In Contention

Tag: The Help

  • BOX OFFICE: ‘Lion’ roars at the top

    Disney found a somewhat soft spot for children’s films in the 2011 schedule to slot “The Lion King 3D,” and they came away with a healthy #1 take this weekend. Assuming you’re okay with that being added to the film’s already impressive overall take from the summer of 1994, it leap-frogs “Finding Nemo” to become the third-highest grossing animated film of all time. Now that I look at the figures, “Drive” actually opened on a lot more screens than I thought, but I’m nevertheless a bit surprised it bested “Straw Dogs” (which itself was even held in check by the still-chugging “The Help”).

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • OFF THE CARPET: Strong year for double-dippers

    We find ourselves right in the middle of the big Toronto press junket, er, film festival, where 200-plus films are landing, many of them as world premieres, and the landscape of this year’s Oscar race is really beginning to take shape.

    As I looked out at the various films in play this year, it suddenly occurred to me that, perhaps more than ever, there are a lot of double-dipping actors and actresses in the hunt. Not all of these performances are or will be awards bait necessarily, but there could still be cases for more than a few saddling up to dual nominations this year.

    At the top of that list would have to be Brad Pitt. After already giving what many believed to be his best performance to date in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” the paparazzi-hounded star found himself the recipient of a lot of great ink for his work in “Moneyball” when it screened in Toronto at the end of the week. Wisely, Fox Searchlight will be planning a supporting actor push for the actor in Malick’s film, which is both practical (given his clear lead in the other film), and organic (given that, at least in my opinion, he is supporting to Hunter McCracken’s lead in “The Tree of Life”).

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  • BOX OFFICE: ‘Contagion’ finally stops ‘The Help,’ ‘Warrior’ stumbles in the first round

    I don’t pretend to be a box office expert, but I have to think five million for “Warrior” on opening weekend is a disaster for that film. What’s the ceiling when you start out there? It has to be low. Money was always going to be the difference for its Oscar chances. If it hit, there would have been a lot of potential. But now it’ll be lucky to eek out that nod for Nick Nolte. Meanwhile, “Contagion” and its all-star cast predictably took the weekend. It’s a smart but entertaining segue from summer to fall. And “The Help” is still chugging along, nailing down the #2 spot and cruising toward $150 million.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • OFF THE CARPET: And we’re off!

    This morning’s interview with “Into the Abyss” director Werner Herzog represented my last Telluride communique (though I guess I was already home) from this year’s 38th annual festivities. Five days, 18 posts, nine movies and three interviews. It was a dense sprint to start the race, and now, with Venice still in-progress and Toronto set to raise the curtain Thursday, we find ourselves in the thick of the season’s early breaths.

    Up in the Colorado mountains, the biggest takeaway was Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants.” Payne was highly visible throughout the festival, sometimes taking in six or seven movies a day, fielding compliments for his work and settling in to what has apparently become his favorite festival experience.

    His film first dropped on Thursday afternoon as a special invitation screening for press and patrons. That’s where most of the early word stemmed from as critics and bloggers (yours truly among them) raced back to offer up our thoughts on the director’s first film in seven years. But that’s not the story of that film’s life at Telluride. The story was its discovery for the rest of the attendees over the next four days.

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  • 9/6 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Nolte on ‘Warrior,’ southern perspective on ‘The Help,’ Oscar plays out of Telluride

    • Nick Nolte talks “Warrior.” [Making Of]

    • A little southern perspective on “The Help.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • Greg Wellwood considers who got an Oscar boost at Telluride and who didn’t. [Awards Campaign]

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  • 9/5 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Murphy upside, ‘The Help’ abroad, comparing two ‘Straw Dogs’

    • S.T. VanAirsdale looks for the upside in Eddie Murphy potentially hosting the Oscars. [Movieline]

    • Nicole Sperling writes up Tilda Swinton’s tribute track at Telluride and Toronto. [24 Frames]

    • Emma Stone and Viola Davis talk about “The Help”‘s appeal abroad. [The Hollywood Reporter]

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  • BOX OFFICE: ‘The Help’ makes it a three-peat

    Earlier in the week “The Help” crossed the $100 million dollar mark, but all eyes were on a potential third-straight weekend at the top of the box office chart. And, well, here we are. Bravo to Disney for finding a spread of time that could allow the film slide to this designation and surely become the only film to do so this year. The drop from last weekend was next to non-existent (though a handful of screens were added), but this fire is going to keep burning for a while. With “Warrior” and “Contagion” hitting next weekend, the film’s days as lead box office dog are surely over, but it’s nevertheless an impressive stay.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • Jessica Chastain wins award in Venice — more to come?

    Nathaniel Rogers tipped me off today to the fact that Jessica Chastain has won her first (of many?) award of the season in Venice. The prize, presented by “W.E.” director Madonna, was the Gucci Award for Women in Film. And it’s a pretty good pick when you consider how prolific she is this year.

    Chastain is at the fest with two films — “Wilde Salome” and “Texas Killing Fields” — but of course she’s been seen in everything from “The Tree of Life” to “The Help” to “The Debt” this year, with Sundance and Cannes hit “Take Shelter” and Weinstein-pushed “Coriolanus” still to hit Toronto and open in theaters. Seven movies? A little difficult to argue with that, especially since she gives quality work across the board (though I haven’t seen the Venice films).

    It really would be a shame if she couldn’t get enough of a groundswell to nab an Oscar nod for something (I prefer her in “The Help”), but she’s assured any number of precursor honors for her body of work throughout the season.

