Moviegoers Across North America Dig 'Shaft'
By Dean Goodman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Who's the black private dick that's a
money machine at the boxoffice? ``Shaft.'' Damn right.
Moviegoers across North America were talking about ``Shaft'' over the weekend as director John
Singleton's gritty remake of the 1971 ``blaxploitation'' classic debuted at No. 1 with $21.1 million,
according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.
Last weekend's box office champ, Nicolas Cage's ``Gone in Sixty Seconds'' slipped to No. 2 with $14.7 million, followed by
Martin Lawrence's ``Big Momma's House'' with $11.3 million and Tom Cruise's ``Mission: Impossible 2'' with $10.9 million.
Decked out in Armani threads, Samuel L. Jackson plays John Shaft, the namesake nephew of the original Shaft, Richard
Roundtree. Notwithstanding the lyrics of Isaac Hayes' Oscar- winning theme song, Jackson's Shaft is an NYPD detective
who risks his neck to battle a race killer, a drug lord and corrupt cops. Roundtree makes a cameo appearance, along with the
original's director, Gordon Parks.
The film skewed younger and male, said Wayne Lewellen, president of distribution at Paramount Pictures, which released the
film in 2,337 theaters. It was ``certainly very strong'' with black audiences, but also pulled in solid receipts from Canada, he
added.
Going into the weekend, the Viacom Inc.-owned studio had forecast a tally between $18
million and $22 million. The film's $9,029 average was the highest in the top 10.
``Shaft'' grossed more than the combined total of the three other new movies opening this
weekend. The animated sci-fi adventure ``Titan A.E.'' opened at No. 5 with $9.5 million; the
teen romance ``Boys and Girls'' at No. 6 with $7.0 million; and the reissue of ``Fantasia
2000'' at No. 11 with $2.8 million.
According to Exhibitor Relations Co., which collects the studios' estimates, the top 12 films this weekend grossed $95.6
million, up 4.2 percent from last weekend, but down 23 percent from the same weekend last year, when ``Tarzan'' opened at
No. 1 with $34.2 million. Wide release debuts next weekend include two comedies: Jim Carrey's ``Me, Myself & Irene'' and
the computer-animated ``Chicken Run.''
After 10 days in release, Walt Disney Co.'s ``Gone in Sixty Seconds'' has grossed $51.9 million. The critically maligned auto
heist film lost 42 percent of its audience from last weekend, the steepest fall in the top 10. Its average of $4,821 was the
second highest in the top 10. The gender-bending cop comedy ``Big Momma's House'' held steady at No. 3 in its third
weekend, as its haul rose to $70.7 million. The film should end up in the $90 million area, said Tom Sherak, chairman of
Twentieth Century Fox's domestic film business.
``Mission: Impossible 2'' (Paramount) fell two places to No. 4 in its fourth weekend, as its total rose to $176.1 million.
Fox's Sherak said he was disappointed by the $9.5 million opening for ``Titan A.E.,'' an intergalactic adventure featuring the
voices of Matt Damon and Bill Pullman.
The studio had hoped for a figure in the $13 million-$14 million area, Sherak said. He noted the film's target audience of
teen-aged boys is the most elusive of moviegoers, but he expected the summer holidays might help business. The film
averaged a modest $3,476 from 2,733 theaters.
With its $7.0 million opening, Disney-owned Miramax's Freddie Prinze Jr. vehicle ``Boys and Girls'' performed to
expectations in a genre (teen romances) that is fast losing momentum, industry observers said. It averaged $3,530 from 1,983
theaters.
Lightning did not strike twice for the animated ``Fantasia 2000,'' which Disney reissued in 1,313 regular movie theaters
following a recent strong run in large screen theaters. It averaged just $2,133.
In the arthouse world, Lions Gate Films' junkie drama ''Jesus' Son'' scored a strong $37,000 opening on one New York
screen, and Miramax's subtitled Spanish Civil War drama ``The Butterfly'' flew off with $30,000 from three screens in New
York and Los Angeles.
