Cage's 'Sixty Seconds' Clocks in at Box Office
By Dean Goodman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Critics be damned. Nicolas Cage sped off with the weekend box officecrown in his car thief thriller ``Gone in Sixty Seconds,'' according to studio estimates issued Sunday.
``Gone'' grossed $25.5 million from 3,006 theaters in the United States and Canada, the biggest opening score ever for Cage.
Tom Cruise's ``Mission: Impossible 2,'' which ruled the box office for the previous two weekends, fell to No. 2 with $17.1 million, followed by Martin Lawrence's ``Big Momma's House'' with $16.8 million.
Cage plays a retired car thief who pulls off one last heist -- the theft of 50 cars within 72 hours -- for a British gangster (Christopher Eccleston) who will otherwise kill Cage's deadbeat younger brother (Giovanni Ribisi).
The opening for ``Gone'' suggest that moviegoers chose to ignore the dire warnings from critics. Trade paper Daily Variety
described it as ``perfectly dreadful in every respect,'' while Entertainment Weekly magazine complained that ``slack
meaningless outpaces any excitement.'' The Wall Street Journal did not even bother to review it.
``In our business the public votes. No one else,'' said Chuck Viane, president of distribution at Buena Vista Pictures, the Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS - news) unit that released the film for its Touchstone Pictures sibling.
The opening was in line with the studio's expectations, and anything in the low 20s would have been considered a disappointment, Viane added.
Dominic Sena (''Kalifornia'') directed this remake of late writer/director H.B. Halicki's 1974 independent effort. (In the new
film, ``Sixty'' is spelled out on screen, but written as ''60'' in ads.)
If estimates hold when final figures are released Monday, the film will mark the biggest nonholiday opening for producer Jerry
Bruckheimer, ahead of ``The Rock'' ($25.1 million) and ''Con Air'' ($24.5 million), which both starred Cage. The former movie marked his best opener to date, coming out in the aftermath of his 1996 best actor Oscar win for ``Leaving Las Vegas.''
``Gone'' enjoyed the highest theater average in the top 10, pulling in $8,463 from each outlet, ahead of $5,889 for ``Big
Momma's House'' and $4,661 for ``Mission: Impossible 2.''
According to Exhibitor Relations Co., which collects the studios' estimates, the top 12 films this weekend grossed $90.7
million, down six percent from last weekend, and down 20 percent from the year-ago weekend, when ``Austin Powers: The
Spy Who Shagged Me'' opened at No. 1 with $55 million.
Wide release debuts next weekend include the ``Shaft'' remake, the sci-fi cartoon ``Titan A.E.'' the teen-targeted ''Boys and
Girls,'' and the wide release of ``Fantasia 2000,'' which recently played in giant screen theaters exclusively.
After 19 days in release, ``Mission: Impossible 2'' has pulled in $157.9 million, said a spokeswoman for its distributor,
Paramount Pictures.
``Big Momma's House,'' which opened at No. 2 last week, has $52.0 million after 10 days. The genderbending crime
comedy should end up above $90 million, said Tom Sherak, chairman of domestic distribution at Twentieth Century Fox.
The animated ``Dinosaur'' (Walt Disney Pictures) slipped one place to No. 4 with $8.8 million (24-day total $110.5 million).
Russell Crowe's Roman epic ``Gladiator'' (DreamWorks) held steady at No. 5 with $7.1 million (38-day total $150.2 million).
In the arthouse world, Hungarian director Istvan Szabo's multigenerational family saga ``Sunshine,'' starring Ralph Fiennes,
grossed $92,583 from seven screens in New York and Los Angeles, giving it a strong average of $13,226. The three-hour
film widens to the top 20 markets on June 23, a spokeswoman for distributor Paramount Classics said.
Paramount Pictures and Paramount Classics are units of Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIA - news). Fox is a unit of Fox
Entertainment Group Inc. DreamWorks is privately held.
Time it takes to belch after you drink a Sprite: 2 seconds if you're a
female, 40 seconds if you're a guy. Time it takes for you to watch 6
previews before you go see GISS: 14 minutes and 23 seconds.
