Weekend Report
by Leonard Klady

The opening salvo of 2009 looked a lot like the last gasp of 2008 with cuddly Marley and Me leading ticket sales with an estimated $24.2 million. Despite the absence of new national releases box office rose 9% from last year’s first weekend.

Initial data pegs domestic revenues for 2008 at $9.79 billion and a slight 1% increase from the prior year. However admissions once again declined. The drop in ticket sales is approximately 6%.

Weekend Estimates (Full List)
Domestic Market Share
Top Domestic Grossers

3-Day Estimates	Weekend	% Chg	Cume
Marley and Me	24.2	-33%	106.7
Bedtime Stories	20.6	-25%	85.7
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button	18.2	-32%	78.8
Valkyrie	13.8	-34%	60.6
Yes Man	13.7	-18%`	79.3
Seven Pounds	10.0	`-24%	60.1
The Tale of Despereaux	7.0	-21%	43.7
Doubt	4.9	-8%	18.6
The Day the Earth Stood Still	4.9	-37%	74.4
Slumdog Millionaire	4.6	8%	28.6

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Voices
The Muse Behind Daisy
by Mark Wheaton

In the film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Cate Blanchett plays a willowy ballet dancer who begins her career in what would have been one of the first classes of the School of American Ballet in New York, going on to become a favorite of choreographer George Balanchine, an instructor there. 

For fans of ballet, particularly of Balanchine, this story should sound familiar as it mirrors closely the life of Balanchine’s fourth wife, Tanaquil Le Clercq. 

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Wilmington on Movies
Ten Best Movies of 2008
by Michael Wilmington

Anyone who loves movies or rock n’ roll, or both, and doesn’t get blown away at Shine a Light -- the roaring new concert film/documentary with the Rolling Stones, directed by Martin Scorsese -- just isn‘t trying. This great picture is the vibrant record of a live 2006 concert at Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre on the “Bigger Bang“ tour -- and it’s thrilling and sexy and knock-you-on-your-ass brilliant.
Wilmington's Best DVDs of 2008

Defiance	-				-
Good		-	-	-	-
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button	-
Revolutionary Road	-				-
Valkyrie	-		-	-
The Spirit	-	-	-	-
Bedtime Stories	-	-	-	-
The Wrestler	-	-	-	-
Seven Pounds	-	-	-	-	-
Nothing But the Truth	-		-	-	-
Yes Man	-	-	-	-
Doubt	-			-	-
Gran Torino	-			-

221 Top Ten lists tallied; 236 films; 89 films with just a single vote; both Wall-E and The Dark Knight are each listed 21 times at #1; Iron Man moves into the top 30; and Wall-E appears on almost 70% of all lists. Updated Top Ten Scoreboard The Top Ten Lists

Headlines, Awards, Top Tens, Features and Reviews at MCN's Awards Watch.

20 Weeks of Oscar
The Latest Whine
by David Poland

"Why aren't these Oscar movies in more theaters?!?!"

New York Times ... Variety ... LA Times ... yadda, yadda, yadda..

Worst of all, these are all veteran reporters who, if they don't know it like the back of their hand as factual detail, should at least be able to smell the absurdity reeking from these stories.

It's the marketing, stupid.

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Oscar Outsider
Which Men Should Get Oscar Nods ... And Which Men Shouldn't
by Kim Voynar

And just to clarify up front: this is a discussion of who I think most deserves to be nominated for the Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor categories, not who I think the Academy, in all its collective wisdom, is likely to put there. There are others who are far better at playing the Oscar ponies than I am, and I'll let them have at that game; meanwhile, I offer you the following thoughts on which actors most deserve a shot at going home on Oscar night with a naked golden man in their arms.

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Frenzy On The Wall
The List
by Noah Forrest

I love reading top ten lists because I like to see the explanation of why that particular critic placed that particular film in that particular spot. I think it’s a great barroom discussion, and I encourage readers to please tell me why I’m a moron for my placement of certain films or why I’m brilliant. That’s why this is really one of my favorite columns to write; because those arguments, those discussions are so important to my enjoyment of film, I get to be -- hopefully -- awed by what I see on screen and then I have to find the words to express that feeling. It’s a beautiful thing.

