Tuesday,  July 4, 2000

Moviegoers 'Storm' Holiday Box Office

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Patriotism extended only so far at the North American box office on a July 4 holiday weekend.

Faced with the choice of seeing Mel Gibson defeat the English in the Revolutionary War saga ``The Patriot'' or watching George Clooney battle huge waves in the maritime disaster picture ``The Perfect Storm,'' moviegoers overwhelmingly opted for the latter.

``The Perfect Storm,'' based on Sebastian Junger's best-selling book about a fishing boat caught up in a freak weather pattern, opened at No. 1 with $64 million for the five days ended July 4, according to studio estimates issued Tuesday.

``The Patriot'' grabbed the No. 2 slot with $35.2 million for the comparable Friday-to-Tuesday period, while the clay-animated comedy ``Chicken Run'' slipped one place to No. 3 with $21.0 million. The previous weekend's champ, Jim Carrey's ''Me, Myself & Irene'' fell to No. 4 with $19.5 million.

Since Independence Day holiday fell on a Tuesday, many businesses also took Monday off, boosting attendances at movie theaters.

Overall ticket sales for the seven days ended July 6 will reach $235 million, a record for a July 4 week, said Dan Fellman, president of distribution at Warner Bros., which released ``The Perfect Storm.'' The existing record of $222.5 million was set last year, when Will Smith's ``Wild Wild West'' ruled the roost.

``The Perfect Storm'' accounted for about a third of the $193 million racked up by the top 13 films, Fellman said.

``It's phenomenal for us,'' he added. The Time Warner Inc.- owned (NYSE:TWX - news) studio released the PG-13 film in 3,407 theaters across the United States and Canada. Exit polls were ``just fantastic.''

The six men in a leaky boat tale was directed by German filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen, who was last in theaters with 1997's ``Air Force One.''

Not that the team behind ``The Patriot'' was not thrilled with its film, which had to contend with an R rating and a 160-minute running time. Sony Corp.-owned (6758.T) Columbia Pictures reported that 93 percent of moviegoers polled would recommend it, and 53 percent of those would pay to see it again.

Producer Dean Devlin noted that as the weekend progressed, the gender balance tipped from male to female, indicating spreading word of mouth that the film was more than just a gory epic but also a love story.

``I feel like I've weathered the storm,'' said Devlin who, with the film's director Roland Emmerich, was also responsible for ``Independence Day'' and the Hollywood remake of ''Godzilla.''

Since opening last Wednesday, ``The Patriot'' has grossed about $44.5 million from 3,061 theaters, putting it on a similar trajectory as last year's ``The Matrix'' and 1995's ``Apollo 13,'' which each ended up north of $170 million, he said.

The film begins its international run Friday in Australia, home territory for the film's stars, Gibson and budding heartthrob Heath Ledger.

The prognosis was not so good for the holiday weekend's third wide new release, ``The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle'' (Universal). Based on late animator Jay Ward's old TV cartoon series about a flying squirrel and a moose, the picture opened at No. 5 with $11.0 million for the five days. Despite the star power of Robert De Niro, who also produced, the film was beset by bad reviews and low recognition of the source material, observers said.

Carrey's ``Irene'' is also shaping up as a disappointment, with a $55.4 million haul after 12 days in release. The comedy should end its domestic run in the $80 million range, said Tom Sherak, chairman of Twentieth Century Fox's domestic film group.

``Any time you have a comedy with Jim Carrey and (writer/ directors) the Farrelly brothers, you'd love to see it do more,'' Sherak said. But he noted that R-rated comedies traditionally have a tougher time at the box office.

Fox, a unit of News Corp.-controlled (NCP.AX) Fox Entertainment Group Inc. (NYSE:FOX - news), has endured such recent domestic disappointments as ``Titan A.E.,'' ``The Beach'' and ''Anna and the King.''

On the other hand, DreamWorks' ``Chicken Run'' is exceeding expectations, with $49.4 million after its second weekend. From the British animators behind the Oscar-winning ``Wallace and Gromit'' short film series, the film revolves around the efforts of farm chickens to fly the coop and avoid being turned into pies. Gibson voices one of the characters.

DreamWorks distribution president Jim Tharp said the film was on track to end up in the $90 million-$110 million range.

New releases next weekend include ``Disney's The Kid,'' a comedy starring Bruce Willis; and ``Scary Movie,'' a raunchy horror spoof generating much buzz for getting its gratuitous nude scenes past the ratings board.

