Elizabethtown (2005) - A cute piece of Crowe's world; just roll with it!

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Big Flop Movie of the Year + Best Romance of the Year + Best Feel-Good Movie of the Year + Best Kentucky Movie of the Year

This sprawling collage-style poster for Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown shows some of the vivid life and warmth that the film offers

A young shoe designer, whose project for several years has turned into a giant failure, travels to Kentucky, because his father has passed away there, and on his way he meets a special girl by the name of Claire.

Elizabethtown is written and directed by great Californian filmmaker Cameron Crowe (We Bought a Zoo (2011)), who cements his very particular sensibility here with a romance dramedy that is a bit as Roger Ebert has described it; the ultimate 'meet-cute'.
Both Orlando Bloom (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)) and Kirsten Dunst (Wag the Dog (1997)) are delightful here, and their characters are unbelievably sweet, cute and as good as flawless. Susan Sarandon (Hell and Back (2015)) is also good in Elizabethtown. Near the end Bloom reminds us that his character is, in fact, suicidal, but this reminder, in the context of the romance and lively characterization so far, is just about impossible to buy.
Real life isn't much like what's presented here in my experience, but I wish it was, and I am happy to dig out my inner sentimental teenage girl to enjoy everything cooked up in Elizabethtown. - Because besides its being too much in some ways, Elizabethtown is also a rarity, (it is devoid of violence, cursing and drugs) a folksy and actually funny film! It also benefits from Crowe's knack for picking good music, deals with death in a fine way and is an all-around lovely and warm time.

Related posts:

Cameron Crowe: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

We Bought a Zoo (2011) - Crowe's terrific family film

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]  

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 45 mil. $
Box office: 52 mil. $
= Big flop
[Elizabethtown premiered 4 September (Venice International Film Festival, Italy) and runs 123 minutes. Jane Fonda was cast in Sarandon's part but dropped out; Ashton Kutcher was cast in Bloom's part but didn't strike up enough chemistry with Dunst and "left the project"; Dunst dropped out of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village to play in Elizabethtown. Shooting took place in Kentucky, including in the real Elizabethtown, Arkansas, Oklahoma, California, Oregon, Nebraska and in Memphis, Tennessee from July 2004 - ?. The film opened #3, behind fellow new release The Fog and hold-over hit Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit, to a slight 10.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it fell from the top 5 in its second week and grossed 26.8 mil. $ (51.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 4 mil. $ (7.7 %) and the UK with 2.8 mil. $ (5.4 %). The film was nominated for a Grammy. Roger Ebert agreed with Film Excess in giving the film a 3/4 star review. The term 'manic pixie dream girl' was coined by critic Nathan Rabin to describe Dunst's "bubbly, shallow cinematic creature" character in the film. Crowe returned with documentaries The Union (2011) and Pearl Jam Twenty (2011) and fiction feature We Bought a Zoo (2011). Bloom returned in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), and Dunst returned in Marie Antoinette (2006). Elizabethtown is rotten at 29 % with a 4.7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Elizabethtown?

Elvira Madigan (1967) - Widerberg's picturesque period romance lacks insight but has picturesque and lyrical power

♥♥♥

This elegant, slightly literary poster for Bo Widerberg's Elvira Madigan highlights one of its picturesque scenes

A beautiful Danish line dancer falls in love with a deserted Swedish officer, but the two are soon found.

Elvira Madigan is written and directed by Bo Widerberg (Man on the Roof/Mannen på Taket (1976), based on the real-life 19th century legend of Hedvig Jensen (stage name Elvira Madigan) and Sixten Sparre.
The film has some enormously picturesque scenes in the Danish landscapes, which have a still-life idyllic quality to them, (cinematography by Jörgen Persson (A Song for Martin/En Sång för Martin (2001)), and together with the Mozart and Vivaldi music, a - for cinema - rare lyrical force is felt. 
Elvira Madigan portrays a delicate infatuation, SPOILER one with a fatal end which I feel like Widerberg himself may have also grappled with understanding. In any case the film has too much silence and distance to its two lovers, SPOILER and thus their tragic decision of mutual suicide never becomes really comprehensible for us. - Why, for instance, don't they simply choose to flee South, into Germany?

