17Again Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I Love You, Man
Bro-mance, schmo-mance, this is a funny movie, centered by a very good performance by Paul Rudd as a befuddled "ladies' man" in search of a best man for his upcoming wedding to Rashida Jones. He starts awkwardly 'man dating' until he stumbles across the happy-go-lucky bachelor Jason Segal, and an unlikely triangle is formed. "A sweet, amusing, and perfectly acceptable comedy all around," wrote Eugene Novikov. Also on Blu-ray. Buy it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

17 Again
Personally, I have zero interest in seeing this movie, but if you're a devoted fan or even curious about the star, help yourself. 17 Again is "a run-of-the-mill family comedy that would be tiresome," Jette Kernion opined, "if not for [Zac] Efron and a few of the other cast members." Also on Blu-ray. Skip it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

The Class (Entre les Murs)
Laurent Cantet directed this adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novel by François Bégaudeau, an inner-city Paris school teacher. James Rocchi observed: "Begaudeau's interactions with his students are so nuanced and smart that it doesn't feel like the heavy hand of drama when various incidents and events escalate as the film progresses; they feel natural, lived in, human." Also on Blu-ray. Buy it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

Also out: Chaos (from 2006, with Jason Statham, Ryan Phillippe, and Wesley Snipes); Road Trip: Beer Pong (the sequel, directed by Steve Rash); I Do, I Did ("One man, two women, too much!").

More Indies on DVD, more Blu-ray picks, and Collector's Corner, all after the jump!

A below-expectations turn-out for Angels & Demons and good word-of-mouth for Star Trek helped make it a surprisingly close battle for the weekend's #1 spot. Studio estimates have the Dan Brown sequel at $48 million, beating out Trek by about $5 million. $48 million is nothing to sneeze at, but The Da Vinci Code opened to $77 million in the same weekend two years ago, which indicates that the anticipation for the sequel probably wasn't there to the extent necessary to sustain a blockbuster franchise. I am sure that the third Robert Langdon novel due this fall will see its way to the screen -- but maybe it'll be a little cheaper, and released sometime other than the summer.

Star Trek, on the other hand, is turning out to be the perfect summer film. It dropped off just 43% in its second weekend, which is bloody fantastic for a movie that opened to $75 million. It's already the highest-grossing Trek entry, but that's kind of a no-brainer. If word-of-mouth keeps it afloat, it will end up as one of the biggest movies of the summer.

With no new contenders hitting their demographic, the holdover family offerings -- 17 Again and Monsters vs. Aliens -- saw tiny drops, but that may change next week. Monsters vs. Aliens is also currently the biggest grosser of 2009, but that will change soon too.

The full top 10 after the jump.

(Note: Possible spoilers ahead for 17 Again.)

Before all the spring movies get pushed completely out of the way by the summer blockbusters, here's a question for you: Did the star of High School Musical make a movie in favor of teen pregnancy? Conceding that she may be taking Zac Efron and 17 Again way too seriously, actress Elizabeth Banks (The Uninvited, Zack and Miri Make a Porno) writes in The Huffington Post: "The message of the movie seemed to be ... knocking up your high school sweetheart is A-OK! Especially if you give up that Syracuse scholarship to marry her! F College!"

Banks is careful to note that she really enjoyed the movie and everyone in it before expressing her concerns: "This movie pretty much glamorizes teenage parenting. ... The problem with this message is that, according to unreliable online sources and my own anecdotal evidence collected over my 3?-something years: this is crap. ... Seriously, this film is a fun ride. I just wish the flick had explicitly mentioned, just mentioned, that it might not be cool to have a kid when you're 18 so for G-D's sake, use birth control!"

Unlike Banks, I am not "inappropriately lustful" for Efron and have no great desire to see the movie. (Jette Kernion reviewed it for Cinematical.) But 17 Again has made a good deal of money, which obviously means a lot of you have seen it. So is Elizabeth Banks really taking the movie too seriously? Are comedies exempt from serious consideration? Do movies aimed specifically at teens have a greater responsibility to include information that reflects real-life consequences of the actions depicted?

The presence of Beyoncé Knowles plus appropriately sultry/trashy advertising scored a big hit for Screen Gems this weekend, with Obsessed raking in a cool $28.5 million between black audiences and thriller audiences. Depending on how it holds up, the airport novel of a film could compete with The Exorcism of Emily Rose for the title of highest-grossing Screen Gems release ($75 million). It's a marketing triumph and a minor April surprise.