Universal is a unit of Seagram Co. Ltd. (Toronto:VO.TO - news). DreamWorks SKG 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 June 30-July 4 holiday weekend, according to studio estimates collected Tuesday by Reuters. Final data will be issued Wednesday.

1 (+) The Perfect Storm ...... $64.0 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $64.0 MILLION

2 (+) The Patriot ............ $35.2 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $44.5 million

3 (2) Chicken Run ............ $21.0 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $49.4 million

4 (1) Me, Myself & Irene ..... $19.5 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $55.4 million

5 (+) Rocky and Bullwinkle ... $11.0 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $11.0 MILLION

6 (3) Shaft .................. $9.7 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $53.2 MILLION

7 (5) Big Momma's House ...... $8.6 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $94.7 MILLION

8 (4) Gone in Sixty Seconds .. $7.8 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $78.6 MILLION

9 (6) Mission: Impossible 2 .. $7.7 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $196.9 MILLION

10 (7) Gladiator .............. $3.7 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $169.7 MILLION

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

``The Perfect Storm'' is released by Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc..

``The Patriot'' is released by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp..

``Chicken Run'' and ``Gladiator'' are released by DreamWorks SKG, which is privately held.

``Me, Myself & Irene'' and ``Big Momma's House'' are released by Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc..

``The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle'' is released by Universal Pictures, a unit of Seagram Co. Ltd..

``Shaft'' and ``Mission: Impossible 2'' are released by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc.

``Gone in Sixty Seconds'' is released by Touchstone Pictures, a unit of Walt Disney Co..

John L.:  It is mid summer time and that means it is my annual Mid Summer box office review.  I will go over the big winners, losers, and surprise hits of the last 2 months at the box office.  Also this week I have reviews of Mel Gibson's "The Patriot," George Clooney's "The Perfect Storm," and Disney's "Fantasia 2000."   It was a busy time at the cineplex, but I think the Summer movie slump is still in effect.  No $300 million hit will come out of this crop of movies this year.  Lot's to cover as is usually the case, so let's get on to the first review.

THE PERFECT STORM - FULL REVIEW

Perfect Storm is a true story about some really really, and I mean really dumb sword fishermen who are looking for fortune and glory on the high seas by catching the most fish to impress their girlfriends, ex-wives, flirtations, supermarkets, and restaurants with their filet prowess.  They couldn't wait about 3 days for a storm to blow over. No, they had to go right then and now on a blustery day in "Octoba" as the Massachusetts folks like to pronounce.   TPS is supposed to show how heroic and brave these six guys were, but it ends up being pretty pointless.  Everyone tells them not to go out, but they do it anyway.  So, my first fault with this movie is that it's source material sucks.  Who wants to see a movie about a bunch of losers?  Obviously by looking at its huge opening week box office, a lot of people do.  Okay, so the characters involved in the story are not very likable to begin with, so the writer and director has to make us, the audience care about them.  So, how do they do that?  Well, we get George "I'm not Batman" Clooney making very vague come ons to Mary Elizabeth Mynamislongtonia in the form of how fun it is to handle smelly fish.  We get Marky "prosthetic phallus" Mark Wahlberg making out with his somewhat hot, somewhat older girlfriend that he wants to support, but needs this one big fish haul to finally hit the big time.  We get the divorced fisherman who wants to impress his son and make his ex wife think that he can still be somebody.  We get a rebel who for some reason dislikes the divorcee.  We get the guy who is jealous of all of the other making out or relationships, so he picks up his own slightly overweight single mother of two to get friendly with so he has something to come home to when he catches the fish.  We also get another guy, but he has like maybe 4 lines in the movie and is only shown kissing his girlfriend or wife (you never are told) and throwing out lines to remind the crew that he exists.  These ragtags are friendly enough, but the movie never really lets you give a damn about what happens to them. Mary E. M. is wasted as cutting room floor love interest for Clooney and is pretty pointless.  So, the other problem with TPS is that the characters are not developed in anyway.  Problem number three is that while these fishing guys are struggling with perfect storms, sharks, and tidal waves, there is a whole other story going on about the coast guard and helicopter pilots who have to rescue stupid sail boaters who don't read their weather faxes.  These rescuers were to save the 6 seaman, but get sidetracked rescuing 3 sailors including Karen Allen (Marian from "Radiers of the Lost Ark).  At first you think this rescue is to foreshadow the oncoming weather attack on Clooney's Andrea Gail boat, but it soon becomes a separate movie and to some extent more interesting than the main story.  The director keeps cutting between the two plots abruptly and it becomes very annoying.  These sequences also suffer from what I call "Armageddon Booking."  What is Armageddon Booking you ask?  Well, in the movie "Armageddon" with Bruce Willis, it suffered a lot from whatever could go wrong would go wrong.  There is a leak in a suit, the space station is going to blow up, one person has to stay behind, and so forth.  It becomes unbearable when catastrophe has to occur every 5 seconds.  So, in Perfect Storm everything goes wrong all of the time.  They catch a shark and it bites a guys leg, someone almost drowns when their hand gets caught on a hook, the helicopter pilots take 10 years to get the rescue basket down to the drowning people, a 100 foot tidal wave falls in the path of the boat and there is no where to go but down in the drink.  You could argue that these are just your standard action sequences and suspense scenes, but when they are not done well are done just for the sake of suspense and action, it does not quite work.  The final thing that really annoyed me, and is the main reason I am not recommending this film is the New England accent the actors were forced to use.  None of the actors that used it like Diane Lane and Mary Elizabeth Mynameisbingotonio could sustain their JFK impersonations for the whole 2 hours and when they have their big speeches at the end they are talking in their regular speaking voices.  I guess their are no actors with real New England accents that could have done those parts since any that wanted to be actors were told not to because their voices sucked and they would never get work.  Too bad they never knew when the director, Wolfgang Peterson was having a casting call.  The things that did work were the computer effects for the tidal waves and ocean scenes.  They were obvious CGI, but used well and the big tidal wave you see in the posters and promos was very well shot.  Clooney is okay in his part and did not even attempt an accent.  Clooney's old "Three Kings" buddy, Wahlberg probably gives the best performance.   And the guy who plays Bugys, John Hawkes is funny in some of his scenes and if there is anyone you actually do care about it is probably him.  Overall, Perfect Storm has a lot of flaws that may be overlooked by people who don't nick pick.  One person I saw it with said it was the worst movie he has ever seen.  It is not that bad.  I could tolerate everything but the accents and the lack of accents.  However, I cannot tell you to go see it.  Final Review:  2 stars out of 5; 5 out of 10; C-; thumbs down.  Okay movie, but slow to start and the characters are just not that good.

