Tag Archives: Entertainment

There is an amusing phenomenon, going back at least as long as I can remember, to underestimate the box office potential of films featuring actors of color. We don’t see it coming, we’re shocked when it happens, and then studios don’t actually factor this new information into their production slate.
Anyway, The Call was the top new release of the weekend, earning $17.2 million. Yes the film played strongly among African Americans, at least partially because the movie bothered to feature a few (Halle Berry and Morris Chestnut among many others) in more than just token roles. Tracking this debut compared to Berry’s previous efforts is tough because she has had co-starring roles in stuff like Die Another Day ($47 million debut), The Flintstones ($29 million), and the X-Men trilogy ($54m, $85m, and $102m).
In terms of starring vehicles, this is bigger than the likes of Catwoman ($16 million), and A Perfect Stranger ($11 million), but below Gothica ($19 million). The marketing smartly highlighted that it was a film about one woman rescuing another woman from peril, with no clear male lead. It played 61% female and 53% over-30. The picture cost just WWE just $13 million before selling the rights to Sony and earned a B+ from Cinemascore, so it may just have legs. Even if its appeal is about “black audiences have nothing for them right now”, Warner Bros’ Jackie Robinson biopic 42 doesn’t open until April 12th.
To read more go to Mendelson’s Memos
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The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival announced Audience Award-winners today from the Narrative Feature Competition, Documentary Feature Competition, Narrative Spotlight, Documentary Spotlight, Emerging Visions, Midnighters, 24 Beats Per Second, SXGlobal, Festival Favorites and Design Award categories. Audience Award results for all categories were certified by the accounting firm of Maxwell Locke & Ritter.
The Audience Awards follow the previously announced 2013 Jury Awards, which included Grand Jury Winners Destin Daniel Cretton’s Short Term 12 for Narrative Feature, and Ben Nabors’ WILLIAM AND THE WINDMILL for Documentary Feature. For the complete list of 2013 Award Winners, visit sxsw.com/film.
The 2013 SXSW Film Festival hosted a total of 133 features, consisting of 78 World Premieres, 13 North American Premieres and 9 U.S. Premieres, with 76 first-time directors. 110 shorts will screen as part of 10 overall shorts programs. The nearly 250 films were selected from a record number of overall submissions, over 5,700, comprised of approximately 2,100 features and 3,600 shorts, with an overall increase of 7% over 2012.
2013 SXSW Film Festival Audience Award Winners:
NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION Winner: Short Term 12 Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION Winner: The Short Game Director: Josh Greenbaum
DOCUMENTARY SPOTLIGHT Winner: An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story Director: Al Reinert
NARRATIVE SPOTLIGHT Winner: Zero Charisma Directors: Katie Graham & Andrew Matthews
VISIONS Winner: Maidentrip Director: Jillian Schlesinger
SXSW FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2013 AUDIENCE AWARD WINNERS
MIDNIGHTERS Winner: Cheap Thrills Director: E.L. Katz
24 BEATS PER SECOND Winner: A Band Called Death Directors: Mark Christopher Covino & Jeff Howlett
SXGLOBAL Winner: The Punk Syndrome Directors: Jukka Kärkkäinen & J-P Passi
FESTIVAL FAVORITES Winner: The Crash Reel Director: Lucy Walker
SXSW Film Design Awards
EXCELLENCE IN POSTER DESIGN Audience Award Winner: Kiss of the Damned Designer: Akiko Stehrenberger, Gravillis Inc
EXCELLENCE IN TITLE DESIGN Audience Award Winner: Chasing Shakespeare Designer: Lucky Post
As today is the final day of SXSW Film, additional screenings have been scheduled as follows for all Audience Award-winners:
Audience Award: Narrative Feature Competition
Short Term 12
03/16/2013, Topfer Theatre at ZACH, 9:30 PM
Audience Award: Documentary Feature Competition
The Short Game
03/16/2013, Stateside Theatre, 6:45 PM
Audience Award: 24 Beats Per Second
A Band Called Death
03/16/2013, Vimeo Theater, 7:15 PM
Audience Award: Visions
Maidentrip
03/16/2013, Alamo Ritz 1, 9:30 PM
Audience Award: Narrative Spotlight
Zero Charisma
03/16/2013, Stateside Theatre, 9:30 PM
2 of 3
SXSW FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2013 AUDIENCE AWARD WINNERS
Audience Award: Documentary Spotlight
An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story
03/16/2013, Vimeo Theater, 9:45 PM
Audience Award: Midnighters
Cheap Thrills
03/16/2013, Alamo Ritz 1, 11:59 PM
Audience Award: SXGlobal
The Punk Syndrome
03/16/2013, Alamo Ritz 2, [...]

