Earth Tagged Articles at Cinematical

A good villain is memorable, and impressive, and scary as hell. But bring back the same villain over and over, give him lousy dialogue and have him repeatedly defeated by worthless opponents, and that villain becomes nothing more than an ineffectual bully who doesn't know when to give up. He's like that big, hairy guy down the street who scared the crap out of you when you were a kid, but who now has a pot belly, three obnoxious kids, and a Trans Am on blocks in his front yard. It makes it hard to remember why you ever found him frightening in the first place -- you'd feel sorry for him, but you just don't care enough to bother. Like these five:

Dr. Evil
Remember how cool Dr. Evil was in the first Austin Powers movie? Very few villains have fallen as far or as fast as Mike Myers' homage to Bondian baddies. Sure, he was a little out of touch with the current global economy, and his relationship with his son, Scott, was a tad strained, but he had a super-cool secret lair inside a volcano island, and a spaceship, and a clone sidekick, and lasers. Despite his flaws, Dr. Evil had all the earmarks of a world-class villain.

But by Myers' third, tired outing, Dr. Evil (along with every other joke in Myers' playbook) was used up -- so much so, that Myers brought in yet another villain, Goldmember, and he played that guy, too. It takes a lot of talent to stretch yourself that thin and get away with it -- I mean, sure, Alec Guinness played eight characters in Kind Hearts and Coronets, but he's freakin' Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Force is considerably weaker in Myers, and maybe if he'd been happy playing a few less characters, he'd have been able to come up with a better script ... one that didn't require the once-impressive Dr. Evil to spell his name "D to the rizzo, E to the vizzo, I to the lizzo." Bleh.

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.

Earth Day was founded in 1970 with the goal of shaking up "the political establishment and [forcing] this issue onto the national agenda." The site for the Earth Day Network has many practical suggestions; start with the "footprint calculator" to see your impact on the planet.

In Theaters. Disney opened the G-rated documentary Earth today; its the first in a planned series from their new Disneynature label. Narrated by James Earl Jones, it's a condensed version of the 12-hour BBC mini-series Planet Earth, directed by Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill. Critical reaction has been mostly positive: 76% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. And, as Elisabeth Rappe alerted us, Disney will plant a tree in your name if you buy a ticket to the movie via their web site between now and next Tuesday, April 28.

Online Viewing. We've already pointed to one option earlier today, Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa, which can be viewed at our site, thanks to SnagFilms. Other docs available for free streaming at SnagFilms include Greasy Rider, "a cross-country road trip powered by vegetable oil in a 1981 Mercedes-Benz," with appearances by Morgan Freeman and Yoko Ono, and Blind Spot, which explores the oil and energy crisis.

The latter two titles are offered by Cinetic Rights Management, which is also launching other eco-friendly flicks. The Green Chain, which covers the battle between loggers and environmentalists, is available for free at Dailymotion, Hulu, and YouTube, while The Unforeseen and Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home will be available for small fees at Amazon VOD. Cinetic's Matt Dentler contributed an article to The Huffington Post on the subject: "Documentaries have always been a source of education and activism, but in today's connected online climate, there are more tools and more power at one's finger tips."

17 Again marks Zac Efron's second number one opening in six months. The Russell Crowe thriller State of Play took a respectable second place with Crank: High Voltage taking sixth place with only $6.9 million. Here's the top five:

1. 17 Again: $23.7 million
2. State of Play: $14 million
3. Hannah Montana The Movie: $13.4 million
4. Monsters Vs. Aliens: $13.2 million
5. Fast and Furious: $11.7 million

Four new releases this week:

Earth
What's It All About: A 99 minute tour of life on Earth edited down from a 12-hour TV mini-series. This one releases today to commemorate Earth Day.
Why It Might Do Well: Dude, check out the baby polar bears! Also Rottentomatoes.com is giving it an 83% Fresh rating.
Why It Might Not Do Well: It's a smaller release and much of the footage has already played on TV
Number of Theaters: 1,800
Prediction: $8 million.