Watch a 3 minute scene from the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 2.1 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertainty - but considered a big hit
[Elvira Madigan was released 24 April (Sweden) and runs 91 minutes. Widerberg cast 17 year-old Pia Degermark (The Looking Glass War (1970)) as the title character after having seen her photo in a newspaper. Shooting took place in Sweden, including Stockholm, and in Northern Jutland, Denmark. The film hit a nerve in its time with its sensual, romantic tale of young rebels and was a big hit. Unfortunately records of its grosses in markets outside of North America are not available. The film won Degermark the Best Actress Award in Cannes; it was nominated for two Golden Globes and two BAFTAs and won two National Board of Review awards. Widerberg returned with tennis documentary The White Match/Den Vita Sporten (1968) and strike drama Adalen 31/Ådalen 31 (1969). Degermark returned in A Brief Season/Una Breve Stagione (1969), but her movie career fizzed out fast. 2,180 IMDb users have given Elvira Madigan a 7.5/10 average rating.]

What do you think of Elvira Madigan?

Elysium (2013) - Blomkamp's second feature is a pompous, tedious sci-fi exercise

♥

Matt Damon is bald, wears strange metallic extensions and finds himself in space on this poster for Neill Blomkamp's Elysium

In the year 2154, the world is a miserable place, where people speak Spanish, are dirty and poor, listen to bad hiphop and all dream of escaping to the space station Elysium, where the rich few live a jet set life, wearing white clothes and speaking French.

This ridiculously shallow premise is rolled out here as a highly improbable future scenario, as simplistic as it is dumb. Elysium is written and directed by Neill Blomkamp (Chappie (2015)), whose sci-fi sensation debut District 9 (2009) also really wasn't my cup of tea. 
Jodie Foster (Paper Moon (1974), TV-series) gets wasted in the part of the tough space leader. Matt Damon (Gerry (2002)) is boring in the lead and goes into a predictable Bourne fist fight mode a while into Elysium. Blomkamp's District 9 star and fellow South-African Sharlto Copley (Europa Report (2013)) plays an off-putting villain here.
Elysium's implicit societal critique and warnings lie comfortably in the same shallow, unapplicable, leftist vein as District 9, where Blomkamp's opinions are still expressed rather weakly and without binding him to anything really. Above all this space actioner is unmerited and enormously dull.

Related posts:

Neill Blomkamp: 2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
District 9 (2009) - Blomkamp's strenuous, sci-fi-dressed Johannesburg squalor

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 115 mil. $
Box office: 286.1 mil. $
= Minor flop (according to Film Excess' ratio standards; according to Sony, it made an 18 mil. $ profit)
[Elysium premiered 7 August (Taiwan) and runs 109 minutes. Blomkamp has stated that although the film is set far in the future, the themes of immigration, overpopulation, health care, worker exploitation, social class issues and the justice system are meant as comments on the world of today. Blomkamp initially wanted South-African rapper Watkin Tudor Jones for the lead, then Eminem. None proved possible, and Damon was the third choice. He shaved his head for the film. Shooting took place in British Colombia, Canada, including Vancouver, and in Mexico City, Mexico from July - September 2011 with re-shoots in October 2012. A screenplay copyright infringement lawsuit was filed against Elysium's producers in 2013, but its conclusion has not been made public. The film opened #1 to a 29.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for one more week (#3) and grossed 93 mil. $ (32.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 25.6 mil. $ (8.9 %) and Russia with 15.8 mil. $ (5.5 %). Although its gross makes it a minor flop according to Film Excess' ratio standards, the 2013 Sony hack revealed that Sony itself assessed that the film made an 18 mil. $ profit. Blomkamp admitted in 2015 about Elysium that he "fucked it up" because his script "just wasn't there; the story wasn't fully there." He returned with Chappie (2015), and Damon returned in The Zero Theorem (2013). Elysium is fresh at 67 % with a 6.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Elysium?

End of the Line (2007) - When making a low-budget horror movie becomes the substitute for treatment

[ZERO]

+ Worst Movie of the Decade

+ Worst Movie of the Year

This creepy poster for Maurice Devereaux's End of the Line teases the film's subway-set religious horror

A group of people find themselves trapped in a subway train, as an apocalyptic event seems to rage on the ground above them, and religious madness breaks out.

