shorts Tagged Articles at Cinematical

As pleased as I am at the box office success of Quentin Tarantino's ambitious, pretty terrific Inglourious Basterds, I wonder how many of the folks who saw it this weekend knew what they were getting into. Its clever, funny marketing campaign aside, the movie is two and a half hours of mostly talking, mostly in foreign languages. Movies that fit that description do not have $37.6 million opening weekends. We should know by next weekend whether or not people were duped (and I should say that it's not clear -- the movie is plenty exciting despite, or perhaps in part because of, all the gabbing). For the moment, Inglourious Basterds, "artfully" misspelled title and all, is easily Quentin Tarantino's biggest opening.

Robert Rodriguez, Tarantino's occasional partner in crime, also had a movie opening this weekend -- the kiddie 3-D adventure Shorts. With $6.6 million, Shorts actually wound up being a personal worst for Rodriguez, who has never had a movie open in wide release to weaker numbers. (The similarly low-profile The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl did roughly twice the business.) And the non-descript, poorly reviewed Post Grad joins a growing list of late-summer total non-starters, with $2.8 million on 2000 screens.

Julie & Julia continues to perform well for Sony. Aside from holding up nicely in general, it's doing well during the workweek -- and, after three weeks, is at three times its opening weekend gross. The Ugly Truth has also acquitted itself, now having surpassed Katherine Heigl's previous effort as a leading lady, 27 Dresses.

The full top 10 after the jump.

Welcome back to another edition of Insert Caption -- the game that would totally squeeze itself into a pair of hot pink short-shorts after a few drinks ... but don't tell anyone that. Last week we asked you to churn out a funny caption for a photo from The Time Traveler's Wife. Congrats go out to our three winners, all of whom should be commended for staying away from naked Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator jokes.


1. "It's just kinda weird that you always seem to "re-appear" when I'm naked . . . ." -- Melissa V.

2. "And further into the future, I shave my head, get tribal tattoos all over, and blow up starships..." -- Joel M.

3. "It wouldn't really be a 'threesome' because the other guy would be me from the future." -- Bob D.

See full image and all captions

This week we're taking things in a lighter direction in anticipation of Robert Rodriguez's new film, Shorts, about a kid who discovers a rainbow-colored rock that magically grants wishes. The one person who delivers the best caption this week will bounce away with one Shorts "Phlat" Ball, two backpacks, one green splat T-shirt, one lollipop, one sheet of stickers, one Frisbee, one beach ball, one hat and one yo-yo. As a bonus, two runners-up will also receive two backpacks, one green splat T-shirt, one lollipop, one sheet of stickers, one Frisbee, one beach ball, one hat and one yo-yo. So throw on those caption hats and sound off below ...



Read the official rules for this contest

I'm spoiled. As a kid, I woke up with Beanie and Cecil and Rocky and Bullwinkle, gobbled down Looney Tunes, Merry Melodies, Speed Racer and Gigantor after school, and passed the early evening hours with The Flintstones and The Jetsons. Even as an uneducated child, I knew the ones with replay value and the ones that quickly grew tiresome. As an adult, I know the ones that still hold up and the ones that make me embarrassed to admit I ever watched them.

That brings me in a roundabout way to Robert Rodriguez' new, live-action film Shorts. Funny, inventive, and very, very clever in micro-bursts of six to eight seconds, Shorts becomes tiresome over the length of its 89-minute running time. I couldn't shake the feeling that it would have been better-suited as a weekly television show, chopped up into brief segments with plenty of commercial breaks in between. Shorts could just as easily have been called "Six Short Sketches in Search of a Synopsis," but then the title would be longer than its attention span.

Aimed squarely at kids, Shorts may, perhaps, please the modern sensibility of today's sub-teens, but I suspect the well has run dry for Rodriguez and family films. The Spy Kids franchise devolved in entertainment value from the first installment to the third, and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl was an unfortunate mess. Rodriguez has built a cottage industry based on a scattershot approach to filmmaking. He's always been a "shoot [film] first, ask [narrative] questions later" kind of director / writer / photographer / editor / composer / visual effects artist. That doesn't serve him well with Shorts.

Only two of last week's new releases managed to hit the top five. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, Ponyo and Bandslam took sixth, ninth and thirteenth respectively. Here's the top five:

1. District 9: $37.4 million
2. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: $22.3 million
3. The Time Traveler's Wife: $18.6 million
4. Julie & Julia: $12 million
5. G-Force: $6.9 million

Four more new releases this week:

Inglourious Basterds
What's It All About: Quentin Tarantino's hotly anticipated World War II actioner. Brad Pitt plays a U.S. officer who leads a group of Jewish-American soldiers behind enemy lines to commit acts of retribution.
Why It Might Do Well: Tarantino brought us Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill movies. Also, Rottentomatoes.com gives it 81%.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Tarantino's Death Proof was painfully talky at times.
Number of Theaters: 3,000
Prediction: $28 million

Post Grad
What's It All About: Alexis Bledel plays a recent college grad who finds the real world more challenging than she expected.
Why It Might Do Well: Bledel was adorable on Gilmore Girls and her politically incorrect grandmother is being played by Carol Burnett.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Do moviegoers really want to be reminded of the crappy job market?
Number of Theaters: 1,900
Prediction: $7 million

James Spader returns to the villain roles that made him famous in Shorts, the new family film by writer-director Robert Rodriguez. But during the film's recent press day, the star of such '80s classics as Pretty in Pink and Less Than Zero took a moment to reflect on his experiences working with John Hughes, who passed away last week at the age of 59.