Three more films debuted in wide release and all posted comparatively strong numbers. That's a somewhat controversial claim for The Soloist, whose $9.7 million, fourth-place finish doesn't seem too robust. It's certainly not overwhelming, but for an arty, detached film that was moved from awards season to April, it's not awful. Rogue's Fighting finished slightly ahead with $11.4 milion, beating last spring's street-brawling movie, Never Back Down. And Earth, the DisneyNature documentary that opened Wednesday, picked up $8.5 million for the weekend -- the second biggest all-time opening for a documentary -- and $14.2 million for the five days. Good for them.

Out of the top ten, the critically panned The Informers -- Senator Entertainment's first attempt at a theatrical release -- floundered with $300,000 in semi-wide release. Senator, you will recall, is the distributor that has kept All the Boys Love Mandy Lane on the shelf for approximately forever. Make of that what you will.

Last weekend's main holdovers, 17 Again and State of Play each fell around 50%. The latter is a bit of a disappointment, as I had hoped that the exceedingly entertaining film would coast at least slightly on good word-of-mouth.

The full top 10 after the jump.

Each time I close my eyes I hear the faraway beating of drums and see the visions -- those visions of phantasms older than time itself that penetrate through my conscious mind and to the very core of my soul. It began three years ago, when the Ancient Ones emerged from the darkest depths of the sea to reclaim dominion over this world, which is older and more terrifying than the mind could theretofore comprehend. One of them called itself "Za'c Efron" -- but that was a crude approximation, for the human tongue cannot hope to speak the dread language of the Ancient Ones.

It was the children who first saw the visions. The dreams' cheerful, musical exterior obscured their sinister, unspeakable true nature, driving thousands to insanity and some to death. Toward the end, the children congregated in Temples -- perversely called "Theaters" by their bedeviled constructors -- to worship Za'c Efron, and 90 million dollars was spent. Even now, millions of children play and replay these awful sights in their very homes, paying further tribute. And still, having slumbered for untold millenia, Za'c Efron hungers for more. Always more.

Even now, restless crowds -- the children who remain, yes, but now adults and the old, too -- clamor through the dark streets to behold Za'c Efron's latest writhing triumph, an alien horror called 17 Again. In a mere three days, $24.1 million of tribute was collected, and all fell before Za'c Efron. Russell Crowe and State of Play were content with $14.1 million, and Crank: High Voltage received only $6.5 million, $4 million less than even the Crank that came three years ago. Such was the terrible power of the Ancient Ones -- the detestable gargoyles from the black sea of the cosmos who grip us and carry us, inexorably, toward madness.

With apologies to H.P. Lovecraft, check out the weekend top 10 after the jump.

This is difficult for me to confess, but I'm starting to like Zac Efron ... although not in a crushworthy way, because at my age, that would be creepy. High School Musical 3 was not my thing, and he didn't make an impression on me in Hairspray, but I thought he was wonderfully energetic and fun in Me and Orson Welles when I saw Richard Linklater's film at SXSW last month. And now Efron is starring in 17 Again, a run-of-the-mill family comedy that would be tiresome if not for Efron and a few of the other cast members. Together, these actors kept me from digging through my purse continually for my phone so I could see how many minutes were left in the movie.

17 Again drags out every cliche from body-changing movies -- if you don't know them, check out Christopher Campbell's hilariously accurate list on SpoutBlog -- and unfortunately, doesn't try anything new or suspenseful. In this particular variation, Mike (Matthew Perry) is still reliving his high-school days, when he was the BMOC and a basketball star and everything was perfect, until he made a choice that has landed him with a dead-end job, two kids in high school who practically ignore him, and a wife (Leslie Mann) who's divorcing him because she's justifiably tired of his eternal whininess. So he wishes he were his teenage self again, and does so in front of a Clarence-esque janitor (Brian Doyle-Murray) -- and whammo! He's 17, but everyone else stayed the same age. Now he can go back to high school and help his kids and shoot lots of hoops and make it all better.

Hanna Montana surprised no one by taking the top spot for the Easter weekend and Fast and Furious and Monsters Vs. Aliens in their second and third weeks respectively still outdistanced Seth Rogen's Observe and Report. Here's the top five:

1. Hannah Montana The Movie: $32.3 million
2. Fast and Furious: $27.2 million
3. Monsters Vs. Aliens: $21.8 million
4. Observe and Report: $11 million
5. Knowing: $6.4 million

Three new ones this week:

17 Again
What's It All About: Matthew Perry plays a man whose dreams were put on hold years ago because he got his girlfriend pregnant. Now, magically transformed into the teenager he once was (now played by Zac Efron) he has a chance to relive what he thinks were the best days of his life.
Why It Might Do Well: Sooner or later pretty much everybody wonders about what might have been. 68% at Rottentomatoes.com isn't earth shattering but it's still in the plus column.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The contrived premise is far from original and seems like just an excuse for fish-out-of-water humor.
Number of Theaters: 3,000
Prediction: $24 million

