Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: March 2017

3/30/2017

Top 10: Best 'box office success' movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Explanation
Following 'minor flop' and 'even' status on Film Excess, 'box office success' is the first label that marks a real theatrical hit, which in most cases has grossed between 2.5 - 3.49 times its own budget at the box office. Some older films with unknown budgets and/or grosses end up in this category if reported theatrical hits elsewhere

1. The Leopard/Il Gattopardo/Le Guépard (1963) - Luchino Visconti

2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) - Stephen Chbosky

3. The Shining (1980) - Stanley Kubrick

4. Casino (1995) - Martin Scorsese

5. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari/Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920) - Robert Wiene

6. Mommy (2014) - Xavier Dolan

7. Carol (2015) - Todd Haynes

8. Elephant (2003) - Gus Van Sant

9. Bad Hair/Pelo Malo (2013) - Mariana Rondón

3/26/2017

Elf (2003) - Favreau and Ferrell supply belly laughs and Christmas magic

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Christmas Movie of the Year + Best Huge Hit of the Year

Will Ferrell is strapped for hijinks inside a Christmas ball on this poster for Jon Favreau's Elf

Buddy is a human who is raised in the elf world, who now discovers his different origin and decides to travel to New York to find his father. - But life is hard in the big city for an elf!

Will Ferrell (Semi-Pro (2008)) lights up every scene like a Christmas lantern in the title role here in this wonderful family comedy. Elf flies high on his spirited performance, the strange and creatively accomplished elf world on the North Pole, and a great sense of absurd comedy coupled with genuinely sweet moments.
Ferrell receives enthusiastic backup from Zooey Deschanel (Our Idiot Brother (2011)), Michael Lerner (The Mod Squad (1999)), Peter Dinklage (Human Nature (2001)), James Caan (Viva Las Nowhere (2001)) and Mary Steenburgen (I Am Sam (2001)) in supporting parts.
Elf is written by David Berenbaum (The Haunted Mansion (2003)) and directed by great New-Yorker director Jon Favreau (The Jungle Book (2016)). It is handsomely produced, funny, thrilling and has Christmas magic in spades. It is a favorite with just about everyone.

Related posts:

Jon Favreau: 2016 in films - according to Film Excess
The Jungle Book (2016) - Favreau's great, widest appealing movie to date
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Iron Man 2 (2010) - Favreau and Theroux's boisterous, entertaining sequel

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the movie here

Cost: 33 mil. $
Box office: 220.4 mil. $
= Huge hit
[Elf premiered 9 October (Austin Film Festival) and runs 97 minutes. Jim Carrey was offered the role, but turned it down, and Terry Zwigoff was offered to direct but turned it down in preference for his Christmas movie, Bad Santa (2003). Shooting took place in Vancouver, Canada and in New York from December 2002 - March 2003. Buddy's (Ferrell) singing in Gimbel's' Santa-land wasn't scripted; Ferrell reportedly made it up on the spot. The film opened #2, behind The Matrix Revolutions, to a 31.1 mil. $ opening weekend in North America, where it rose to #1 in its second week (a substantially quieter week at the box office) and spent a total of 6 weeks in the top 5, grossing 173.3 mil. $ (78.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 28 mil. $ (12.7 %) and Australia with 6.1 mil. $ (2.8 %). Roger Ebert gave the film 3/4 stars, equal to a notch harder than this review. It has since its release been listed as one of the best Christmas films of all time by several respected publications. The film has spun a 2010 Broadway musical and a 2014 NBC special, with Jim Parsons playing Buddy. Elf is certified fresh at 84 % with a 7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Elf?

3/21/2017

Kong: Skull Island (2017) - Kong reigns supreme in Vogt-Roberts' flawed but entertaining monster spectacle

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Kaiju Movie of the Year

One of the awesome, deliciously colored posters for Jordan Vogt-Roberts' Kong: Skull Island

Kong: Skull Island is the reboot of legendary cinema monster King Kong, who first came to life in Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Shoedsack's King Kong (1933) and was most recently seen in master director Peter Jackson's overloaded, bad King Kong (2005), which was a remake of the original. Kong: Skull Island tells us a new story of Kong:

During the last stages of the American Vietnam War, two scientists are able to get a US senator to back a plan to investigate an uncharted island in the South Pacific, where something extremely large and unknown waits for modern man to discover it.

