Seven Pounds Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The other day I watched My Life in Ruins out of curiosity and because I was bored. In the past, I've been quite cynical about the movie and Nia Vardalos's upcoming film I Hate Valentine's Day, but when all was said and done, I was a captive audience. And you know what? I like Nia Vardalos. I want to root for her. But it was in spite of myself that not only did I like it... I cried.

Yes, despite the hackneyed plot – woman uproots her life, is cranky and miserable and loveless, then gets her groove back, along with a hunky fellow; despite the use of every possible ethnic and sexual stereotype possible; despite a love interest whose name is Poupi Kakas; and despite the complete lack of innovation in terms of the romantic comedy genre.... I liked it. And I cried. And I was very embarrassed.

I cry at a lot of movies, which is awkward, since I see a lot of movies, often with colleagues, friends, and publicists. After seeing The Fall, which I adored, another viewer asked me if I was okay. I bawled during the excellent movie Bright Star, although I am 99 percent sure everyone else did too. I even cried during Seven Pounds, one of the most ludicrous and manipulative "feel-good" movies I've ever had the trauma of sitting through. And after seeing The Family Stone one Christmas, hoping for the light-hearted comedy that the trailers promised, I left the theater dazed and angry at how mean-spirited and sad it was.

There are certain things that set me off, but even the lamest Sunday afternoon guilty pleasure can get me sniffling.

Are you a movie crier? Which movies have you cried at? (No need to get gory with whys and wherefores.) Were you in a public theater? What do you do when you start tearing up (or sobbing)?

Will Smith, his production company Overbrook Entertainment, and Sony have bought the rights to the life story of Hurricane Katrina hero, John "The Can Man" Keller. While John Lee Hancock will be writing the script and directing The American Can, Sony has also bought a spec script about Keller from writer and producer Adetoro Makinde. Keller himself is also one of the associate producers.

Keller, who was a resident of the American Can Company at the time of the storm, helped the other residents of the building -- many elderly and/or handicapped -- and a few refugees stay safe while the flood waters raged outside. Keller also documented his story with photos and videotape. He told The Times-Picayune in 2007, "There were other people rescuing people. But they didn't hot-wire boats, hot-wire cars, swim to the grocery store, come back with food, cook for all those people, organize them, get the thugs off them." In the end, 244 people were evacuated safely with help from Keller.

Slumdog Millionaire
It was a complete Academy Awards smash, winning almost all of its nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. Kim Voynar's review stated: "Boyle, stepping outside the UK to focus his lens on India, seems to have freed himself here to bring his brilliance as a director to its fullest fruition." Really, the praise and awards speak volumes, making the film a definite Buy it. Also, the film absolutely sparkles and shines on Blu-ray, with the vibrant colors of India popping and sizzling like you've never seen before. Seriously, put this one on your must-see list, like, yesterday. (For more, read our interview with Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle.)

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

Marley & Me
A heart-warming Christmas feel-good flick -- Marley & Me tells the story of a couple who get a rambunctious dog who might be a handful, but who also becomes a beloved member of the family. It's full of puppy love and all the things you'd expect when following the life of a lovable canine. For the tear-jerker film fiends, this film will be a must, but for the rest, you might want to just Rent it. Also on Blu-ray.

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Seven Pounds
It was beginning to seem like Will Smith was untouchable -- the Hollywood actor whose name would always mean successful blockbuster. At the very least, one would've thought Seven Pounds would be successful, but instead it came and went with little fanfare, and some disappointment. Nick Shager said the film was "misguided mush from the moment go, a deliberately muddled bit of inspirational pap that masks its inherent silliness with structural obliqueness and, worse still, affords Smith scant opportunities to infuse his character with authentic humanity." Skip it. Also on Blu-ray.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon

Also out: Ogre, Timecrimes, The Real Ghostbusters, Vol. 1

This week, there's also a bunch of AfterDark Horrorfest releases for you blood and gore fans out there: Autopsy, The Broken, The Butterfly Effect 3, Dying Breed, From Within, AfterDark Horrorfest Vol. 3, Perkins 14, Slaughter, Voices

You really expect a movie headlined by Will Smith -- the consensus Biggest Movie Star in the World -- to at least break $20 million in its opening weekend. You'd have to go back to 2001's Ali to find one that didn't. Instead, Seven Pounds -- poorly reviewed and marketed to emphasize the central mystery in a way that turned out mystifying -- played second fiddle to Jim Carrey's Yes Man, pulling in $16 million to Yes Man's $18.1 million.

