monster house Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There have been a number of moderate- to high-profile box office fizzles in the past few weeks -- 'tis the season, I suppose, though the flop ratio seems higher than average this year -- and this week adds a couple more to the list. First and most surprising is the tepid performance of Body of Lies, which couldn't leverage the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, or Ridley Scott to open to more than $13 million. I don't really get it: the marketing was action-packed and fairly ubiquitous (though a bit confusing -- people apparently had trouble deciphering the trailer), and I thought the star wattage would do more for the film. (On the other hand, Scott's A Good Year, which also starred Crowe, died an even harder death.) Is anything involving Iraq or the Middle East really that much of a turn-off right now? Or maybe anything perceived as serious? It's really a superb film, and one that benefits from the big screen; you should check it out before it vanishes.

Another addition to the list of big fat flops is Fox's City of Ember, which crashed and burned at number ten (10). I haven't seen it yet, but I'm a big, big fan of Gil Kenan's debut Monster House, and so was rooting for Ember. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone knew that it existed. The football drama The Express doesn't count as a flop, I don't think, since no one expected it to do much better than it did: $4.7 million in sixth place. People just couldn't bring themselves to care about this story again, though the movie isn't bad.

The weekend's hits were exercises in escapist frivolity, which might support one of my hypotheses regarding Body of Lies' failure. Beverly Hills Chihuahua held on to the top spot with $17.5 million, ensuring a sequel. And the low-budget Quarantine took second in a huge victory for Screen Gems -- a $14 million opening for a movie like this is gold.

The full list of estimates after the jump.

City of Ember was the surprise closing-night film at Fantastic Fest, but I found out about the surprise a little early (which is always fun). I was able to see the film earlier in the week so I could interview director Gil Kenan, who showed up in Austin with surprise guest (to me, too!) Bill Murray for the closing-night festivities. Kenan has directed a pair of entertaining and visually stunning family-friendly features, the Oscar-nominated animated film Monster House and now the City of Ember adaptation, which opens in theaters on Friday. Not only that, but Kenan landed both of these projects right after he graduated from UCLA, where his short film The Lark won him a lot of attention. We talked about what he's done to make City of Ember as beautiful a film as it is, and how he found such compelling lead actors. He's currently linked to a new Robert Zemeckis production, Airman, and we took a minute to discuss that too. Check it out after the jump.

As an opinionated cinephile, Roger Ebert has every right to dislike 3-D movies. And recently, on his blog, Roger Ebert's Journal, he wrote about such disfavor. Basically, in response to accidentally missing the press screening for the new animated 3-D flick Fly Me to the Moon, he admits that, because of a certain prejudice against the format, he likely wouldn't have enjoyed the movie anyway.

My issue here is not to attack Ebert's opinion or his belief that after half a century of dissatisfaction with the format he's never going to change his mind about it. He's free to express both. And while I disagree and am disappointed, I would never claim that Ebert doesn't know what he's talking about. He's certainly smarter about film than I'll ever be, and his opinions are far more respected than my own.

However, Ebert is also one of the most widely read film critics in the world, and therefore he is a pretty influential person when it comes to the subject of movies. And I would hate for moviegoers to dismiss the new wave of 3-D movies simply because of Ebert's stance on the format. So, I merely intend to respond to his opinion with an opinion of my own, as apparently one of the wider read gushers on the topic of digital 3-D.

I don't know the last time I felt like a kid at the movies, but while watching Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D this past week, I honestly reverted to my 8-year-old self. That isn't to say the movie is necessarily as good as the movies that astonished me as a kid -- because of the subject matter, I'd think about comparing it to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies, both of which came out when I was around that age, and neither to which this film holds up in terms of originality or storytelling craft. But as far as holding onto my sense of wonder, Journey is up there.

