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Supposedly work out mathematical formula that can predict a movie's success

By Corwin Neuse Jun 15, 2012 6:24AM
According to Deadline, Japanese scientists have created a talking, self-cleaning toilet/iPod dock that can also take BMI readings, track weight fluctuations, and give encouraging fitness tips. Er, no, wait, sorry. We read that wrong. (Although, if true, the above statement wouldn't surprise us.) The article in question actually says that the Japanese have apparently concocted a formula that can predict a movie's success, apparently with some accuracy.

The details? Well, the details are still being kept a closely guarded secret as of now--the Japanese apparently don't want their formula falling into the wrong hands. (Sounds like a movie!) Either that, or they'd prefer that the studios pay them to access such proprietary information. After all, a method for making the sure-fire blockbuster has to be worth, what? Somewhere between the worldwide gross of "Jaws" and that of "Avatar," I'm sure. In any case, the variables involve the money spent on marketing a film, and the time frame in which the marketing efforts are made. Note: quality is evidently not a part of this equation. So... Depressing. We have that to look forward to.

What do you think, Hitlisters? Is a film's success really entirely dependent on its marketing? Does Hollywood have to spend money to make money? (The success of "Bridesmaids" last year and the failure of "Battleship" and "John Carter" this year would seem to obviate that line of argument.) Or have I just stumbled upon the hitherto undiscovered "John Carter"-corollary, which states that a film's success is entirely dependent upon the advertising dollars spent on it, unless it has a stupid title like "John Carter?" Ooh, I should probably trademark that... 
 

Plus 'Defiance' with Daniel Craig, 'Longmire: Season 1,' revisiting 'Khan,' and more

By SeanAx 10 hours ago

The big news of course is the Netflix original revival of "Arrested Development," which debuts on Sunday, May 26 when 15 episodes all launch at once. We'll try to get a review in by next week. Meanwhile, here's what's available now.

 

"The Dictator" (2012) is a Sacha Baron Cohen comedy that forgoes all pretense of mock documentary or reality TV parody to make a big, crazy, outrageous comedy that rides roughshod over all boundaries of taste to make both its point and its punchlines. And "it's all the more focused and consistently funny for that," argues MSN film critic Glenn Kenny. For this one, Baron Cohen plays Admiral General Aladeen the blithely brutal, oppressive, and self-aggrandizing dictator of the fictional North Africa nation of Wadiya, who gets accidentally deposed and replaced by a dazed and idiotic double (Baron Cohen again) on a trip to speak at the U.N.. To get back at his back-stabbing head of security (Ben Kingsley), he teams up with a dizzy activist health-food store manager (Anna Faris, still one of the funniest women in the movies today), despite her ungainly armpit hair and inexplicable compassion for oppressed refugees from brutal regimes. Videodrone's review is here.

 

"Defiance" (2008) dramatizes the real-life story of the Bielski brothers, Polish Jews who escaped the Nazi roundups and created a sanctuary for thousands of Jews in the Bellarussia forests during World War II. It was a passion project for director Edward Zwick and Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell star as Bielskis.

 

Not new but getting a lot of renewed interest is "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982), still the best "Star Trek" feature ever made, a pirate movie in space with an obsessed villain (wild-maned and bare-chested Ricardo Mantalban) and an impish Kirk. Director Nicholas Meyer brings a panache to the production and William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley seem to have both gotten in touch with their characters and relationships all over again.


More recommendations at Videodrone


For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming video for week of May 21

 

On feta and fidelity, long conversations and longer takes

By James Rocchi 12 hours ago


Beginning with "Before Sunrise" and followed up by "Before Sunset," one of American independent cinema's milestones continues (or possibly concludes) with "Before Midnight."  Reuniting director Rick Linklater with stars and co-writers Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, "Midnight" continues the intertwining lives of Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy.) The two met on a train in 'Sunrise," reunited in Paris in "Sunset" and now, in "Midnight" find themselves married with twins, in Greece on a writer's retreat, where the passage of time has made their conversations -- and their wounds -- all the deeper. We spoke with Linklater, Hawke and Delpy in Los Angeles about getting the band back together, why some women find Delpy's character "insufferable" and the horrible indignities of couple's massage.

