400 Screens, 400 Blows is a weekly column that takes an in-depth look at the films playing below the radar, beneath the top ten, and on 400 screens or less.

Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (221 screens) has earned some good reviews, but not particularly great ones. I'm not sure many critics have really understood its significance. I think they just stayed on their usual pro- or anti-Woody Allen bandwagon and reviewed it according to how funny or not funny it was, or how Woody Allen-ish the dialogue sounded. Or worse, they brought Allen's private life into it and attacked it for its supposedly twisted sexuality. But Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a major step in the career of this tricky artist, more so than the critical darling Match Point three years ago.

One drawback to Allen's career is that he started out as a blatant comic filmmaker with films like Bananas, Sleeper and Love and Death. Then, movies like Annie Hall, Manhattan and Crimes and Misdemeanors cleverly melded comedy into dramatic situations, but the damage had been done: he was once and always "just" a comedian, forever lower on the scale than his contemporaries (Altman, Scorsese, Coppola, etc.). His other drawback is that he keeps making "Woody Allen" movies, in which the credits always look the same, the musical choices are always the same, the cinematography always looks great, and everyone talks the same. Often, but not always, the same actors appear. Who does this remind you of?

Is everyone in Toronto for the festival? Has everyone caught up with everything they want to see? Are arthouse movie lovers football fans too? I'm not sure how else to explain the downturn in the indie box office this weekend, in which Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django continued its stay at the top, per estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. Sukiyaki made $5,100 at its single Gotham engagement; now let's see what happens when it expands beyond New York City.

Also holding up decently in its second weekend was I Served the King of England, which increased to 17 theaters and earned $4,241 per location. Everyone Wants to Be Italian was the only debuting indie to crack the Top 10, but its tepid $2,224 per-screen average at 98 locations indicates that not everyone wants be Italian. No word on what happened with The Pool (which I loved), August Evening, Ping Pong Playa, Mister Foe, or the other new indies.

Speaking of poor performances, Hamlet 2 earned just $520 per screen at 1,575 theaters. Yikes! That's a lot of empty auditoriums. The film's cumulative total is $4.3 million, though, so perhaps it can break even on the DVD release.

Among the holdovers, Frozen River and Transsiberian pushed past $1 million dollars in earnings, Elegy broke past $2 million dollars total, Tell No One reached $4.7 million dollars, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona soared past $16 million in its fourth week.

The most exciting news from Labor Day weekend at the box-office -- traditionally a slow period -- is that America seems to have caught on to the scam that Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have been running for... what is it now? Almost three years? (I'm not counting the Scary Movie franchise, which always retained some redeeming value despite their idiocy.) Anyway, their latest travesty, Disaster Movie, opened to $6.9 million over four days, just over a third of the (nearly identical to each other) first three-day weekends for Date Movie, Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans. Could that be the end of that?

Not that any of Disaster Movie's competitors did spectacularly better. The strongest of them -- the poorly-reviewed sci-fi flick Babylon A.D. -- only managed second place and a $12 million four-day. Don Cheadle's Traitor came in fifth with $10 million, which I actually think is robust for an barely-marketed film opening on just over 2,000 screens. College crashed and burned, landing outside the top 10 with $2.6 million. The best explanation is that there simply wasn't any reason to see it.

The holdovers did well. Mamma Mia!, now in its seventh weekend of release, continues to lurk in the bottom half of the top 10; its take actually grew compared to last weekend, even if you use the 3-day numbers. It's up to $133 million. The Dark Knight barely lost steam, going from fourth place to third and breaking the $500 million threshold. Vicky Cristina Barcelona also continues to do very well on under 700 screens. And of course, Tropic Thunder managed a third weekend atop the charts, leapfrogging past Pineapple Express.

The full estimates after the jump.

In the earlier part of this decade, Woody Allen seemed to specialize in comedy alone -- 2000's Small Time Crooks, 2001's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, 2002's Hollywood Ending, 2003's Anything Else -- and then he opted to switch gears after 2005's genre-divided Melinda and Melinda, following that up with dramas Match Point later that year, and both Cassandra's Dream and Vicky Crisitina Barcelona in 2008. (We'll skip 2006's Scoop, since everyone else did.)

