De Niro's ``Parents'' still tops at U.S. box office
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Robert De Niro comedy ''Meet the Parents'' fended off four new releases to hold the No. 1position at North American box offices for the second consecutive weekend.
According to studio estimates issued Sunday, ``Parents'' (Universal) grossed about $21.3 million, taking its 10-day total to $59
million. Directed by Jay Roach, the film revolves around 72 hours of mayhem when co-star Ben Stiller's nerdy male nurse
character visits his nutty future in-laws (De Niro and Blythe Danner) for the first time. Teri Polo plays the fiancee.
The Denzel Washington football drama ``Remember the Titans'' (Touchstone) remained No. 2 with $13.5 million. After 17
days, it has raked in $64.7 million.
The Winona Ryder satanic thriller ``Lost Souls'' (New Line) performed the best of the rookies, opening at No. 3 with a modest
$8.4 million. The feature directing debut of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (''Schindler's List'')
stars Ryder as a devout Catholic who tries to stop the devil from taking over the body of a crime author (Ben Chaplin).
Newcomers rounded out the top five. ``The Ladies Man'' (Paramount), a raunchy comedy based on a ``Saturday Night Live''
skit about a loser with delusions of studliness, grossed $5.7 million. ``The Contender'' (DreamWorks), a political thriller starring
Gary Oldman and Joan Allen, took in $5.5 million.
Bowing in at No. 7 was director Robert Altman's ``Dr. T. & the Women'' (Artisan), an ensemble comedy starring Richard
Gere as a Dallas gynecologist. It pulled in $5.2 million.
In its third weekend of release, actor/writer/director Christopher Guest's canine satire ``Best in Show'' (Warner Bros.) finally
landed a top 10 berth, jumping four places to No. 9 with $2.4 million. It has grossed $4.1 million to date.
Tracking firm Exhibitor Relations reported ticket sales for the top 12 films were flat with last weekend, and up 6.5 percent from
the year-ago period, when the Brad Pitt bomb ``Fight Club'' opened at No. 1 with $11 million. New releases next weekend
include Jackie Chan's ``The Legend of Drunken Master,'' the Kevin Spacey/Helen Hunt drama ``Pay it Forward'' and the
Brendan Fraser/ Elizabeth Hurley comedy ``Bedazzled.''
On the arthouse circuit, star performers included ``Billy Elliot'' (Universal Focus) and ``Requiem for a Dream'' (Artisan). An
English comedy about a working class boy who wants to become a ballet dancer, ``Billy Elliot'' pirouetted into 10 movie
theaters with $220,000. The gritty drugs drama ``Requiem for a Dream'' scored $50,000 from two New York theaters in its
second weekend. Both will widen across the United States and Canada on Nov. 3.
Universal Pictures and its nascent Universal Focus arthouse division are units of Seagram Co. Ltd. Touchstone Pictures is a unit
of Walt Disney Co. New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. are units of Time Warner Inc. Paramount Pictures is a unit of Viacom
Inc. DreamWorks SKG and Artisan Entertainment are privately held.
there was still time. Unfortunately Scream 3, Pitch Black, and Final
Destination all came out around the same time. Too many horror movies. LS
did not want to get lost in that crowd. The only opening left was the
Halloween season, but competition was still a problem. Urban Legends 2 was
released, Blair Witch 2 was coming out, and oh great news, The Exorcist was
being re-released and it is the movie that Lost Souls directly rips off.
The producers could hold off no longer so they just had to grin and bear
it. Well, they should be fairly pleased. The movie opened fairly
well for a movie that is so derivative of several other horror films as well as
the horrible reviews it received from critics. Winona Ryder is still
looking for a break out role, but once again fails to find it. Autumn in
New York was no Pretty Woman or even a Love Story. Her last well received
role was in Girl Interrupted, but that just increased Angelina Voigt's clout
causing Ryder to be nearly forgotten. This movie opened as well as it did
because horror movies and devil possession plots are good for cheap
thrills. The previews did not make this movie look like anything special,
but as for some mindless fun, $7.9 million is okay. Also, it did beat
Exorcist this week which is comforting. Hollywood needs to realize that
Devil movies are not as popular as they once were. Exorcist was the first
really big one and its rep helped it make another $30 million, but modern movies
just don't shock people anymore. Look at the upcoming Bedazzled where the
Devil is played for laughs. As a general rule, the Devil is nobody to mess
with and religion tends to tell people to avoid him (or her) at all costs.
