Chronicle stars Dane DeHaan (True Blood, In Treatment), Alex Russell & Michael B. Jordan (Red Tails, Parenthood, Friday Night Lights) and is directed by Josh Trank.
I was worried about coming into Chronicle because of what looked like limited experience of the director, Josh Trank. His resume on IMDb shows his only directorial experience is the 2007 TV series, The Kill Point and after that, he fulfilled roles such as photo researcher, sound editor, and second unit director in projects prior to Chronicle.
No fear… Trank took this puppy and ran with it very well.
The film summary on IMDb reads:
“Three high school friends gain superpowers after making an incredible discovery. Soon, though, they find their lives spinning out of control and their bond tested as they embrace their darker sides.”
Starting today (February 2nd, 2012), Lionsgate is engaging The Hunger Games fans in yet another fashion to catch your attention, adding to the wonderful viral campaign they’ve had going so far.
Lionsgate has 50 different websites (IE, 50 days until it opens in theaters) giving away tickets to see The Hunger Games, for free. That’s because today, there are only 50 days to go until the movie hits your local movie theater!
All you have to do is hit up Twitter and search for #HungerGames50 and find the websites that are participating in the free ticket give-away to the World Premiere of The Hunger Games.
Lionsgate also announced that they will have an exclusive, one week engagement with IMAX screenings, starting on its theatrical release date of March 23, 2012.
Stars hitting the home entertainment venue this week include Ryan Gosling, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Gregory Peck, Steve Martin and Richard Gere.
Featured amongst these new titles are Drive, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Thing and the 3D Blu-ray release of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
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Drive Starring Ryan Gosling and Bryan Cranston. (It behooves me to remind you of the marketing of this film… see my warning and movie review of Drive)
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Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Three-Disc Combo: Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy)
This weekend, the new movies that hit the box office Friday populated the 1st, 3rd and 5th place spots in the chart of top-10 movies.
According to estimates, The Grey with Liam Neeson will be the lead money maker in the top-10 movies by the time the weekend is over, pulling in $20 million in it’s opening weekend, dominating the other movies by almost double.
Trailing The Grey is a movie in its second week in movie theaters, Underworld: Awakening, which dropped by more than half from it’s opening weekend, will pull in an estimated $12.5M this weekend.
In third place in the charts is the new Katherine Heigl movie, One for the Money. Apparently Heigl doesn’t have the draw they’d like her to have and the movie only pulled in $11.7M in ticket sales in its first weekend out. Hmm, no wonder she dropped the soundbite about wanting to return to Grey’s Anatomy.
Outside the top-3 in 4th, is Red Tails with Cuba Gooding Jr.. Red Tails dropped nearly 50% from its opening weekend too and pulled in just over $10M. But still hung on to a spot in the list of top-10 movies.
The new movie Man on the Ledge starring Sam Worthington seemed to have very little draw compared to the other top-4 movies, pulling in an estimated $8M. Ouch.
I was cruising the web and noticed a few pieces over on one of my favorite sites… Killer Film. I spied a piece on the movie rating for the upcoming Terminator 5 movie, and a bit on the story that will unfold in The Amazing Spider-Man…
First one up was that they spotted a bit of movie news about the next, upcoming Terminator franchise film and that they are looking to make the next chapter of the franchise, Terminator 5, that it will be rated R.
And that’s a bold and daring move in this ever shaky market these days, but it is something that hard-core movie-goers can appreciate.
PG-13 makes movies more marketable to the section of the consumers that have the most time, a chunk of money, and no bills wearing them down. But true movie fans always cringe when they see a movie getting the PG-13 stamp… it seems to cheapen them up a bit, or take some of the reality connections out of a film. Or so they say.
On Tuesday, January 24th, the nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards were announced.
Below are the lists, first, taking note of which movie got how many noms… First by category and then I sort the Academy Award nominations by movie title.
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Presented below are the nominations for this year’s Oscars, the 84th Annual Academy Awards…
Movie Nomination Tally:
11
“Hugo”
10
“The Artist”
6
“Moneyball”
6
“War Horse”
5
“The Descendants”
5
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
4
“Midnight in Paris”
4
“The Help”
3
“Albert Nobbs”
3
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2″
3
“The Tree of Life”
3
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
3
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”
2
“Bridesmaids”
2
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
2
“My Week with Marilyn”
2
“The Iron Lady”
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The nominations seemed a little light on the original song & makeup below. The number of nods are not surprising for a few of these films, but I would have thought that if a movie had nominations for writing, or best picture, or directing, that those same nods would have potentially garnered some actors getting their own nods off that work. But that’s just me wondering out-loud about the celebrated processes at work behind the scenes of Hollywood.
