THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON Breaks One-Day Box-Office Record
Kristen Stewart in The Twilight Saga: New Moon, with Robert Pattinson (top) and Taylor Lautner (bottom)
The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the Chris Weitz-directed Twilight sequel starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, earned $72.7 million on its first day out, including a record $26.3 million from midnight screenings, thus breaking the single day domestic box-office record previously held by Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, which made $67.2 million on its opening day last year.
According to reports, if The Twilight Saga: New Moon keeps it up it’ll break another Dark Knight record: best opening weekend ever. (Though some analysts find that unlikely.) Last year, The Dark Knight earned $158.4 million on its first weekend.
In New Moon, Kristen Stewart is a human teen, Robert Pattinson her vampire lover, and Taylor Lautner (above) a werewolf who gets in the way. Triangular romantic entanglements ensue. Catherine Hardwicke directed the original Twilight, which went on to earn US$350 million worldwide.
"The moon may be new and the director may be different," writes Michael Rechtshaffen in The Hollywood Reporter, "… but otherwise, the second installment of the Twilight saga remains, for better or worse, exceptionally faithful to its 2008 beginnings … rather than venture out in potentially more intriguing or substantial directions, which should suit its ferocious adolescent female fan base just fine."
Also in the Twilight Saga: New Moon cast: Anna Kendrick, Michael Sheen, Peter Facinelli, Billy Burke, Michael Welch, Graham Greene, and Dakota Fanning.
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Gay Films Seized in Canada
Clapham Junction by Adrian Shergold (top); Lisa Ray, Sheetal Sheth in I Can’t Think Straight (middle); Patrik Age. 1.5 by Ella Lemhagen (bottom)
Canada an egalitarian gay haven? Think again.
Marcus McCann reports in Xtra.com that Canada Border Services Agency [...] Continue Reading…
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Golden Globes 2010 Predictions: Best Actress – Drama
2010 Golden Globe Predictions: Best Actress – Drama
Annette Bening, Mother and Child
A middle-aged woman must come to terms with her past
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Radical ideologue Leo Tolstoy’s wife Sofya has to put up with him
Carey Mulligan, An [...] Continue Reading…
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Golden Globes 2010 Predictions: Best Actor – Drama
2010 Golden Globe Predictions: Best Actor – Drama
Colin Firth, A Single Man
In 1960s Los Angeles, a gay college professor wants to end his life after learning that his lover has died in an accident.
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
By staging the Rugby [...] Continue Reading…
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Oscar 2010: Animated Short Film Semi-Finalists
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 10 semi-finalists in the animated short film category of the 2010 Academy Awards. Thirty-seven entries had originally qualified in the category. They are: [...] Continue Reading…
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Golden Globes 2010 Predictions: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical
2010 Golden Globes Predictions: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical
The Informant! (above, with Matt Damon), d: Steven Soderbergh; scr: Scott Z. Burns
A pathological liar helps the US government nab a nefarious agribusiness conglomerate.
Julie & Julia (above, with Meryl [...] Continue Reading…
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Golden Globes 2010 Predictions: Best Picture – Drama
2010 Golden Globe Predictions: Best Picture – Drama
The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow; scr: Mark Boal
A US Army elite unit disarms bombs in Iraq.
Invictus (above, with Matt Damon), d: Clint Eastwood; scr: Anthony Peckham
Newly elected South African [...] Continue Reading…
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Noel Clarke’s ADULTHOOD on IFC Festival Direct
Noel Clarke’s Adulthood, which was screened at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, opens this week on IFC Festival Direct, a distribution outlet presenting "a collection of the best and most innovative cinema" from film festivals around [...] Continue Reading…
Oscar 2010: Documentary Feature Semi-Finalists
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 15 semi-finalists in the 2010 Academy Awards’ Documentary Feature category. Eighty-nine films had been in the running.