Okay, enough, let’s go to the list!

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The Ultimate DVD Geek
The Top Ten DVDs and BDs
of 2008
by Doug Pratt

In assessing the best DVD releases of 2008, the BD format has been singled out only if it offers a significant programming or playback improvement over its DVD counterpart. When both formats are cited, the BD is preferable, but the DVD still offers essentially the same value and quality, particularly if you just want to watch the movie in your bedroom at night without disturbing the rest of the house. DVDs and BDs may well end up existing side by side until a scheme to download high-end video playback replaces them both.

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MCN DVD
Towelhead

If provocation could be measured, Alan Ball's shocking coming-of-age drama would rate 10 on a scale of 10. Towelhead is, at once, deeply empathetic, unabashedly exploitative and impossible to ignore. At its best, it forces viewers to balance their visceral and intellectual responses to depictions of overt racism, ethnic stereotyping, statutory rape, pedophilia, pornography, synthetic patriotism and parental rights.


Also .. Baghead, Eagle Eye, The Duchess, Surfer Dude, Ghost Town, Savage Grace, The Secret Life of the American Teenager: Season 1

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The Gurus look at Best Picture once more before the New Year, and the field narrows to only nine films. Gurus December 30 Gurus: December 12 Gurus: December 9 Gurus: December 2

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Digital Nation
'Tis the Oscar Season
by Gary Dretzka

By choosing the handsome Aussie leading man, Hugh Jackman, it's clear that TV-based celebrities no longer can be expected to reverse the negative tides. It also helps that he's popular with the theater community and readers of People magazine.

At ABC, though, I suspect executives are lighting candles at this very moment, summoning divine intervention. Their best-case scenario would find both Wall-E and The Dark Knight among the Best Picture finalists. It could happen. Both pictures were terrific entertainments, box-office smashes and critically acclaimed. The only thing not in their favor is tradition.

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Voynaristic
Taking a Wrong Turn on Revolutionary Road
by Kim Voynar

Revolutionary Road is not a story about suburban angst; it's a story about the illusions people create to sustain their belief in who they are and who they wish they were. Lee Siegel, writing for The Wall Street Journal, has a piece up titled "Why Does Hollywood Hate the Suburbs? America's Long Artistic Tradition of Claiming Spiritual Death By Station Wagon," which unfortunately completely misreads both the film Revolutionary Road and the book from which it was adapted.

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Rush to Judgment
Eye of the Navel 2008
by Leonard Klady

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Compiling a “best of” list reflects one’s mood on the day of doing the deed. The films most recently seen are advantaged because one’s had less time to ruminate about their qualities.

Today I’m feeling more magnanimous than usual and have made a list that runs to a baker’s dozen. Ironically, only a handful are films that I consider truly distinguished but the rest fall a rung below and spill over the obligatory minion that has become the standard.

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Pride, Unprejudiced
The Reader, Benjamin Button, Seven Pounds and Gran Torino
by Ray Pride

Holy Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award! Gran Torino is a dark comedy, an engaged anecdote about class and race, a stripped-down example of palooka art, and Clint Eastwood, at 78, has made a modest, yet almost radical entertainment. It's a gleeful astonishment.

It's an "if-you-have-but-eyes-to-see" kind of movie: if you sense the genuine, glorious strengths of Gran Torino, you can appreciate its idiosyncratic carborundum grace. If not, you'll be asking your date, "And WTF was that ending?"

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DP/30
Ellen Kuras Netakhoon (The Betrayal)	Matteo Garrone Gomorrah	Elsa Zylberstein I've Loved You So Long
Man On Wire The Producers	Ari Folman Lunch With Bashir	Kristin Scott Thomas I've Loved You So Long
The Entire DP/30 Catalog

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Frenzy On The Podcast
Gomorrah's Matteo Garrone
by Noah Forrest

This week Noah talks Matteo Garrone, director of Gomorrah, about Italian mafia, Italian cinema and the conventions of the American gangster movie..

