midnight eagle Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Riding a wave of near-unanimous praise, Andrew Wagner's Starting Out in the Evening began its box office sojourn at the top, earning an estimated $11,610 per screen at seven theaters, according to Leonard Klady at Movie City News. Wagner previously made the fascinating dysfunctional family comedy drama The Talent Given Us, which starred his own family, but this time performances by non-family members Frank Langella and Lauren Ambrose have been roundly acclaimed. (Check out reviews by Cinematical's James Rocchi and Ryan Stewart.)

Todd Haynes' I'm Not There has received some ecstatic critical response, which translated into "encouraging but less than superlative response," in the words of Mr. Klady. By the numbers, the film made an estimated $5,310 per screen at 130 engagements, which actually sounds pretty good for an unconventional film that even the critics have had difficulty getting a handle on. (Read more: Cinematical reviews by James Rocchi and Jeffrey M. Anderson.)

The third new specialty release, Izuru Narushima's Midnight Eagle, barely opened, earning an estimated $1,630 per screen at two theaters. The action thriller also opened the Tokyo Film Festival but is probably most notable because it's the first time in memory that a Japanese film has opened day and date in Japan and the United States. Sadly, it was slaughtered by the few US critics who saw it, as recorded at Rotten Tomatoes.

Margot at the Wedding expanded from two to 35 theaters and continued to perform well, raking in $11,200 per screen, while No Country for Old Men jumped out into 860 theaters and made an estimated $9,000 per engagement. Mr. Klady pointed to three holdovers: Sean Penn's Into the Wild ($1,920 per screen), Alejandro Monteverde's Bella ($1,970 per screen) and Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead ($3,190).

The key Asian fall festivals are located in Pusan, South Korea and Tokyo, Japan. Pusan is a relatively young fest -- this year will mark its 12th edition -- but has rapidly grown into an essential stop on the festival circuit for the Asian film community. "The festival brings together Asian filmmakers and encourages them to work together," South Korean culture minister Kim Myung Gon told the International Herald Tribune last year. The inaugural Asian Film Market added to the excitement in 2006.

The festival will open on October 4 with Chinese helmer Feng Xiaogang's latest epic, Assembly (trailer via MonkeyPeaches), according to The Korea Times. His last film was the beautiful yet hollow Shakespeare adaptation The Banquet. Assembly takes place during the Chinese Civil War in the late 1940s, where a fierce battle leaves thousands dead. An officer comes to realize his culpability and resolves to return honor to his fallen men. Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not Alone) (website), based on a Japanese anime series, will close the festival, which runs until October 12.

The Tokyo International Film Festival opens the following week (October 20) with Midnight Eagle. The festival says the film is filled with "large-scaled suspenseful mountain action." Midnight Eagle is the third feature by director Izuru Narushima; he also co-wrote the delicate, powerful An Adolescent and scripted the less dramatic yet still intriguing Runin: Banished, so I'm eager to see what he does with an action picture. The Tokyo fest also announced special screenings of Francois Girard's Silk, Kenki Saegusa's The Invitation From Cinema Orion, and Jin Chen's Crossing Over, as well three films featuring the visual effects mastery of Ray Harryhausen. The fest runs until October 28.

[ Via Screen Daily ]