Whew. My point is, even with a comedic prospect on the horizon with next year's Whatever Works, now is as good a time as ever to relish this New York Times piece he did in the manner of a production diary on the set of Barcelona. Mind you, only "excerpts" are provided, so instead of botching them all, let me just share one favorite portion:

"JUNE 20 - Barcelona is a marvelous city. Crowds turn out in the streets to watch us work. Mercifully they realize I've no time to give autographs, and so they ask only the cast members..."

See? There's the self-deprecating filmmaker we know and love and moderately miss. I for one will take this as a sign of funnier things to come.

Woody Allen's latest film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, has earned mostly rave reviews, and it's doing well at the box office -- or, that is, it's doing well for a Woody Allen film. It opened in 10th place for the weekend of Aug. 15-17, the first time an Allen film has cracked the top 10 at all (let alone opened there) since Small Time Crooks, eight years and eight movies ago. And Small Time Crooks was the first one since Husbands and Wives, eight years and eight movies before that.

I wouldn't say there's ever been a time when Allen's films routinely made the top 10 -- he's always managed to release a total flop here and there to break up the streak -- but it certainly used to occur much more frequently than it does now. Manhattan opened at #1 in 1979, possibly the only Allen film ever to do so. (I can't find specific weekend data on Annie Hall, which is the only other likely candidate.) Various others have spent at least a couple weekends in the top 10. Still, no Allen film has ever been what you'd call a "blockbuster." His biggest hit, Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), made $40 million and never got higher than 5th place at the box office. Granted, if you adjust for inflation, Annie Hall's $38 million would be about $120 million today, and that would be considered fantastic for a low-budget indie. But it's still not commensurate with how beloved and acclaimed Allen is.

Consider this: Woody Allen has directed 38 theatrical features. The Dark Knight has made more money than all 38 of them combined. Isn't it strange that one of the most iconic American filmmakers of all time can barely scrape together a crowd to actually watch his movies?

The French are at it again! After last month's unexpected breakout success of French thriller Tell No One, surely it's no surprise that French thriller A Girl Cut in Two opened on top, grossing $9,750 per screens at the two theaters in New York where it opened, according to Box Office Mojo. Claude Chabrol's latest (and perhaps last) has delighted critics, including our own Jeffrey M. Anderson ("superbly made ... highly enjoyable").

Amidst a hailstorm of reviews, interviews, and offers of threesomes, Woody Allen's Vicky Christina Barcelona debuted to $5,361 per-screen at 692 engagements, while would-be inspirational drama Henry Poole is Here failed to inspire much box office, drawing just $1,518 per screen at 527 theaters. People were evidently more interested in sin than salvation this weekend.

Two films in their second week of release continued to draw well, with literary adaptation Elegy scoring $9,000 per screen at six locations and music doc Patti Smith: Dream of Life drawing $7,000 at its sole Manhattan engagement. Meanwhile, the quiet thriller Frozen River saw an uptick in business as it expanded to 15 theaters in its third week of release, earning $4,086 per screen.

American Teen withered on the vine in its fourth week, its per-screen average shrinking to $980 as it further expanded into 105 theaters, with a cumulative total of $656,000. Brideshead Revisited slowed to $1,489 per screen during its expansion into 501 theaters, though its total has passed $4.6 million.

In a weekend glutted with new releases battling the aftershocks of The Dark Knight earthquake, Tropic Thunder debuted below expectations -- but well enough to steal the top spot from The Dark Knight in that film's 5th weekend. The R-rated comedy's $26 million weekend and $37 million 5-day was roughly on par with Pineapple Express' performance the previous weekend, but I think Tropic Thunder was predicted to have broader appeal. In retrospect, the advertising may have emphasized the film's inside-baseball aspects a bit too much.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars did okay in third place with $15 million -- weak for a purported Star Wars film, but not bad for a Saturday morning cartoon. The woeful Mirrors took in a relatively paltry $11 million, a wuss-out signaled by the 11th hour press screening cancellation. Contrast The Strangers, the summer's other major R-rated, non-Shyamalan horror film, which debuted to almost twice as much despite not having as nifty a high-concept.

The Dark Knight, meanwhile, continues to edge toward $500 million. Its 5-weekend total stands at $471 million, enough to top Star Wars' unadjusted numbers. Titanic still looks out of reach, even setting aside the apples-and-oranges aspect of comparing a 1997 release to a 2008 one.