In the course of the very first minutes of End of the Line it is crystal clear that this gory, low-budget religious horror flick is a highly dubious acquaintance. Still one feels ill prepared for just how completely insufferable and fundamentally gross the film turns out to be. - I am referring here not only to its also nauseating and often unrealistic special effects, but to its very construction.
End of the Line comes off as if it is a hateful and unreasonable attack against Christians and Christianity in general from a bitter former member of Jehovah's Witnesses or some other similarly apocalyptically centered Christian sect. The film takes place only in tunnels and semi-darkness and is filled to the brim with hatred, unmotivated murders, screaming, crying, and a nonsensical dialog that is relentlessly stuffed with expletives.
The acting is understandably varying here. The film seems to expect us to follow it and its characters closely, while in reality most will find themselves several miles apart from both.
End of the Line is written and directed by Maurice Devereaux (Lady of the Lake (1998)). It is an unbelievably bad movie, which seems based on some personal issues that should instead have resulted in many years of psychotherapy. It should be seen by no-one.

Related posts:

The 2000s in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Here is a video from the film's screening at Fantasia Film Festival

Cost: Estimated 200k CA$, or approximately 160 $
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[End of the Line premiered 28 April (England's Dead By Dawn Horror Film Festival) and runs 95 minutes. Shooting took place in Montreal, Quebec and in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from June - July 2005. The film was not released theatrically in the US. It played at 5 film festivals with the biggest being the Toronto International Film Festival and only had a regular theatrical release in its native Canada. No details about its gross are made public, - but writer-director-producer-editor Devereaux has not made a film - or any other credit - since, indicating that the film wasn't successful. 4,056 IMDb users have given End of the Line an incomprehensibly high 6/10 average rating.]

What do you think of End of the Line?

Eight Legged Freaks (2002) - Unrefined B-movie homage with voluptuous teen Johansson

♥♥

A monster arachnid that seems to be jumping out at us features prominently on the effective poster for Ellory Elkayem's Eight Legged Freaks

A little town in Arizona is threatened by a novel kind of termination, when a spider enthusiast's eight-legged friends get in contact with some dropped chemicals and grow enormous!

Eight Legged Freaks is written by Jesse Alexander (Star Trek: Discovery (2017), TV-series) and co-debuting writer-director Ellory Elkayem (Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005)), with Randy Kornfield (Jingle All the Way (1996)) contributing story elements. It is based on Elkayem's own 1998 short, Larger Than Life.
The film's dubious construction is palpable early on, when the spider enthusiast (played by Tom Noonan (The Roost (2005))) is killed by one of his spiders, who run amuck in one of the very first scenes.
Scarlett Johansson (Manny & Lo (1996)) admirers may watch Eight Legged Freaks exclusively to ogle her as an already physically highly well-developed 17 year-old here. David Arquette (TRON: Uprising (2012), TV-series) plays the protagonist, but unfortunately simply isn't an exciting lead actor, and the film's humor and nostalgic relationship with related 1950s giant monster titles (Tarantula (1955) especially, of course) is regrettably not as much as fun, as it clearly wants to be.
Loud noise and incredible spider attacks break out so early on in Eight Legged Freaks that their many returns manage to weary us as audiences, before it is over. Best in all these attacks I found was the old barber's amusing reactions in his few scenes, - but then he's eaten.
Eight Legged Freaks is made with enthusiasm and daring, - in that it features a huge amount of effects, including some, for its time, pretty good CGI effects, although the giant spiders are still obviously fake and therefore not very exciting. Unfortunately, Elkayem's Larger Than Life short basis for the film is in fact substantially better on the whole.

