Your Weekly Guide to New Movies for March 30, 2007
By Edward Douglas -

Greetings and welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly guide to the weekend's new movies. Tune in every Tuesday for the latest look at the upcoming weekend, and then check back on Friday for final projections based on actual theatre counts.

(If you have anything to say about anything written in this column, feedback and Email is always welcome, and almost always responded to.)

THE CHOSEN ONE:

AFTER THE WEDDING (IFC Films)
Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Rolf Lassgard, Stine Fischer Christensen, Mona Malm, Christian Tafdrup, Niels Anders Thorn
Directed by Susanne Bier (Open Hearts, Brothers); Written by Susanne Bier, Anders Thomas Jensen (Open Hearts, Brothers)
Genre: Drama
Rated R
Tagline: "champagne is poured…secrets are spilled."
Story: Jacob Petersen (Mads Mikkelsen) has been living in India, taking care of kids in an orphanage, but when a Danish businessman named Jørgen (Rolf Lassgard) makes the orphanage an unusual financial offer, Jacob is forced to return home to Denmark where he has to face his past at the wedding of Jørgen's daughter.
INTERVIEW (with Susanne Bier)

I'm embarrassed to say that I've yet to see filmmaker Susanne Bier's previous films Open Hearts and Brothers, even though I've heard nothing but great things about them from anybody and everybody. You have to assume they must be relatively good since both movies are being remade in English, the former by Zack (Garden State) Braff. Bier's latest movie After the Wedding was one of the surprise candidates in this year's Oscar foreign language category, and after seeing it, you can understand why it struck such a strong chord with the Academy's nomination committee. This is a really strong dramatic film about a man who tried to escape from a relationship and is forced to deal with his decision years later after he thought he was free.

Mads Mikkelsen, best known for his role as Le Chiffre in the James Bond revamp Casino Royale, is a big star in Denmark partially due to his previous work with Bier in Open Hearts, and this movie shows what amazing range he has as an actor, because he doesn't play the type of hoodlum or bad guy we've often seen him play. One can't say too much about the plot without giving away the twists, but Mikkelsen plays a man named Jacob, who is teaching kids at an orphanage in India, when he's requested to return to his homeland of Denmark at the behest of a wealthy businessman wanting to make a sizable donation to the kids. Once he gets back home, Jacob is invited to attend the wedding of the businessman's daughter and starts discovering that things aren't exactly what they seem.

After the Wedding is very much a character drama in the tradition of Bier's others films, but as a film, it stands amongst some of Denmark's finest cinematic storytellers--Lars von Trier, Lone Scherfig and The Pusher Trilogy are some of my favorites—due to Bier's ability to get into each of the characters' heads. Mikkelsen is great, as is Rolf Lassgard playing the businessman, and newcomer Stine Fischer Christensen as his daughter, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this ends up joining the list of Bier's movies being redone in English. (Americans will get another taste of Bier's way with actors and characters when she directs Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro in Things We Lost in the Fire later this year.)

After the Wedding opens in New York and L.A. on Friday.