30,000 people donated an average of $64 during a several hour period yesterday, and thus we will be getting a Veronica Mars movie sometime next summer.
Creator Rob Thomas and star Kristen Bell used Kickstarter to basically prove to Warner Bros. that there is indeed an interest in a continuation of the cult detective drama that ran for three low-rated seasons on the CW back in 2004-2007.
The deal was basically to raise $2 million in a month and Warner Bros. would agree to distribute and market the film, giving it a limited theatrical release and the various home-viewing options. They hit their target at 5:55 pm this evening. I made a bitchy joke earlier in the day about raising money to find domestic ‘food insecurity’ among American children by calling such an initiative ‘Save Firefly!’ or something to that effect. My first instincts were ones of priorities and what this said about our ‘entitlement culture’. Upon reflection (I purposely didn’t write anything immediately), I’m still not sure how I feel about this. This is indeed very interesting, it may even be *news*. But is it good news overall.
To read more go to Mendelson’s Memos
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It is on The Great Gatsby by Australian director Baz Luhrmann, that the curtain will rise at the inauguration of the 66th Festival de Cannes, on Wednesday 15th May, in the Grand Théâtre Lumière du Palais des Festivals, out of Competition in the Official Selection.
Adapted from the famous novel by American author Francis Scott Fitzgerald and set against the roaring twenties on the East Coast of the United States, the film depicts the romantic and tragic figure of Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), as narrated by his friend Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Carey Mulligan is Daisy Buchanan, whose husband is played by Joel Edgerton.
This prestigious occasion will also be graced with the presence of Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan, as well as the American pop star, rapper Jay-Z
To read more go to Festival de Cannes
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Sony Pictures Entertainment has closed a deal with Nancy Meyers to direct an untitled film to be produced by Matt Tolmach and Nancy Meyers, it was announced today by Doug Belgrad, president of Columbia Pictures, and Hannah Minghella, president of Production for the studio. Meyers rewrote a screenplay that was originally written by Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber.
The deal returns Meyers to Columbia Pictures, where she previously made The Holiday and Something’s Gotta Give.
In the new film, the life of an American young woman gets turned upside down when she begins dating a very unlikely young man. The complexities that follow are bigger than both of them. The comedy is set entirely in the UK, the film will have an all British cast with the exception of the female lead.
Commenting on the announcement, Belgrad said, “We are thrilled with the way this project has turned out and we’re especially excited that Nancy intends to make it her next film. This is the kind of movie that Nancy does better than anyone else and we can’t wait to share this new movie with audiences all over the world.”
NANCY MEYERS co-wrote and directed The Parent Trap, produced and directed What Women Want, and wrote, directed and produced Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday, and It’s Complicated. Meyers’ first film as a writer/producer was Private Benjamin, which she produced and co-wrote with Charles Shyer and Harvey Miller; she was honored with the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen, as well as an Academy Award® nomination for Best Original Screenplay. She then co-wrote and produced Irreconcilable Differences, followed by Baby Boom and the box office hits Father of the Bride andFather of the Bride Part II.
About Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. SPE’s global operations encompass motion picture production and distribution; television production and distribution; home entertainment acquisition and distribution; a global channel network; digital content creation and distribution; operation of studio facilities; development of new entertainment products, services and technologies; and distribution of entertainment in 159 countries. For additional information, go to http://www.sonypictures.com/

I’ve said this before, but one of the problems with modern box office analysis is that it treats studio tracking numbers, which are supposed to be internal figures that can be used to adjust marketing in the run up to release, as ironclad box office predictions.
More often than not, pundits use tracking in a way that creates a preemptive doom-and-gloom scenario where a new release is painted as a box office turkey before it even opens *or* its used to give unrealistic expectations to a new release so that studios are then forced to defend what is actually a solid debut. Such is the case with Oz: The Great and Powerful (trailer/posters).
The $215 million Disney prequel debuted with a strong $80.3 million this weekend. Alas, due to rumblings and arbitrary presumptions that the film would open with as much as $100 million over the weekend, mostly due to the project’s token similarities with Alice In Wonderland, Disney may now be forced to defend what is easily the biggest opening of 2013 by more than double and the third-biggest March debut ever behind Alice In Wonderland ($116 million) and The Hunger Games ($153 million).
To read more go to Mendelson Memos
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Our selected celebrity to be included in our “Hollywood TV Star of the Week Photo Gallery” is Tina Fey.

