BoxOffice® Pro - December 2010

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BOOK IT! (continued from page 69) Black Swan Classic ballet, new moves DISTRIBUTOR Fox Searchlight Pictures CAST Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder DIRECTOR Darren Aronofsky SCREENWRITERS Mark Heyman, Andrew Heinz, John McLaughlin PRODUCERS Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Brian Oliver, Scott Franklin GENRE Drama RATING R for strong sexual content, disturbing violent images, language and some drug use RUNNING TIME 106 min. RELEASE DATE December 1, 2010 ALL ABOUT NATALIE Backstage bitchiness in Black Swan Pete Hammond says … Bringing psychological horror to the twisted world of an obsessive prima ballerina, director Darren Aronofsky follows The Wrestler with another bruising study of physical pain and endurance in the pursuit of a dream. With Natalie Portman dominating the action and exhibiting a newfound screen maturity, this Grand Guignol melodrama exhibits more than enough blood, sweat and tears (emphasis on the blood) to score nicely beyond the ballet crowd. With its bold sexual undercurrents and lesbian love scene between Portman and co-star Mila Kunis, this could attract curiosity seekers to bone up on their fouetté jetés. Black Swan is a handsome and frightening bravura piece of filmmaking and should do some nice business—with any luck, it’ll see a bump come awards time where Portman is sure to be a strong contender. SMALL TOWN THEATER, BIG CITY CULTURE The Philadelphia Orchestra comes to Oberlin, Kansas I’LL LEARN YOU A LESSON Jason Statham as the tutoring hitman by Juliet J. Goodfriend Duane Dorshorst surveys the scene around him with satisfaction. Fifty of his fellow West Kansans and Sunflower Cinema patrons are soaking in a performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra—a big number for Oberlin, a small town of 1,600. “This is a huge success for us!” Dorshorst smiles. The community-owned Sunflower Cinema was the second movie theater to simulcast concerts from the Philadelphia Orchestra in HD, thanks to a new initiative by digital distributor SpectiCast and Bryn Mawr Film Institute, and 30 more theaters have followed suit. Smartly, the Sunflower used the first of their simulcasts, The Starry Night of Romeo and Juliet, as a fundraiser for the theater—with tickets priced at $50, they raised money towards the theater’s next phase of development. And the special event atmosphere encouraged the guests to linger in the lobby to discuss how much they enjoyed the performance. “Everyone in attendance agreed that it was something our community has needed, and how much they are looking forward to the next event,” says Dorshorst. 68 BOXOFFICE DECEMBER 2010
ALL TIED UP This Rapunzel uses her hair as a weapon Tangled A pretty awesome princess DISTRIBUTOR Walt Disney Pictures CAST Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy, M.C. Gainey, Brad Garrett, Ron Perlman, Jeffrey Tambor DIRECTORS Nathan Greno, Byron Howard SCREENWRITER Dan Fogelman PRODUCER Roy Conli GENRE Family/Animation RATING PG for brief mild violence RUNNING TIME 90 min. RELEASE DATE November 24, 2010 Sara Maria Vizcarrondo says … An instant classic, Disney’s animated revamp of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale of Rapunzel has spawned a spunky heroine who could infiltrate the heavily guarded princess canon. Delightful, funny, sometimes innocuous Built on the site of the former Oberlin Opera House, the venue has been the headquarters for local culture for over a century. The Opera House opened in 1906, but in 1936 it became a cinema named The Chief Theater. The Chief stayed open until the building collapsed in 1978. The neighboring Pepsi Bottling Company had also recently closed, so the original Sunflower Cinema was built on the adjoining sites. The Sunflower survived through the 1990s, but then the volunteer committee responsible for its maintenance could no longer keep the theater going and shuttered it until 2004. Then Dorshorst got involved. Dorshorst, a superintendent and principal in the local school district, was inspired by the parents of one of his students to restore the Sunflower. Despite facing limited funding within a county already strapped with money problems, Dorshorst and the Sunflower team prevailed and opened the theater