Cameron Crowe »

In Her Shoes, the Toni Colette/Cameron Diaz/Curtis Hanson collaboration that virtually disapeared as soon as it opened in the States, has now conquered the UK box office. As much as I'd like to tell you this happened because the Brits have an appreciation for Shirley MacLaine that we, sadly, cannot keep up with, it would appear that the Shoes victory is more than likely based on a lack of tough competition. The second-place film of the weekend was Nanny McPhee, which stars Emma Thompson as some kind of "magical governess". The rest of the British top ten is literred with long-forgotten US releases, from the much-maligned (Elizabethtown) to the hysterically over-praised (The Constant Gardener).

The kids may or may not be alright, but if there was any doubt over whether or not they steer movie grosses, this weekend's returns should put that worry to bed. The game-sourced Doom opened in first place, with a paltry $15.4 million, while the second and third place slots found filler in the family-friendly Dreamer and Wallace and Gromit. Overall, the weekend was way down from the comparable frame from last year. Most of that owes to last year's Halloween smash, The Grudge, which opened with a ridiculous $39 million. But some spots are sorer than others: we'll not have to worry about the staying power of Stay, which flopped so badly with $2.1 million that it won't even make the Top Ten chart. And Niki Caro's North Country rode its Oscar-bait campaign to just about nowhere; its $6.5 million take was just enough for fifth place. Elizabethtown continues to slip and slide down the charts, but that should surprise no one – bad reviews aside, Cameron Crowe movies in which Tom Cruise doesn't star have never made any real money. Want the numbers? You know where to look.

The Independent's Craig McLean interviewed Orlando Bloom recently, and in his write up questions whether Bloom has the wherewithal to make the transition from hunky action star, swashbuckling around with pirates and trolls, to real live actor. McLean recalls how he tried to get some thoughtful, intelligent answers out of Bloom to some probing questions about Bloom's own family life and felt the actor fell short of providing illuminating responses.

There are only three films opening in wide release this week, but since one of them is being kept in Al Gore's lockbox until the last possible second, only Domino and Elizabethtown get the full treatment today. (This roundup is brought to you by Domino daddy Laurence Harvey's creepy smoothless, and the number eight. As in Butterfield 8.)

• Domino: Jette liked the film despite its flaws while Bob Strauss dug it because of them. Roger Ebert also thinks it's pretty good, in a ferret on crystal meth sort of way. Sadly for director Tony Scott, though, many critics are, well, not as kind - the words "empty" and "soulless" are bandied about, which is never a very good sign.
• Elizabethtown: Though I've never met him, Cinematical contributor James Rocchi officially became my critic-boyfriend when I read his review. James calls the film on its many weaknesses, and in so doing undercuts the lame formula that Cameron Crowe has been riding for way too long. Ahem. While few others are quite as preceptive as James, many critics fall firmly in the "meh" camp on this one. Even the ones who like it can't muster much real enthusiasm (one even gives it a B+ while calling it a "wildly self-indulgent mess.") Take that, Cameron Crowe.
• The Fog: HA! Just kidding. As we know, it's too terrible to let critics see it first - this way, people who think Maggie Grace and Tom Welling are hot will go see it tonight. After the reviews come out, even they will realize it's far better to stay at home with their Smallville and Lost DVDs.

Also opening this week in very limited release are The President's Last Bang, which I liked but felt too uneducated fully appreciate, Nine Lives, and Where the Truth Lies, which Karina likened to "Douglas Sirk on crack." Disappoingly, that turns out to be a mostly bad thing. What everyone else has to say about it will be covered here when the film goes wide in a couple weeks.

Note: This review was contributed by James Rocchi.

Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) is a tastemaker who’s made a mistake, a sneaker designer whose recent innovation, a shoe with a stingray-inspired sidewing, has landed in the marketplace with a resounding thud. The resulting recall is going to cost his employer about 972 million dollars; in fact, as his CEO Phil (Alec Baldwin, plastic and dry) notes, “You could round it up to a billion dollars.” Phil convinces Drew to fall on his sword – metaphorically – for the media, taking all blame in an interview that’ll hit the stands in about a week. Drew goes home to fall on his sword literally, rigging up a kitchen knife to an exercycle so the blade will be plunged into his heart with motorized power. Just before he’s about to activate his suicide plan, the phone rings. It’s his sister. Their father is dead.