Here's a short clip of Johansson from the Hollywood premiere of the film

Cost: 30 mil. $
Box office: 45.8 mil. $
= Big flop
[Eight Legged Freaks premiered 30 May (Zurich, Switzerland) and runs 100 minutes. The original title, Arac Attack, was altered due to the onslaught of the Iraq War, as it was deemed as sounding too close to Iraq Attack and therefore tasteless. 'Eight Legged Freaks' was an ad-lib of Arquette's during production that became the new title. Shooting took place in Arizona from January 2001 - ?. At least 8 different spider species and sub-species are featured in the film. It opened #7 to a disappointing 6.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 17.3 mil. $ (37.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 5.1 mil. $ (11.1 %) and Germany with 3 mil. $ (6.6 %). The film likely made profits with home video sales and other auxiliary markets figured in. Elkayem returned with Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave (2005), and Arquette returned in Happy Here and Now (2002). Eight Legged Freaks is rotten at 48 % with a 5.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Eight Legged Freaks?

The Eye 2/見鬼2/Gin3 Gwai2 2 (2004) or, Women: Screaming and Crying

[ZERO]

+ 2nd Worst Movie of the Year

A lady in a blood-soaked hospital dress dragging herself across the floor makes up this poster for The Pang Brothers' The Eye 2

A young, pregnant woman attempts suicide numerous times, because she is heavily plagued by some spirits that she sees regularly.

The Eye 2 is the sequel to Danny and Oxide Pang, 'The Pang Brothers'' 2002 horror The Eye, written by Yuet-Jan Hui (The Eye) with Lawrence Cheng (Encore/Hot Choi (1980)) contributing story elements. This film is often involuntarily comical, and just as you think it cannot possibly deliver any more baloney, it brings you another head-shaking, laugh-inducing sequence. - However, it doesn't give enough fun to win a single heart here and unquestionably belongs in the exclusive grade-zero club of films wholly without merit.
When I was almost sure that The Eye 2 was just about over, it turned out it had another full 35 minutes of absurd nonsense left for me. The hands-down most annoying (but also a bit comical) feature of the film is that all of its women are struck dumb in a kind of impotent state throughout, which leaves them to only react to bad stuff with screaming, crying or - and this is also often the case, - screaming and crying. These emotional bouts are pretty much non-stop throughout the movie. The protagonist, - the only character we really meet, - is the prototype for this seemingly unthinking, eternally sobbing blob of a gender that women are made out to be in The Eye 2.
There are semi-religious elements, such as the heroine wanting to give birth to a reincarnated version of her boyfriend's deceased mother, and ridiculously humorous inventions, such as ghosts flying into the vaginas of women giving birth, (while, of course, they are screaming and crying loudly), - and some of the consistently poor taste of the film may have some cultural motivations lying behind it that I fail to grasp, (it's a Hong Kong/Singapore co-production.)
What is assured absolutely above any cultural differences is that the script, acting, directing and photography here seem like they are taken out of an early film school production. The music sounds like it comes from a bad reality TV show, and the film's shifts in tone are jarring; the editing is choppy, and the general experience seems like just a string of sequences playing one after the other without any sense of a central order of things. The grasp on suspense here is absent and deeply amateurish. The Eye 2 is all bad.

Related posts:
 

The 2000s in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
The Eye US remake: The Eye (2008) - French talents Moreau/Palud fail in Hollywood with Asian horror remake

Here is a French trailer for the original The Eye

Cost: Estimated 2.3 mil. $
Box office: In excess of 2.5 mil. $
= Uncertain
[The Eye 2 was released 18 March (Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand) and runs 95 minutes. The storyline is not related to that of The Eye, only in that it again is about clairvoyance and the ability to see ghosts. Shooting took place in Singapore, Bangkok, Thailand and in Hong Kong. The film was not released theatrically in North America. The gross listed above of 2.5 mil. $ is the cume of the only three markets that are made public, (Hong Kong, Italy and Thailand), of which Hong Kong makes up the biggest part with 1.2 mil. $. But the film was released in 13 other markets and 3 festivals, so this is not a complete gross. The Eye 3 (2005) takes the franchise in a horror-comedy direction, again made by The Pang Brothers. The Eye (2008) is a bad US remake with Jessica Alba. Danny Pang returned with Leave Me Alone/Ah Ma Yau Nan (2004) and Oxide Pang with Ab-normal Beauty/Sei Mong Se Jun (2004). 8,648 users at Rotten Tomatoes have given The Eye 2 a 3.2/5 rating.]

What do you think of The Eye 2?