Kong: Skull Island is written by Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler (2014)), Max Borenstein (Godzilla (2014)) and Derek Connolly (Jurassic World (2015)), with John Gatins (Flight (2012)) contributing story elements, and directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts (The Kings of Summer (2013)).
It begins with an effective pre-credit sequence with handsome Japanese actor Miyavi (Unbroken (2014)). It then turns to its setting in America and South-East Asia in 1973, using the Vietnam War as basically a playground for some colorful exoticism. I couldn't help but wonder what a Vietnam veteran or an aging Vietnamese person might make of this. In any case, the Vietnam War is obviously so far in the past now that this type of escapade is, according to the unwritten rules of the creative industry, allowed.
Still, especially during the first act of the film, it is striking how unscarred the supposedly veteran soldiers we get as our team are; how 21st century the entire vibe of the expedition is, and how shallow, in consequence, the impression made feels. This also registers due to the sleek visual style and fast editing which also made previous commercial and music video director Vogt-Roberts' debut, The Kings of Summer, a hollow experience. It is apparent that the filmmakers have gone to great pains to conjure up a kind of dirty 1970s look to the color schemes in the film, which is also quite gory and brutal, but the digitally enhanced look works the opposite way, making for an extremely clean and artificial visual side.
The film sports a big cast, and its need for monster action and urge to prettify and remain upbeat disables most of the characters in really establishing themselves. Leads Tom Hiddleston (Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)) and Brie Larson (Room (2015)) are both too well made up and pretty (which grates with the viciously hostile jungle setting as well) to ground their characters with me here. Larson is new in this type of mega-movie job and attempts acting against the invisible post production monsters with some intense crazy-eyes, which don't help her to connect. (See still documentation below.)
Samuel L. Jackson (Old Boy (2013)) is the cast's strongest card, and I think the writers might have created a stronger film, if they'd focused more on him. He plays another villain, and the performance is sure to go down as a classic in Jackson's already stuffed list of memorable credits. - He gets to spew some golden lines in Kong: Skull Island, - easily the film's best.
In the rest of the cast, we find: Richard Jenkins (Olive Kitteridge (2014), miniseries) as the senator who is persuaded; John Goodman (Trumbo (2015)) has lost a lot of weight and stars as the senior scientist; Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton (2015)) is the junior scientist, a role that is a mismatch for Hawkins, who is also starring as Kiefer Sutherland's tough guy replacement on the new version of the 24 TV-series at the moment, - a better match for him. Hawkins' Straight Outta Compton co-star Jason Mitchell (Keanu (2016)) also stars in Kong: Skull Island; he is a soldier with an unpleasantly vulgarly scribed helmet, and that's about all the detail ascribed to his character. Shea Whigham (The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)) lends his powerful presence to one of the film's best death scenes but also looks as if he has to strain himself in a scene in which all the soldiers hug in a way that just doesn't seem period-appropriate. Thomas Mann (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)) plays the aggravating Slivko, and Toby Kebbell (The East (2013)) is shamelessly handsome as Chapman and Kong, who is apparently shaped on the young Brit. Finally, the cast has John C. Reilly (The Lobster (2015)) in a role that is very much drawn from Dennis Hopper's part in Apocalypse Now (1979), - a film which several parts of Kong: Skull Island riffs humorously off, - and Reilly has some fun with it. I certainly couldn't but break out laughing every time he mentioned his old fallen friend 'Gunpei', which I'm pretty sure was intended by the filmmakers.
Kong: Skull Island rushes to get its many thinly sketched characters established and on to the island of horrors, and once there they immediately act with horrendous stupidity. This alienates to begin with but later becomes a part of the film's mythical wrestling of man and nature, together and against each other, which culminates after countless attacks and exciting monster creatures in an epic monster battle that is exhilarating. Kong, who is, of course, the biggest star of the film, and the rest of the island's monsters are tremendously designed and animated; - an achievement that deserves to be remembered come Best Visual Effects Oscar time in almost a year.
Despite its flaws, stretches and physical ridiculousness, Kong: Skull Island is tall, fine and very entertaining monster fun, which gets its job done. It is miles better than Jackson's 2005 remake if not at level with recent, comparable mega-monster hits Godzilla (2014) and Jurassic World (2015). Kong: Skull Island is actually more like a very expensive version of corny monster favorite Congo (1995)) and, because of the vast technical evolution since then, not really fit to compare to the original King Kong.

