A poorly-reviewed movie easily fought its way to the top of the weekend box office. That's almost standard practice for big-budget Hollywood studio product, but is quite unusual for an indie film. Joshua Seftel's comedy / drama War, Inc. (First Look) earned $17,650 per screen at two locations, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo, despite receiving mostly negative reviews -- Rotten Tomatoes pegged the critics at only 24% positive. Writing for Cinematical, Joel Keller described it as "an ambitious film that fails miserably at everything it attempts to be." John Cusack co-wrote and stars along with Marisa Tomei, Joan Cusack, Ben Kingsley and Hilary Duff.

Roger Spottiswoode's drama The Children of Huang Shi (Sony Pictures Classics) did not fare any better with our critic, Nick Schager, who felt that the film is "a TV movie in disguise, a handsomely staid affair that prefers skin-deep elegance to psychological or historical substance." Jonathan Rhys Meyers stars as a reporter that helped a school of orphaned children in 1937 China; Chow Yun-Fat plays a rebel and Radha Mitchell a nurse. Opening at seven theaters, The Children of Huang Shi averaged $6,036 per screen.

Good returns were also enjoyed by Joachim Trier's Reprise (Miramax), which expanded to 14 theaters in its second week and took in $6,614 per screen, and Claude Lelouch's Roman de Gare (Samuel Goldwyn), which added 11 more locations in its fifth week and increased nicely to $4,485 per screen.

Two new indie releases fared well, while two others struggled. Hailing from Norway, Reprise (Miramax) earned a very good $15,500 per-screen average at three theaters, according to estimates compiled by Leonard Klady at Movie City News. Our own James Rocchi gushed in his review: "Directed by Joachim Trier, Reprise is one of the most brilliant, heartfelt, exciting and exuberant feature film debuts in recent memory."

Mexican film Sangre de mi Sangre (AKA Padre Nuestro) (IFC Films) nestled into the #2 spot, earning $8,500 at one theater in Manhattan. The film follows two teenagers, one honest, one dishonest, trying to reach their disparate goals (reuniting with family, making money). Eric D. Snider noted: "The trouble is that the film is so bleak as to be almost hopeless ... Its grimness is not matched by its excellence."

Cinematical's Erik Davis raved about German director Christian Petzold's Yella (Cinema Guild) when he saw it at the Berlin film festival last year: "Like a drug, Yella slowly creeps on you long after the end credits roll, takes hold of your body and doesn't let go until you're convinced it was one of the best films this year's Berlinale had to offer." Opening at two theaters, the film made $3,450 per screen.

Despite good reviews (82% positive at Rotten Tomatoes), Georgina Garcia Riedel's How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer (Maya Releasing) failed to make an impact, opening at 84 theaters and marshaling just $1,040 per screen, per Mr. Klady's estimate.

Dressed in an impeccable suit and a pair of hip trainers, Joachim Trier looks like one of the characters in his acclaimed film Reprise. He seems like one of Reprise's characters, as well; bright, self-aware, given to both bold pronouncements and sly moments of self-deprecation. Trier's film won accolades on the festival circuit and even won Norway's Amanda award for best direction and best screenplay; chronicling the lives of two best friends with shared ambitions of literary glory, Reprise manages to be clever without being cool, hip without being insular, and conveys both the better natures and the human flaws of its characters. It's also startlingly funny, and while all the hip narrative touches in the film are clearly deliberate, they manage to be cool without ever for a moment seeming cold.