The Seven Pounds result is actually not terribly surprising, even given the Will Smith factor -- the movie is a morose downer, with none of the uplifting, holiday-appropriate draw of 2006's affable The Pursuit of Happyness (another Smith-Gabriele Muccino collaboration), and the people looking for that sort of thing have a lot to choose from this time of year, most of it carrying more cred. I'm a bit more taken aback by Yes Man's relatively weak opening. For a high-concept Jim Carrey comedy, opening a good three weeks after the last big light-hearted offering, $18 million is uninspiring. It's in the same ballpark as Fun with Dick and Jane, opening around the same time three years ago, but that one went up against three other comedies opening the same weekend, and was harder to market. I wonder if Jim Carrey's draw might be waning a bit.

There are plenty of movie stars (including one currently headed to theaters donning an eye-patch) whose acting skills amount to riffing on a one-dimensional celebrity persona. And then there are those valuable few like Will Smith, who actively seek out roles -- often in so-so mega-blockbusters -- that challenge their range and demand more than simply endearing smirks and cutesy quips. For Smith, this has resulted in a career at once box-office lucrative and critically respected, with his performances in work as varied as 2007's post-apocalyptic sci-fi actioner I Am Legend and 2006's true-life melodrama The Pursuit of Happyness exhibiting equal amounts of intensity and nuance. Smith can do macho bluster and ladies' man charm in his sleep, yet what elevates him above most of his marquee brethren has always been an ability to lace such outsized qualities with a strain of vulnerable fallibility. He's a figure at once larger-than-life and still relatable, a hero capable of revealing, in ways more subtle than the chaos that frequently surrounds him, mortal tenderness and uncertainty.

Having, with The Pursuit of Happyness, already proven himself capable of bringing raw sensitivity to mawkish material, there was modest reason to hope that Smith might again pull off the same feat in his second collaboration with that film's director, Gabriele Muccino. No such luck. Seven Pounds is misguided mush from the moment go, a deliberately muddled bit of inspirational pap that masks its inherent silliness with structural obliqueness and, worse still, affords Smith scant opportunities to infuse his character with authentic humanity.

America loves a good alien invasion apparently, so the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still took top honors. Holdovers from previous weeks filled out the rest of the top five with last week's two other big releases, Nothing Like the Holidays and Delgo, respectively taking seventh and eighteenth (eek!) place. Here's the top five:

1. The Day the Earth Stood Still: $30.4 million
2. Four Christmases: $13 million
3. Twilight: $7.9 million
4. Bolt: $7.4 million
5. Australia: $4.1 million

Three new ones this week featuring drama, laughs and something for the kids.

Seven Pounds
What's It All About: Will Smith plays Ben Thomas, an IRS agent who after a tragic accident seeks redemption through interaction with seven strangers.
Why It Might Do Well: In addition to Smith in the lead, the cast also includes Woody Harrelson and Rosario Dawson, and there's some decent buzz.
Why It Might Not Do Well: People rarely seek out an IRS agent.
Number of Theaters: 2,600
Prediction: $22 million

The first trailer for Will Smith's new flick has just arrived online, and it's called Seven Pounds ... and it was directed by Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness) ... and it definitely looks like one of them tear-jerkers. (For those obsessive, need-it-right-now folks, you can watch the trailer after the jump.) In the film, Smith plays a guy who's feeling guilty about mistakes he's made over the years, and so he decides to help change the lives of seven total strangers. In doing so, he winds up falling in love with one of the aforementioned strangers, played by Rosario Dawson. So here we have a movie about giving to others, it comes out December 19 (right in time for Christmas), and it stars our most precious A-list actor. Mmmm ... makes you just wanna wash it all down with a slice of apple pie.

Seven Pounds marks Big Willie's second trip to the multiplex this year, after first starring in the summer superhero action/adventure Hancock. A quick glance at his previous two films spots a similar pattern of action blockbuster and quiet drama -- and even though Smith will always guarantee you great numbers on opening weekend no matter the genre, one wonders which version of the man you all prefer? For ten bucks, would you rather spend it watching Will Smith kick ass on a $200 million budget, or would you prefer to spend the time with his gentler, Oscar-nominated side? Or, would you rather watch the man star in more straight-up comedies, a la Hitch?

