Independent Spirit = BIG Box Office

HOLLYWOOD ON A HIGH - FULL OF HEROES AND ANIMATION!

No signs of recession if the yearly, Christmas day and year-end box-office tallies tell us anything.

Check out the top films  grosses in this Yahoo slideshow or read the excerpted list:

• 10. HORTON HEARS A WHO Total Gross: $154,529,439
• 9. TWILIGHT Total Gross: $158,461,000
• 8. QUANTUM OF SOLACE     Total Gross: $161,300,000
• 7. MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA     Total Gross: $172,332,000
• 6. KUNG FU PANDA   Total Gross: $215,434,591
• 5. WALL-E     Total Gross: $223,749,872
• 4. HANCOCK   Total Gross: $227,946,274 
• 3. INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL Total Gross: $317,023,851
• 2. IRON MAN Total Gross: $318,313,199
• 1. THE DARK KNIGHT Total Gross: $530,750,228

To confess, I have seen 60% of the films on the list. 40% of the films on this list are in fact animated (while not in the traditional hand drawn sense still animated) and two that I saw were animated…one is even on my list of the 10 BEST of 2008 (TEASE: to be published here on this Blog in the coming weeks). 2008 was a fun year for audience films but it seems like the critical and thought provoking contenders really did (like the old days) come out in the latter half of the year. I enjoyed and rate high champs 1-3…but BATMAN and INDIANA JONES are my kinda heroes! Daniel Craig’s sophomore outing as another of my favorite heroes, “BOND, JAMES BOND”  was not up to par with 2006’s CASINO ROYALE.  Still it was fun minus the foiled opening sequence. I think the two latest 007 films CASINO ROYALE & QUANTUM OF SOLACE work inversely as sequels in the same way KILL BILL VOL. 1 (2003) & KILL BILL VOL. 2 (2004) do. Whereas one represents “the story” the other represents “the action.” But as far as new heroes are concerned you can’t go wrong supporting WALL-E and IRON MAN was a welcome surprise amidst a glut of superhero-themed movies. I thought #10 was OK but prefer the old Chuck Jones’ 1970 verison of HORTON HEARS A WHO to the new one. Both TWILIGHT and HANCOCK  I have heard OK things about but probably won’t appear on many 10 best lists. 

Here’s to a great recessionless year in excellent movie attendance..may you spend your respective movie dollars on only the “creme de la creme!”

REVIEW: Australia (2008) d. Baz Luhrmann

When I think of some of my favorite contemporary filmmakers (The Coen Brothers, Tim Burton, Peter Jackson, and Baz Luhrmann) one word links them all and that is the term “Post-Modern.” These auteurs are among the generation of filmmakers who grew up with total access to the archive of world cinema, still, at the time of their respective youths, less than 100 years old. Such total access has empowered them to both learn and keep at their disposal proven techniques and story telling devices which find their way back into their personal body of work, not as an out and out rip off, but rather as pastiche of elements designed in homage to the masters. “When you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em,” “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” and “I learned from the best” are phrases that subconsciously reflect such “sampling” and account for the underlying feeling of “deja vu” the seasoned moviegoer feels when watching any modern auteurs body of work!

Baz Luhrmann’s AUSTRALIA starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman (see photo) is perhaps one of the most easily accessible post-modern works since pretty much any Quentin Tarantino film. 

Australia provides its viewers with a window into the post-modern world of contemporary cinema. A place where intertextualities abound! (more…)

I have seen the future of movie marketing and poster design…it comes in the form of a virtual movie poster for TERMINATOR:SALVATION. The cyborgs take over 22 May 2009!

See the other “Terminator: Salvation” posters at MOVIEGOODS!

The future is here…media is merging with web technology and, like it or not, to stay conscious and in touch everyone will be connected in someway, shape, or form.

NOTE: Joe’s UPTOWN Movie Blog will try and keep readers up to date on the new media revolution and hopes that we’ll all tap into the technology that surround while staying connected to our world and those that share it.