THE PATRIOT:  FULL REVIEW

Mel Gibson returns to the type of movie that finally gained him respect in Hollywood.  Mr. Gibson received an Oscar or two for his work directing "Braveheart" about a guy fighting to free his country.  In the Patriot, Gibson is once again the lone man against an army of cutthroat villains who want to control the world.  Gibson's Benjamin Martin is a reluctant hero who had a rough go during the French and Indian War in which things got a bit too violent for his family man taste.  He had given up war and violence and settled down and had a large family of 7 kids with his wife.  Unfortunately, it is very difficult now for a woman to birth 7 kids, let alone in the 18th century on the frontier.  After the 7th child, she pretty much dropped dead and Gibson's character had to raise his children on his own with the help of some freed slaves he pays to work the land and clean the house.  While he is living his life, the Colonies are getting really p.oed with King George over in merry olde England and his taxation without representation activities.  The 13 Colonies want to be independent of the mother country's rule.  England wants to continue to get that New World money so they bring over their Redcoats to force the upstarts back into submission.  War is declared, but Gibson does not want to fight.  Of course, since this is a movie, he has to eventually be forced to fight when his oldest son played by Austrian Heath Ledger enlists to fight the British.  Ledger sort of sucks as a soldier so daddyo has to get involved when Ledger's ineptness causes a tragic death.  Gibson's Martin character is not rusty after a near 20 year layoff of chopping people up into little pieces as he goes buck wild on the redcoats.  His crazyness gives him the reputation of being a ghost rider of some sort who sneak attacks the prim and proper British forces who are not used to these back woods tactics unbecoming of gentlemen.  This really upsets General Cornwalis and a Colonel Tavington played by Jason Isaacs who really hates the Martin character to the point of vowing to destroy everything he loves and holds dear just to get to him.  Isaacs is very good as the main villain and will almost make you hiss at the screen at the dastardly things he does. The Patriot is a long movie, but it has several action scenes and many well staged battle sequences that are very violent in their brutality.  If you don't blink, you will see a cannonball blow a guy's head off in an early fight.  Most of the violence are people getting shot and stabbed.  It is strange to see how both sides fought in the Revolutionary War with the way they just lined up to be shot and made lots of noise as they approached so everyone knew they were coming.  Gibson's character uses stealth and quickness to get the jump on the British and that technique helped the Colonies win the war and become their own United States.  I must say in retrospect, The Patriot was a pretty good movie.  It tries to look like some art house war pic that a Spielberg or some other fancy dan director might make, but it comes off pretty mainstream.  It's non violent point it tries to make does not work when every person even little children have to take up arms to fight.  Negotiation is done in one scene and is successful without any shots being fired and ends up being one of the better parts of the movie.  My only problems with the movie are the use of computer effects to increase the amount of soldiers on the battle field and the track record of the makers of the movie.  I prefer war movies to use real extras and not computer generated imaging to make 20 soldiers into 200.  It looks fake and takes away the impact of the scene.  Any far away mass marching shot looks really fake in a primitive time and defeats the purpose of the moment.  The average moviegoer may not notice it too much but they might pick up that it is weird how all the background characters look alike and move in the exact same motions all the time and then repeat while the people up front vary a bit.  The makers of the film are Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin who made 2 of the worst movies in the last 5 years, "Independence Day" and "Godzilla 1998."  These guys have a reputation of having a good premise but forgetting to put logic in their scripts and direction.  I won't go into why those 2 older movies suck, but it is a good thing that they kept their inconsistencies to a minimum.  This time, they stayed out of the way, but I think Mel Gibson may have helped get some of the battle scenes to work since he had experience directing similar moments in Braveheart.   