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  • 8/31 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Social media boost ‘The Help,’ actress Oscar plays, Bird Flu back ahead of ‘Contagion’

    • Anne Thompson talks to “Warrior” stars Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy and director Gavin O’Connor. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • Lucas Kavner on the debt “The Help” owes to social media for its box office staying power. [Huffington Post]

    • Louis Virtel looks shines a light on five female roles that seem to have the right Oscar stuff. [Movieline]

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  • 8/30 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Mirren on her bod, ‘Exotic Marigold’ gets some press, films skipping fall fests

    • Helen Mirren on “The Debt,” getting played by Jessica Chastain and everyone’s ongoing obsession with her body. [Vulture]

    • Newly minted UK resident Julianne Moore talks “Crazy, Stupid, Love” across the pond. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Susan Wloszczyna talks shooting in India with “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” principals. [USA Today]

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  • 8/29 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: ‘Help’ detractors racist?, Stoll on Hemingway, ‘Dangerous Method’ buzz

    Welcome to the new season…

    • “‘The Help’ isn’t racist. It’s critics are.” [The New Republic]

    • Pete Hammond takes note of indies looking to make Oscar plays this year. [Deadline]

    • Steve Pond talks to “Midnight in Paris” star Corey Stoll. [The Odds]

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  • BOX OFFICE: ‘The Help’ stays on top

    At the end of the day, “The Help” could potentially be the #1 film at the box office for three straight weeks, a feat no film — not even “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” — could manage in 2011. That’s plenty of fuel for the upcoming Best Picture push. And though it may be the dog days of summer, with no real competition out there, that kind of nuance will just fade away when publicity starts banging the drum on the film’s box office.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 58 — Wrapping up the summer, fall festival preview, ‘Warrior’ and ‘50/50’

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    After months of sporadic special edition updates, we’re back to the weekly grind today. So check back here every Friday from here on out for our musings on the Oscar season, which is right around the corner with the start of the fall festival circuit. We go on for quite a while today. Let’s jump in and see what’s on the docket…

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Closing the book on summer 2011

    The summer movie season has come to an end, and what an interesting season it was.

    We saw three billion-dollar grossers for the first time ever in one year, let alone one three-month spread (thank you, 3D). We saw a bit of a glass ceiling for comic book movies, proving nothing is a sure thing in that game. We saw indie darlings with more stamina than the big dogs and we saw R-rated comedies find impressive footholds.

    But what does it mean in the spectrum of a film awards race, seeing as we have one knocking on our door in a bit more than a week’s time? Let’s consider.

    First and foremost, as reported here last year (and confirmed by Variety a few weeks ago), Warner Bros. Pictures is all set for a balls-to-the-wall Best Picture push for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.” With 10 digits in the bank and counting, and with a breathtaking critical pass, now is the time, and it’s a smart tactic. DVDs will be out right in the thick of the season, adding fuel to the fire. And it’ll be a nice counter to the other in-houses pushes, dramas like “Contagion,” “J. Edgar.,” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” (The studio could also go screenplay hunting for Dan Fogelman and “Crazy, Stupid, Love” if it wants.)

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  • BOX OFFICE: ‘Help,’ I need some money, ‘Help,’ not just any money

    So, “The Help” took the top spot at the box office in a rather thin weekend for new releases. But it’s the hold that matters, and this one clearly has staying power. Combined with the impact it’s having with Academy types, that makes a contender, folks, and you’ll see the film, Davis, Spencer and the costumes chalked up for nominations in tomorrow’s predictions update. We’ll just have to see how much staying power it has, because mid-August is an early release for an Oscar hopeful. There’s really not much else to say elsewhere.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • Tweet of the day

    Not the beginning of a regular feature, I should explain. But sometimes an RT doesn’t feel like enough.

  • BOX OFFICE: Our ‘Help’ in ‘Apes’ Past

    Okay, so now you know why I’m not usually charged with box-office pun duties. Come back to the five and dime, Chad Hartigan, Chad Hartigan, and so on. Still, it doesn’t take a prodigious number-cruncher — lucky, since I’m not one — to tell that this is quite a result for “The Help.” Even accounting for bestselling source material, for a female-driven, racially-themed drama in which the biggest star is the still-green Emma Stone to come this close to toppling a summer popcorner as robust as “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is pretty spectacular: expect a strong hold as word of mouth for Disney’s cuddly civil-rights film builds, buttressing the eventual Oscar campaign. (For the sake of comparison, the far more star-powered “The Blind Side” debuted with $34 million in 2009.)

    Surely the week’s unhappiest new release, meanwhile, falls outside the Top 10: “Glee: The 3D Concert Movie” pulled in a miserable $5.7 million, suggesting that the show’s many fans can still tell the difference between a film and an iTunes playlist in three dimensions. I’d worry that we’ve collectively lost our sense of wonder, but people are still going to see “Final Destination 5,” so let’s not panic.

    (Courtesy: Exhibitor Relations)

  • Tell us what you thought of ‘The Help’

    I haven’t yet had a chance to see the bestseller-based civil rights drama “The Help,” but I gather a lot of you have. The film — and more specifically, its first-class female ensemble — clearly hit the right note for Kris, though other reports I’m hearing suggest there’s far more to like about the film’s performances than its honey-dipped politics. (Are you, like some, bothered by a narrative in which a white character’s actions propel social change for the black ones? Or do you agree with the more sanguine view of one of my Twitter friends: in film, liberal guilt is preferable to liberal non-guilt?)

    Interested to hear views on the film that dig a little deeper, or at least a little more personal, than the blogosphere’s current fascination over what Oscar category Viola Davis should campaign in. Meanwhile, was Davis the film’s MVP for you, or did another cast member — perhaps Kris’s favorite, Jessica Chastain — steal your affections? Go.