Tuesday, August 8, 2000

''Hollow Man'' brings in bacon at box office

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kevin Bacon's invisible man thriller ``Hollow Man'' topped the North American weekend box office, while Clint Eastwood scored a career best with his latest effort, ``Space Cowboys.''

According to studio estimates issued Sunday, ``Hollow Man'' (Columbia Pictures) earned $26.8 million in its first three days. If the number holds when final data are released Monday, it will rank as the biggest August opening ever, surpassing ''The Sixth Sense,'' which opened exactly a year ago to $26.68 million.

The next three movies were separated by $1 million, and final rankings could change. Last weekend's box office champion, ``Nutty Professor II: The Klumps'' (Universal), claimed the No. 2 position with $18 million for the Friday-to-Sunday period, losing 58 percent of its audience -- the biggest slide in the top 10. The 10-day total for the Eddie Murphy comedy stands at $76.5 million.

``Space Cowboys'' (Warner Bros.) which 70-year-old Eastwood directed, produced and starred in, blasted off with $17.6 million. Eastwood's previous best opening as an actor was ``In the Line of Fire'' ($15.2 million) and as a director, ''Unforgiven'' ($15 million).

The barroom-centered Cinderella tale ``Coyote Ugly'' (Touchstone) opened at No. 4 with $17 million. The supernatural thriller ``What Lies Beneath'' (DreamWorks) rounded out the top five with $13.9 million in its third weekend, taking its total to $95.2 million.

Overall ticket sales slid for the second consecutive weekend. Tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. reported the top 12 films grossed $116.5 million, down 4.3 percent from last weekend and down 15.3 percent from the year-ago weekend.

New releases next weekend include ``The Replacements,'' a football comedy starring Keanu Reeves; director Joan Chen's ''Autumn in New York,'' a romance starring Richard Gere and Winona Ryder; and the Kim Basinger supernatural thriller ``Bless the Child.'' A 30th anniversary restored version of the Rolling Stones' infamous concert film ``Gimme Shelter'' will begin a nationwide rollout in a few markets.

Despite critical evisceration, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven's R-rated ``Hollow Man'' pulled in audiences with its special effects, said Jeff Blake, distribution president at Columbia's Sony Pictures parent.

``There's no question that we were selling a package by a guy (Verhoeven) who has a lot of credibility in the genre,'' Blake said.

The film's opening marks a career best for Verhoeven, surpassing 1990's ``Total Recall'' ($25.5 million). His other credits include ``Starship Troopers'' and ``RoboCop.''

The film stars Bacon as a gung-ho government scientist who makes himself invisible and then goes on the rampage when he cannot reappear. Elisabeth Shue and Josh Brolin co-star.

The audience was evenly split between males and females, and 54 percent of viewers were aged under 25. Even without an A-star cast, Blake predicted the movie would play strongly overseas and in ancillary markets.

Sony Pictures is a unit of Sony Corp. (6758.T). Columbia's last No. 1 opener was the December 1999 release ``Stuart Little.'' But unlike the talking mouse movie, the storyline for ''Hollow Man'' indicates a sequel is improbable.

``Space Cowboys,'' which enjoyed critical raves, stars Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner and Donald Sutherland as space program pioneers who finally get their chance to go into orbit. With its elderly cast, the PG-13 film attracted mature moviegoers who have largely been ignored by the studios this summer.

``These four guys have been entertaining America for years and they have a great fan base,'' said Warner Bros. distribution president Dan Fellman. He reported that Eastwood was ``very, very pleased'' with the opening.

Warner Bros. is a unit of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news)

While their parents or grandparents were watching ``Space Cowboys,'' youngsters were ogling five attractive young women in ''Coyote Ugly.''

Newcomer Piper Perabo plays a wannabe pop star who gets a job as a dancing bartender in a trendy New York watering hole. The film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who has already enjoyed success this summer with ``Gone in Sixty Seconds.''

``It's a little bit of a Cinderella story,'' said Chuck Viane, president of distribution at Touchstone sister company Buena Vista Pictures. Both are units of Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS - news).

According to Friday exit polling, half the audience for the PG-13 movie was aged under 21, and females made up 55 percent of viewers, Viane said.

In the milestone department, the seventh-ranked ``Scary Movie'' became the biggest film in Miramax Films' history, said studio marketing president Dennis Rice. With a 31-day haul of $140.1 million, it surpasses the Oscar-winning 1998 picture ''Good Will Hunting,'' which ended up with $138 million. Miramax is a also a Disney Unit.