Of course, it's necessary to point out that Journey would be nothing without the digital 3-D factor. It's actually the first live-action narrative feature to be shot and released in the new format (the non-fiction concert films, U2 3D and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour were technically the first live-action 3-D features), and while it's far from perfect, it is a terrific pioneer. I shall continue favoring the look of animated 3-D films, especially those directed as well as Monster House, and I anticipate that James Cameron's Avatar will blow away all live-action 3-D films released prior to its arrival. For now, though, I'm telling you, with the utmost cinemaphilic urgency: you need to see this ASAP.

Before I get to the meat of this week's column, I have a little appetizer of an issue to discuss. The other day, I went to see American Gangster at a Regal theater and once again participated in the Guest Response System. But unlike my first experience, I actually had to use the thing this time. While pressing the "Other Disturbance" button over and over and over because of a loud toddler, then finally after too long a time receiving responses in the forms of, first, a security guard and, second, a crew of ushers, I eventually realized that there is no way to communicate what exactly is the disturbance you're alerting the staff about. I don't want to say the parents of the toddler were covering the kid's mouth each time a Regal employee scoped out the auditorium, but coincidentally there was no disturbance whenever someone was monitoring the audience. And so, despite my having the little complainer pager, I put up with two-and-a-half hours of a sporadically loud child who should have never been brought to American Gangster in the first place.

Okay, now that I've got that off my plate, it's time to address the main topic of the week:

Beowulf.

On Friday, Robert Zemeckis' new performance-capture "animated" film hits 2,800 screens across the U.S. More than 700 of those screens will show the film in digital 3-D, via IMAX, Real D or Dolby systems (yes, there's three different 3-D systems). It's apparently the largest rollout of a 3-D release ever, and it could mean big things for both Hollywood and the exhibition industry. Or it could be just another 3-D movie, no more an event than when Disney's Chicken Little came out a couple years ago touted as the first digital 3-D release to hit regular cinemas.

When it comes to picking "scary movie" fare for kids, you want to walk that line between "just scary enough to be fun" versus "gives them nightmares for weeks." Of course, the appropriateness of any of these picks depends on your particular child and their tolerance for all things spooky, but here's a list of picks that I think my own brood (ages 10, 8, 6 and 4) would enjoy. Best of all, they're all available on DVD, so you can rent (or buy) them and watch them over and over again!

Ghostbusters -- My husband and I realized recently that our kids had never seen Ghostbusters, and set out to remedy that with a stop at the video store. I wondered how the film, now 23 years old, would play to kids raised on spectacular CGI special effects; I needn't have worried, as they were enthralled from start to finish. They laughed hysterically at the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and even loved the Ray Parker, Jr. theme song -- they sang and danced along with the song sequence, gleefully shouting "Ghostbusters!" at the appropriate times. Thankfully, none of them have (yet) asked to be the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man for Halloween -- not that that wouldn't be a cool costume, I just don't have time to make one -- though I suppose if I was really lazy I could just bungee-cord some pillows to their arms and legs, slap on a sailor collar and hat, and call it good.

Always be wary of overblown announcements from Hollywood. Disney is announcing a great achievement in the opening weekend of its latest animated flick, Meet the Robinsons, but the studio is making a bigger deal out of its supposed success. The announcement pertains to the performance of 3-D showings of Robinsons versus the more available 2-D version of the film. Yes, Robinsons now holds a record for having the greatest opening for a 3-D movie, with regards to the width of its rollout and to its box office gross, but there are a few details that aren't being revealed in Disney's promotion of this news.

First of all, the wider rollout is due to more screens being equipped with Real D's 3-D exhibition technology -- Robinsons in 3-D opened on 521 screens (3413 with 2-D screens included) compared to Monster House in 3-D on 178 screens (3553 with 2-D screens included). Second of all, Robinsons technically did worse business than Monster House in 3-D theaters if you consider each film's per-screen average. Robinsons made $7.3 million off its 3-D showings, which makes its per-screen take only $12,220. Monster House, on the other hand, made only $2.3 million from its 3-D screens, making its per-screen take $15,000. Overall, with 3-D and 2-D screens tallied, Robinsons grossed better in its opening weekend than Monster House ($25.1 mill. vs. $22.2 mill.), and Robinsons' percentage grossed from 3-D was higher than Monster House's (13% vs. 11%), but otherwise it seems that people may have been a tad more curious about the new 3-D format last summer than today.