Pineapple Express fell 57% in its second weekend, putting $100 million out of reach. On the other hand, Mamma Mia! continues to be popular, suffering drops of around 20% each week thanks to good word-of-mouth and likely repeat viewings.

Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona came in at #10, with $3.7 million on 700 screens, Woody's second-best opening ever. Two spots below that, the poorly-reviewed 3-D spectacle Fly Me to the Moon made $2 million on 450 screens.

The full estimates after the jump.

Gathered to talk about Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Pénelope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, Chris Messina and Scarlett Johansson all had similar praise for their director and writer -- even if they took different paths to get to the film. Cruz's agent actually reached out to Allen when Vicky Cristina Barcelona was in development, on the off chance Allen might have a role for her: "My agent said ... 'We found out you're doing a movie in Spain, do you want to meet Pénelope?' We met in New York, a very short meeting, which took less than one minute, and he told me 'I saw Volver, and I'm writing this story, it's not finished yet, but if it keeps going in this direction, the script, I think you could be right for this part. ...' He didn't tell me anything more about the story, or the characters, but I felt like we connected; we were laughing, and when I left, the people who work with him told me 'You've been there for such a long time.' ..."

Even after being asked, though, Cruz found the prospect of working with one of film's best-known directors daunting: "You can trust the director -- you're working with Woody Allen, you're working with a genius -- but that doesn't mean you're not going to be doubting yourself. ..."

I felt, after seeing Woody Allen's latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the way I do after I've been to an excellent tapas restaurant; I'd been presented with a series of small moments of flavor and texture and presentation, some more pleasant than others, and while the overall experience didn't add up to a full meal, it was still a sincere pleasure. Allen's been globetrotting lately -- although you can suggest that's been motivated less by some muse of artistic inspiration than by the equally beguiling, if less dignified, seductress of international financing. After several films set in London, Allen's now in Barcelona, Spain, as recently-graduated friends Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) are taking some time to see the world before going back to America and futures as bright and unfixed as a sunlit fogbank.

Staying with family friends Mark and Judy Nash (Kevin Dunn and Patricia Clarkson), Vicky and Cristina take in the sights and experiences of Barcelona. Cristina's able to lose herself in the moment; for Vicky, each summer day's tempered by the certainty that summer will soon end. But one night after an art gallery showing, at an appropriately bohemian venue, Vicky and Cristina are approached by the painter whose work they've just seen, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), who proposes they join him as he flies to a small town so they might spend the weekend making love. Vicky's appalled; Cristina's intrigued; Juan Antonio is a laid-back seducer with a ready counter-argument to every objection: "Life is long; life is dull; life is full of pain." Why not have a little fun? It's not enough to talk the girls into agreeing to go to bed with him, but it is enough to get them on-board the plane. ...

You may not be as attractive as Penélope Cruz or Javier Bardem, but apparently you too can experience a threesome with Scarlett Johansson. On the actress' website (ScarlettJohansson.com) there's an announcement (seen above) for a contest that begins, "Hey dude(tte) are you UP for a THREESOME WITH SCARLETT!!!?" Obviously it's part of a promotion for Woody Allen's new movie, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, in which Johansson plays a character apparently involved in a ménage à trois with characters played by Cruz and Bardem. Oh, and obviously the prize of this contest doesn't involve sex; you merely get to be the third wheel on a movie date, or something. However, if Johansson's beau, Ryan Reynolds, is the other person, it might be still be interesting. Unfortunately, it's more likely a handler, assistant or otherwise some sort of legally bound chaperon (or is the other person a second winner? I can't make heads or tails of this crazy announcement).

Then again, if Reynolds isn't there, and you're somehow more charming and somehow have sexier abs, this could be your chance to steal Johansson away before she walks down the altar and becomes Mrs. Van Wilder. Actually, you don't even have to wait for the "date" in order to begin the wooing. To win the contest, you have to send an email detailing "your most personal and most creative response as to why YOU WISH to be included in such an awesome treat." Be tactful, though, kids. I know how some of our readers think, and I don't want to hear about any creepy dudes threatening to kidnap Ms. Johansson and bring her to Walt Disney World for a few days together.



[via Best Week Ever]