I must say though that there is one moment in Patriot that nearly kills the entire movie and that is when Heath Ledger's girlfriend played by Lisa Brenner makes this inspirational speech in a church to encourage the men to fight for the rebellion.  Her delivery is awful and the speech is as cliched as it gets leading up to the inevitable standing up one by one of every guy in the church to volunteer and fight for freedom.  Everyone in the theater groaned at this point and I nearly walked out.  It is very similar to Samuel L. Jackson's great speech last year's "Deep Blue Sea" which became one of the best moments in cinematic history. If you don't know it, rent that movie for this one scene and you will know what I am talking about.  However, this actress is no Samuel L. Jackson.  Overall, "The Patriot" was pretty good Summer entertainment.  I think most people will enjoy it. It should not be used as a history lesson since most of the characters are fictionalized, but it gets it close enough.  Final Review:  3 stars out of 5; 6 out of 10; B-; thumbs up.  Gibson is good and so is Isaacs as the main villain.  Those two are worth the price of admission.

I am a huge fan of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.  I have seen them all as well as the Fractured Fairytales and Mr. Peabody bits.  I loved the puns, the rabbits out of the hats, Boris, Natasha, Fearless Leader, Whatsamatta U, and especially the cliffhanger endings.  I have been to R&B film festivals and rent the episodes on video from time to time.  However, when I heard that they were making a live action version of Moose and Squirrel, I was not excited because I knew it would probably suck and be a financial disaster for any production company that tried to make it.  It had been tried before with the movie "Boris and Natasha" starring Dave "Strange Brew" Thomas and Sally "M*A*S*H" Kellerman in the title roles.  It bombed big time like this current movie is on track to do.  The original cartoon is a ridiculous show that does not play well in real life.  You can't make their antics look right in the real world.  The casting for R&B is pretty good though.  Jason Alexander has the right look, even though Danny Devito was probably a better choice.  And from the previews I have seen, Russo has a great Natasha voice that would make June Foray very proud if not jealous.  Foray was the voice of Natasha and Rocky on the cartoon.  Deniro as Fearless Leader is casting genius, but also the death knell for the film.  You see, Bobby D. may be considered the greatest actor in the modern era, but he, like Meryl Streep, cannot get a hit movie to save their life.  He has had a couple of hits like "Cape Fear" and "Analyze This" but most of his movies fall by the wayside.  Goodfellas made a fair amount of cash, but Joe Pesci made that movie, not De Niro.  The other reason this movie is not playing to more people like children for instance is that the big joke in the preview is De Niro doing a goof on his famous Taxi Driver bit about who is talking to him.  Most adults seeing that guffaw at the joke, but the kids who would be interested in seeing a live action movie mixed with a cartoon sit their in silence because they are not allowed to see the movie Taxi Driver that the entire joke is based on.  It goes over their young impressionable minds.  Oh, but the makers say that the reason the old cartoons hold up today is because of the hidden jokes that only older people would get.  Yeah, those old shows were really deep.  The other problem is the plot of the movie.  The cartoon characters leave the animated world and enter the real world where people know them as the cartoon characters and like Whoopi Goldberg in the courtroom scene, freak out when they see their cartoon heroes live and in person.  The movie should have played it straight and have the cartoon world actually be the entire world, but in a live action form without the cross dimensional stuff.  It also appears that Rocky loses his power to fly when he enters the real world.  Who wants to see that?  Rocky can fly, so let him fly the whole time.  It was like when Robert Altman made "Popeye" with Robin Williams and had the character hate spinach until the end of the movie. That one thing is why that film failed big time.  People and many kids still know of the adventures of the moose and flying squirrel and will continue to enjoy those Jay Ward cartoons like I still do. This movie is not a good representation of those shows and the public knows it.  