Opening in limited release was the British dope comedy ''Saving Grace,'' starring Brenda Blethyn. The film grossed $289,000 from 30 runs in 12 markets, and will go wide on Sept. 1. Blethyn plays a green-thumbed widow who is forced to grow cannabis in order to stave off her creditors.

The film won the audience award at this year's Sundance Film Festival, where Time Warner's niche studio Fine Line paid a reported $4 million for distribution rights. Fine Line distribution executive Steven Friedlander said the film rated better in exit polls than the studio's Oscar-winning ``Shine.''

Universal is a unit of Seagram Co. Ltd (Toronto:VO.TO - news), while DreamWorks is privately held.

The top 10 movies at the box office

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Following are the top 10 movies at the North American box office for the August 4-6 weekend, according to studio estimates collected Sunday by Reuters. Final data will be issued Monday.

1 (+) Hollow Man ..................... $26.8 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $26,800,000

2 (1) Nutty Professor II: The Klumps . $18.0 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $76,500,000

3 (+) Space Cowboys .................. $17.6 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $17,600,000

4 (+) Coyote Ugly .................... $17.0 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $17,000,000

5 (2) What Lies Beneath .............. $13.9 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $95,200,000

6 (3) X-Men .......................... $6.1 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $135,600,000

7 (4) Scary Movie .................... $4.2 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $140,100,000

8 (5) The Perfect Storm .............. $3.8 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $165,400,000

9 (7) Disney's The Kid ............... $2.9 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $58,200,000

10 (8) The Patriot .................... $2.3 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $105,700,000

NOTE: Last weekend's position in parenthesis. + - new release.

``Hollow Man'' and ``The Patriot'' are released by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp. (6758.T).

``Nutty Professor II: The Klumps'' is released by Universal Pictures, a unit of Seagram Co. Ltd. (Toronto:VO.TO - news).

``Space Cowboys'' and ``The Perfect Storm'' are released by Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news).

``Coyote Ugly'' is released by Touchstone Pictures, ``Scary Movie'' by Miramax Films' Dimension banner, and ``Disney's The Kid'' by Walt Disney Pictures, all units of Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS - news).

``What Lies Beneath'' is released by DreamWorks SKG, which is privately held.

``X-Men'' is released by Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc. (NYSE:FOX - news).

JOHN L.:  Busy, if not record breaking weekend at the box office.  Lots of movies came out this week, and I even saw one of them.  I saw the Josh Brolin sci fi spectacular, Hollow Man.  Lot's to talk about there.  It is amazing that Space Cowboys is the highest opening weekend ever for a Clint Eastwood movie.   I would have thought he would have had at least one $20 million opener.  Coyote Ugly should have been a FOX TV movie of the week since it is pretty tame for a theatrical film.  If you want to look at hot babes, just download some pictures off the internet.  I also saw a bunch of movies on video this week and I will have 3 capsule reviews of "Romeo Must Die," "The Bone Collector," and "Double Jeopardy."   Okay, lets get this thing going.

