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Second!

Wow, Lust Caution did well. I want to go see it. And by "it", I meant some erotic Asian sex.

Much to my surprise, it was truly "fucking," in that sense of the word, though it gets a bit more romantic as the movie progresses.

Going back on Wednesday, which should prompt a full review of this underrated film.

The true monster number is Darjeeling. Yes, a little misleading since Union Square had three prints, but also remember that's only two days of grosses, as it didn't open until Saturday. Too bad the movie is pretty much a complete mess. (Though Hotel Chevalier could be an early contender for the short film Oscar.)

So Dave: Are you saying that we're having a slump this year?

Lust, Caution is really good.

The early mahjong sequence is Spielberg on a kilo of amphetamine with its tilts and pans. At only 3 minutes or so, it took an entire week to cut from 7 hours of footage.

With all due respect to Jodie -- should The Brave One now be judged, at best, an under-achiever?

It took a week to cut or it took a week to shoot?

I could not get into Darjeeling last night, sold out showings in Union Square. Hopefully I'll have better luck tonight. I can't believe how badly In the Valley of Elah is dying, although I'm not exactly broken up about it.

Joe, your review of Then She Found Me over at Variety might be the first positive thing I've heard about the film. You made actually want to check it out, despite the fact that I cannot stand Helen Hunt.

A week to make the first cut of the 3 minute sequence. There was so much footage, so many takes, that the editor created 3 shot assemblies back to back to back with his Avid set to not repeat selections. Only then was he able to go ahead and make a first pass at an actual edit of the scene.

Noah: You have just paid me the highest compliment a critic can ever hope to receive: You will consider seeing something you might not have bothered with, or might have actively avoided, based on my review. Thank you. I hope you enjoy the film as much as I do.

It's my pleasure, Joe. I've always been a big fan of your work.

Glad to know that David love "Lust, Caution".

"Lust, Caution" received mostly negative review in New York, but this movie receive mostly amazing reviews in Hong Kong. Many Hong Kong audience/critics thinks that this movie doesn't has any [boring] moments; they also think that its sex scenes are very important for the storytelling of this movie.

Hoping "Lust, Caution" won't become the lowest grossing movie that has $60000+ PTA at opening weekend....

Joe - I assume you were attempting a joke.

Yes, The Brave One is a clear box office dissapointment.

Getting excited about per-screens for cult filmmakers in New York City is more than a little silly. Between Darjeeling and Lust, you're talking about fewer than 7000 people a day in New York...

Huckabees did $73k per on 4... Melinda & Melinda did $74k on 1 and never hit $4m... Life Acquatic did $57k on 2...

Heck, Wassup Rockers did $24k per screen...

And yes, Brokeback did massive per-screens in its first weekend and went on to a great big number.

The point is... these numbers mean very little in the long run. And then, we can discuss what is the measure of success for these two titles.

Darjeeling is being marketed very well...I'm a little surprised at Eastern Promises dropping 50%....maybe wordofmouth isn't strong? It kind of reminds me of another movie - Talk to Me - which was started in a few movies and never got pass 500 theatres, which really hurt it, and then it just disappeared. Good movie...but nobody saw it....could it happen to Eastern Promises? Could it happen to Jesse James? Could it happen to a lot of these "Academy" worthy movies? Seems like it.

About the Brave One - I don't care what anybody thinks - Jodie Foster registers -0- sexuality, 0 sex appeal and i think that's a big negative to her, besides I don't think she's as great an actress as others do....at best she's a good supporting actress in an ensemble (see Inside Man)....but she takes her lazy time making movies, she doesn't promote movies, and the movies she stars in are just so-so-, mediocre....maybe it's the woman thing...you know, Hollywood doesn't write for women....but there are a lot of women stories out there that she can develop....
Maybe she belongs on TV or HBO movies, but I just never got into Jodie Foster - really overrated IMO.
I miss Linda Fiorentino, I miss a lot of female actresses that need to be in movies, but the material just isn't there.

What will happen to Jesse James is people turning down their oxygen tanks in the Academy theater so they can sleep.

Nah, most Academy members are old enough to remember what real westerns are like and will bail after 30 minutes or so.

I frequently say of bloated action movies: Sam Fuller coulda done it better in half the time...but in this case, he actually did.

Personally, I think that had Dominick chosen to shoot the film for 110 minute running time, it might have actually have been a minor masterpiece.

i know there's a lot of excited people for Darjeeling in the film circles, but i don't see this having a broad appeal.

Looking at Anderson's track record, other than Tenenbaums (my favorite of his), his others have been true to form in terms of box office performance for an indie.

Life Aquatic - $24,020,403
Rushmore - $17,105,219
Royal Tenenbaums - $52,364,010

So other than Tenenbaums that had the added plus of Ben Stiller, 20 million seems like a realistic number for Darjeeling.

"Though Hotel Chevalier could be an early contender for the short film Oscar."

I believe shorts have to play at a certain number of film festivals to be eligible.

True, but based on last year's winner the bar is VERY low.

Form what I read in online message board/newsgroup, it looks like most of the audience, who saw "Lust, Caution" in Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, were Chinese people....

If it is true, it looks like "Lust, Caution" will have difficult time to gross more than $2 million in US.... Then people will blame NC-17 rating for the failure of this movie. (Personally, NC-17 rating isn't a big factor to affect the US box office potential of "Lust, Caution" )

Getting back to The Brave One: While I am the last person to equate box-office failure with artistic deficiency, I am genuinely curious about the relative underachievement of Jodie Foster’s film. It’s an R-rated drama with an easily marketable hook and a lead player who’s widely admired. And yet – well, compare it to 3:10 to Yuma, another R-rated flick with an Oscar winner above the title. The Western is supposed to be dead, or at least dormant, but this film is hanging in with steady numbers. Granted, it’s not a box-office smash by any means, and I have no idea how well it will play in foreign markets. But, then again, how well will Brave One play in foreign markets?

I guess what really fascinates me is that, up until a short time ago, there was a lot of loose talk about Jodie Foster’s Oscar chances – which, truth to tell, always struck me as odd, considering how relatively rarely people get noms for genre films. What was there about this film that made some people think it had so much potential? And what, if anything, went wrong? Is Foster simply not as big a b.o. draw as some folks obviously assume she is? Were the reviews worse than expected? (I know David doesn’t think much of using Rotten Tomatoes as a gauge, but Brave One,/i> currently has a 46 percent approval, as opposed to the 87 percent rating for 3:10.) Are we over-saturated with R-rated action films? Or what?

Sorry about bad coding in last sentences.

Don't apologize: tell us how to italicize SO WE DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS TO EMPHASIZE A POINT!

Anghus: Wes Anderson did his previous films for a Disney imprint. It's not his fault that Touchstone has become all but dormant.

Cadavra, you really don't know how to italicise?

words you want in italics

just remove the spaces and you'll be right. for bold, for strikethrough (does this one work on Hot Blog? I'm not sure)

wordsyouwantinitalics

Nope, still missing something here...

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