FANTASIA 2000: FULL REVIEW

I finally got around to seeing the movie "Fantasia 2000," but unfortunately it was not in its original IMAX giant screen form.  This is the sequel to the 1940 version that had the naked wood nymphs, the dancing hippos, Mickey Mouse's brooms, and a really scary looking demon.  The music was classical, but it was not as good as the hype or the hope it was promoted to be.  This new version was to continue what Walt Disney wanted in new Fantasia movies every few years to animate interpretations of classical music.  This film has about 8 segments with one of them showing Mickey's Sorcerer's Apprentice again in its entirety.  F2K is okay, but I did not really enjoy it a whole lot.  The interpretations were fine, but I just don't get some of the overt metaphorical or magical parts of the pieces.  There is this one bit with flying whales to the tune of "Pines of Rome."  This has the best animation in the movie and the whales are great to look at, however I just could not buy the whole flying whales thing. I found it strange and somewhat goofy.  They should have just showed them swimming in a deep ocean and doing their backflips. It is well animated, but I did not feel like jumping into the fantasy world when the animals were drawn so realistically.  The worst segment to me was the one with the Flamingos playing with the yo-yo.  It too broke a reality that made no sense and was not funny.  The animation was not even that well done that helped me tolerate the whale bit.  I will say that James Earl Jones' introduction of the Flamingo part was quite funny and almost saves the segment.  The Mickey part from Fantasia 1940 was shown again without any changes and should have been left in the first movie.  It is funny, but I would have preferred more original material.  Bette Midler introduces a segment about some of the ideas that were rejected like the  "Flight of the Valkyries" piece better known as "Kill the Wabbit" to you Warner Brothers fans.  The other piece I did not like was the last one with this water pixie fighting a live volcano.  It was about life, death, and rebirth, almost like it was supposed to represent the 4 seasons, but it came off as a ripoff of the demon segment of the first movie.  It is well animated and the music is fine, but once again the full story was a little silly to me in its interpretation.  The best segments were the George Gershwin "Rhapsody in Blue" with the Al Hirschfield animation style, the Steadfast Soldier and his battle with the evil jack in the box for the hand of the ballerina, and my favorite bit,  the Donald Duck Noah's Ark Pomp and Circumstance number which had the funniest moment in the movie when they showed a dragon, unicorn, and some other now extinct animals laughing at Noah gathering all of the other animals on the ark to protect them from the great flood.  I am also the worlds biggest Donald Duck fan and have a key chain I keep with me at all times I got from Walt Disney World to prove it.  Donald can do no wrong in my book and he is very good in his segment.  Fantasia 2000 won't make you appreciate classical music more than you might now.  If you want to really expose a kid to the musical masterpieces, just have him watch old Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons since they use those songs all of the time.  In fact, I could hum most of the songs in the Fantasia movies before I was 8 just because I watched so many of those old cartoons and I didn't even know it.  I believe Disney plans to make more Fantasia movie, so I hope they pick some livelier music and come up with better animated set pieces than they did here.  Final Review:  3 stars out of 5; 6 out of 10; C+; thumbs up.  Not great, but the Donald Duck part is great and when the animation sucks, the music is good, and when the music sucks the animation is good, and when they both suck, at least there is Donald.  

Instead of the regular  review of the rest of the top 10 in 10, I will go over what has occurred so far this Summer box office season since the first week in May.  Here are the top 10 movie events so far this Summer.  

MID-SUMMER TOP 10 THOUGHTS IN 10:

1.    Gladiator is the most well received movie of the Summer so far.  It has grossed around $170 million and is still growing.  Russell Crowe has become a player and looks to finally be on his way to a successful career that the critics had hoped for since L.A. Confidential came out.