Essential Killing (2010) - Skolimowski presents a puzzling and unlikable war thriller

♥♥

+ Most Deserved Flop of the Year

Vincent Gallo is likened to the image of a wolf on this poster for Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing

Somewhere in the Middle East, an insurgent bombs some American soldiers and is taken as prisoner to somewhere in Europe, where his prisoner transport however crashes, allowing him flee into the wilderness.

Essential Killing is written by Ewa Piaskowska (Four Nights with Anna/Cztery Noce z Anna (2008)), James McManus (The Big Empty (1997)) and co-writer-director Jerzy Skolimowski (Walkover (1965)). The film doesn't work for me on a fundamental level because its unnamed protagonist played by Vincent Gallo (The Way It Is (1985)), - who ventures into this taxing role wholeheartedly, - is still not one of the precious few actors around, whom an audience will inadvertently like as by some mysterious pull or instinct and regardless of his character's flaws and misdeeds. I also have a basic issue with the fact that the hero here seems to kill men (and even a dog) not because it seems essential or necessary for his own survival, but simply whenever the chance presents itself. - How is that not going to build strong antipathy towards him from us?
American soldiers and Poles are all portrayed as unsympathetic (they are vulgar, barbaric, depraved, violent and drunk), but the increasingly foggy 'hero's' hallucinations don't tell us anything clear, and certainly nothing to make us forgive or remotely him, (he doesn't speak and so these hallucinations and his actions are our only way to probe his person and motivations.)
Essential Killing is an unusual film, and its footage of nature deserves praise, as there is beauty to behold here. Unfortunately, the film's pace is also very slow going, and despite its short running time, (as well as one hype-filled poster's claiming that its both 'frenzied' and 'pure action') Essential Killing commits a cardinal sin for cinema: It is boring.

Related post:

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Estimated 3.1 mil. €, equaling approximately 3.86 mil. $
Box office: Uncertainty - but seems to be somewhere in the range of 1 mil. $
= Mega-flop
[Essential Killing premiered 6 September (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 83 minutes. Skolimowski came up with the premise for the film while driving in an area of his native Poland where a secret CIA prison had been revealed and skidding off the road, realizing it could also easily happen to a prisoner transport. He intentionally made the locations in the film unspecified and also wanted to avoid being overtly political. No less than 14 production companies and support bodies were involved in the funding and making the film. Shooting took place in Norway, Israel and in Poland, including in Warsaw, from December 2009 - ?. Gallo went through especially painstaking trials for his performance, running barefoot in the snow in -30 degrees and insisting that the breastfeeding scene be shot with an actually lactating woman. The film had only festival releases in most of its markets, including the US, where it only played at the Polish Film Festival. It had its biggest market in its native Poland with 329k $, which accounts for 67.1 % of the just 490k $ it is listed as having made in 6 markets. This doesn't include almost 50k admissions in France, which should about double its take to around 1 mil. $, still hopelessly far from a profit. The film won two prizes in Venice, was nominated for a European Film Award and won 4 out of 6 nominations at the Polish Film Awards. Skolimowski returned with 11 Minutes/11 Minut (2015), and Gallo in Promises Written in Water (2010). Essential Killing is fresh at 83 % with a 6.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Essential Killing?

The Eye (2008) - French talents Moreau/Palud fail in Hollywood with Asian horror remake

♥♥

There's something seriously amiss with an eye. On the poster for David Moreau and Xavier Palud's The Eye

A blind, extremely pretty violinist finally gets a chance to have a cornea transplant operation. But problems arise with her newfound sight ... - Ghost kind of problems!

The Eye starts out alright, because its premise, - a person who experiences a corrosion of her reality, - is highly creepy and frightening. Unfortunately the promising ingredients are later wasted:
A barrage of unsuccessful shock moments, flash editing and a climax that doesn't fulfill the premise's scare are among The Eye's chief problems. It also struggles with a protagonist in Jessica Alba (Fantastic Four (2005)), who plays blind and later sight-impaired very convincingly, but who also goes through an awkward romance with her eye specialist here, just as parts of the film's dialog and plot points feel dubious and awkward.
SPOILER The Eye closes down with a final point about Alba's not requiring eyes to see, (her own old useless eyes have apparently at this point been operated back into her eye sockets), - which is just plain silly.
The Eye is written by Sebastian Gutierrez (Gothika (2003)), based on the same-titled 2002 Hong-Kong/Singaporean film by the Pang brothers, and directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud (Them/Ils (2006), both).

