stars anymore. Look at their past few films, and you'll see that outside of Meet the Fockers, there's nothing to write home about. And can The Women get that Sex and the City audience to flood the theaters, at least on opening night? Uh...no. The Top Five: 1 - The Family That Preys ($16 million)
2 - Burn After Reading ($14 million)
3 - Righteous Kill ($12.5 million)
4 - The Women ($11 million)
5 - Tropic Thunder ($4.5 million)