Related reviews:

Apocalypse Now (1979) Redux version - The horror of war
Jordan Vogt-Roberts: 2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2017 in films - according to Film Excess
The Kings of Summer/Toy's House (2013) - Vogt-Roberts' charming but empty coming-of-age venture

Both here and in the still above, Brie Larson sports the crazy-eyes she has set to 'on' for pretty much all of Jordan Vogt-Roberts' Kong: Skull Island, - maybe following the lead of veteran Samuel L. Jackson. The problem is as unfair as it is inexplicable: His crazy-eyes in the film work. Hers don't

Tom Hiddleston visits Jimmy Kimmel in a gorilla suit to promote the film here

Cost: 185 mil. $
Box office: 260.7 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say
[Kong: Skull Island premiered 28 February (London) and runs 118 minutes. The film is the second in Warner Bros./Legendary's planned 'MonsterVerse' franchise, which kicked off with Godzilla (2014). It is planned to spawn another Godzilla (Godzilla: King of the Monsters) movie in 2019 and then the culminating Godzilla vs. Kong movie in 2020. Filming took place in Hawaii, Vietnam and Australia from October 2015 - March 2016. Kong: Skull Island opened over studio projections but under Godzilla's 2014 93 mil. $ domestic opening weekend: It took in 61 mil. $ at #1 in North America, where it has grossed 109.1 mil. $ to date, decimated already in its second week by the release of Beauty and the Beast. It was reportedly sent up with a colossal 136 mil. $ marketing budget. It made the biggest opening ever in Vietnam (2.5 mil. $), where much of it was shot; a huge Kong model caught fire there at the film's premiere, implicitly indicating the film's heat in the country. It opens in key markets China and Japan March 24th and 25th. Kong: Skull Island is certified fresh at 79 % with a 6.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Kong: Skull Island?

3/20/2017

Lemon Tree/עץ לימון [Etz Limon] (2008) - Israel-Palestine meet over an endangered lemon patch in Riklis' dull drama

♥♥

An idyllic poster for Eran Riklis' Lemon Tree

An aging widow decides to pick a fight, when her lemon farm gets targeted for demolition, because the Israeli minister of defense, who is her neighbor, fears that it may foster terrorists. - Can she overturn his decision?

The drama of neighbors that is Lemon Tree seems an obvious metaphor for the Israel-Palestine conflict in general, although it is also based on an actual story of defense minister (2002-06) Shaul Mofaz's charge against his neighbors' lemon trees, SPOILER a case which ended up in Israeli Supreme Court, where the minister won, and the trees of the Palestinian neighbors were cut down.
Lemon Tree doesn't lift the monumental task of making this strife of dinosaurs, (which the Israel-Palestine conflict more or less resembles in the eyes of the surrounding world after all these years), seem important and alive for all of us on the outside.
SPOILER Slowly, the female hero (played by Hiam Abbass (I Still Hide to Smoke/À Mon Âge Je Me Cache Encore pour Fumer (2016))) falls for the lawyer. Lemon Tree has a mitigating warmth to it and some fine, humanistic acting, - but it is fatally boring. SPOILER - In the end, half of the trees go down. Of course, it is entirely possible that you will care more than I did.
Lemon Tree is written by Suha Arraf (The Syrian Bride (2004)) and co-writer-director Eran Riklis (Zaytoun (2012)).

Related posts:

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess

Watch a trailer for the film with German subtitles here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 7.3 mil. $
= Unknown (but likely a minor flop)
[Lemon Tree premiered 8 February (Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 106 minutes. Riklis developed the film based on watching a news story of the actual event. Shooting took place in Israel, including in and around the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, Palestine and in Washington, DC. Financing came together as an Israeli-German-French co-production of no less than 15 companies and support funds. If the cost was kept at a relatively low and likely 3 mil. $, the film would still rank as a minor flop theatrically. It opened #63 in 2 theaters to a 14k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #38 in 29 theaters and grossed 569k $ (7.8 % of the total gross). That was the 3rd biggest market for the film. The biggest and 2nd biggest were France with 2.8 mil. $ (38.4 %) and Italy with 1.4 mil. $ (19.2 %). It reportedly did poor business in Israel, where it was by many viewed as pro-Palestinian and polemical. In the only Muslim market registered on Box Office Mojo, Turkey, the film made only 3k $. It was the highest-grossing Israeli film of the year. It won a Berlin audience award, a David di Donatello nomination (Italy's Oscar), two European Film Award nominations, and Abbass won Best Actress from the Israeli Film Academy, who also bestowed the film with 6 other nominations. Lemon Tree is certified fresh at 93 % with a 7.1 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Lemon Tree?

Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)