Crank: High Voltage
What's It All About: Ludicrously over the top but fun looking action sequel with Jason Statham returning to the role of hitman Chev Chelios. This time his heart has literally been stolen and replaced with a mechanical one that needs periodic jolts of electricity to keep going.
Why It Might Do Well: The red band trailer must be seen to be believed.
Why It Might Not Do Well: It's hitting fewer screens than any of this week's other releases.
Number of Theaters: 2,200
Prediction: $14 million

Strictly as an outside observer, I'm always surprised / perplexed by teen sensations making the leap to the big screen. The latest examples are Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron. Are they really movie stars already? Or are they beloved by millions simply because of the character(s) they've played?

When Cinematical's Dawn Taylor recently expressed her horror at the idea that Cyrus, a "marginally talented, pudding-faced 'tween idol," would be starring in a movie written by Nicholas Sparks, commenters were divided between hating Miley and hating Dawn. Nick Schager's review of Hannah Montana: The Movie was quite negative ("enduring the film is akin to being drawn and quartered"), but fans had clearly already decided to flock to theaters no matter what the reviews said. The narrative follow-up to the 3-D Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour proves, if nothing else, that 'tweens love Hannah Montana. But do they love the actress who plays her enough to follow her in other roles?

Efron has been making an effort to demonstrate his range beyond the High School Musical movies. He took on a dramatic role in Richard Linklater's yet to be released Me and Orson Welles, decided not to dance in Footloose, and stars in the comedy 17 Again, which opens on Friday. Is he a deft comic actor? I don't know. I missed Saturday Night Live, which he hosted last weekend, and the recent Pool Party video was not very funny. He became beloved for his singing, dancing, and romancing, but will his fans follow him to comedic and dramatic roles?

Do Zac Efron and/or Miley Cyrus have what it takes to be movie stars? Take our poll and let us know.

At 21, High School Musical star Zac Efron's old enough to drink ... and, well, old enough to roll around in the mud for some grungy cheesecake photos for Interview magazine. The pics accompany a story by director Gus Van Sant for the magazine's March 24 issue, in which Van Sant appreciates Efron's "well-scrubbed young mannishness."

Efron's obviously working hard to transcend the teen-dream persona that's made him a star, and it looks like it's a shaky transition. The next HSM film will feature a whole new stable of Disney-fresh teen faces, and while Efron's too old for the tween set, he's still stuck acting younger than his age -- his next films will be 17 Again, an abominable sounding comedy in which he plays a magically rejuvenated Matthew Perry, and Me and Orson Welles, a period comedy from Richard Linklater about a teenager who's cast in a Mercury Theater production of Julius Caesar, circa 1937 (read our review here).

An excerpt from the Interview piece is available online, and it's notable for two things -- Mikael Janssen's hunky photos, reminiscent of Bruce Weber's 1980's Calvin Klein pin-up boys, and that Van Sant is, unsurprisingly, far more interesting than Efron.

VAN SANT: And so the play that they're putting on in the film is Julius Caesar?

EFRON: Yeah. Orson Welles was doing Julius Caesar, but he had a unique adaptation. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but Stalin was Julius Caesar in the Orson Welles adaptation, so it put a whole new practical spin on the play at the time, which was really neat.

(...)

VAN SANT: How old is Orson Welles in your movie?

EFRON: He's in his mid-twenties, but he's got the wisdom and the presence of a 50-year-old . . . Well, you know, a 30-year-old guy. [laughs]

We've got a pack of new trailers this week, and this being the Halloween season it's not surprising that quite a few are for horror flicks. We've also got super heroes, introspective middle aged men and angsty teens (as pictured above). Let's dive in, shall we?

Friday the 13th
The first trailer for the new Friday the 13th remake arrived online during the week before Halloween. Kids. Screaming. You get it. Just as modern audiences seem to prefer the fast zombies of Zach Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, Jason is much more nimble here than I remember him being.

Notorious
The first trailer for the much-hyped Notorious B.I.G. biopic introduced itself to to us the other day. The film tells the life (and eventual death) story of the famous rapper from Brooklyn. Jamal Woolard stars as B.I.G. and Derek Luke does his best P. Diddy. This one is set for January 19.

Trick r Treat
Scott first posted about a trailer for this cool looking horror anthology back in July of 2007. This looks great and word from a recent press screening is extremely positive, but unfortunately Warner Bros. doesn't know what the hell to do with it. Hopefully the new hype will convince them to chuck it out in a few theaters and give it to us on DVD sooner rather than later.