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Nominations by Category
Actor in a Leading Role
Demián Bichir in “A Better Life”
George Clooney in “The Descendants”
Jean Dujardin in “The Artist”
Gary Oldman in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
Brad Pitt in “Moneyball”
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Actor in a Supporting Role
Kenneth Branagh in “My Week with Marilyn”
Jonah Hill in “Moneyball”
Nick Nolte in “Warrior”
Christopher Plummer in “Beginners”
Max von Sydow in “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
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Actress in a Leading Role
Glenn Close in “Albert Nobbs”
Viola Davis in “The Help”
Rooney Mara in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
Meryl Streep in “The Iron Lady”
Michelle Williams in “My Week with Marilyn”
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Actress in a Supporting Role
Bérénice Bejo in “The Artist”
Jessica Chastain in “The Help”
Melissa McCarthy in “Bridesmaids”
Janet McTeer in “Albert Nobbs”
Octavia Spencer in “The Help”
There are over 100 new DVD & Blu-ray releases coming out this week but there are only a few big titles are hitting the market that might interest you. Celebrities you’ll see on the new DVD and Blu-ray discs include Hugh Jackman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Katie Featherston, Claude Rains, Woody Allen and more.
There seem to be quite a few first-time to Blu-ray titles, including a few Woody Allen movies:
Check out some of the new DVD & Blu-ray releases coming out this week, on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012:
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Real Steel
Starring Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly and Dakota Goyo
This movie surprised me as it was more than just a fighting robot movie (CS’s movie review) If you were on the fence about this, I don’t think you’d go wrong renting or buying this movie. It was a fun movie with pretty awesome CGI.
A movie about a man struggling to beat his cancer diagnosis, the IMDb score for this movie is at 8.0 and it has made $35M at the domestic box office. I haven’t seen the movie but it sounds like it would be an incredible rental and you probably wouldn’t be wasting your money on the DVD or Blu-ray
This last weekend, to me, had some surprises as to what order the movies ranked out in the top-10 list of movies at the box office.
(1st) Screen Gems Underworld: Awakening was panned hard by critics across the board and even the star, Kate Beckinsale, was seemingly making excuses about how the role was a test or what not. But it may seem that the franchise and a hot star decked out in a tight leather outfit may win out after all! Underworld: Awakening took the first spot in the list of top-10 movies by pulling in an estimated $25M.
(2nd) Another new movie this weekend was 20th Century Fox’s Red Tails with Terrence Howard, showed up in the 2nd spot in the weekend’s list, having pulled in just over $19M. The film looked like it had great visuals.
(3rd) Coming up third in its second week out, Universal Pictures Contraband, with Mark Wahlberg, pulled in ~$12M this weekend, bringing their overall gross to $46M
(4th) Warner Bros. Pictures Tom Hanks starrer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, pulled in over $10M.
(5th) The other new movie this week, from Relativity Media, Haywire, had better reviews than Underworld, but pulled in fewer bucks, at around $9M this weekend from the box office.
Movie News: The Hunger Games book series adaptation will be opening in movie theaters on March 23, 2012. The excitement, or mayhaps it should be called anticipation for the movie by fans of the book series is at a serious all-time high and building with each passing day.
In the meantime, Lionsgate has been having fun with fans and teasing us with some great viral material and now, with what is purported to be the latest movie poster for The Hunger Games.
Viral: But first up, check out the great viral messages from the president of Panem. This one came out late December:
This week, the celebrities showing up in new movies this week include Gina Carano, Channing Tatum, Bryan Cranston, Cuba Gooding Jr., the leather clad Kate Beckinsale, Tom Hanks, Gerard Butler, Ralph Fiennes & Christian Bale! Plus, with the Sundance Film Festival getting in full swing, there’s a bunch of indie movies being presented to the alternative and mainstream press this week.
And from looking over the list of new movies this week, it’s going to be tough to pick one to catch this week! (Remember, enough of you can chime in at the comments, saying which movie you want me to go see… you can end up sending me to one of these movies this Friday… be nice!) Dont’ forget, I also update some select movie titles production status down below this section…
Check it out and see what new movies are coming out on Friday, January 20th, 2012:
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• Haywire
Haywire stars Gina Carano, Michael Angarano, Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor and Michael Fassbender grace the screen during this movie. That’s an incredible collective of celebrity power!
This action movie is directed by Steven Soderbergh (Contagion, Solitary Man, The Informant!) and written by Lem Dobbs (The Score, Dark City).
It’s about a black ops secret agent who has been betrayed… and it’s time to fix things. (Kind of like Bourne, but a female version of him! I could love this movie.)
Looking at the preview trailer, they show her doing a lot of leg work to kick butt, which seems fairly realistic.
This looks fun… did you catch Bill Paxton in there?
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• Red Tails
Red Tails stars (the soon to be venerable) Bryan Cranston, Daniela Ruah, Joshua Dallas, Cuba Gooding Jr., and more in a movie during the WW II era, about a group of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program being called to duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard.
It’s directed by Anthony Hemingway (Treme, CSI: NY)…
If anything, this is an awesome era to have a top-notch production company put together a WW II aerial battle movie. What I see here looks awesome visually!