 

MSN Movies: Let me just start by asking the obvious question, which is when exactly do you come upon the decision to say, "Let's get the band back together"?

 

Richard Linklater: You know it happened similarly now that we've done it twice. It was still this kind of six, seven year gap I think when we don't have .. as much as we would all like to work together, we're not going to do it just to do it, you know? We have to realize Jesse and Celine have something to say.

 

Julie Delpy: And we have something to say.


BING: More about Julie Delpy l BING: More about Ethan Hawke

 

Linklater: And we can't know that. I mean time is such a big player here, it has to be like six or seven more years of life accumulation. And then it's like Jesse and Celine, these parallel characters we've created, kind of emerge and kind of maybe have something to say about this new station they find themselves at. So that's how it's worked twice. We kind of have the same trajectory where we joke about it, there's funny titles thrown around ...

 

Delpy: (Laughs) "Before the Grave."

 

Linklater: Yeah before, you know, there's... But then at some point it gets a little more serious, then something of substance hits the table, and it takes on a slowly different tone. And we realized Jesse and Celine are sort of reemerging in a potentially real way, but it still takes awhile. That's at year six. And then we get two years of what-if this what-if that. And we get to use that luxury of the time we have to actually explore maybe what they have been doing for nine years.

 

Does it ever happen that two-thirds of the constituency are on board and one has to be cajoled or convinced? Or does everybody roughly sync up at the same time?

 

Seventh film set to go back to Los Angeles

By Kate Erbland 17 hours ago
The latest entry in the seemingly unstoppable "Fast & Furious" franchise doesn't even zoom into theaters until tomorrow, but the cast and crew are already teasing what we can expect from the seventh film in the high octane series.


Variety reports that, at the Los Angeles premiere for the new film, star Vin Diesel giddily announced, "For ‘Fast and Furious 7,’ we are bringing it back to Los Angeles!” Other reports hold that the film will also make stops in Tokyo and the Middle East. Without giving away too much about this week's new "Fast & Furious" release, we can say that the news regarding the setting of the next film isn't so surprising. While the films originated in a Los Angeles setting, they've also spent significant time in Miami, Mexico, and Brazil, with the sixth film trotting all over Europe (including big stops in London and Spain).


"Fast & Furious 6" opens this Friday, May 24. "Fast & Furious 7" has already targeted a July 11, 2014 release date.

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The Coens finally make their return, and the Fortnight offers up its first stunner

By William Goss 17 hours ago
Pictured: a cross-section of Croisette-facing promotional fanfare for Sony's "After Earth," Warner Brothers' "The Great Gatsby" and Disney/Pixar's "Monsters University."

Rare but wonderful is any sense of discovery at a film festival, where newfound promise outweighs prestige and, God forbid, hype. To expect good films from the Coens or Jim Jarmusch is one thing; to be blindsided is another. That isn't to say that I was entirely unfamiliar with Jeremy Saulnier's work, having been fond of his 2007 horror-comedy "Murder Party" and often impressed with his cinematography on many a recent indie. Still, I had not expected to be as gripped by "Blue Ruin" (my review), his twisty and critically humane revenge picture premiering in the Directors' Fortnight, as I was. Thankfully, Radius-TWC has picked the film up for U.S. distribution, all but guaranteeing a simultaneous VOD release across the nation later this year. Keep it on your radar.

Less impressive was Rebecca Zlotowski's own second feature, "Grand Central," in which Gary (Tahar Rahim), a new hire on a power-plant clean-up crew, falls for a colleague's fiancée (Léa Seydoux) while off the clock. Rahim and Seydoux deliver solid performances as always, but the literally toxic work environment proves much more compelling than their sordid love affair, which Zlotowski correlates to a nuclear meltdown on more than one occasion. Get it? Got it? Good.
 