Trier spoke with Cinematical in Los Angeles about writing Reprise, the challenges of getting a European film to an American audience, the universal fashion code of Fred Perry shirts and how he's already said "No" to the idea of remaking his own film for American audiences. This interview, like all of Cinematical's podcast offerings, is now available through iTunes; if you'd like, you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:




(Interview transcribed after the jump)

Philip (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Erik (Espen Klouman-Hoiner) are best friends. They're both aspiring novelists. And at the beginning of Reprise, they both stand, hesitant, on the street in front of a mailbox, and put their manuscripts in. And the camera follows their hopes and aspirations into the darkness, and the film rockets forward, a narrator detailing the reception of their novels and what that does to their lives, who finds acclaim and who does not, the setbacks and triumphs of each of their careers, with jump cuts and film clips and rambling elaborations and bizarre left-field concepts and rapid-fire narration piled one atop the other. And then we're back in the here-and-now, as Phillip and Erik stand in front of the postal box, looking slightly abashed, wondering what exactly it is they're supposed to do next. Maybe what we saw was a dream, or a lie; we're going to have to wait and see what happens next, just like they have to.

Directed by Joachim Trier, Reprise is one of the most brilliant, heartfelt, exciting and exuberant feature film debuts in recent memory, and works not just as a demonstration of Trier's substantial talents but also as a superbly-made collaboration. Trier co-wrote alongside Eskil Vogt, and the film's ensemble (including Lie, Klouman-Hoiner and Viktoria Winge as Phillip's gamine girlfriend Kari) is also superb, down to seemingly-minute supporting roles that are nonetheless perfectly cast, like Eindreide Eisvold's all-seeing but hardly certain dry tone as the narrator.

"A playful film about friendship, madness and creativity," Reprise has won the Norwegian national film award for Best Film of the year. As reported by european-films.net, two other key awards, known as the Amandas, also went to Reprise: Best Director (Joachim Trier) and Best Screenplay (Trier and Eskil Vogt). Reprise has been sold to 25 territories and traveled to numerous festivals worldwide, including Karlovy Vary, Toronto, Sundance, and New Directors/New Films, but has yet to land North American distribution. Director Trier, a former Norwegian national skateboard champion, looks at what happens to two long time friends and aspiring novelists when their writing careers and romances take very different paths. The high-spirited trailer (available at the official site) displays a raucous sense of energy; I very much hope somebody will pick this up for Region 1 DVD distribution.

The Norwegian Film Institute (NFI) has a complete list of the winners. Best Actress was awarded to Ingrid Bolsø Berdal for the thriller Cold Prey (trailers; official site), Raouf Saraj won Best Actor prize for Kurdish love story Winterland (NFI info page) and Henrik Mestad received the nod for Best Supporting Role for Sons, "an intense semi-thriller" about "a young man's quest to expose a pedophile," according to Variety's postive review. Veteran actor Mestad plays the accused pedophile.

The Departed won the Best Foreign Feature Award over fellow nominees Babel and La Vie en Rose. Lauren Bacall was in attendance to receive an honorary award. The Amanda awards ceremony was the kick-off event for the 35th edition of the Norwegian International Film Festival, held in Haugesund. This year's festival will screen 80-90 features, focusing on European and Nordic titles, and runs through August 24.

Norway announced yesterday that it would be submitting Reprise as their country's entry for the best foreign language film Oscar. The movie is about "life's realities intruding on youthful assumptions." It joins Sweden's entry Falkenberg Farewell and Denmark's After the Wedding, which were announced earlier in the week.

The foreign language film category in the Oscars often feels tacked on haphazardly, and is frequently paid little attention. Which is exactly how I treated foreign films until I took a cinema history course in college. That was probably the first time I watched a film with subtitles (I think it was Raise the Red Lantern), and opened my eyes to world cinema. Frequently, American cinema seems to be all Boobs and/or Explosions IV at the box office, while films with real stories and characters go unnoticed.

Foreign films are almost always lower in budget than our mid-range films, yet they have more heart and story than our films do. Why is that? U.S. big-budget blockbusters usually perform very well overseas, so if they like those types of films, why aren't they producing them? Is it a problem of budget, or of storytelling? Heck, even Shaun of the Dead was much better than the non-stop stream of bad horror movies on this side of the pond.

Anyhow, while I think about what makes foreign films so good, I'm off to go see The Guardian to put it all in perspective.