BLADES OF GLORY (Paramount/DreamWorks)
Starring Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, William Fichtner, Jenna Fischer, Romany Malco, Nick Swardson, Rob Corddry, Craig T. Nelson
Directed by Will Speck, Josh Gordon (various commercials and the shorts Culture and Angry Boy); Written by Jeff Cox and Craig Cox (debut), John Altschuler and David Krinsky (writers of "King of the Hill")
Genre: Comedy, Sports
Rated PG-13
Tagline: "Kick Some Ice"
Plot Summary: The two top ice skating rivals, Chazz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder), wind up in a heated fight on the ice during the World Championships, getting them both banned from the sport for life. Three years later, they discover a way to get around the judgment, by joining together to become the sports' first-ever male pairs figure skating team.
Of Note: Will Ferrell appears in his third sports movie, this time donning ice skates with Jon "Napoleon Dynamite" Heder for another outlandish comedy premise.
Mini-Review: At its core, this suffers from the same problem as every other Will Ferrell movie in that if you don't dig his usual schtick, you'll spend most of the movie trying to figure out why others seem to find him so funny. Essentially, Ferrell is playing Ricky Bobby on Ice with a lot of the same obvious and predictable gags that Ferrell has done in every single movie, almost as if the filmmakers watched alll those movies before writing this one. At least the rivalry between Ferrell's manly MIchaels and Heder's fey MacElroy offers a lot of funny physical gags, and you have to give the duo credit for the guts and gumption it must have taken to perform some of their hilarious ice-skating routines. Though there's certainly a danger of the movie turning into one homophobic joke after another , there's a couple saving graces like comedy's cutest couple Amy Poehler ("SNL") and WIll Arnett ("Arrested Development" ), who steal many scenes as Michaels and MacElroy's rivals, while Nick Swardson gives a freaky performance as an obsessed stalker fan. What will win any skeptics over is the sweet and innocent romance between Heder and "The Office" star Jenna Fischer, who's awkward first kiss is destined to win an MTV Movie Award. (Fischer is so incredibly hot in one scene that you can't help but be jealous of James Gunn... and Ferrell for that matter.) Ultimately, the movie gets better and funnier as you warm up to the premise and the characters, and it succeeds best when it takes advantage of its talented cast and lets them do their thing. (Stick around after the credits for a really strange bit from Swardson that makes his character even creepier.) Rating: 7/10

Analysis: There was a point back in 2005 when it seemed like Will Ferrell's ascent as one of the biggest comic star since Adam Sandler and Mike Myers was about to come to an end. The reason Ferrell's popularity came into question was because his two movies (Kicking and Screaming and Bewitched) barely made $20 million their opening weekends after back-to-back hits with Elf and Anchorman, and then the movie-musical The Producers completely tanked. Fortunately, Ferrell's popularity was revived when he played the title role in last year's blockbuster comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, a movie that mixed Ferrell's normal schtick with the world of NASCAR, to give him the biggest opening of his career and one of the biggest non-sequel comedy openings up there with Adam Sandler's biggest hit The Longest Yard (though that was helped by opening over Memorial Day).

Now Ferrell is back in the wide world of sports, this time working with a lot of new talent-- the creators of Blades of Glory have made exactly ZERO feature-length movies between them—not that it will matter since Ferrell has clearly achieved a new level of fame plus this movie follows a similar formula that has worked so well for the star before.

Even Ferrell's co-star Jon Heder has more experience than the movie's creative team, having appeared in a number of comedies since his debut in the 2004 indie breakout Napoleon Dynamite, a movie that brought the expletive "Gosh!" to many a vocabulary. Heder had his own sports comedy success when teamed with David Spade and Rob Schneider in Sony's The Benchwarmers last year, but it was bookended by a couple relative flops like Reese Witherspoon's romantic comedy Just Like Heaven and last year's School for Scoundrels, which pitted Heder against Billy Bob Thornton.

Despite the lack of experience of those making the movie, they were wise enough to bring in a lot of naturally funny people who are strong at improv, which should make it much easier for the movie to get laughs. With that in mind, the duo is supported by a plethora of hilarious comic talent including "comedy's cutest couple" Will Arnett and Amy Poehler (possibly even skating together? That's GOTTA be worth 10 bucks!), Jenna Fischer from "The Office," king of the movie cameos and former "The Daily Show" correspondent Rob Corddry and Benchwarmers writer Nick Swardson. It also has Romany Malco from The 40-Year-Old-Virgin and Craig T. Nelson playing... what else? A coach. (It also stars William Fichtner, veteran of many TV dramas, though he's not particularly funny.)

Although Ferrell has had a comfortable run of movies at Sony, this is his first movie at DreamWorks since 2004's Anchorman, except that this is the new Paramount-owned company who has never worked with Ferrell before. Still, one would think Paramount has figured out how to sell comedies geared towards young adults due to their close relationship with MTV, and they've already had considerable success this year with Eddie Murphy's hit comedy Norbit, which has grossed $94 million, as well as having success with Jack Black's Nacho Libre last summer.