How do you like your Will Smith?

Related: Fan Rant: Will Smith Needs to Play a Villain

While it can be quite neat to stumble upon a movie set when walking down the street, scouring all the type and posters to try and figure out what film it is, I imagine it has to be a big pain in the ass when long shoots film for weeks on end in people's neighborhoods. It certainly seems to be the case for 65-year-old retiree Dresden Graham. The Hollywood Reporter posts that she has become incensed over production of Will Smith's Seven Pounds, which is filming in her 'hood.

Now you might just think that it's an old woman getting crotchety. But imagine this: for two weeks, a film production moves into your neighborhood taking up the parking places (some people in the area have had to take shuttles to get to their apartments because there is no parking), using "bright lights, rain machines, and Great Danes" until 3 AM, and the kicker: parking the portable toilets right in front of your house. No wonder she's ticked. I wouldn't be happy to be bathed in sewer smells for two weeks so that a movie could shoot in a neighbor's house.

Graham is so unhappy that she's put up huge posters telling the production to hit the road (which seems to have gotten her some cash, according to the report). Reuters adds that this has made the production have to "construct a false flowered wall to hide them from the camera's view." So, if you hit theaters for Seven Pounds, and you spot that flowered wall, now you know who was behind it.

Just when you thought you've seen it all ... okay, I'm not even gonna go there. Scientology! But anyway, Connor Cruise, Tom Cruise's 13-year-old adopted son, has landed a role in Will Smith's new flick Seven Pounds, where he'll be playing a younger version of Smith in a minor, non-speaking part. For those who aren't up to speed on Cruise and all his kids, you might be kinda looking sideways at your computer right now. "Did he say Cruise's kid is going to play a younger version of Will Smith?" Fear not, my illinformed friends, they're not taking a page from the Tropic Thunder playbook; oh no, see, Cruise's son Connor is adopted and he is of the same color as Mr. Smith. Phew. (Sit down Al, I didn't say anything wrong or offensive.)

The film, which also stars Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson and Barry Pepper, and is directed by Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness), follows the story of a man (Smith) who affects the lives of seven strangers. It's a drama. There are no crazy special effects. And, yes, it comes out this December -- which, cross your shiny, manicured little fingers, means Smith will be listening for a knock on his door from Mr. Oscar come February. Seriously, though, I love Will Smith. I cannot think of a performance from him that I did not enjoy (performance, not movie -- stop smiling I, Robot, you're not off the hook yet), which is something I rarely say about an actor or an actress. Will Smith is like a warm cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter day, no matter which film he's starring in. Guy always finds a way to leave you feeling all warm and toasty inside. Mmmm ...

With the latest casting announcement for Seven Pounds, there might not be a lot of fat added, but definitely a lot of weight. Variety reports that Rosario Dawson and Woody Harrelson are in final negotiations to co-star in the film with Will Smith. You might remember from the news of Smith's involvement that this project is once again teaming the actor with Pursuit of Happyness director Gabriele Muccino. Or, you might remember that this isn't about Weight Watchers meetings, but rather a man who finds love while trying to end his life.

Written by Grant Nieporte , the film focuses on Smith, a "guilt-ridden man who inadvertently falls in love while attempting to kill himself." Usually suicide is a private endeavor, so I don't see how he could fall in love during the process, unless he keeps someone prisoner to watch, or calls a hotline. Things get more interesting when you figure Dawson and Harrelson into the equation. She's playing "a love interest who suffers from a serious heart condition." Due to the use of "a," I guess she's not the suicide-laden interest. Harrelson, meanwhile, will be "a motel attendent who becomes intrigued by his suicidal new tenant."

It would be great if Woody could be the love interest, since he's supposed to be intrigued by Smith, but I imagine they'll find someone famous, beautiful, and female to cast in the role. If, of course, it isn't Dawson. But that would just be a million-hanky mess -- Smith is about to kill himself, but falls for this great women -- only to find out that she has a serious health condition and dies or something. That sounds beyond depressing. Production begins in January, so we'll find out who's lucky enough to get a suicidal love soon enough. As an aside: assuming they got married and had a family, what do they say when their kids asked them how they met?