The new ParentDish: helping raise kids of all ages
Moviefone
Posts with tag sleepwalking

Indie Weekend Box Office: 'Contempt' Reissue Far Outpaces New Releases

Faced with the prospect of checking out several new releases or luxuriating in a new print of Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt, audiences overwhelmingly chose Godard's 1963 classic. Playing at a single location (Film Forum in New York City), Contempt earned $13,100 over the weekend, according to estimates compiled by Leonard Klady of Movie City News. Distributor Rialto Pictures has the film booked at Film Forum until March 27, and then perhaps will tour the print, though no details are provided on their site.

Indie holdovers also did better than the newest offerings. David Gordon Green's Snow Angels (Warner Independent) made $8,666 per screen at three theaters in its second week out, per Box Office Mojo, while Oscar winner The Counterfeiters (Sony Pictures Classics) pulled in $6,263 per-screen at 72 locations in its fourth week. Ira Sachs' Married Life (Sony Pictures Classics), Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park (IFC) and Jacques Rivette's The Duchess of Langeais (IFC) also performed well; the first two in their second week of release, and the latter in its fourth week.

Michael Haneke's remake of his own Funny Games (Warner Independent) did very little business, grabbing just $1,800 per screen at 289 engagements, which is disappointing since our own James Rocchi called it "a great film ... it's hard to say which Funny Games stirs up more -- your guts, or your brain." Meanwhile, Bill Maher's Sleepwalking (Overture) was right behind at $1,640 per screen at 30 locations. In the review by Cinematical's Jeffrey M. Anderson, he concluded: "Worst of all is that title, which is exactly the kind of title that filmmakers should stay away from if they want to avoid a fairly obvious one-word film review."

Review: Sleepwalking

One of the things I hate most about wannabe indie movies is the fallacy of the two-day scruff. That's when a male character wakes up every day with exactly two days' growth of beard, even if the movie takes place over the course of two weeks and even if he lacks the means to shave. That's a small thing, I know, but it indicates that the director is grasping at straws trying to come up with a visual look for his story, perhaps a kind of cool, grungy look. The new Sleepwalking, directed by Bill Maher (not the Comedy Central guy) is filled with such things, like a spookily serene shot of a girl swimming underwater with weird sunglasses on, or swirls of powdered snow wisping across a lonely highway. These images may fill out a 2-1/2 minute trailer, but they're out of place in Maher's feature film.

Nick Stahl plays the "sleepwalking" James, a dead-eyed slacker who works a construction job and goes home to a dreary apartment. One day his sister Joleen (Charlize Theron) disappears and his 11 year-old Niece Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) turns up looking for help. Even though he can't drive, James attempts to maintain a schedule, driving her to school in the mornings, before turning up at his job. One day he's late, and the next he calls in sick to look for his sister. On the third day, they oversleep, just as social services turn up. James loses his job and Tara is shipped off to a home. But the first chance she gets, she coaxes her uncle to help her skip town. Their money carries them only as far as James and Joleen's father's farm, which looks permanently chilled and dried and wind-blown (only scraps of paint remain on the outside walls).

Continue reading Review: Sleepwalking

Sundance Review: Sleepwalking



Sleepwalking stars Charlize Theron -- but she disappears from the screen for about two-thirds of the film. It's set in the American West -- but shot in Canada. It's about family, pain, loss, renewal -- all of which are discussed, and discussed more elegantly, in other films at Sundance this year. It even has what's become a fairly standard-issue Sundance finale, as a character hits the open road with a bright future ahead of them, aside from the murder rap in their rear view mirror. It's not that Sleepwalking is bad, per se; it's just that it's inert, a space-and-schedule filler that can now put the words "Sundance Premiere Selection" on the DVD box when it goes straight-to-video.

Joleen Reedy (Theron) has one of those lives where all the things that go wrong keep her harried and distracted enough to not notice how many of them are her fault. She's been thrown out of her house because the cops have seized her boyfriend's on-site marijuana gro-op, and she and her daughter Tara (AnnaSophia Robb) move in with her brother James (Nick Stahl). Joleen doesn't even try to get back on her feet -- or, rather, she figures the best way to get back on her feet involves leaving town in pursuit of another man; Tara's left with James, and his strained life implodes under the stress of trying to care for an 11-year-old girl.


Continue reading Sundance Review: Sleepwalking

Trailer for Charlize Theron's 'Sleepwalking'

To be honest, I'm a little surprised that today is the first day I have heard about the indie-drama Sleepwalking -- mainly because it stars two Oscar-nominated actors. Heck, one of them even won. You would have thought that the marketing department would have had a field day with that kind of award-winning pedigree. Trailer Addict is now hosting the first trailer for this dysfunctional family drama, which stars Charlize Theron, Nick Stahl, AnnaSophia Robb and Dennis Hopper.

Robb plays a young girl who has to come to terms with the fact that her mother (Theron) has abandoned her, and that she has been left with her uncle James (Stahl), who is not ready to deal with raising a kid on his own. Hopper plays the patriarch of this dysfunctional family and by the looks of the trailer, he is making full use of his skill with playing a 'villain.'

Sleepwalking was written by Zac Stanford, who is a relative newcomer, and this was his first feature film script. Bill Maher (no, not that one) directed the dysfunctional weepie, and is also relatively new to the directing game. (So far, Maher has spent most of his career as a visual effects artist on films like X-Men and Mars Attacks!) The movie was chosen to be a part of the Sundance slate (you can check out stills from the film from our Sundance coverage here), but there is no word about a release date. One look at the credits would lead me to believe that it probably won't take long before the property is snatched up by a studio.