"I actually was very lucky on [Pretty in Pink]," Spader said during a roundtable interview on Saturday. "John [Hughes] wrote and produced that film; Howard Deutch directed it, and it was just such fun. That was a picture where John was on the set every day, I was living in New York at the time and I was out here on my own, and John and I got along really well."

"He'd invite me over to the house a lot on weekends to have lunch with his family," he continued. "He had a big family, and they would all be jumping around in the pool and stuff. He had a very odd writing affect – he wrote at night, long after the rest of the family had gone to bed – and I've always been a night person."

Obviously not everyone's memories of Hughes and his films are as intimate, but what do you remember most about the iconic writer-director? A scene? A movie? Let us know!

We spoke to Robert Rodriguez on video at Comic-Con, and then we sat down with him for a full interview to get an update on all of his projects, and to find out about his upcoming movie Shorts. He's definitely a man wearing a lot of hats, since he writes, directs, edits, scores, does special effects, and produces. In fact, just about the only thing he doesn't do in these films is act. He brought us up to date on Red Sonja, Sin City 2 and Predators, and spoke about being back at Comic-Con.

Read on after the break for his full interview, including more about Shorts and how his kids help inspire his movies. It's just after the jump, and is (mostly) free of information about who he's dating.

Shutter Island
Martin Scorsese's latest thriller looks downright spectacular. The film is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane and Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a U.S. Marshall searching for an escaped mental patient on an island off the coast of Massachusetts. DiCaprio's character comes up against a dark conspiracy and he is haunted by the memory of his late wife who is played by Michelle Williams. And yes that's Jackie Earl Haley as one of the inmates (he plays crazy REALLY well). Watch for this one on October 2.

Old Dogs
OK, the bit where Seth Green is singing "I'm All Out of Love" to the gorilla is pretty funny, and the penguin attack got me to laugh but the plot seems ridiculously simplistic. Robin Williams plays a man whose former girlfriend returns after seven years to tell him that he has twin children. With the help of his buddy played by John Travolta, Williams's character must adapt to the idea of instant fatherhood at a relatively advanced age. Wackiness enuses. This is being billed as a family movie so much of the humor is aimed at kids. This one hits theaters on November 25.

Moon
The last time we saw Sam Rockwell in outer space he was playing the two headed President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He plays it a little closer to home this time as the lone employee of a mining company working an outpost on the moon. He works his three-year tour of duty with hope of returning to his wife and daughter when it's all done, but things go wrong when he discovers a downed space craft (at least I think that's what's going on) containing an injured man who is his exact duplicate. This looks like a science fiction thriller with a lot of potential and things get luney (for a limited release anyway) on June 12.

Public Enemies
Historical drama with a lot of flare starring Johnny Depp as notorious bank robber John Dillinger. Throw in Christian Bale as FBI agent Melvin Purvis and Billy Crudup (yes, the blue naked guy from Watchmen) as J. Edgar Hoover and you've got a gangster flick worth seeing. This second trailer brings to mind films like The Untouchables and Road to Perdition. Watch for this one on July 1.


Shorts
Robert Rodriguez has proven equally adept at making children's movies and flicks for grownups. This time he's plunging back into the kiddie pool with a story about a put upon kid who discovers a magic rock that makes all his wishes come true. I'm far from the target demo but the film looks cute and I got a few laughs out of the trailer. We'll be seeing this one on August 7.

Above: Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes

Warner Brothers has unveiled their 2009 preview, featuring a whole bunch of brand new photos mixed with some we've already seen. Check out the newer images in the galleries below, as well as each film's official synopsis and release date.

Sherlock Homes (director Guy Ritchie)
In a dynamic new portrayal of Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous characters, "Sherlock Holmes" sends Holmes and his stalwart partner Watson on their latest challenge. Revealing fighting skills as lethal as his legendary intellect, Holmes will battle as never before to bring down a new nemesis and unravel a deadly plot that could destroy the country. Release Date: November 20, 2009



Where the Wild Things Are (director Spike Jonze)
Maurice Sendak's classic book Where the Wild Things Are comes to the big screen in an adventure tale for every generation. Release Date: October 16, 2009



Shorts (director Robert Rodriguez)
"Shorts" is set in the suburb of Black Falls, where all the houses look the same and everyone works for BLACK BOX Unlimited Worldwide Industries Incorporated, whose Mr. Black's BLACK BOX is the ultimate communication and do-it-all gadget that's sweeping the nation. Other than keeping his parents employed, however, Mr. Black's BLACK BOX has done nothing for 11-year-old Toe Thompson, who just wants to make a few friends...until a mysterious rainbow-colored rock falls from the sky, hits him in the head and changes everything. The Rainbow Rock does Mr. Black's BLACK BOX one better: it grants wishes to anyone who holds it. Before long, wishes-gone-wrong have left the neighborhood swarming with tiny spaceships, crocodile armies, giant boogers...and outrageous magical mayhem around every corner. But it's not until the grown-ups get their hands on the Rock that the trouble really starts. Now Toe and his newfound friends must join forces to save their town from itself, discovering along the way that what you wish for is not always what you want. Release Date: August 7, 2009

After rumors bubbled up about a possible end to Robert Rodriguez and Rose McGowan, her rep told People: "the production of all three films is moving forward with Rose to star." I'd question that since all the double R seems to be doing lately is acquiring projects that don't seem to go anywhere. Yes, there's a chance that they might be on hold while he films Shorts, but that production is where the new hub-ub is coming from (via Defamer).

I highly doubt there's any truth to the matter, but it's worth a glance into the rumor that Rodriguez is now canoodling his new young star, Kat Dennings. She's the girl who got her start on Sex and the City as the "f**king fabulous" rich girl having a bat mitzvah, and has since got a stepdad in a 40-year-old Virgin, and impressed audiences with her time with Charlie Bartlett.