HOLLOW MAN - FULL REVIEW

I am a fan of the idea of invisible man movies.  It always seemed that being invisible would be the coolest thing in the world.  After seeing Hollow Man, I now realize that being invisible may be one of the weakest powers to ever have.  Let's go over what we have here.  This movie is about a team of scientists put together by the U.S. government to create a way to turn people invisible supposedly for military purposes.  The head of this group of "geniuses" is Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Caine.  The other main people in the group are Linda and Matt played by Elizabeth Shue and Josh Brolin.   When the movie starts, they have had pretty decent success turning animals invisible like dogs and gorillas.  The catch has been getting the animals visible again.  One night while Sebastian is watching the Tonight Show, he finally gets the DNA to stay stable when invisible reversion occurs.   They use the new info and are successful in bringing a gorilla back from the nether realm.  With this success, Sebastian decides to become the first human test subject against the wishes of his colleagues and without the knowledge of the government officials who authorize everything.  And if you have seen the preview, when Sebastian disappears, all hell breaks loose.  Okay, up to this point the movie is pretty good.  Hollow Man has taking the special effect of turning someone invisible to a new level.  Usually when this is done it is just a fade out effect, nothing too fancy.  But with the invisibility serum used in HM, we see how it flows through the arteries and such then to the nervous system and the muscles, the heart, the brain, the skeleton, and the skin.  Any future doctors should study this movie for their Grays' anatomy tests.  It is amazing to see the gorilla appear vein by vein and piece by piece.  When Bacon becomes invisible you see him turned inside out.  So, the story and the special effects are mixed very well for the first third of the movie.  But at this point the movie falls apart because the director and the writer has no idea what to do next.  The standard fantasy of guys who dream of being invisible is to peep on naked girls or even have sex with them to a certain extent.  When Bacon leaves the compound he goes after his across the street neighbor played by Rhona Mitra who was one of the first Lara Croft models for the Playstation Tomb Raider video games.  She is the one being stalked in the preview. This was exciting for me since I am a fan of the video game and now I got to see her act in a movie, sort of.  She has no lines and her big scene with Bacon is cut short just before anything interesting happens. Did Sebastian rape her or just pat her on the head?  You never find out.  It is dropped and she is never seen or talked about again.  So, the voyeur aspect of it is completely dropped.  Sebastian eventually goes crazy when he can't get back to visibility and starts killing people like he was Jason in a Friday the 13th movie.  Ironically, Bacon was in the first Friday the 13th film and got a spear through his throat.  Once Bacon becomes invisible, it is all about the special effects of how he had to be dressed in green or black so that they could erase him with computers in post production to make it look like he is not there on screen.  I think they wasted their time.  They spent a lot of money just to make this different looking, but in film making reality they should have stuck with more traditional special effects.  You get to see Bacon in water, fire, blood, infra red,  and fire extinguisher foam spray to show that he is still there.  The last 20 minutes or so is just a chase picture. Exciting to a certain extent but empty.  No aspect of being invisible is explored.  The voyeur stuff is blown off, the military use is never explained, and all Bacon does is bitch and moan and try to act tough.  This movie had a very good preview that made you think this was going to be a great movie.  If you have seen the preview, you have pretty much seen the whole movie except for some brief nudity which is mostly Kevin Bacon's computer generated infra red penis flopping in the breeze.  Very little of the movie takes place outside of the science area and that hurts the movie.  Sebastian never really cuts loose in the city.  Watching this, I thought to myself what would me or anyone else do if they were invisible and I said, "nothing because it would suck."  For one thing you have to be naked when you disappear.   That is enough for me to not do it.  Also, as  military weapon it is ineffective since there are so many ways to see you with infrared, radar, cold, and various other things.  You have to make the guns invisible to be effective, but how will the soldiers see their own soldiers on the battlefield.  Friendly fire deaths would reach new heights of horror.  The only thing you can do is spy on people and learn their secrets.  Hope it is a warm place and you don't step on a creaky floor and hold your breath.  Guys talk about spying on the girls locker room or showers.  More power to you if that's how you get your jollies.  What if you see a girl that you find attractive, she won't know it since she can't see you.  Heck, in the movie Sebastian has trouble sleeping since if he closes his eyes it means nothing since they are transparent.   And if you think you can steel money and food, good luck getting past the security systems when your apples and oranges are floating in the air.  You would eventually get caught.  Being invisible sort of sucks.  It is not worth the effort much like spending 2 hours of your time watching Hollow Man.  X-Files had an episode recently where a guy turned invisible and he lasted about 5 minutes as he was hit by a truck the second he tried to cross the street.  If you want to be a voyeur, watch Big Brother on CBS.  Final Review:  1 1/2 stars out of 5; 4 1/2 out of 10; C-; thumbs down.  Good special effects, some action, but there is no story here after 30 minutes.  Watch the DVD for the cool making of and maybe some deleted scenes that should have been left in to flesh out the film.

Clint Eastwood is back in the director's chair and he might have his first hit movie since In The Line of Fire and Unforgiven.  He is one of the best known movie stars of all time and has 2 franchises dedicated to him, the Spaghetti Western and the Dirty Harry.  I am a big fan of most of his movies especially one little gem known as "The Gauntlet."  He has gotten together some so called aging stars like Donald Sutherland, James Garner, and that guy who is in a movie every three months, Tommy Lee Jones.  Everyone pretty much knows these actors and go to see their movies on a regular basis so putting them together should mean decent box office and it did.  Also having them as aging astronauts was a neat hook.  I question the use of Jones since he is only about 54 when the others are 65 or 70 or even 72.  Jones is younger than Harrison Ford for goodness sakes.  Their mission is to repair some satellite that only they have first hand knowledge of since they were around when it was created.  The ad campaign was not too extensive for this since Coyote Ugly seemed to have bought all of the television ad time.  All of them have made movies that have appealed to the younger crowd so seeing them romp in space is no big deal.  The one who needs the rub the most in this movie is James Garner who has never had a very lucrative movie career.  Murphy's Romance got him an Oscar nomination, and Maverick had his television show rep as well as Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster.  That movie's success was pretty much a given.  This will probably be his second most successful movie when it is all over.   Donald Sutherland acts all of the time and plays every type of roll of every size.  His son Kiefer works just as much.  I don't think they ever have acted together before in a movie, if they have email me the name.  He is one of my favorite actors, but he has not really starred in a movie since Invasion of the Body Snatchers in 1979.  He is always a supporting character.  Tommy Lee Jones may be the best known actor of the group since he has had major mainstream success with The Fugitive, Men in Black, and Double Jeopardy.  This guy has a great line delivery and is fun to watch on screen.  He has this style of taking everything that happens to him very seriously while at the same time acting like his crazy situations are silly.  The movie does not look very action packed and seems to rip off a bit of recent space movies like Armageddon and Mission to Mars.  Nevertheless,   I may check it out though in the near future.