2.    Battlefield Earth is the big bomb of the Summer and most likely the year.  It has grossed less than $22 million at the box office.  That is just a little more than they paid Travolta to act in it.  This was hyped to be one of the biggest movies of the year, but due to an inept script, not using the source material correctly, and poor direction, the movie bombed like it was Ishtar 2.  This became the butt of every box office joke ever made.  It is now listed among movies like Heavens Gate, Ishtar, and Speed 2 as giant mistakes.  I found it to funny in it's ineptness, but to most people it will end up at the top of their worst movies of the year 2000 list.

3.    Road Trip was supposed to be the "American Pie" of this year and I think it was more of its own entity.  It was okay and a little too sweet for its own good.  It never got too raunchy and there was not one "everybody is talking about it" segment in the whole film. Oh Tom Green putting  a mouse in his mouth is funny, but to be memorable he would have had to swallow the thing.  RT never took the next step like other movies of its type did and that cost it millions of dollars in box office.

4.    My least favorite movie of the summer so far is not B.E, but Mission: Impossible 2.  I did not like this movie.  It was slow, poorly acted, sloppily directed, bad special effects, and illogical.  However, it is on track to make $200 million so what do I know.  I had its moments like the motorcycle chase, but that was at the end of the movie, and I was done with it by then.  The first one at least was directed well and had 2 really memorable sequences with the Cruises infiltration of the building on the rope and the train/helicopter chase.  M:I 2 did have Thandi Newton who is probably the hottest girl of the Summer movies next to the blond chick on the tape in Road Trip.  I like Tom Cruise, and I enjoy John Woo's directing style, but it just did not work for me this time.

5.    Dinosaur is another movie that has made a lot of money, but I did not completely enjoy.  It has grossed around $130 million and counting, but after the first 30 minutes, the movie is a complete bore.  See the first half hour, but when the dinos start trotting through the desert, go home.  Good animation, but the story was very weak.

6.    Big Mommas House is the sleeper hit of the Summer and possible the year.  No one thought it would be on track to make $30 million let alone the $100 million it is headed towards now.  Martin Lawrence has now proven to be a box office draw because the appeal of this movie is rested soley on him.  This being such a big success may hurt Eddie Murphy's "The Klumps" coming soon since people may be sick of the cross dressing gimmick by then.  

7.    Shaft was Samuel L. Jackson's first solo starring role and he did a good job.  The movie is a modest success and should be given a second chance in the form of a sequel.   A better focus on a strong villain would help next time.  This movie's biggest problem is that the secondary bad guy out showed the primary one.  

8.    Gone in 60 Seconds is the movie that had my least favorite preview and I completely avoided it.  I like Nick Cage, but his movies lately have been pretty weak and I had no confidence in this one.  Angelina Jolie is still not over with me as someone I care about.

9.    The other sleeper hit of the season is "Chicken Run" which has made nearly $50 million so far.  It might just hit that $100 million mark yet.  Good promotion and a little bit of Mel Gibson helped this movie get in the black column on the accounting balance sheet.

10.    The biggest hits of the Summer so far in terms of profit and box office in no particular order are Gladiator, Mission: Impossible 2, Big Mommas House, Dinosaur, and The Perfect Storm.  These movies seemed to captivate the most people.  The medium hits were Road Trip, Shanghai Noon, Gone in 60 Seconds, Shaft, Me Myself and Irene and The Patriot.  MMAI may eventually fall in the failure category, but I will call it a medium success for now.  The biggest bombs of the Summer so far are Battlefield Earth, I Dreamed of Africa, and Titan A.E.  The Africa movie had no chance and was so bad people couldn't even have fun goofing on it like they do with Battlefield Earth, and the makers of Titan A.E. may be ready to jump out of a window when they see that their fancy high tech animation attracts no one, but the more chaotic and simpler looking clay animation of Chicken Run and even the stilted anime style of those Pokemon movies, or even those South Park and Simpsons cartoons are more popular.  It just shows you that you really cannot tell what the mass public will go for.  

That is it for this week.  I waited until the July 4th totals were in to finish this very long report.  it was a busy week as I did get to see 3 movies which is rare.  Next week we have the return of Bruce Willis and little boys with "The Kid," and we have the horror movie spoof, "Scary Movie" which looks funny, but I don't think anyone who actually is looking forward to seeing it, like myself, thinks it will be any good.  We shall see since I do plan to check it out this weekend.  Bye for now.

WALTER MATTHAU

1920 - 2000