While the success of Talladega Nights would seemingly point to Ferrell being a big enough draw to match or surpass that opening, there are a couple factors that need to be taken into account which helped that movie open so big. Firstly, Talladega Nights was a movie set in the hugely-popular world of NASCAR, which means it was probably more of a draw to guys in the Red States than a movie about "guys in tights skating together" and it probably brought in a wider audience thanks to the number of NASCAR fans that may not have bothered with previous Ferrell comedies. (That's also in comparison to Kicking and Screaming, which was about the less popular sport of soccer.) Talladega Nights also opened in early August, at the height of summer after a few slower weeks and co-starred Sacha Baron Cohen who a few months later proved how popular he was with teen and older males with the success of his own irreverent comedy Borat. So that's three things right there that Blades of Glory doesn't have that might keep it from matching that success.

As we saw last week with Pride, sports movies about sports guys don't care about tend to falter and ice skating? Well, unless it's about hockey like Miracle, it's going to be harder to convince guys to see it, especially if they think there are homosexual underpinnings to the premise. Even young girls weren't very interested when Disney released Ice Princess a few years back, which is odd since competitive ice skating has been more popular in recent years than ever before, though not compared to the built-in audience for NASCAR. Then again, Blades of Glory is more like the 2003 Ben Stiller-Vince Vaughn comedy hit Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story in that the comedy comes from it being about an unhip sport like male Olympic level figure skating, and if that movie can make $30 million its opening weekend, there's no reason why Ferrell's latest shouldn't make at least that amount. The movie's also in a similar vein to Ben Stiller's early comedy Zoolander, also starring Will Ferrell, which was set in the world of male modeling. Times have changed and high concept comedies have become far bigger box office draws in recent years. One just has to look at the high concept hit that is Wild Hogs to see how this is the case, and though the ice skating aspect of the movie might put off more than a few viewers, Ferrell is a lot hipper among teen and older audiences than any of the cast of Disney's comedy hit.

Either way, Ferrell's fans are fairly rabid and they'll be glad to see him doing something a bit more like his physical comedies, so expect a lot of people to pick this movie on Friday night and for it to do very well opening weekend even if it doesn't surpass the opening of Talladega Nights.

Comparisons:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Stranger Than Fiction	11/10/06	2,264		$13.41	$5,924	$40.44
Talladega Nights	8/4/06	3,803		$47.04	$12,370	$158.21
The Producers	12/16/05	6		$0.15	$25,765	$19.38
Bewitched	6/24/05	3,174		$20.13	$6,343	$62.25
Kicking & Screaming	5/13/05	3,455		$20.16	$5,835	$52.58
Anchorman	7/9/04	3,091		$28.42	$9,193	$84.14
Elf	11/7/03	3,337		$31.11	$9,324	$172.70
Old School	2/21/03	2,689		$17.45	$6,491	$75.16
Zoolander	9/28/01	2,507		$15.70	$6,262	$45.16
School for Scoundrels	9/29/06	3,004		$8.60	$2,864	$17.80
The Benchwarmers	4/7/06	3,274		$19.66	$6,004	$57.65
Just Like Heaven	9/16/05	3,508		$16.41	$4,678	$43.62
Napoleon Dynamite	6/11/04	546	$10.79	$1.76	$3,186	$45.66
Ice Princess	3/18/05	2,501		$6.81	$2,722	$24.38
Dodgeball	6/18/04	2,694		$30.07	$11,162	$114.06

Why I Should See It: You can't do much better in terms of a comic pairing than Will Ferrell and Jon Heder…. Well except putting him against Borat.
Why Not: There's a chance that people are getting burnt out on both of of these guys, and let's face it, what self-respecting straight man would want to watch a movie about ice skating?
Projections: $35 to 38 million opening weekend and roughly $110 million total.