Drew is dispatched to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, to pick up dad’s remains and head back to Oregon where sis Heather (Judy Greer) and mom Hollie (Susan Sarandon) await; then, he can get back to killing himself like he planned. But he meets a plucky flight attendant on his red eye flight, Claire (Kirsten Dunst), and maybe life isn’t that bad. …

Life may not be that bad, but this movie is.

Uh-oh. In the face of dark pre-release buzz, Cameron Crowe is pulling out all the stops to save the reputation of his latest film, Elizabethtown. First, he personally called gossip columnist Lloyd Grove to dispel rumors that he was unhappy with Orlando Bloom's performance in the film ("I love everything he did," Crowe insisted). Now, in a long feature in this week's Entertainment Weekly [via The Reeler], Crowe is going even further to shield his film from critical barbs - in what might be the worst way possible.

"There are two gods whom filmmakers aim to please: critics and audiences," Christine Spines writes. "Having faltered with one, Crowe is now counting on regular moviegoers for redemption." Crowe himself says, 'This movie is definitely a populist film, not created for cynics." Or critics: Gail Berman, president of Paramount Pictures, who are distributing the film, tells EW, "''Reviews are what they are. You live with them, hopefully learn from them, and move on ... [but] the populist reaction to the movie is overwhelming."

Hmmm. Call me crazy, but these quotes instantly reminded me of another "we made our movie for the people" defense from not-so-long-ago. "I can tell you right now that none of the critics are gonna like this movie," said Kelly Clarkson, just before the release of her one-and-only film, From Justin to Kelly. "It's not for [critics] -- it's for the fans."

Okay, we kid, but seriously: the "I don't care about reviews" defense from a filmmaker with Crowe's trackrecord is worrisome. Elizabethtown, lest we forget, is probably Crowe's most personal film ever. It's a fact-based retelling of his own process of grieving his father's death, and as such, it's a lot more touchy-feely for him than even Almost Famous. So it makes sense that he's  willing to guard it with his life; as Spines puts it, "he reveals flashes of vulnerability when defending his movie as if it were his child who just got beat up after school." Let's just hope it doesn't all blow up in his face.

Cameron Crowe wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Times in which he, in addition to writing about his own movies, also writes about those perfect moments when music and film come together. Of course, he mentions his movie Say Anything, in which John Cusack holds his boombox over his head while Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" plays for the benefit of Ione Skye. The thing is, the Peter Gabriel song was dubbed in later, and the song actually coming out of the boombox was "Bonin' in the Boneyard" by Fishbone. Anyway, since we all know our opinions are more important than Cameron Crowe's, I'm asking ya'll to come up with some of your favorite music moments in movies.

A personal fave of mine is "Stuck in the Middle with You" by Stealers Wheel, as featured in Reservoir Dogs. A snappy, toe-tappin' ditty plays while Mr. Blonde tortures a rookie cop, culminating with the cop's ear being lopped off with a straight razor. The juxtaposition is brilliant, and made what would have been a horrific scene even more surreal and unsettling.

Never a paper for caution and restraint, the New York Post today offers a quick round-up of the films/actors/directors it arbitrarily has decided have good chances to win a little gold statue. Since studios know that no one in Hollywood can remember things for more than 20 minutes and therefore save their best stuff for November and December, the feature also serves as a reminder of all the Big Films due out at the end of the year.

While there are definitely a few things I'm excited about it - Good Night and Good Luck, for example, is going to have to get really terrible reviews (I'm talking like Gigli bad) for me to avoid it, as is The New World - there's also a depressing amount exactly what you'd expect.  Oh look, everyone! Here comes Steven Spielberg with another Important Message Picture! Because we all need him to teach us morality! Yipee! And oh yay, another sweet comedy-drama from Camereon Crowe, who'll win his second best screenplay Oscar for pandering! Woo hoo! Film (re)adaptations of big Broadway hits? Can't wait!

Sigh. I can't be the only person here who finds this stuff incredibly depressing, can I? Hello? Bueller?

The Chicago International Film Festival, which runs October 6-20,  has announced a preliminary lineup. The festival will be bookended by the world premieres of two anticipated films: Cameron Crowe's romantic comedy Elizabethtown, starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst, and Gore Verbinski's The Weather Man, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Caine. Other festival highlights include Natalie Portman in Amos Gitai's Free Zone and Cannes Film Festival fave The Death of Mr. Lazarescu.

Chicago filmmaker Joe Swanberg, whose film Kissing on the Mouth is a festival offering, will be blogging for us live from the festival, giving Cinematical readers all the scoop on how his controversial film is received in his hometown, along with reviews of other festival screenings and, perhaps, the occasional party report.