Guess what? It doesn't work

By Kate Erbland 17 hours ago
As someone who still binge-watches reruns of "Friends," it pains me to watch Jennifer Aniston's repeated failures at big screen comedy stardom, because while I know she can be funny in the right role, nothing she's been recently tasked with feature-wise has quite worked out for her or her skill set. Despite a string of cracks at comedy - including recent films like "The Switch," "Just Go With It," and "Wanderlust" - Aniston's success on the big screen is still shaky at best. Sure, she was funny in a bit part in "Horrible Bosses," and some of her past work (like "The Good Girl" and even a basic rom-com like "Picture Perfect") proves that she can lead a specific kind film, but that still hasn't translated to box office bonanza or a film that really clicks for the actress.

And it doesn't look like Aniston's next feature will break that streak.


Aniston stars alongside Jason Sudeikis, Emma Roberts, Nick Offerman, Ed Helms, and Kathyrn Hahn in the upcoming "We're the Millers." The film features Aniston as a down-on-her-luck stripper who teams up with a skeezy drug dealer (Sudeikis) to make a marijuana run to Mexico for some big cash, using the ruse that they're a couple and that two other losers (Roberts and Will Poulter) are actually their kids. After all, no one will question a family on vacation in Mexico! It's actually sort of a brilliant premise, and the film is directed by the very funny Rawson Marshall Thurber (of "Dodgeball" fame!), but this first red band trailer makes it look like the sort of over-the-top exercise that Aniston and her cohorts should stay far away from.


Yup, there are all kinds of jokes about Aniston's stripper career, plenty of bad body humor, and even a stray underwear-clad butt or two. Basically, everyone involved here deserves more than whatever this first trailer is offering up, so here's hoping this is just a bad piece of marketing for a good film.

Check out the red band trailer for "We're the Millers," thanks to New Line Cinema, after the break. 

Star takes a break to play ball with some kids (in costume!)

By Kate Erbland 18 hours ago
The upcoming "Amazing Spider-Man" sequel has been filming all around New York City over the past few weeks, but just because the multi-million dollar superhero flick can easily take over whole swathes of city streets doesn't mean that the production doesn't want to give back to the neighborhood. 


Gothamist shares a very fun and very sweet video of Spidey himself, Andrew Garfield, playing some basketball with some little New Yorkers at PS 1 school in Chinatown. The best part? He's wearing his full Spider-Man costume while doing it. Charming! Look close, and you'll also get a glimpse at co-star Emma Stone (most likely also in costume, considering it's dead hot in NYC right now, and she's kitted out in autumn gear).

The best part of the video? Around the 12-second mark, when a gleeful fan finally realizes that it's really Garfield playing some hoops. We're genuinely heartwarmed.


"The Amazing Spider-Man 2" opens on May 2, 2014.

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"I don’t know when we were told that we have to sacrifice story and character and acting and performances for the sake of action ..."

By James Rocchi 18 hours ago

On a balcony overlooking a sprawling city, Vin Diesel is affable, laughing and a gracious host, wearing a crisp polo only slightly bluer than the sky. Diesel has managed to find a career path that mixes big, burly action films (like "Fast &Furious 6," as well as the upcoming "Riddick") and also managing to turn up in other films that have much more to do with brain than brawn ("The Iron Giant," Call Me Guilty"). We spoke with the man behind Dom Toretto in London, a quarter-mile at a time.

 

MSN Movies: How great is it to shoot driving action in London, one of the biggest, busiest cities in the world? It's pretty crazy, isn't it?

