The Weekend Report
by Leonard Klady

Expectations for the romantic comedy teaming of Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey in Failure to Launch were modest and some trackers expected its furry canine competitor to have a better opening gross. To no one’s great surprise the picture’s core audience was older and female; it’s just that the sector came out in greater numbers than usual. There are encouraging signs the film might catch on with a younger crowd and prove to have very good commercial stamina.
Weekend Estimates (Full List)
Domestic Market Share

The Hot Button
Reverse Overanalysis
by David Poland

Reverse Overanalysis is the process of attempting to discover the technical principles of the film world through analysis of the structure, function and operation of certain occurrences in the film business. In Reverse Engineering, this analysis is usually done with the intention to construct a new device or program that does the same thing without actually copying anything from the original. In R.O., it is usually done with the intention of explaining something irritating and to offer a construction that will be less irritating, even exhilarating.
Part I
Part II
Part III

Gross Behavior
The ShoWest Must Go On ..
by Leonard Klady

Last year, NATO's John Fithian attempted to make lemonade from the fact that frequent film goers - people that went to the multiplex at least once a month - were going even more often. He also made mention that respondents in their poll that characterized themselves as "nevers" or "rarelys" were also on the rise. While the media generally bit hard on his spin, exhibitors were distressed that their audience was shrinking in numbers and there was a potential manifest destiny that favored younger viewers and that was alienating older customers.

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MCN DVD Wrap-Up
Walk The Line

June Carter and Johnny Cash led a far more complicated life than James Mangold's biopic would lead casual fans to believe, and their next 30 years together would supply more than enough material for a sequel … More >

MCN Review by David Poland: It is a movie about a princess and a prince, both of whom were also frogs and who could only become King and Queen by kissing one another.

MCN Review by Ray Pride: Cash poises his finger over the teeth of the blade of a table saw, a life on a string, soon to draw taut.

Plus: Ballykissangel, Bleak House, Dog Day Afternoon, Domino, Drew Carey Show, The Ice Harvest, Howl's Moving Castle, Jarhead, Lady & The Tramp, The Memory of a Killer, Network, Police Woman, Pornography: The Secret History of Civilization, Pride and Prejudice, Prime, , Where the Truth Lies, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

The Ultimate DVD Geek
Harry Potter
& The Goblet of Fire
by Doug Pratt

It should be borne in mind that the Harry Potter movies are leading to something, just as the books are. They are not freestanding movies but installments in a greater narrative, and while the structure of each movie tends to be mildly repetitive, the development of the characters and the complexity of the fantasies is significantly advanced from one movie to the next. If the producers are actually able to complete the series with most of the cast intact, it will be a remarkable legacy, an epic metaphor for the adolescent development cycle that is a great deal more cogent than the Andy Hardy movies and such.

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It's Oscartown, Jake
Curtain Call
by Kristopher Tapley

2005 has been a curious year from the start. Politically and socially conscious filmmaking dominated the scene. It was the first topic I wrote about here at Movie City News back in September. The critical consensus bled into the Oscar nominations announcement in January, leaving a slate of Best Picture nominees that reflected the theme of the year, and now a seemingly sewn up race burst wide open the last month of competition, paving the way for a truly surprising turn of events that a few predicted, but most did not.

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The Hot Button
What Broke Mountain's Back?
by David Poland

In the end, Brokeback Mountain was very much in the same boat as Sideways was last year. It needed all the attention to assure box office and awards, but all the early attention gave people plenty of time to fall out of love and to find another. BBM's box office success in December gave it awards life. But as Focus clearly understood, they had milked their best cows before the first of the year and everything that would be national/non-urban would pale in comparison. But first and last, they maximized business for the film. Well done.

As it turned out, The Gurus were right in all but 4 categories... Score, Original Song, Doc Short, and Animated Short... Oh Yes... And #5, Best Picture! The Charts Last Week's Closing Ballots

Updated throughout the day
Updated: 7:54 pm

At 82 Bettie Page Is More Famous Now Than Ever

Trailer du Jour
Jeff Bridges' The Amateurs

Richard Corliss Dives Into The Film Vs. Digital Debate

Cate Blanchett Will Revisit Elizabeth 15 Years Later

The Hells Angels Call Disney Out

Maureen Stapleton Passes On At 80
"I've been asked repeatedly what the 'key' to acting is, and as far as I'm concerned, the main thing is to keep the audience awake."

The Grey-Pellicano-Shandling Connection
And - Nikki Finke Blogs It

Sharon Waxman Continues Rumor Of Shmuger To Universal's Big Chair, Likely With A Partner
Munoz/Eller Says Linde/Shmuger

Roger Ebert Remembers Cat People

And When Will They Start Looking Hard At Pixar/Disney?
The Paper Of Record Catches Up With New Media On The Paranoiamount Deal
December 12, 2005 - "Paramount is not buying DreamWorks. They are renting the cachet of Steven Spielberg & David Geffen for a few years."

A Prickly But Charming John Hurt
"'If'' and 'only' are the two words in the English language that should never be put together."

One Man's Disaster Is Another Man's V For Vendetta

Gore Vidal On Capote And Match Point
"Oh, Capote. [Sighs.] I spent half a century trying to avoid him, in life, and now suddenly I’m surrounded by him."

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Broadway Musical

Alan Moore's Problem With V For Vendetta A DC Issue, Not A Warner Bros Issue... Except That Time-Warner Is Parent To All

A Chat With Regal's CEO, Who Points Out What MCN Readers Know... Business Is Up And The Press Suddenly Has Forgotten To Notice

The Hell's Angels Exchange Blackjacks For Lawyers In Disney Dispute

Annie Proulx Offers Anyone Who Voted For Something Other Than Brokeback Mountain A Free Pass On Guilt... And Forces Anyone Who Did To Reconsider Who They Were Throwing Their Kit In WIth
The Ugliest Oscar Speech Ever?

Will Studios Sell DVD Quality Downloads On Amazon.com?

"Brokeback is a holy grail now."
Advocate Op-Ed Discounts Homophobia As Source Of Brokeback Mountain Oscar Loss, Points The Finger At Gay America For Not Being Militant Enough About Defending The Film From Parody

ThinkFilm Tries An In-Theater Premiere Event For The Beastie Boys Doc

The Calgarians Take A Look At The Future Action Heroes

Oscar Nominated As A Short, Cashback Grows Into A Real, Live Movie

It's Hard Out There For A Blond
"How can a short, blond actor with the rough face of a professional boxer and a penchant for playing killers, cranks, cads and gigolos pull off the role of a tall, dark, handsome and suave secret agent?"

A History Of Violence, And Viggo Mortensen, Open Up Down Under

Oscar Winner Dion Beebe Signs Up To Shoot... For His Wife

Pevere Looks At The Still Sassy SXSW

Whipp Rounds Up Lionsgate Less Than Oscar Seeking Cash Cows To Slaughter

Why Won't Screenvision Sell Ad Space To Phillips To Save Movie Audiences From Too Many Commercials?

Anne Thompson's Risky Women's Business Bleeds Red (Carpet) For Oscar Winning Producer Cathy Schulman

USA Today Rescues Bond In the Bahamas

Oscar Winner Tsotsi Make Some Waves At Home

Worth1000 Miscasts Movies... Like Mother Theresa In Sin City

This, If Real, Would Indeed Be A Homophobic Reaction To Brokeback Mountain

The Real Question Is... Is Screenvision Killing Off A New Model Of Sponsored Screenings And Should NATO Be Forcing The Issue?
Phillips Electronics Tries To Buy Movie Theater Ad Time To Build Customer Loyalty By Not Showing A Commercial... Screenvision Says, "Sod Off!"

MPAA Gives A Pre-ShoWest Look At The 2005 Numbers

Exclusive Preview Of Brett Ratner's R-Rated Cut Of X-Men 3, With Chris Tucker As Juggernaut

Former OJRer Mark Glaser Shifts To PBS With A Wide Digital Purview

Washington Still Sniffing Around Hollywood's Crotch

PR Week's Public Relations Award Seem a Bit More, Well, NY Than The Publicist's Guild

The Three Journals Of Knud Rasmussen Opens The Toronto Film Festival In September

The Perennial Anjelica Huston
"People screaming your name in the streets, quite honestly, isn't an audience I'm desperate to capture."

Pride In The Name Of Night

Keri Putnam Takes Production Chair At Miramax (Which Just Won Its First Post-Harvey Oscar, While The Weinstein Co Won Zero)... Now If Only They Had A Marketing Chief

La Woza First Looks Cars

MGM Back to Releasing.. Kinda
And - More Depth To The Murk... But Still Murk

Toback-o Road

A QT Look At Mark Romanek

Paul Mazursky Goes Back To Work
"Pedophile, double murderer and wife killer. That's all you need to say. Those are the magic words."

"For me, 'Brokeback' isn't rebellious at all. It's a very ordinary movie. People call it groundbreaking or what not. But I didn't feel this way. This is the way gays are."

Putting The Military Into The Actor
"They began to understand that the sun didn't revolve around their a****."

It Took Colin Farrell To Bring Fante To The Screen

Lauren Bacall, Living Legend

Getting Into The US For Your Movie Screening... Priceless
Visas Denied For Mexican Women Featured In SXSW Feature Doc

The Context Is Oscar... The Reality Is Window Shrinkage
George Lucas Sees Drastic Reduction Of The Amount Spent On Production

Who's the film director... That's a sex machine to all the chicks? PARKS! Ya damn right!
The Great Gordon Parks Passes Away

Ebert On The Crash-Lash
And - Jim Emerson Rounds Up Many Of The Opinions About "What Happened"