Noah also talks with ..
John Patrick Shanley
J. Michael Straczynski

Oscar Gets Oscar.Org(anized)

"There's a reason women are obsessed with shoes. They're complex in their structure, because the foot is complex. Most people think of the foot as being the end of an 'L', whereas in fact the foot is as complicated as the hand and almost as dexterous. Now the headline's going to be 'Foot Fetishist Frank Miller'!"
Ever-Quotable Frank Miller Draws On The Spirit Of Shoes

A Pointed Analysis Of Why 2009 Might Be Nail In The Coffin For Newspapers

Thieves Who Stole Alleged Fraudster Madoff's Palm Beach Statue, Then Returned With Message, Inspired By 2004 German Pic, The Edukators

From 1974, When He Was A Callow Youth Of But 58, Stanley Kaufmann Explains Why He's Not Bored At The Picture Show

"An astonishing comprehension that is sometimes a little close to cruelty."
James Wood On Revolutionary Road And Richard Yates

Ebert Ponders Why The Media Clusters Up To Further The Fall of Stars

"Diane Keaton's career needs to be taken into protective custody until its owner comes to her senses and stops buggin'."

Kalamazoo Journo Looks At The Frustration Of Small-City Moviegoers With Platform Releases

Making A Case For What Skills Each Of Danny Boyle's Movies Contributed To Slumdog Success

Pat Hingle, 84, Commissioner Gordon In 1990s Bat-Movies; Much TV Work As Well On the Waterfront, Norma Rae And Talledega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby

Viola Davis, Doubtless

A £10,000 Refit Saves La Charette, One Of World's Smallest Cinemas, A 23-Seat Railway Carriage With Flock Wallpaper And Hand-Operated Curtains

Spike Lee On Obamamania

Uni's Deal To Offload Rogue Pictures To Relativity Media Sealed For $150M

Shoots Scarce On L. A. Streets

Sword-And-Sandal Stalwart Edmund Purdom Was 84

"Nobody here is looking for a new job. The store remains an extremely viable business, and the entire staff wants to carry on the legacy of Book Soup."
Glenn Goldman, Owner Of Book Soup, 58, Dies Day After Announcing Plan To Sell H'wd's Repository Of What Lies Between Covers

National Society Of Film Critics Go Hyper-Topical, Naming Waltz With Bashir Year's Best; Nods To Penn, Hawkins; Marsan, Schygulla; Man On Wire; Two For Mike Leigh

The Sunday Times Shoulders The Little Gold Man
Checking In With Oscarcast Producers Condon And Mark
Plus - The Bagger Loves Anne Hathaway's Smile But Likes Her Baring Fangs, Too
And - Lim Talks Script With Writers Of Che, W., Milk
Plus - Times Crickets Chirp Their Oscar Faves
And - Kehr-Bear Considers Past Best Picture Lummoxes
With - Langella On Nixon's "Immortal Longings"
And - Dargis Considers That Synecdoche, New York May Take Place, Not Only In A Single Lifetime, But In A Single Minute
"What makes all of this cohere is art, and history. This is how change happens. This is what it looks like."
Plus - Scott Drinks In Milk
And - McCarter Takes Occasion With Brando Bio To Sideswipe Orson Welles

"Everything I learned about love I learned from the movies."
The Times Ring-A-Ding-Dings In The New Year By Talking Movie Love With 1,182-Year-Old Hugh Hefner

FWIW, There's 480 Episodes Of Radio's "Gunsmoke" Right Here

Writer Jon Raymond On His Unusual Collaborations With Wendy & Lucy's Kelly Reichardt

Genius Products, DVD Distrib 70% Owned By WeinsteinCo, Delisted By Its Stock Exchange For Lack Of Timely Fiscal Reports

Eddie Izzard Refuses Request For Note To Mumbai Terror Victim Who Missed His Show; Instead Performs Entire 90-Minute Stand-Up Set At His Bedside

Only In The Oscar Race, Kids. Only In The Oscar Race
LouLu On His Doubt Blurb Oddly Blending With Another From His Post Peer, The Ageless Cindy Adams

Twin Sisters Make Video Installation From Bits Of "Aryan Papers," Kubrick's Unmade Holocaust Tale

107 Lovely Title Cards To Movies You Mostly Won't Want To See

Charting Newspaper Share Value Wipeout: It Looks A Lot Like Prodigious Icicles

"Complex as it is, The Reader is really a love story, not a probing art movie. And we see Kate Winslet’s bum. ‘It’s a fantastic shot, isn’t it?’ Sir David enthuses. ‘It’s one of the most powerful shots. Because you believe that she’s a real working-class woman.’"