MEET THE ROBINSONS (Disney)
Starring (voices of) Jordan Fry, Angela Bassett, Tom Selleck, Harland Williams, Laurie Metcalf, Adam West, Ethan Sandler, Tom Kenny
Directed by Stephen J. Anderson (a bunch of animated videos like Toto Lost in New York and Underground Adventure); Written by Michelle Bochner, Jon Bernstein
Genre: Animation, Comedy, Family
Rated G
Tagline: "If you think your family's different, wait until you meet the family of the future."
Plot Summary: Lewis is an orphan hoping to find a family for himself, but when he meets a boy named Wilbur Robinson, he's whisked away to the future where he meets… wait for it… the Robinsons, a strange group of characters unlike any family he might ever imagine.
Of Note: William Joyce's "A Day with Wilbur Robinson" is turned into the latest Walt Disney animated family movie.

Analysis: When it comes to family animated movies, you can't really beat Disney and now with the addition of Pixar founder John Lasseter as the CEO of Disney Feature Animation, they have another chance at making a name for themselves in the competitive business of 3-D computer animation. Their last attempt, 2005's Chicken Little, was relatively successful, though it didn't make the kind of money normally brought in by Pixar or the distinguished competition at DreamWorks Animation. Of course, that was before John Lasseter came on board, and Meet the Robinsons, Disney's 46^th animated feature, will be the first movie to take advantage of the new talent in hopes of spicing things up.

Unlike animated movies from Pixar, DreamWorks et al, Meet the Robinsons is a bit lacking on the star power with none of its voice cast being much of a draw. (Bored trivia buffs may be interested to know that one of the voices is provided by Tom Kenny AKA SpongeBob SquarePants!) At this point, the strength of an animated movie's voicecast means very little—again, just look at how badly Warner Bros.' The Ant Bully flopped last summer with the likes of Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep--and it's more about the characters, the premise and whether kids and their parents find the gags in the commercials and trailers funny. Although Robinsons doesn't have the talking animal factor that has been so prevalent in hit animated movies and it looks a bit like Nickolodeon's weaker 3D animated Jimmy Neutron, the premise of a boy being sent to the future should stir kids' imaginations, and few people have been able to resist laughing at the T-Rex gag in the ads however many times they see it.

Sadly, the 3D animated genre has become a bit old hat now with so many studios producing movies in the format. 2006 saw a huge boom in the industry with the most computer-animated features than any previous year. Some of them were huge successes like Pixar's Cars and Warner Bros' Happy Feet, but others didn't fare as well, and it seems a lot harder for a computer animated movie to automatically make $40 million opening weekend than used to be the case. Last week saw the release of the first two family films in over a month and next week, two more movies join them, but Disney has the advantage by being the biggest name in quality family entertainment, while Meet the Robinsons' G-rating will mean that parents with younger kids will feel more comfortable taking them to see it.

Another huge factor in the movie's success will be Disney's decision to release the movie into over 600 Real D equipped theatres to give kids the full 3-D experience, something that played a large factor in the success of Disney's '06 re-release of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, which averaged $19,000 in 160 theatres its opening weekend. The popularity of 3D movies among kids also helped Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids 3-D become a huge hit a few years ago. (Just by coincidence, Friday will be six years to the date of the release of Rodriguez's original Spy Kids which proved that a kids' movie can do well in March by making $26 million its opening weekend.) The improvement in technology and Disney's desire to use it might help the movie do a lot of business in those 600 theatres in a similar way as the IMAX Experience has helped so many other movies. Then again, some parents might just wait until the long Easter weekend to take their kids to see it.

One has to expect that Disney is doing their normal amount of marketing and product tie-ins (Robinsons toys anyone?) including an international public advisory message featuring the movie's singing frogs. All the movie really needs now is some kind of theme song, something like "Robinsons… Meet the Robinsons…" Okay, maybe not.