That seems to be what is happening to Lost Souls, mass avoidance.
Adam
Sandler, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Chris Farley, Al Franken, Julia Sweeney, David
Spade, Molly Shannon, and even Will Ferrell have made movies that I have sat
through and many of them have done films based on their SNL characters. There
has only been 2 really good SNL movies and they are Blues Brothers and Wayne's
World 1. None of the others have made any real impact. Most of the
above actors who do unique comedies have had some success like Sandler, Murray,
and Murphy. They made it because they never did Opera Man, Lounge Singer
Man, or Gumby Damnit Man the Movie. Waterboy, Ghostbusters, and Beverly
Hills Cop were much better choices. Recently we have had The Night at the
Roxbury and Superstar based on 2 fairly popular SNL skits. The movies made
a bit of money and were profitable. Lorne Michaels, the producer of SNL
and these movies is very repetitive so he gave the nod to Tim Meadows to take
his Cavatier loving Ladies Man character, Leon Phelps to the big screen.
Meadows has been on SNL since 1991 and is the longest running cast member next
to Phil Hartman. He never was the most popular and it took him about 6
years before he had a character that caught on. Ladies Man was sketch of a
lisping tv talk show host who answered sex and love questions. The funny
things about the sketch were the alcohol he drank, his delivery, his afro, his
1970s clothes, and his advice. I am a fan of the bit and when I heard that
a movie was being made, I was excited for about 30 seconds and then I thought to
myself, why? Anything beyond the basic sketch would be stupid and
pointless and obviously tacked on to make a 90 minute movie. That is
exactly what we get in Ladies Man the movie. Since you can't do a whole
movie with one camera
angle and one set you have to add all of these extra characters and a crazy
plot. In the movie Phelps gets a letter from a former conquest, but she
does not sign her name so he has to go through his black book and track her
down. While this is going on, a "Fight Club" type group of
dysfunctional men are gathering together to kill the Ladies Man for having sex
with their wives. Also, the whole time Phelps is looking for his mystery
girl, he keeps missing the one right in front of his face, his producer Julie,
played by the Fresh Prince's ex cousin, Karyn Parsons. Will Ferrell shows
up in all of the recent SNL movies and plays the head of the Ladies Man Haters
Club. He is okay, but he is still learning how to have a good screen
presence. He should bring back that "get off the shed" sketch he
did in his first episode on Saturday Night Live. I love that bit.
John Witherspoon from the "Friday" movies who is very funny at times
is wasted here and just grunts and mumbles without doing anything
significant. Very sad. Billy Dee Calrissian Williams plays a
bartender who gives out Shakespearean like asides to the camera even though
everyone can still hear him. He is actually pretty good and in some ways
the most famous Ladies Man type guy in Hollywood. Parsons is good in the movie
and looks glad to be working after her stint in Major Payne. She is very
attractive even though she might want to look into getting a rhinoplasty.
Tiffany "don't call me Amber" Thiessen shows up as an old Phelps
girlfriend and is not necessarily funny, but looks really good in her lingerie
and soap 
bubbles.
She has come a very long way since "Saved by the Bell." Oh, if
you have seen the trailer of this movie, there is a scene that has been cut out
and that is the one where he goes to the transvestite's apartment and runs away
when he sees him. This was a funny bit in the preview and I was
disappointed that it was edited out. The other thing about that scene is
that the trailer has 2 versions with one being funnier than the other. I
guess they could not decide which one to use. Meadows is fine in the
part and plays it just like on TV. If you laugh at the bit then you
will at least chuckle if you see it. If you have never seen the SNL sketch
or don't like it to begin with, then avoid the movie, it will not please
you. Even if you are a fan, you will realize that it had very little
chance of making a good movie. It is just too hard to make a movie off of
these SNL bits. Church Lady was popular, but no movie. The Lying Guy
sketch was very popular, but they never made a film. And if there is a
deity of some sort there will never be a Cheerleaders sketch. But look for
a Mr. Peepers or a Mango to happen some time in the future... help us all.