"The Lost Pleasures Of Rumble Fish"

Rosario's Naturally A Nerd

Mick LaSalle Counts Off 10 Reasons Revolutionary Road Is The Year's Best

You Are The Kind Of Person Who Wonders How Bright Lights, Big City Is Still Talked About Today And Why Jay McInerney Is Trashing The (Bad) Film Version Today

The Historian Whose Book Inspired Defiance Is Surprised By Her Experience

See Seven Swell Title Sequences With A Faster, Faster, Faster Fetish

Are These The 50 Best Movie SFX Shots Ever?

Cannes All Lost In The Huppert-Market; Isabelle H. To Head 2009 Jury

Universal's Big Mamma 2008

A Chicago Reader Editor Recalls When He And Ebert Were Dueling High School Editors
And - Another Considers Ebert's Blog-Role As "Public Intellectual"

Fred Knittle, 83, Sang Climactic "Fix You" in Young@Heart

Liev Schreiber, Happily Ever After

Donald Westlake, Writer Of Stepfather And 90 Books, Including Source Novels Of Point Blank, The Hot Rock And The Grifters, Was 75

Lim Is On Time's Side And Fincher's, Too

The 10 Best Films Of 1918

London Mayor Quotes Col. Kilgore In New Year Message

Philip Egan, A Tucker Designer And Lucasfilm Sound Technologist, Was 88

Producer-Provocateur Ted Hope Asks, "What Do You Want Our Film Culture To Be?"

With Amy Adams As Spunky Amelia Earhart!
Fox Launches Its Night At The Museum II Trailer At… Wait… Wait… HappyMeal.Com

The Officially-Titled Inglourious Basterds Opens August 21 (Go, QT, Go!)

Pinter Directs Own Funeral

John Waters Explains Why To Lvoe Christmas In 5 Mnutes (audio)

"It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to."
Chip McGrath Pages The Silent J. D. Salinger On His 90th

"Being nude was weird. And now I'm seeming like the actress who does that, which wasn't my intention."
Marisa Tomei Talks Hula-Hoop

A Blogger Synopsizes Two Movies, Or Are They The Same, Or Do They Just Share The Same Oscar-Winning Screenwriter?

"Woody Allen must continue his sexy success by directing a porn flick. Preferably starring Daniel Craig."
Lauren Wissot Wishes For A Wet, Wild 2009 At The Movies

"The act of live-blogging is almost entirely pointless. Those who can’t fathom watching something on television without another person’s witty commentary should just invite a friend over."

"I got a Google alert: 'This is to inform you that you're apparently no longer with us.'"
Scripter Larry Gelbart, 81, Laughs At His "Fatal Stroke"

Quel Knell Pell Mell!
"Nat Hentoff wrote liner notes for every great musician that I’ve ever loved, from Billie Holiday to Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin, and that’s not even what he’s been writing about for the last 30 years."
Ringing In 2009, Troubled Village Voice Cashes Out Hentoff At Age Of "83 1/2," Staffer Since 1958; Also Lynn Yaeger, 30 Years On
And - In Current New Yorker, Louis Menand Considers The VOICE (complete only for subs)
While - At Bright Old Age of 92, New Republican Film Cricket Stanley Kaufmann, Also 50 Years Into Gig, Ought Wonder About Will Of Asper Family-CanWest Combine

"I now do not want to fight against the new stream. I just want to disappear calmly."
The Daily News On Kim's Video's Rental Collection Taking Slow Boat To Sicily
Earlier - 55,000 Vids Shipping Off To Ancient Sicilian Village Of Salemi

Toast The New Year With Your Fave Classic Movie Star Cocktail

Was This The Last Christmas For Retail CDs?

UK Gov't To Solicit For Private Firm To Track All Phone Calls, TXTs, Email And Internet Trails

Cincy Enquirer Feels The Shrinkage
And - OC Weekly Shakes Three Editors From The Tree

Daddy, What's A Strike?
Top SAG Big Sends Members Mixed Missive; Sez He Hopes Strike Won't Happen, But If It Did, It Wouldn't Shutter Industry

"This year's movie awards season has played out like Oscar night at Minsky's. At least a dozen of the supposedly hottest contenders are being teased out to the public in peekaboo release patterns."
The Big Cieper Comes Down With A Touch Of The Bagger (Why Not "Oscar Night At The Spearmint Rhino"?)