Once again it is time to pander to the horny guys and still make the women in the audience think that the women in the movie are take charge and powerful.  Yeah, right.  Coyote Ugly promotes it self as some kind of strip club without the stripping.  It has 4 to 5 model types dancing on a bar pouring beer and water all over themselves while dancing to country line dancing and Kid Rock tunes.  Much like the movie "The In Crowd," this one suffers from PG-13itis.  Sexy girls who keep their clothes on defeating the purpose of getting any guy excited about seeing the film.  Audience polling showed that more women went to see this movie than guys since most guys I know did not plan to see the movie because it looked stupid and pointless.  I almost got suckered by the promos because I found the women somewhat attractive.  Tyra Banks is the only known person of the CU bar that people are familiar with and the other women seem to be newcomers with the media push going to some girl named Piper Perabo who is playing the daughter of John Goodman.  She goes to the big city to show off that she can sing like Le Ann Rimes.  Perabo ends up tending bar at Coyote Ugly which is based on a real location that has the female bartenders dance provocatively in front of drunken males.  They must have some super security.  The movie opened well since it was promoted to death on tv.  You could not escape the promos of the boss, the law, and the other nicknames the girls are given.  Play those scenes in slow motion and you get the best parts of the movie.  I know I don't want to look at Perabo lip sync to Rimes like she does in the movie.   Also, buy a Maxim magazine if you want to see the other women dressed in less clothing.   They are attractive, but are not the best actors.  This had bad DVD night written all over it.

REST OF THE TOP 10 IN 10:

1.    Nutty Professor II had a big drop this week because the movie is not getting good word of mouth as a must see.

2.    The Klumps are funny, but this movie lacks any real story and that tends to kill a movie's repeat business.

3.    This movie will make a $100 million plus, but it may fall short of the box office of Big Momma's House.

4.    It is time for Eddie Murphy to go back to playing one character a movie again.

5.    What Lies Beneath is on the cusp of becoming Michelle Pfeiffer's second movie in her career to cross a $100 million.

6.    X-Men is slowly fading away  at the box office.

7.    Scary Movie is now officially the sleeper hit of 2000.

8.    The Perfect Storm is the box office shock of the century.

9.    The Kid is quickly becoming expelled from the top ten.

10.    As you see the final whites of Mel's eyes, know that his movie has finally crossed that magic $100 million number that so many others in the top 10 have done or are about to do.

VIDEO NOSE PICKS OF THE WEEK

ROMEO MUST DIE - CAPSULE REVIEW

This was Jet Li's first starring role in an American film.  He got this part after his successful run as the villain in Lethal Weapon 4.  This movie has him trying to find out who killed his brother.  In the process he gets to kick a lot of people real hard.  This movie also stars the singer Aaliyah as the daughter of one of the guys in a turf war with a Hong Kong family.  She is okay in the movie as a psudeo love interest for Li that never really develops and as an action star as she gets in a fight and gets to shoot a gun. She is quite pretty though I must say so.  The movie was alright, but way too tame for what I have seen Li do in his hardcore Chinese movies.  He is more like a Jackie Chan type fighter here than a Bruce Lee.  The fights are also too short to have any impact and no one really has any decent offense against him.  However, the main story about the rivalry between Montague and Capulet type families is stronger than it should be since the acting is pretty good by all involved.  Stronger and more violent fight scenes would make this a stronger recommendation.  Final Review:  2 stars out of 5; 5 out of 10; C; thumbs down.  Okay, but only for those who have not seen old Jet Li Movies and just his Lethal Weapon work.  True fans of Li will be disappointed.