Fighting
What's It All About: A morose-looking small town boy comes to the big city and finds he has a talent for competitive bare-knuckle brawling.
Why It Might Do Well: I suppose anything is possible.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The overly complicated title may confuse some.
Number of Theaters: 2,100
Prediction: $7 million

Two new surveys released this week indicated that Americans couldn't care less about global warming at the moment, and while things are rough for everyone right now, we can't just blow the environment off like that. It's starting to get scary out there -- I live in Colorado's high country, in a climate that's generally akin to Moscow, and have been wearing t-shirts since mid-February. It's record breaking ... and not normal.

But Cinematical isn't really a place for me to preach on that kind of topic -- but I can tell you about a cool promo that Disney is running for their Earth documentary. If you buy a ticket for opening weekend (April 22), they'll plant a tree in your name. They're on sale now via Disney's official Earth site, where you can achieve a moment of Zen by watching the trailer.

Lest you think this is just cutesy Disney stuff, know that Earth was directed by Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield, the duo behind the amazing Planet Earth documentary series. If you've never seen the footage they can capture, you're in for a treat and a learning experience.

So buy some tickets to Earth -- not only will it be money and time well spent at the theater, but you'll also help clean up our precious planet. Wall-E would thank you.

Hell hath frozen over, and there's some less shocking news to boot:

• Go figure! In April I mused that Mike Tyson might have a future in Bollywood, after he took part in a music video for the Indian flick -- Fool and Final. I never thought it would actually happen, but hell hath frozen over! Variety is reporting that the ear-hungry boxer wants to act in Bollywood movies. Apparently, Tyson says that "the atmosphere was very congenial, happy and energetic" on the set, although I'm not sure I can imagine him saying "congenial." Nevertheless, he's thinking about an acting future in India and is discussing the possibility with Firoz Nadiadwala, who produced Fool -- "We seriously intend to work toward it." I wonder what the folks over in India will think of the troubled man potentially becoming the next Bollywood star? It's just so surreal.
• Patrick Stewart, the ever-loved Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Professor Charles Xavier, is once again warming up his narrating voice. He is going to be the voice behind the English-language version of the Earth documentary, which follows three animal families -- polar bears, elephants and hump-backed whales "on epic journeys across the world's most demanding and spectacular landscapes." I'm sure that means we'll have lots of cute moments intermingled with sad, animal realities. The actors describes the film as "a beautiful, comic, moving, urgent, private view of the environments and creatures with whom we share our home planet. It urges us, while delighting us with dazzling images, to address the pressing and desperate needs of this our fragile earth." So basically, it's the same old animal documentary material.
• Finally there's some strange, foreign weirdness by way of the folks over at Twitch. They've found trailers, a promo reel and making-of video for Italian director Stefano Bessoni's Frammenti di scienze inesatte. The man himself posted the clips on YouTube, and while the movie is from 2005, I wonder if this means it will get beyond its limited, Italian release. The movie is about a headmaster of medicine and natural science who has a number of strange students, such as a researcher of angels, who rent out an old house from him. He tries to support them, but also has a secret he is keeping from them. The clips look cool and go quite well with the music. Unfortunately, the making-of film has no subtitles, so you've got to either ignore the sound or brush up on your Italian. Warning: some of the clips are NSFW -- there are autopsy scenes that show people lying nude on the doctor's slabs.

Slain independence leader Mahatma Gandhi is no longer politically correct in India, now that militarism is gaining in popularity, says Indian-born director Deepa Mehta, who included words from Gandhi in her film Water. Mehta spoke at the Bangkok Film Festival, where Water - the third in a trilogy of films including Fire (1996), about the relationship between two sisters-in-law in loveless marriages, and  Earth (1998), about religious strife in the city of Lahore when India was suddenly granted independence in 1947 -  was screening.

Water, about the plight of castigated widows in India in the 1930s forced to live together in disgrace and brutal poverty, has been a long time in the making. Filming originally began in 2000 in India, but had to be shut down because Mehta was receiving daily rape and death threats from aggressive Hindu Nationalists protesting the film. The film was recast and re-shot several years later in Sri Lanka. Cinematical will be reviewing Water in early March.

[ via indieWIRE ]