Comparisons:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Chicken Little	11/4/05	3,654	$40.05	$10,961	$135.36
Brother Bear	11/1/03	3,030	$19.40	$6,404	$84.45
Lilo & Stitch	6/21/02	3,191	$35.26	$11,049	$145.18
Nightmare Before Christmas 3D	10/20/06	168	$3.28	$19,506	$8.69
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over	7/25/03	3,344	$33.42	$9,993	$111.76
The Barnyard	8/4/06	3,311	$15.82	$4,778	$72.78
Monster House	7/21/06	3,553	$22.22	$6,253	$73.85
Open Season	9/29/06	3,833	$23.62	$6,163	$84.38
Over the Hedge	5/19/06	4,059	$38.47	$9,475	$155.02
Ice Age	3/15/02	3,316	$46.30	$13,966	$176.39
Robots	3/11/05	3,776	$36.05	$9,546	$128.19
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius	12/21/01	3,139	$13.83	$4,407	$80.86

Why I Should See It: Disney's first post-John Lasseter 3-D animated movie looks to have a lot more of the humor that makes Pixar movies so popular.
Why Not: The animation doesn't look nearly as good as the movies coming from the competition.
Projections: $28 to 31 million opening and $105 million total.

THE LOOKOUT (Miramax)
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Isla Fisher, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Aaron Berg, Kalyn Bomback, Alex Borstein, Paul Christie, Sergio Di Zio, Morgan Kelly, Suzanne Kelly, Tracy McMahon, Toni Reimer, Janaya Stephens, Laura Vandervoort, Courtney-Jane White
Written and directed by Scott Frank (debut film from writer of Out of Sight, Minority Report, Malice, The Interpreter)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: "Whoever has the money has the power"
Plot Summary: Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) was going places as the high school hokey star but after a devastating car accident, he's left with damage to his brain that means he can't remember basic functions without writing things down. With few other options, he takes a job as a janitor at a local bank, but when he's befriended by Gary Spargo (Matthew Goode) and his friend Luvlee (Isla Fischer) in a bar, he gets caught up in a plan to rob the bank…with him having to help.
Of Note: Scott Frank, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Out of Sight, directs his first feature
REVIEW
INTERVIEW (with Scott Frank)

Analysis: Clearly the underdog of the weekend is this new crime-drama written and directed by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Scott Frank and distributed by Miramax. Although it should offer suitable counter-programming to this weekend's ice skating comedy and animated family movie, it's also going to try to compete for the same older male audience who already has many options of movies to see already in theatres.

The Lookout is actually a decent bank heist movie with interesting ideas, but it doesn't have the star power of some of Frank's previous movies like Minority Report (Tom Cruise), Out of Sight (George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez) or The Interpreter (Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn). Instead, it stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the former child star who's best known for playing Tommy Solomon on the hit NBC sitcom "Third Rock from the Sun" from 1996 to 2001. During that time, he also starred in the Disney baseball movie Angels in the Outfield and later in movies like Halloween H20 and 10 Things I Hate About You. After "Third Rock" ended its run, Joe started looking for more serious adult roles, appearing in a number of smaller indie films that have been critically well-received, but mostly commercial flops like Manic and Mysterious Skin. His most recent starring role was in Rian Johnson's groundbreaking indie crime-thriller Brick, which wound up making about $2 million. There's really nothing to prove that the fans of Gordon-Levitt's TV career has followed him to the movies despite the rave reviews he repeatedly gets, but one can expect that he'll eventually find the right project that will get him awards attention ala Ryan Gosling last year.

On the other hand, Jeff Daniels, who plays Chris' blind roommate, already has a long-running career in the movies going back to the '80s, one that has gotten him nominated for 3 Golden Globes, two early in his career and then more recently for his performance in the indie comedy The Squid and the Whale. This is a very different movie and role for Daniels though, and despite the fact that he provides most of the film's comic relief, it's not something that will attract people to the movie. (You probably won't even spot Daniels in the TV commercials.)

The cast is rounded out by Australian actress Isla Fischer, who first got attention from her comedic role in the 2005 blockbuster comedy Wedding Crashers, and British actor Matthew Goode, who has been in such diverse movies as Mandy Moore's Chasing Liberty, Woody Allen's Match Point and the lesbian rom-com Imagine Me and You, changes gears getting away from his squeaky clean image by playing an American bad guy in the movie. The sad fact is that neither of these actors can do much in terms of getting people into theatres.