 

Vin Diesel: So, so crazy. If you would've asked me back in 1997 when I was here doing my first acting job, "Saving Private Ryan," that 15 years later I would be destroying the streets of London with a Dodge Daytona I would've thought you were crazy. And that's exactly what happened. We loved shooting in London, we loved the contrast to Rio, and we loved the idea that we, after Rio, after the fifth one ... we realized that the audience kind of enjoys traveling with us, going to new places. Somehow we've become their favorite tour guide.

 

(Laughs) Right.

 

Their favorite global tour guide, and we kind of try and live up to that ...

 

You see the world's great cities, and you destroy them, and you're kind of this anti-tourist advertisement.

 

Yeah, yeah. We leave rubble in our path.

 

And also, how great it is ... most of the time when you say to an audience, "Oh this is part six of a series," they're like, "Ugh." But this people look forward to. How fortunate is that? And what do you think explains it?

 

If we had continued the franchise in the way that we made the first three we would've gotten that reaction. When we came back for the second trilogy, (films) 4, 5, and 6, there was a very specific way that we changed the dynamic of making these movies. And that was, we no longer thought of it as a franchise where we make do whatever you want then slap the brand name on it and sell it. We thought of it as a continuing story, and you see that in the bookend style that we use. But we were very conscious about ... I know this sounds crazy, but almost rewarding the audience for the movie that they saw before.

 

BING: More on 'Vin Diesel l BING: More on 'Riddick'


And making the investment.

 

And making the investments. So if you saw 4 ... I mean, one of the executives at Universal thought they were really cute, they said, "On the poster for 'Fast Seven,' we're going to write, 'If you ain't seen 1 through 6, you ain't invited.''" (Laughs)

 

(Laughs) That's a bold statement.

 

 

Bruises, dream cars, chipped teeth and how the audience is the final ingredient ...

By James Rocchi Wed 7:10 PM

Considering that many of the "Fast and Furious" gang have been working together for up to a decade, it's got to be a trick to find the right actors to comfortably jump on board a vehicle that already has plenty of passengers and more than a little velocity. But this time, the new additions are perfect fits -- specifically, Luke Evans, who plays bad guy Shaw, and Gina Carano, the MMA-fighter and actress who plays Riley, the right-hand woman to Dwayne Johnson's hard-charging globo-cop Hobbs. We spoke with Evans and Carano in London about bad guys, fist-fights, fast cars and joining the party ...

 

MSN Movies: How great is it to come onboard a series where people are actually excited about a part six? That's pretty rare in Hollywood. By the time you get to part six it's usually lather, rinse, repeat. But your characters are a new shot to the arm of the series. How does it feel to enter this kind of weird film family of actors and creators?

 

Luke Evans: Well, you sort of answered the question really. It's a fantastic place. It's very rare to see a franchise in its sixth installment still creating a buzz ... but not just a buzz, the biggest buzz of the whole franchise. I mean they've built and built and built, and it's coming off the back of "Fast Five," which I thought was a fantastic movie. They've brought back the fantastic Justin Lin, the brilliant director who had an amazing idea, some crazy stunts, some ideas for cars, and wanted to bring a leading antagonist into the movie this time, an antagonist that wasn't just going to be helping the plot move along but actually was part of the story and the plot. And so yeah, and what is created is a new generation. This is a new, like you said, it's like a shot in the arm. They've added something to the mix.

 

But also he's created a film where, Ms. Carano, you get to do a 360-spin kick in the belly of a Russian cargo plane.

 

Gina Carano: Yeah.

 

I mean when you see that level of ambition, is it exciting on the page, never mind when you do it on the day?

 

Carano: It's just, it's fun. I get to play.

 

Yeah?

 

BING: More on Luke Evans l BING: More on Gina Carano


Carano: I mean that's a plane, and I get to do that, and experiment with my body and see where I can take it as far as action and other people's bodies. That sounds kind of strange, but, yeah. Violently.

 

We'll keep it in context.

 

Carano: (Laughs) Yes.

 

 
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