in November 2009. Following the success of the Sunflower’s reopening, Dorshorst set his sights on making the Sunflower a truly inclusive and cross-disciplinary center for culture in Oberlin. These Philadelphia Orchestra simulcasts reflect Dorshorst’s and the Sunflower’s determination to promote and support the town’s thirst for art and culture. Says Dorshorst, “We wanted to use the theater to bring cultural events to town either by Internet or satellite. Working with SpectiCast is our first venture into this realm and we are extremely excited about the possibility of using this format to bring the world into rural western Kansas.” With the Philadelphia Orchestra concert series, the Sunflower is once again becoming the town’s center for musical culture, as in the days of the Oberlin Opera House. As the citizens of Oberlin and the members of the Sunflower prove, there is a demand for big city culture even in the smallest hamlets. And for the Sunflower, it’s especially fitting that it’s the Philadelphia Orchestra stirring up their screen— one of the first films it played at its 1978 opening was Rocky. That’s some sweet harmony. and more often thrilling, Tangled transforms the old, tower-cloistered damsel story into a morality play that pits openness and sincerity against selfishness and insincerity. (The greatest virtue here is sharing.) Peril is on the menu and the comedy is occasionally rough and often veers into Monty-Pythonslapstick, but it’s never offensively violent and the characters, including the brilliant sidekicks Maximus the superhorse and Pascal the mutely philosophical chameleon are littered with nuance and charm. Box office numbers could be astronomical, reviving brand trust after recent, lackluster ventures distributed under the Disney banner; ancillaries will be huge. I’m throwing down for my Pascal action figure and Rapunzel bust with plastic hairbrush for Christmas! Love and Other Drugs Romantic dramedy about a Viagra salesman has quick rise, slow fall DISTRIBUTOR 20th Century Fox CAST Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Olive Platt, Hank Azaria, Gabriel Macht DIRECTOR Edward Zwick SCREENWRITERS Charles Randolph, Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz PRODUCERS Pieter Jan Brugge, Charles Randolph, Marshall Herskovitz, Edward Zwick, Scott Stuber GENRE Romantic Dramedy RATING R for strong sexual content, nudity, pervasive language, and some drug material RUNNING TIME 90 min. RELEASE DATE November 24, 2010 Pam Grady says … Love and Other Drugs could have been a brilliant satire in the manner of Thank You for Smoking if only director Edward Zwick and his co-writers had concentrated more on the drugs and less on the “love.” Set during the sexual revolution unleashed by that little blue pill and very loosely inspired by Jamie Reidy’s memoir Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman, the movie’s exuberant comedy is eventually sunk by the soppy romance. Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, reunited for the first time since Brokeback Mountain, show a lot of skin for an indifferent audience. Expect solid opening weekend numbers from Rom- Com junkies. Bhutto Pakistan’s answer to Eva Peron DISTRIBUTOR Film Movement DIRECTORS Jessica A. Hernandez, Johnny O’Hara SCREENWRITERS Johnny O’Hara PRODUCERS Duane Baughman, Arleen Sorkin, Mark Siegel GENRE Documentary RATING Unrated RUNNING TIME 115 min. RELEASE DATE December 3 NY/LA Ray Greene says … Intelligent, determined, articulate, beautiful and heir to post-WWII Pakistan’s greatest political dynasty, Benazir Bhutto—like Evita—moved the masses in a male-dominated political culture, not only because of her fierce patriotism and the force of her ideas but also because her life played out as a blend of grand opera and soap opera. Also like Evita, she now has a dramatic and romanticized testament worthy of both her own charisma and her compromised legacy, thanks to this new documentary by Jessica Hernandez and Johnny O’Hara. This is a strong effort with a riveting protagonist. A small, selective release pattern could find success with documentary enthusiasts and the Pakistani immigrant diaspora. DECEMBER 2010 BOXOFFICE 69
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BoxOffice® Pro - December 2010

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