THE BONE COLLECTOR - CAPSULE REVIEW

This movie has Denzel Washington playing a brilliant forensic detective who is crippled in a freak accident and left quadriplegic.  He can movie his head, shoulders, and his right index finger but nothing else voluntarily.  He becomes embroiled in a murder investigation when a young female cop played by Angelina Jolie Thorton stumbles across the remains of a victim.  The movie has Washington guide Jolie through sewers and the like to collect clues and analyze evidence in hopes of catching this madman or woman who is removing bones from people.  This movie was okay, but it falls in the standard movie serial killer plot where the killer is constantly giving clues to the police and goading them to catch him and when he gets killed at the end they have this look on their face like "how did this happen, and what did I do wrong?"  I hate that.  The only serial killer to give clues like this to the cops was Jack the Ripper, but for the most part serial killers kill their victim and go about their business.  They dump them in the field and wait for the carpet fiber analysis to come in from the lab.  Killers don't leave pages of books to lead them to the next killing, they leave the fibers from their car or van, or living room all over the victim so the cops can easily catch the culprit.  However, carpet cleaning evidence is boring, so we are stuck with the talking villain and the catch me if you can coppa plot.  Also, if you look closely and don't fall for the obvious red herring, you will spot the killer by their second appearance on screen.  This movie will be enjoyable by most, and Washington is very good in his challenging role as is Jolie-Thorton, but the predictalbe plot is just too annoying for my tastes.  Final Review:  2 1/2 stars out of 5; 5 1/2 out of 10; C+; thumbs down.

DOUBLE JEOPARDY - CAPSULE REVIEW

This was the most financially successful movie of the ones I saw this week on DVD.  It was the movie that solidified Ashsley Judd as a real movie star.  This one has her framed for the murder of her husband by her husband.  She learns that he is alive while she is serving time for his murder and vows to get revenge on him when she gets out.  Judd is told that she cannot be convicted of the same crime twice so she can kill her husband in front of 100 people and they can't convict her again for it.  Stop right there.  That is just ridiculous.  If she never committed the crime in the first place then there was no murder to begin with, so if she kills him now that is a brand new crime and she would go to jail. At least that is how things work in my world.  Fortunately the double jeopardy part of the plot is not played up a whole lot and it becomes a chase movie of parole office Tommy Lee Jones trying to catch Judd before she catches her crazy husband.  It is more about her proving her innocence than her killing him.  Her scene where she does find him and says that she can kill him in the middle of Mardi Gras and would not be touched is done more to scare the hubby than as any real legal threat.  The other thing that helps is that the husband is not her main focus, but the quest for her son that she has not seen in the six years she had spent in prison.  This movie is not great, but is entertaining to watch and the main flaw is not over done so I could deal with it.  Of the three movies I saw, this was the best one.  Final Review:  3 stars out of 5; 6 out of 10; b-; thumbs up.

I don't think there is a lot coming out next week at the box office so I might try to catch Space Cowboys or Coyote Ugly over the weekend.  I will probably stay home and download pics of the girls of Coyote Ugly instead and watch Sudden Impact for the 10th time on video.  However, following week we have two big films coming out.  One is "The Cell" with Jennifer Lopez, Vincent D'Nofrio, and Vince Vaughn in some weird psycho serial killer movie that looks cool but also looks very ridiculous.  We shall see.   The other movie though has me totally psyched.  It is "Godzilla 2000" with the classic look back after its bastardization by the makers of "The Patriot" in 1998.   This one has the bad Japanese dubbing, and Godzilla fighting a space alien thingie.  I am sure it will suck too, but damnit, I love those old Godzilla movies and this one looks just like one of those.  Hopefully it won't be as bad as Godzilla 1985.  Bye for now.

THE MANY FACES OF SIR ALEC GUINNESS

1914 - 2000

Sir Alec Guinness is shown in a selection of his various acting roles. Proceeding
from top left to right, 1. Sir Alec, an early studio portrait, Admiral Lord Horatio
D'Ascoyne, "King Hearts and Coronets"(1949), Obi-wan Kenobi, "Star
Wars"(1977), Gulley Jimson, "The Horses' Mouth"(1958), Lord Henry
D'Ascoyne, "Kind Hearts and Coronets"(1949), Prince Feisal, "Lawrence of
Arabia"(1962), Father Brown, "Father Brown"(1953), Prince Albert, "The
Swan"(1956), Lady Agatha D'Ascoyne, "Kind Hearts and Coronets(1949),
Bensonmum, "Murder by Death(1976), General Yegraf, "Doctor Zhivago"(1965),
Sidney Stratton, "The Man in the White Suit"(1951). Guinness whose roles in a
66-year career ranged from Hamlet to Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars," has died at
age 86, a hospital spokesman said Monday, August 7, 2000. Guinness became ill at
his home near Petersfield, southern England and was taken by ambulance to the
King Edward VII Hospital where he died Saturday, August 5, 2000, said hospital
spokeswoman Jenny Masding. The cause of death was not released. (AP Photo)(AP
Photo)