The 15 documentary feature semi-finalists are:
The Beaches of Agnes, [...] Continue Reading…
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THE FUPLERS: Q&A with Matt Koval
There are few web series that I’ve enjoyed watching; of those, Matt Koval’s "The Fuplers" is probably my favorite. The series chronicles the table-time interactions of your typical Mondo Bizarro family, with Koval playing Mom, Dad, Teen Son, and [...] Continue Reading…
Yoav Shamir’s DEFAMATION Opens in NY/LA
European Film Award nominee and a very likely contender for the 2010 best documentary feature Academy Award*, Yoav Shamir’s Defamation opens on Friday, Nov. 20, in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities across the United [...] Continue Reading…
TCM Classic Film Festival: A STAR IS BORN, METROPOLIS, BREATHLESS, 2001
Judy Garland in A Star Is Born (top); Brigitte Helm in Metropolis (middle); Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg in Breathless (bottom)
Turner Classic Movies’ first-ever TCM Classic Film Festival, which will be held on April 22-25, 2010, in Hollywood, will [...] Continue Reading…
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FOUR SEASONS LODGE Screenings
Directed by Andrew Jacobs, Four Seasons Lodge is currently playing at New York City’s IFC Center at Sixth Avenue at West Third Street. The film opens Friday, Nov. 20, at the Quad Cinema at 34 West 13th Street. This [...] Continue Reading…
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Oscar 2010: Hash Hamilton to Direct Oscar Telecast
Hamish Hamilton will direct the 2010 Academy Awards telecast, show producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman have announced. It will be Hamilton”s first time directing the Oscar show.
Among Hamilton’s credits are the “MTV Video Music [...] Continue Reading…
New Czech Films
A Well Paid Walk by Milos Forman (top); Vaclav Havel in Citizen Havel by Pavel Koutecký and Miroslav Janek (middle); The Karamazovs by Petr Zelenka (bottom)
New Czech Films at New York’s BAMcinématek. The series includes works by two-time Academy [...] Continue Reading…
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European Film Academy Ambassadors
Maria de Medeiros (top); Belén Rueda (middle); Kim Rossi Stuart (bottom)
The European Film Academy (EFA) has enlisted a group of Ambassadors of European Film to cooperate in the promotion of European cinema and the European Film Awards.
From the [...] Continue Reading…
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Golden Globes 2010: Five Best Animated Feature Nominees
Up by Pete Docter
The 2010 Golden Globes will feature five Best Animated Feature contenders, as members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association voted last week to expand this year’s number of nominations for that category.
The amended [...] Continue Reading…
Edward Woodward
Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Bryan Brown, Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson in Breaker Morant
Edward Woodward, the star of the 1980s television series The Equalizer and of the film classics The Wicker Man (1973) and Breaker Morant (1980), died on [...] Continue Reading…
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The Auteurs World Cup
Charulata by Satyajit Ray (top); Moolaadé by Ousmane Sembene (middle); El Sur by Víctor Erice (bottom)
The Auteurs World Cup was launched yesterday, Nov. 16. David Hudson, formerly of The Daily and GreenCine Daily, describes the AWC thus:
"It’s [...] Continue Reading…
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Grace Kelly: GREEN FIRE, THE ROCKINGHAM TEA SET
Grace Kelly, Stewart Granger in Green Fire
Grace Kelly is once again the focal point of Turner Classic Movies’ Thursday evening schedule. And as far as I’m concerned, next Thursday, Nov. 19, is going to be the most interesting of [...] Continue Reading…
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Jocelyn Quivrin
Jocelyn Quivrin, Bénabar in Incognito
Jocelyn Quivrin, the French Academy’s César winner for most promising newcomer in 2008, died after losing control of his sports car while driving in a tunnel just outside of Paris on Sunday [...] Continue Reading…
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2012 Smashes Box Office
Roland Emmerich’s apocalyptic actioner 2012 destroyed its competition at the North American box office this weekend with a solid $65 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Sony’s 2012 opened at 3,404 locations Friday, [...] Continue Reading…
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Lauren Bacall, Roger Corman, Gordon Willis: Governors Awards 2009
Honorary Award recipients Roger Corman, Lauren Bacall, and Gordon Willis at the 2009 Governors Awards ceremony held at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland on Saturday, November 14.
“It’s so much better … that nobody’s worrying whether 36.5 [...] Continue Reading…
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Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Vera Farmiga: Governors Awards 2009
Previous Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award recipients Saul Zaentz, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Walter Mirisch, and two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks present the Thalberg Award to producer John Calley (The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons), who was unable [...] Continue Reading…
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George Lucas, Meg Tilly, Kirk Douglas: Governors Awards 2009
Academy Award-nominated actresses Jennifer Tilly (as best supporting actress, for Bullets Over Broadway) and Meg Tilly (also in the best supporting actress category, for Agnes of God), arrive at the 2009 Governors Awards ceremony held at the Grand Ballroom [...] Continue Reading…