Related posts:

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

Jessica Alba gives an interview about the film here

Cost: 12 mil. $
Box office: 56.9 mil. $
= Big hit
[The Eye premiered 31 January (Hollywood) and runs 98 minutes. The Asian film had already been remade once, in India as Naina (2005). Shooting took place in New Mexico, Los Angeles, California and in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada from February 2007 - ?. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour, to a 12.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another week in the top 5 (#4) and grossed a solid 31.4 mil. $ (55.2 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 3.6 mil. $ (6.3 %) and Spain with 2.8 mil. $ (4.9 %). Moreau has stated dissatisfaction with the finished film and alleged that he was barred from its editing. He returned after a five year break with It Boy (2013), while Palud returned with an episode of XIII: The Series (2011) and theatrically with Blind Man (2012). The Eye is rotten at 22 % with a 4.3/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Eye?

Earth (2007, documentary) - Fothergill/Linfield's incredible nature spectacle is one to watch

♥♥♥♥♥

 

+ Best Nature Movie of the Year

 

Highlighting our planet and the three central animal families that Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield's Earth follows, this poster goes for the heart and takes it

 

From the polar bear's incredibly tedious walk for survival near the North Pole to the African Kalahari Desert, our planet's highest mountain peaks, greatest waterfalls and into the wonders of its rainforests, Earth takes us there.

This nature documentary, based on the popular BBC/Discovery documentary TV-series Planet Earth (2006), is technically impressive, made with state-of-the-art digital equipment. It uses only few overt editorial manipulations of its footage (like the changing of the seasons), which makes these stand out as somewhat ostentatious, and they could have been left out in my opinion.

The scene of the leopard's hunt on the savanna reaches mythical heights, whereas the later slow motion elongation of the whale footage only serves a wow-effect.

Still, there are only these minor quibbles to attach to this overall staggeringly beautiful, hypnotizing, simple and utterly human-less film, which leaves it up to its audiences to acquit or accuse humanity for the dire climate changes, it also portrays, (except for a few notes it gives towards the end.) In this subdued way, Earth chooses to stress the mysteries and beauties of nature over indignation at our sins against it.

The film's narration is written by Leslie Megahey (The Advocate (1993)), and the film is directed by Alastair Fothergill (Bears (2014)) and Mark Linfield (Monkey Kingdom (2015)).

 

Related post:

 

2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 47 mil. $

Box office: 108.9 mil. $

= Minor flop

[Earth premiered 14 July (Liechtenstein's Vaduz Film Festival) and runs 99 minutes (UK version) and 90 minutes (US version). The budget made Earth the most expensive documentary production ever, until Oceans (2009). Filming lasted from 2004-06. The two versions have different narrators: Patrick Stewart did the 9 minute longer UK version, while James Earl Jones narrated the shorter US version, which also uses a more dramatic score. The film has been called a 'companion' to the TV-series, which it relies heavily on for its footage. Reportedly around 30 % of Earth's footage is previously unseen. The film opened #5, behind fellow new release Obsessed, holdover hit 17 Again and new releases Fighting and The Soloist, to an 8.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its second week and grossed 32 mil. $ (29.4 % of the total gross). While the film had no Russian or Chinese release and flopped incredibly in its native UK and in Australia, it made hefty business in other markets: The 2nd and 3rd biggest were Germany with 29.2 mil. $ (26.8 %) and Japan (where it was the most successful documentary in 10 years) with 23.2 mil. $ (21.3 %). It became the 2nd highest-grossing nature documentary of all time, behind March of the Penguins (2005) with 127.4 mil. $. It was nominated for a BAFTA. A celebrated Planet Earth II TV-series was made and released in 2016. A sequel, Earth: One Amazing Day (2017) has been released to a much smaller reception. Fothergill returned with African Cats (2011) and Linfield with Chimpanzee (2012). Earth is certified fresh at 86 % with a 7.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Earth?