The trailer looked very intriguing as it played up the Memento comparisons in regards to Chris Pratt's memory problems, but the TV commercials aren't nearly as enticing, making it look like just another crime drama in the vein of Confidence or similar heist films. There's nothing that really that makes the movie, which is more of a drama, look exciting or worth seeing. It's kind of strange that the movie is getting such a wide release into between 800 and 1,000 theatres, as it's the kind of movie that could be opened more moderately and then find business based on word-of-mouth ala last year's The Illusionist. It should certainly get good reviews, but that's really not enough these days, so expect it to do only moderately well (less than $10 million theatrically) then find its audience on DVD and cable.

Comparisons:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Brick	3/31/06	2		$0.08	$41,787	$2.10
Mysterious Skin	5/6/05	1		$0.02	$17,425	$0.70
10 Things I Hate About You	4/2/99	2,271	$3.19	$8.33	$3,668	$38.18
Hallowe'en: H20	8/7/98	2,607	$8.56	$16.19	$6,210	$55.02
Angels in the Outfield	7/15/94	1,894		$8.92	$4,710	$50.24
Wedding Crashers	7/15/05	2,925		$33.90	$11,590	$209.22
Out of Sight	6/26/98	2,106		$12.02	$5,708	$37.56
Memento	5/11/01	445	$8.98	$1.22	$2,733	$25.93
Confidence	4/25/03	1,871		$4.56	$2,439	$12.21
Birthday Girl	2/1/02	1,000		$2.37	$2,370	$4.92
Goodfellas	9/21/90	1,070	$0.08	$6.37	$5,953	$46.74
A Bronx Tale	10/1/93	1,077		$3.75	$3,482	$17.24

Why I Should See It: This is a really strong crime drama in the vein of Memento (there's that comparison again!!) from the writer of Out of Sight and The Interpreter.
Why Not: How are they going to get people in to see this movie when the biggest star is Jeff Daniels?
Projections: $2 to 3 million opening weekend and $8 to 9 million total

THE HAWK IS DYING (Strand Releasing) ­ Julian (Trans) Goldberger's low-budget drama stars Paul Giamatti as a Florida auto upholsterer who tries to train a hawk while caring for his autistic nephew (Michael Pitt). The Cannes and Sundance selection which also stars Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain) opens at New York's Cinema Village on Friday.

LIVE FREE OR DIE (THINKFilm) ­ This New Hampshire based crime-comedy from Gregg Kavet and Andy Robin (two of the millions of writers of the NBC sitcom "Seinfeld") stars Aaron Sanford (X-Men) as a would-be criminal named Jon "Rugged" Rudgate who goes from two-bit con games to trying to horn in on the inheritance of a former friend and his sister. The film also stars Zooey Deschanel and Michael Rapaport as a cop who's investigating Rudgate. After playing at the Florida Film Festival in Orlando, the movie will play in select cities in New England, particularly in New Hampshire.

RACE YOU TO THE BOTTOM (Regent Releasing/Here! Films) ­ Russell Brown's unconventional romantic drama stars Cole Williams and Amber Benson ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer") as a gay man and straight woman who have an exhilarating six month affair before dumping their respective boyfriends and going off on a road trip together.

TEN 'TIL NOON (Radio London Films) ­ This independently produced and distributed crime thriller shows what can happen in a mere ten minutes in the lives of ten interconnected people, after one of them wakes up to find two strangers in his room. After playing various festivals, this opens on Friday at L.A.'s Laemmle Sunset 5, followed by Ft. Lauderdale (4/4), Maine (4/13) and Phoenix (4/20).

U-CARMEN (Koch Lorber Films) ­ Mark Dornford-May adapts Bizet's 19^th Century Opera, but setting it in a modern-day South African shantytown with Carmen, played by Pauline Malafane, as a woman working in a cigarette factory. It opens on Wednesday at New York's Film Forum.

Copyright 2007 Edward Douglas


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