BoxOffice® Pro - 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