Elizabeth Stamatina “Tina” Fey (born May 18, 1970) is an American actress, comedienne, writer and producer, known for her work on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (SNL) (1997–2006), the critically acclaimed NBC comedy series 30 Rock (2006–2013), and such films as Mean Girls (2004), Baby Mama (2008) and Date Night (2010).
Fey first broke into comedy as a featured player in the Chicago-based improvisational comedy group The Second City. She then joined SNL as a writer, later becoming head writer and a performer, known for her position as co-anchor in the Weekend Update segment. In 2004 she adapted the screenplay Mean Girls in which she also co-starred. After leaving SNL in 2006, she created the television series 30 Rock, a situation comedy loosely based on her experiences at SNL. In the series, Fey portrays the head writer of a fictional sketch comedy series. In 2008, she starred in the comedy film Baby Mama, alongside former SNL co-star Amy Poehler. Fey next appeared alongside Steve Carell in the 2010 comedy film Date Night and with Will Ferrell in the animated film Megamind.
Fey has received seven Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, four Writers Guild of America Awards and has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her autobiographical book Bossypants, which topped the The New York Times Best Seller list for five weeks. In 2008, the Associated Press (AP) gave Fey the AP Entertainer of the Year award for her satirical portrayal of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in a guest appearance on SNL.
In 2010, Fey was the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the youngest-ever winner of the award. On January 13, 2013, Fey hosted the Golden Globe Awards, along with her long-time friend and fellow comedian, Amy Poehler. This was the first time the awards ceremony was hosted by a woman. Their performance was critically acclaimed, with ABC News describing it as “spectacular.”
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Critics are divided about Sam Raimi’s “Oz, the Great and Powerful.” But audiences love it. Last night, “Oz” took in more than $24.1 million. For the weekend, it will bring in $70 million plus. That includes rotten weather on the east coast last night, so today and tonight may be bigger than thought. “Oz” is coming to a third biggest ever March opening.
Bravo! The movie looks great, and the actors are all terrific starting with James Franco and the three witches–Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz, and Mila Kunis. Moreover, Disney has ordered up the sequel. I don’t know what some people thought the movie would be–the actual “Wizard of Oz” cannot be duplicated and no one tried to do it. The movie was made in 1938, kids. That this “Oz” approximated its charm in a modern way is the accomplishment.
For those who want to see Franco in a less conventional role, wait til you see him in “Spring Breakers.” Harmony Korine’s wild saga is a week away. Franco is a rapper-drug dealer into three-ways. He steals the movie from all the so- called “kids.” A couple of white rappers are already say they inspired his look. But the character is all original, and very adult. In “Spring Breakers,” we are not in Kansas anymore.
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The only spoiler bit is at around 1:02, where Captain Pike has some facial scars that I don’t recall him having at the end of the first Star Trek (he was of course seriously injured, but I don’t recall scarring).
Perhaps Pike gets those scars when Cumberbatch escapes from his glass prison at the halfway mark, because “He planned to get caught the whole time!”. Otherwise, this is a quick (78 seconds) and breezy action-packed trailer.
It’s nice that they aren’t focusing as much on Benedict Cumberbatch’s mystery villain (I have a theory on that, broached by a friend of mine and backed up by what we’ve seen thus far, but I’m not sharing in case I’m right) and also showing off that the film isn’t all gloom and misery this time around. The initial trailers tried to sell the film as a generic ‘dark sequel’ or The Dark Knight meets Skyfall meets Revenge of the Sith.
This new trailer plays in the Return of the Jedi/Tron sandbox with phasers set for swashbuckling adventure.

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Unfortunately pretty much everything I feared about Oz: The Great and Powerful turned out to be true, at least from a gender perspective. It is indeed about three seemingly powerful women sitting around and waiting for a random man who fell out of the sky to not only attempt to save Oz but, more importantly, shape all three of their respective destinies.
Full-on spoiler warning…
The film also equates beauty with virtue in a rather explicit fashion, with somewhat laughable scenes of Rachel Weisz’s Evanora complaining of jealousy over Michelle Williams ‘pretty face’ seemingly oblivious to the fact that said evil witch is played by *Rachel Weisz* (spoiler: Rachel Weisz is insanely hot). It’s not just that Mila Kunis and Michelle Williams play seemingly strong female characters who constantly yap about needing some prophesied male wizard to swoop down and save their asses. The biggest problem in the film is that it allows its feeble and somewhat selfish male hero to basically define them and their actions.
To read more go to Mendelson’s Memos
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