Final Review: 1 1/2 stars out of 5; 5 out of 10; C-; thumbs down.
Harmless, but impossible to recommend.
he is, but no one ever goes to see his movies. He has made several good
ones like Starman and Jagged Edge, but when he makes movies that should make mad
cash like Tron and Tucker: a Man and his Dream they fall off the face of
the Earth. Heck he is even in "Heavens Gate." Last year he
was in the underrated "Arlington Road" and it failed to succeed
because it was too similar to recent terroristic attacks on U.S. soil.
Contender can't compete with the sex scandals in real life with DNA on dresses
and cigars in funny places. People can watch the news for free. Gary
Oldman shows up as the congressman who finds out that Allen may not be a very
moral person and makes it his duty to bring her down. In recent news,
Oldman has said that he is displeased with the movie since it makes the
Republican right wing conservatives look really bad and seems to be a bit too
liberal. He thinks that the main guys in Dreamworks forced the makers of
Contender to make the Republican conservatives look bad. Like that's hard
to do. Oooo. Okay, the liberals suck too. It's a movie Gary. It
should be no worse than what they did to the space program in Lost in
Space. Contender is the big adult drama of the week, but it did not
attract a large audience. The marketing was not very strong and there was
no real buzz on its merits. It seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle of
new movies. Probably would have played better as a made for television
movie.
to
get hot for. Brad Pitt, Mel Gibson, George Clooney, and Denzel Washington
are the others that women seem to dig and would love to get pap smears
from. This movie also is the first movie in the Helen Hunt trilogy of
movies to come out in the next couple of months. In a recent trip to the
cinema, I saw 3 Helen Hunt movie trailers in a row. This movie, "Pay
it Forward" and Mel Gibson's upcoming "What Women Want" all have
this Oscar winning actress prancing around like an idiot. I wonder if she
gets a nooner in any of these movies. Robert Altman directed Dr. T. and
the Women and I guess was hoping to do a mainstream movie that would attract a
wide audience. He has been having a lot of trouble getting people to show
up to his movies. Altman is still living off "MASH" and
"Nashville" money. I have never forgiven Altman for his
bastardization of "Popeye." Popeye not liking spinach was just
ridiculous. "Ready to Wear" almost ended Hollywood's love affair
with Altman, but I guess they threw him the Dr. T. bone out of respect.
This movie has a lot of popular women like Kate Hudson, Tara Reid, Laura Dern,
Shelly Long, and that amazing girl, Liv Tyler as the women in Dr. T's
life. No one seems to care, and my general rule is if Liv Tyler is in your
movie, it is guaranteed to bomb or be absolutely hated (see "That Thing You
Do," and "Armageddon, and pray for the "Lord of the Rings"
movies to be good which she is in). Women might like this movie for Gere
and the potential for a lot of romantic entanglement, and maybe guys might like
some of the women or are old school Altman fans, but as this week's box office
shows, the movie's premise did not attract many. Oh, Andy "Why did I
quit my night job" Richter shows up as one of Gere's friends. Looks
like he may be looking for Conan O'Brien's phone number in his black book real
soon.
"Spinal Tap" Guest has made another one of his comedies and it is
called "Best in Show." Guest is most famous as Nigel Tufnel in
Spinal tap and as Mr. Jamie Lee Curtis. Oh he also was the Saturday Night
Live Weekend Update guy for a while but no one really talks about that. A
few years ago he made movie called "Waiting for Guffman" which
no one saw unless they lived in New York City or Los Angeles. Best in Show
marks his first time in the top ten with his quirky comedies. Guest has
been very funny in the past and if they would release these movies wide from the
beginning and put some money into marketing maybe it would catch on, but like
Almost Famous the box office suffers because the movie studio refuses to release
it in more than 1500 theaters from the beginning. Waiting for word of
mouth to hit 3 weeks after the initial release never works. I like looking
at cute dogs made up to win shows and the people who own and train these dogs
are very funny to listen to as they consider these animals like their
children. It is fascinating to watch specials and documentaries on the
mind set of the dog show. it is a pretty good source of comedy and BIS may
be that movie that is a good goof on the whole thing. If Best in Show goes
a bit wider and it gets a trailer on a mainstream TV show, then maybe it could
cross the $50 million mark someday.