Hollywood & Fine Asks That You Kindly Shut The Hell Up

Leonard Maltin Lists "The 5 Best You Didn't See," Mixing A Couple Of Greats With Mehhhh...

FCC Chief Drops Porn Filtering From Fed Free Wireless Broadband Plan
And - Check Out "Save The Internet"

MSNBC's Conflicted Messages About Investing In Quality Docs Like Dear Zachary

Why Gatsby Will Be Baz's Honey Trap

Six New Coraline Featurettes

Considering The Non-Critics Who Want Clint On Deck For Oscar Batting

A Demand For A Different Sort Of Button Baby (Spoilers)

"The Terminators may be an army of unstoppable robots hellbent on the destruction of the human race, but they'll always be welcome in the Library of Congress."

The Softer Side Of Sam Peckinpah

Zeitchik On Hic!s And Hops On Oscar Path

"Your career provides testimony to my theory that 'innate talent' wins the day, but you're beginning to negate that talent by trying too g--d--- hard."
Pete Pious V Open-Letters Will Smith (Spoilers)

Gameshow-Wallah Anil Kapoor Talks Slumdog With Times Of India

Whipp Beat Down, But Up Again As LAT Freelancer; Sniff-Sniff-Whimpers Along With Marley

AJ Schnack Balances Argument For Man On Wire For Best Pic FYC

Popeye Hits Public Domain In EU On Thursday

Chicagoist Makes Excuses For Missing 10 Films They Really, Really Wanted To See

Warhol's Two Minutes With Spielberg

A. R. Rahman On Scoring Slumdog

Retailers May Close 73,000 Stores In First Half Of 2009

Hulu's Streaming The Times Of Harvey Milk

"The old model for compensating journalists is as obsolete as the telegraph. If anyone out there in the blogosphere can tell me what the new model is, I will pronounce him the first genius I've ever encountered on the Internet."

Fox Wants Watchmen Postponement; Warner Lawyer Sez Settlement Unlikely

Mark Cuban Buys 9.4% Of Fourth-Largest Theater Chain

Oscar Invites 281 Features To The 2009 Foodfight

Why You Should Know Who Michael Shannon Is
And - Shannon Does "The Hw'd Interview"

In Tribute To Tom, Great Moments In Eye Patches

Hot Docs' Sean Farnel On Why To Go To The Dubai Film Festival

How Therapeutic Was Waltz With Bashir For Director Ari Folman?

The Bagger Sez Globes Will Party Like It's 2007
And - Oscar-Pitching To Vacationing Members

Woody Allen Plays To 3,000 In Warsaw
And - Likely To Make Next Pic In The City Of Light (And Euros)

"You should discard ideology and partisanship. This is no time for playing to the crowd. That is all over with. This is the hour to seek what might lead us back from the brink."
Ebert Offers Message For Politicos As Things Fall Apart

Academic Claims Rap Music Originated In Medieval Taverns Of Scotland

"If you look back at the people who created the Internet, they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach. I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now."
Brit Red-Taper Wants To Corral Net
While - The Wizards In Oz Want To "Filter" The World

Chris McQuarrie Goes Long On The Construction Of Valkyrie

Ann Savage, Fatale-est Of Femmes In Detour, Most Fearsome Of Moms In My Winnipeg, Was 87
And - Savage Talks Detour (video)

"God, I hope we can recreate some of those crazy-ass costumes. Our version of Cleopatra will be like an Elvis musical in 3-D. It's a total rock'n'roll, 1966 aesthetic–like Viva Las Vegas meets Tommy."
Soderbergh Plays With Historical Figures

Considering Pinter As Primo Screenwriter
While - "There is a dark side to the human psyche, but there is also a lighter, more optimistic and appealing side to it that Pinter chose never to acknowledge."
Theater Critic Of Conservative Telegraph Fusses That Barbarian Pinter Will Not Be Remembered