APRIL, 7

THE AVENGERS 3

Action / Superhero
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Edward Norton, Tobey Maguire, Kurt Russell, Rose McGowan, Tyler Mane, Adam Bladwin, William Fitchner, Willem Dafoe, James Gandolfini
Director and Producer: Gore Verbinski
Screenwriter: Matt Kubrick

Box Office: 191 mill.
Net Gains: 192 mill.

Stark’s Reaction: Each new instalment of this franchise keeps doing better in box office than the previous one. Very nice turnout. It’s a shame that this saga has an uncertain future cause the Studio would keep betting for it.

TENDER IS THE NIGHT

Drama
Cast: Daniel Day Lewis, Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson, Kevin Costner, Adrien Brody, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriter: James Bradley

Box Office: 101 mill.
Net Gains: 85 mill.

Stark’s Reaction: One of the very few dramas in CMP to reach the ‘100’! Excellent box office’s breakdown. Although quite a few quality movies have already been released this Season, it smells like a GMA contender.

THE AWFUL TRUTH

Comedy / Dark
Cast: Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Laura Linney, Jane Fonda, James Cromwell
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Screenwriter: Richard Franzwa


Box Office: 81 mill.
Net Gains: 57 mill.

Stark’s Reaction: More than satisfactory. This peculiar comedy has found its audience. I admit I did not expect such a great box office. It’s nice when a quality comedy works.


THE AVENGERS

‘Another instalment of this saga is not a risky move at all and the guys at CMP know it. The loyal crowd of followers of The Avengers will religiously pay their ticket to watch again their heroes no matter what they do. So a routine work is enough to make easy profits with a movie like this. And that’s exactly what this movie is. Not even the appearance of Spiderman is surprising enough. ‘The Avengers 3’ is a predictable movie that will only satisfy to Marvel’s characters geeks. No innovation or creative challenge can be expected from a movie like this.’
-Roy Winslow

‘The Avengers 3 is a perfectly designed and directed production. A perfect pack with nothing inside. The main stars / characters of the group – Ironman, Hulk, Nick Fury and now Spiderman – have their moments of glory while other characters – Captain America, Valkyrie, Thor – have nothing to do in the movie but just ‘be there’. The storyline is so weak than not even the reappearance of well known characters like Dr. Octopus or the Green Goblin is enough to lift up the interest. But who cares? This is the kind of movie born to be a blockbuster and fans will forgive that this franchise does not seem to be going anywhere.’
-Alex Stampton

‘Past Season, CMP released a spin off of this saga, ‘Nick Fury’. It was a modest but highly entertaining movie that did not pretend to be as epic as its main franchise but just a solid action adventure. Some times, being unpretentious is the best way to make a good movie. ‘The Avengers 3’ is so pretentious that it becomes incapable of reaching its own objectives. It looks for so much that, at the end, it stays in a nowhere land, half way of being a good or a bad movie.’
-Tim Reeve

TENDER IS THE NIGHT

‘Here is one of the most accurate adaptations of a book I’ve seen for long. Scorsese has perfectly captured the mix of romance, drama, frustration, self-destruction, glamour and decadence of the original source. This is a story that has so many different narrative levels. It can be followed as a destructive love story, as the drama of a man selling his soul, as the study of a complex woman… and all of that is in Scorsese’s movie. A great adult movie in which something new can be discovered every time you watch it.’
-Charlie Kiggs

‘Praising Daniel Day Lewis acting work is almost an obviousness. But, once again, he has shown us here why he is one of the best actors of our time. Day Lewis makes a content but full of shades performance, far away from the acting excesses we’ve seen him some times. His capacity to express feelings with just a look or a silence is simply amazing. He has perfectly understood his character and the complex mix of feelings he has for both Nicole (Angelina Jolie, just perfect) and Rosemary (a bit sickly Scarlett Johansson).’
-Anne Roman

‘A little master piece from Scorsese. The work of a mature moviemaker that manages perfectly the movie language. And a sensational work too from all the cast. Jolie proves again her talent for drama, Day Lewis builds up another character to me remembered for, Johansson makes the best of her. But a special praise deserve the supporting roles. Costner makes his best work in ages as the sceptical and cynic bon vivant, Brody plays a perfect poor rich drunk and Gyllenhaal shines as the nasty evil sister-in-law.’
-Jackie O’Callaghan

THE AWFUL TRUTH

‘A great movie… only if you like the peculiar Coen Brothers’ sense of humour. Here is a sophisticated comedy full of eccentric and excessive characters in the line of ‘Burn After Reading’. As usual, the Coen Brothers take things to extreme in this story of an insecure wife who discovers much more than she probably would have wanted. Franzwa has written the perfect screenplay for the Coen Brothers to make an intelligent parody, laughing this time at marriage and family. Dark, very dark sense of humour. Take it or leave it.’
-Amy Ratched

‘Julia Roberts is not Frances McDormand but she tries to. Not the best character for her, she gets to survive as this desperate housewife. Tom Hanks makes a correct self-parody of his Mr. Nice cliché. Meg Ryan and Laura Linney adapt to their characters without particular brightness. And that peculiar elder couple, Cromwell and Fonda, particularly shine in this gallery of dysfunctional characters. Pure Coen. Maybe not their best comedy, but a correct one that follows the rules of their very personal way of moviemaking.’
-Ian Jones

‘Franzwa surprises us with a comedy very different from his previous work in the genre, the parody ‘Bond Scum’. This is a more subtle story. But some times it goes too far – that mother selling sexual favours to neighbours…- and that subtlety turns into gross comedy. The movie has an irregular pace and not all the comedy moments work at the same level. Finally, the movie becomes funny without becoming as hilarious as it pretends to be.’
-Chris Burgess


This week it's the recent addition to the Avengers saga, and a couple of peculiar films that just might take a few GMAs. Last week CMP had successes in all of the released films, could it happen again? We'd like lightning to strike twice but sometimes it doesn't happen that way.