Now that Disney is no longer the best name in animation, it seems to at least be interested in controlling those studios that are the best. It already has Pixar; now it wants Robert Zemeckis' motion-capture, 3D films, which are the next big cutting edge thing in animation -- and very popular, too. Zemeckis already moved his production company, ImageMovers, to the Disney lot last year, but that didn't necessarily mean the director's animated films would have to be distributed by the Mouse House (so far, though, there's this one). His last home was at Dreamworks, but The Polar Express was released by Warner Bros. and his upcoming Beowulf will be brought out in the States by Paramount (foreign distro carried by Warner Bros.). He also produced the Sony-released Monster House.

It was announced yesterday that Zemeckis, with partners Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey, will start a new production company at Disney, which will envelope ImageMovers. It isn't clear, though, whether or not this partnership means Disney will be distributing all of the trio's animated films similar to its former deal (turned acquisition) with Pixar. If so, then only Dreamworks, with its potentially never-ending Shrek franchise, will be significant competition. However, it will be a long time before Zemeckis will be able to finish a film at Disney, and there's a chance that the Mouse House could ruin its reputation as a brand for 3D toons before it has the chance to show off the goods. Disney already left a bad taste with Chicken Little, and its upcoming Meet the Robinsons could very well be just as rotten.

Now here's a weird Oscar rule that you probably never knew (I sure didn't): In order for there to be five Best Animated Feature nominees, there have to be at least sixteen eligible titles. The last time this happened was in 2002, when Miyazaki's Spirited Away proved to be the year's best ieffort n animation. (According the The Academy, anyway.)

Warner's Happy Feet, Weinstein's Arthur and the Invisibles and Sony's Paprika have yet to "officially" open, but once they do it means we'll get five nominees in one of Oscars' more colorful categories. (Last year we only had three, and that wasn't as much fun.) In addition to the three mentioned above, the other eligibles are The Ant Bully, Barnyard, Cars, Curious George, Everyone's Hero, Flushed Away, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Monster House, Open Season, Over the Hedge, Renaissance, A Scanner Darkly and The Wild. (What, no Ultraviolet?)

So if you had to pick only five of those flicks (aside from the three we haven't seen yet, of course), what would be your picks as "Oscar material?" If I'm predicting the field, my five picks would be Cars, Monster House, Over the Hedge, Renaissance and A Scanner Darkly. If I'm casting a vote for my favorite: Over the Hedge. Flick made me giggle.

In case you can't get to a theater showing Monster House in 3-D before it disappears, don't worry. The computer-animated movie is getting a two-week re-release right before it comes out on DVD. On October 6th, Sony Pictures will re-open the movie on 100 3-D screens, and I implore you to celebrate the Halloween month by going to see it in that format. I finally caught up with the movie this week and not only was amazed by the new 3-D technology, but also loved the film itself.

Since it has a witty script that appeals to adults as well as children, Monster House will be good enough on your 2-D television -- but why would you want to miss out on the experience that is available to you while it lasts? The best thing about the 3-D is that it isn't a gimmick, and the movie doesn't feature otherwise unnecessary pop-out shots that only exist because of the technology. Instead it is more subtle, and therefore less distracting. At times I took notice of the picture's visual depth and at one time I almost thought there was actual smoke sifting through the auditorium, but otherwise, I was immersed enough in the story that the 3-D stuff wasn't blatantly apparent. In a good way. Like in the way that really good acting, directing, writing, scoring and editing shouldn't be too obvious.

Okay, I'll stop gushing. Go see it.

Read Kim's Review here.