[via Filmstalker]

Cinematical Features



Take a step outside the mainstream: Cinematical Indie.

CATEGORIES
Awards (824)
Box Office (548)
Casting (3607)
Celebrities and Controversy (1779)
Columns (216)
Contests (202)
Deals (2913)
Distribution (995)
DIY/Filmmaking (1809)
Executive shifts (98)
Exhibition (599)
Fandom (4209)
Home Entertainment (1148)
Images (617)
Lists (344)
Moviefone Feedback (5)
Movie Marketing (2175)
New Releases (1706)
Newsstand (4286)
NSFW (83)
Obits (284)
Oscar Watch (493)
Politics (792)
Polls (23)
Posters (133)
RumorMonger (2111)
Scripts (1476)
Site Announcements (269)
Stars in Rewind (59)
Tech Stuff (407)
Trailers and Clips (485)
BOLDFACE NAMES
James Bond (204)
George Clooney (150)
Daniel Craig (80)
Tom Cruise (230)
Johnny Depp (144)
Peter Jackson (120)
Angelina Jolie (146)
Nicole Kidman (44)
George Lucas (169)
Michael Moore (66)
Brad Pitt (146)
Harry Potter (155)
Steven Spielberg (266)
Quentin Tarantino (141)
FEATURES
12 Days of Cinematicalmas (59)
400 Screens, 400 Blows (103)
After Image (33)
Best/Worst (36)
Bondcast (7)
Box Office Predictions (76)
Celebrities Gone Wild! (23)
Cinematical Indie (3846)
Cinematical Indie Chat (4)
Cinematical Seven (222)
Cinematical's SmartGossip! (49)
Coming Distractions (13)
Critical Thought (347)
DVD Reviews (197)
Eat My Shorts! (16)
Fan Rant (41)
Festival Reports (824)
Film Blog Group Hug (56)
Film Clips (32)
Five Days of Fire (24)
Friday Night Double Feature (24)
From the Editor's Desk (68)
Geek Report (81)
Guilty Pleasures (27)
Hold the 'Fone (426)
Indie Online (3)
Indie Seen (7)
Insert Caption (112)
Interviews (314)
Killer B's on DVD (71)
Monday Morning Poll (47)
Mr. Moviefone (8)
New in Theaters (301)
New on DVD (263)
Northern Exposures (1)
Out of the Past (13)
Podcasts (99)
Retro Cinema (77)
Review Roundup (45)
Scene Stealers (13)
Seven Days of 007 (25)
Speak No Evil by Jeffrey Sebelia (7)
Summer Movies (40)
The Geek Beat (27)
The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar (33)
The Rocchi Review: Online Film Community Podcast (27)
The Write Stuff (25)
Theatrical Reviews (1535)
Trailer Trash (443)
Trophy Hysteric (32)
Unscripted (33)
Vintage Image of the Day (140)
Waxing Hysterical (42)
GENRES
Action (4634)
Animation (945)
Classics (935)
Comedy (4219)
Comic/Superhero/Geek (2272)
Documentary (1256)
Drama (5437)
Family Films (1083)
Foreign Language (1410)
Games and Game Movies (279)
Gay & Lesbian (219)
Horror (2089)
Independent (2976)
Music & Musicals (850)
Noir (184)
Mystery & Suspense (762)
Religious (94)
Remakes and Sequels (3434)
Romance (1117)
Sci-Fi & Fantasy (2881)
Shorts (257)
Sports (259)
Thrillers (1717)
War (228)
Western (64)
FESTIVALS
Oxford Film Festival (1)
AFI Dallas (45)
Austin (23)
Berlin (89)
Cannes (276)
Chicago (18)
ComicCon (88)
Fantastic Fest (63)
Gen Art (8)
New York (52)
Other Festivals (287)
Philadelphia Film Festival (13)
San Francisco International Film Festival (28)
Seattle (64)
ShoWest (3)
Slamdance (20)
Sundance (596)
SXSW (274)
Telluride (61)
Toronto International Film Festival (340)
Tribeca (258)
Venice Film Festival (10)
WonderCon (1)
Friday Night Double Feature (0)
DISTRIBUTORS
Roadside Attractions (5)
20th Century Fox (569)
Artisan (1)
Disney (540)
Dreamworks (274)
Fine Line (4)
Focus Features (143)
Fox Atomic (16)
Fox Searchlight (167)
HBO Films (31)
IFC (108)
Lionsgate Films (350)
Magnolia (101)
Miramax (65)
MGM (181)
New Line (369)
Newmarket (17)
New Yorker (5)
Picturehouse (9)
Paramount (570)
Paramount Vantage (40)
Paramount Vantage (11)
Paramount Classics (48)
Samuel Goldwyn Films (7)
Sony (479)
Sony Classics (135)
ThinkFilm (105)
United Artists (37)
Universal (632)
Warner Brothers (887)
Warner Independent Pictures (92)
The Weinstein Co. (438)
Wellspring (6)

RESOURCES

RSS NEWSFEEDS

Powered by Blogsmith

Featured Stories

Sponsored Links

Recent Theatrical Reviews

Cinematical Interviews

Most Commented On (60 days)

Weblogs, Inc. Network

Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in: