The Week: Most Recent movies

5 shameless attempts to make the next Twilight

By The Week Staff — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 12:08:00 -0500

The fifth and final Twilight film, Breaking Dawn: Part 2, arrives in theaters today, bringing a glorious age of hunky werewolves and sparkly vampires to a close. For the past five years, the Twilight franchise has drawn hordes of devoted tweens to movie theaters and fans are hungry for the next great paranormal romance. But if Hollywood has found itself without a clear successor to the franchise, it's not through lack of trying. Here, 5 shameless attempts to make the next Twilight:

1. I Am Number Four (2011)
I Am Number Four stars Alex Pettyfer as a broody romantic who bears more...

Premium Rush: Finally, a great CGI-free action movie?

By The Week Staff — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:31:00 -0400

Hollywood blockbusters don't generally come out in the final days of August, but writer-director David Koepp believes his new film, Premium Rush, "gives audiences something they should be craving at this point in the summer," says John Horn in the Los Angeles Times: "A relatively straightforward action film whose visual effects take a back seat to actual stunts." The movie traces the harrowing journey of bike messenger extraordinaire Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as he delivers a valuable package from New York City's Upper West Side to Chinatown, dodging cars, pedestrians, and crooked, gambling...

Goodbye, Twilight: Robert Pattinson's chillingly crude turn in Cosmopolis

By The Week Staff — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 15:06:00 -0400

Cosmopolis, director David Cronenberg's dark, cynical film about power, greed, and youth, based on the novel by Don DeLillo, is a harsh critique of capitalism and modern society. At the epicenter of the movie (which opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday) is Robert Pattinson (the Twilight series) as Eric Packer, a callous billionaire who helps trigger the collapse of the international economy then travels indifferently through Manhattan in his souped-up limo... in search of a haircut. Despite other attempts to move past his tween-friendly Twilight image, Pattinson is still pigeonholed as a...

Will Kristen Stewart's cheating scandal hurt Breaking Dawn's box office?

By The Week Staff — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 14:11:00 -0400

This week, Us Weekly reported news that has left tweens everywhere bereft and disillusioned: Kristen Stewart, 22, cheated on longtime boyfriend and Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson, 26, with her Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders, a married father who's 19 years her senior. Stewart — who plays Bella, wife to Pattinson's character Edward in the film series — confirmed the rumor with an apology for a "momentary indiscretion that jeopardized the most important thing in my life... Rob," discombobulating fans who had invested heavily in the Bella-Edward romance (see video...

Does The Dark Knight Rises have a political agenda?

By The Week Staff — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 11:50:00 -0400

Incendiary radio host Rush Limbaugh recently embarrassed himself by suggesting that The Dark Knight Rises — the final installment in director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy — is part of a liberal conspiracy to smear GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Limbaugh's proof? The name of the movie's villain, Bane, sounds identical to Romney's former private equity firm, Bain Capital. However, while Limbaugh was roundly mocked (the comic-book character Bane was created in the 1990s), he's not the only one seeing a political agenda in the movie, which is laden with themes of terrorism...

The Dark Knight Rises: An epic letdown?

By The Week Staff — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 10:20:00 -0400

In a few short days, Batman fans will finally be able to watch The Dark Knight Rises, the obsessively anticipated final installment of director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. The reviews of the film, which opens Friday, aren't even supposed to be published until Wednesday, but several movie critics have jumped the gun and released their takes on the nearly three-hour movie. Most of the notices are positive, though a few critics are underwhelmed. The AP's Christy Lemire, for example, gave it just two stars, in part because the movie feels like an "epic letdown" from Nolan's first two visionary...

The Dark Knight Rises: Could Batman really survive a leap off a skyscraper?

By The Week Staff — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:33:00 -0400

In Batman Begins, the first film in director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, which is set to conclude with The Dark Knight Rises (opening July 20), Bruce Wayne amasses an arsenal of weapons and gadgets that includes a nifty cape made of "memory cloth." The cape stiffens into a hang glider when Batman emits an electrical current from his glove, which comes in handy when he descends on his enemies from tall buildings. But could he really survive a leap from a skyscraper? Four students from Britain's University of Leicester used science to answer the question, publishing their results &mdash...

The Dark Knight Rises: The viral video roundup

By The Week Staff — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:20:00 -0400

If you just can't wait another week for The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan's epic conclusion to the Batman trilogy, to hit theaters, fear not — the internet provides. Fans and professionals alike have been creating video homages using bits of footage from the film to create mini works of art all their own. The mash-ups pair the trailer with everything from Disney classics to other films from Nolan's growing catalog, and they all impress in their own unique ways. Here, seven of the most creative Dark Knight-inspired viral videos:

1. The Dark Knight Rises & The...

Dissecting The Dark Knight Rises' musical score: 8 talking points

By The Week Staff — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:49:00 -0400

Eager fans who've been devouring every scrap of The Dark Knight Rises that they can get before the Christopher Nolan flick officially hits theaters July 20 have something else to feast on this week, with the film's entire musical score now available online for free. (Stream the 15-song soundtrack at Empire Online here.) Academy Award-winning composer Hans Zimmer, who's been known to push the envelope as far as blockbuster soundtracks go, has become Nolan's go-to on all three Batman films as well as Inception. What are commentators distilling from the final Batman film's moody, sonically epic score...

The 13-minute Dark Knight Rises featurette: 5 talking points

By The Week Staff — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 14:58:00 -0400

With The Dark Knight Rises — Christopher Nolan's final installment in his Batman trilogy — hitting screens in less than two weeks (July 20), Warner Bros. is offering fans a buzzy new 13-minute behind-the-scenes featurette. In addition to previously unseen footage, the segment features interviews with the cast and crew, including Dark Knight veterans Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Michael Caine (Alfred), and Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon), as well as newcomers like Anne Hathaway (Selena Kyle/Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (police officer John Blake...

Savages: Does Oliver Stone redeem himself?

By The Week Staff — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:37:00 -0400

For decades, Oliver Stone was considered one of Hollywood's most exciting and bold directors, thanks to controversial hits like Platoon, Wall Street, and Natural Born Killers. But his recent films — the bloated swords-and-sandals flick Alexander, the overly schmaltzy World Trade Center, the presidential misfire W., and the lackluster Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps — have been largely dismissed by critics and disappointed fans who are worried that the director has lost his creative touch. Stone will try to turn things around with his latest film, Savages, which hits theaters...

Is the new Spider-Man reboot really a hit?

By The Week Staff — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 11:38:00 -0400

Many film critics contend that rebooting the Spider-Man franchise was unnecessary, but audiences seem to disagree. The Amazing Spider-Man set a box-office record on July 3, as its $35 million opening-day total registered as the most profitable Tuesday opening ever, besting the previous record of $27.8 million set by Transformers in 2007. Forecasters now expect a holiday weekend total in the range of $110 million to $120 million for the film, which would be far less than the $146 million Transformers managed to grab over its first week of release, and certainly much less than the most recent...

4 quiet movies to enjoy this summer

By The Week Staff — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 14:00:00 -0400

As the box-office and critical success of Wes Anderson's endearingly precious Moonrise Kingdom proves, a winning summer movie doesn't always need a nine-figure special-effects budget. In that vein, three recently released smaller films — Your Sister's Sister, Take This Waltz, and People Like Us — have received high praise from critics, with a fourth, Ruby Sparks, is coming later in the summer. Of course, over the Fourth of July holiday, plenty of people will flock to screenings of The Amazing Spider-Man, which hit theaters July 3 — but for moviegoers looking for something a little...

The Amazing Spider-Man: An impressive but unnecessary reboot?

By The Week Staff — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:20:00 -0400

It's been just 10 years since Sam Raimi's celebrated Spider-Man film hit the big screen and shattered box-office records, and just five years since the trilogy stumbled to its conclusion with the messy Spider-Man 3. So when Sony Pictures announced a new franchise reboot fans of the franchise, many argued that it was too soon. Unlike Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy or 2006's Superman Returns, which put new tonal spins on their superheroes, The Amazing Spider-Man tells an awfully familiar origin story of how a teenage Peter Parker got his superpowers and became Spider-Man. Even the new Spidey...

After Magic Mike, will Hollywood cater more to female audiences?

By The Week Staff — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 12:03:00 -0400

Speaking at the Women in Film Awards last month, Meryl Streep lamented the fact that even though five recent movies aimed at women — The Help, The Iron Lady, Bridesmaids, Mamma Mia!, and The Devil Wears Prada — earned more than $1.6 billion at the box office, Hollywood continues to resist making female-targeted films. "Why?" she asked. "Don't they want the money?" Streep can now add Magic Mike to the list of hit films marketed toward women, as the male-stripper movie has already raked in a massive $40 million on a $7 million budget,...

Ted, Magic Mike, and the surprisingly strong weekend box office

By The Week Staff — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 11:52:00 -0400

What was the only thing more popular than Channing Tatum in a thong this weekend? A pot-smoking teddy bear, apparently. Both of this weekend's R-rated releases — Ted, the gleefully vulgar comedy about a grown man who's childhood teddy bear has become a foul-mouthed horndog — and Magic Mike — about a troupe of Florida male strippers — surpassed industry expectations at the box office. Ted won the weekend with $54 million, followed by Magic Mike with a similarly impressive $39 million; it's the first weekend ever that two R-rated films grossed more than $21 million...