Time it took people to learn that Battlefield Earth sucked: -6
months. Time it takes to get sick of this whole bit: 5
seconds. Nicholas Cage has returned to the top of the box office after
having some problems with his last 3 movies, Bringing out the Dead, Snake Eyes,
and 8MM. Cage had to go back to what has worked for him before and that is
the big time Bruckheimer Summer action pic. This movie, however, is more
convoluted than his other prison type movies that were so successful. Cage
plays a reformed car thief who has to steal 50 cars in a 72 hour period or his
brother will be murdered. Okaayyy. So we get a lot of car chases and quick
cuts and shots of Angelina Jolie Thorton getting off on putting a screwdriver in
a car ignition like it was a penis going into a vagina. She is a weird
chick who now has so many tattoos that won't make 
sense
in terms of potential characters she would play that it may be a long time
before you see her do a love scene unless the character she is doing is named
Billy Bob. This movie is a remake of another movie that I don't believe
anyone saw so I guess this will look like something new. There is not a
lot of buzz around this film, so I do not expect it to make more than $80
million when it is all said and done. I also hate movies that focus on
glamorizing thieves like cat burglars or car thieves. If you are thinking
about stealing a car, check this movie out since it will give you the steps you
need to get one without having to carjack someone. Oh, and if you are
arrested for grand theft auto, just do the movie plot defense and say
Bruckheimer made you do it. If Natural Born Killers and Basketball Diaries
supposedly influence people to commit mass murder, a movie about how to get past
the club on a locked car should do blockbuster business in certain parts of New
Jersey and Detroit. 
ones they don't even know about. Everyone in the movie is trying to
find their own form of happiness whether it is good sex, a meaningful
relationship, raising a family, staying married, making rape phone
calls,masturbating, murder, learning how to "cum," and even how
do you molest your 11 year old son's best friend without anyone knowing about
it. This movie takes on all of these issues head on and is rarely subtle
in its approach. This movie is only for the art house freaks who can deal
with the graphic images shown in this film. The average public will
turn off the film when they see their first (and not the last) jizz squirt on a
wall. There are about 6 different plots going on at the same time, but
there is one plot that is totally reprehensible and that is the one about the
pedophile who is married to the oldest sister. This guy may be the sickest
guy ever shown on film. He goes to magazine shops and buys the teen
boy magazines that little girls cut up and stick the pictures in their notebooks
or walls. This guy buys them and then masturbates in the backseat of his
car. Yeah, right. He also has fantasies about taking an automatic
weapon into the park and blowing eveyone away. His oldest son is just
about to hit puberty and is asking all sorts of questions about his sexuality
like size and what it is like to "cum." Frank discussions about
sex with your parents are very uncomfortable, but could make for interesting
cinema in a slice of life kind of way. The problem comes when you realize
that the father is getting off on the discussion and is coming very close to 
molesting
his own son when he offers to help measure his son's penis or help him have an
orgasm. Near the end of the movie, this father and son have the most
disturbing conversation I have ever seen. It will either make you cry or
throw up. It is well written, but not well acted. You have become so
disgusted by the father that you want to strangle him, but the actor playing the
son is a little to wimpy or just not devestated enough when he learns the truth
about his father. He sort of looks like a young Corey Feldman circa his
Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter days. The way you deal with this whole
plot of the movie will decide whether you will like the whole film.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a guy obsessed with his neighbor played by Lara
Flynn Boyle, but then she turns the tables on him in a surprising way, but
unfortunately there is no real payoff to their relationship. Seymour also
has another neighbor played by Catherine Manheim who seems to be obsessed with
him. She also is harboring a deep dark secret. This storyline is
okay and has its disgusting moments such as the graphic masturbation scene, but
overall it is just sort of pointless. There is a plot about the sisters'
parents breaking up which is nothing special, and is not developed in any
interesting ways. The only character that has any type of part is the
youngest sister, Joy. She starts off breaking up with her boyfriend
cameoed by Jon "Acting!" Lovitz and then begins an affair with one of
her students. She whines a lot, but her quest for happiness is the most
realistic in movie terms and is not disgusting. We even get to see her
topless in a love scene that does not involve a rape attempt. She gets
points for that. Interpreting the point of the movie with people trying to
find their own form of happiness but usually failing most of the time is pretty
obvious, but there are probably all those other literary type interpretations
that people give when they don't want to state the obvious even though the
obvious answer is usually the right one. The last scene in the movie will
make you never ever have your dog lick your face again. I did not dig this
movie at all. Pedophila is not glorified in this movie, but seeing it is
so disturbing that you have to question the parents who allowed their children
to act in the film. No sex is shown, but it is described and implied very
distinctly. If you want a movie that will make you cringe and definitely
not leave you happy, then check it out. I found it hard to watch and most
of the plots never panned out to anything worthwhile anyway. Final
Review: 1 star out of 5; 2 out of 10; D-; thumbs down. Not
recommended.