THE AVENGERS 3

CRITIQUE: We critics have been reviewing these avenger and avenger-based films so often that anything we say can match any of the films. This one was kind of neat to give Spider-Man a story in the film, so it added a lot to the difference in this one over the last bunch of films. It was an entertaining action/superhero film, nothing more or nothing less. It wasn't bad I just bet the stars in the film are getting tired of playing the heroes they're portraying and want to move on to other things.
ACTING/CAST: 4/5
DIRECTION: 4/5
WRITING: 4/5
CONCEPT/PLOT: 4/5
REWATCH VALUE: 5/5
OVERALL: 4/5

TENDER IS THE NIGHT

CRITIQUE: Scorcese and Bradley both do it again by putting together this compelling drama about the rise of one person and the fall of the other and all these messed up affairs and personal demon battlings that go on in between. I enjoyed the film even if it did have Angelina and her nasty big lips taking up half the screen. I smell a GMA contender!
ACTING/CAST: 5/5
DIRECTION: 5/5
WRITING: 5/5
CONCEPT/PLOT: 5/5
REWATCH VALUE: 4/5
OVERALL: 5/5

THE AWFUL TRUTH

CRITIQUE: A dark comedy teetering on the line of drama which only the Cohen's can put together so perfectly with the theme that some things are better left unsaid. Franzwa has really grown into this particular style of acid comedy/drama. The cast, direction and writing all had great strengths. Even Roberts, another actress I'm not into did very well. This could also be a GMA contender...most Cohen movies are award worthy.
ACTING/CAST: 4/5
DIRECTION: 5/5
WRITING: 5/5
CONCEPT/PLOT: 5/5
REWATCH VALUE: 2/5(a little too depressing to want to see over and over)
OVERALL: 4/5

MR. THUMBS' CERTIFIED MUST SEE OF THE WEEK:
a rare occasion when I ask movie goers to
SEE ALL THREE!


Hi everyone I'm new here to this world of CMP. It's been a great watching your movies reading about the news. I've decided to start a new blog and talk about some of the fantastic things here. I love horror, and action, sci fi. I'm a big fan of video games and comics. Making a video game based movie can be a tricky thing. You have to try and appeal to the video game audience and you also have to appeal to an audience that probably doesn't play the games. Same thing goes for comics. It's a juggling act, today I would like to talk about why I believe Metal Gear Solid bombed at the box office.

Any video gamer knows who Solid Snake is and has probably played all the video games hell you probably even played the Japan only release of Metal Gear Solid 2 you probably own a copy of the american only version of Metal Gear Solid 2 which has little to do with the Japanses version which is a whole other story. Anyways the problem with Metal Gear Solid the movie it just stuck to close to the source material, there is to much going on in the plot if you don't know the game very well the typical movie goer might be lost. Metal Gear Solid is actually the third game in the series and it talks about events that take place in the first two games. It's understandable why alot of people would be put off. I have to say I loved the movie myself, maybe someday we will get a sequel in the future lets hope the studio learns from this mistake staying to close to the source material can be a bad thing.

I would like to talk about The Avengers 3 and have to say while I totally loved the hell out of it, big action packed set pieces, it just felt the movies plot was a little thin. It didn't really seem to have a story to it, just abunch of connected events that take you from one big event to the next. I loved the Lizard, his transformation scene was most excellent. The people in my theatre seemed to really enjoy themselves, if the crowd at my theatre is any proof of how it will do, it looks like CMP will have another big hit on their hands.

There is something I've been wondering about I've been thinking what it would be like if CMP put out their own Daredevil movie? it doesn't look like there will ever be a major franchise based on this character, while the last DD movie was a hit it was pretty awfull and after electra bombed in the theatre it killed any chances of a Daredevil 2. If the studio heads are paying attention to this get one of your writers on this right away! just ditch Ben Afleck because he wasn't really right for the role. Thanks!

MIDSEASON’S BOX OFFICE TOP 5

As usual, as we reach midseason, here’s a reminder of the best 5 releases so far in CMP:

(Box Office / Net Gains)

1-WOODLAND CREATURES: 262 / 219
2-DEVIL TRIGGER: 248 / 382
3-THE AVENGERS 3: 191 / 192
4-THE GREEN CHILDREN: 166 / 128
5-HE-MAN AND MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: 130 / 114
IMPORTANT:
CMP GOES ON EASTERN HOLIDAYS AND TAKE A REST
WE WILL PROBABLY BE BACK FRIDAY, APRIL 24TH