Twentieth Century Fox is a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc. Lions Gate is a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Inc.
here. The first movie starred Richard Roundtree as a "private
dick" who gets laid a lot and fights criminals that the law has difficulty
handling especially the mob. The character was strong in that whenever
anyone stepped up to him or got in his face, he was always able to put them in
their place or take them down. He was so confident that he would walk in
the middle of traffic and give the finger to anyone who beeped at him. The
plot had Shaft looking for a gangster's kidnapped daughter and the trouble that
caused. The movie was fine, but it did not have a lot of sustained action
sequences so it might be considered boring to today's audiences. Much is
made of the Shaft 1971 as being a landmark film in terms of black cinema.
I guess so, but that sort of limits its appeal saying that only one group would
like or understand the film. That is not the case. It has its
lingo like right on and dig it, but those are common colloquialisms that have
more to do with age than race now days and even back then. It is also
called a blaxploitation film which is an unfair classification as well.
The point of the movies that are labeled with that stigma was not to exploit
African Americans, but was to show them in a heroic light that had not been
shown in mainstream movies before. They also had their little messages
about racism and oppression by "da man" but their main point was to
entertain like any other movie. The quality of these movies starring black
actors varied like any other movie. Some were really good, and some were
stupid. But they were not exploitave. I don't even know what that
means exactly. Shaft 2000 tries to be like a Dirty Harry movie. Sam
Jackson is finally starring in his own movie without being sidekicked with Tommy
Lee Jones, John Travolta, Geena Davis, or Kevin Spacey. He plays the
nephew of Roundtree's Shaft. That is sort of weird, but hey, its better
than son or brother I guess. It helps make the age factor less of a
concern. Shaft 2000 has big problems in this movie with 2 crazy mofos in
the forms of Christian "American Psycho" Bale and Jeffrey "Basquiat"
Wright. 
Bale
is the racist rich kid who kills a black guy for no reason and keeps escaping
being prosecuted. He pretty much channels his American Psycho killer here
without the nice shampoo and business cards. The acting style is exactly
the same in both movies. It won't matter too much since more people saw
Shaft this weekend than they did AS in its entire run. The other problem
is that his character is pretty much nothing. He is not a compelling
villain and his motives are never made clear. It is all just surface
stuff. He is the point of the movie to some extent, but his character also
brings the movie down since he was such a nothing. However, Wright plays a
Dominican drug lord who helps Bale in his quest to get away with murder.
Wright plays a character named Peoples who pretty much steals the movie in his
cocky bad ass heel way. He should have been the main villain through the
whole movie and they should have eliminated the Bale character. The only
problem with Wright is that he is forcing his accent and it makes it difficult
to understand what he is saying many times. The key lines are pretty much
understood, but you have to strain to understand them and when he does get off a
good one liner like Bale looking like a duck hunter when he shows up to his
apartment trying to blend in with the other side of the tracks, the audience
laughs causing you to miss other lines of dialogue he might say. Busta
Rhymes is Shaft's sidekick and he pretty much just curses throughout the movie
and is just okay. It was just an excuse to put a rapper in a Shaft movie
since rap songs have been glorifying the Shaft 1971 era of movies for
years. The other supporting cast is okay but nothing special.
Vanessa Williams takes time off from posing naked in Penthouse to assist Shaft
in his investigations and has one key scene that is somewhat similar to the
quandry from
Ghostbusters 1 in which Gozer asks Dan Ackroyd if he is a God. Shaft
has no real message. Pretty much don't do drugs and don't kill someone
over the color of your skin are pretty much it, but those are pretty obvious
points. I recommend people see the film. It is not necessary to see
the first movie to enjoy this one. Richard Roundtree shows up a couple of
times to show that he is still around, and if you have not seen the first movie
or its sequels you might not understand why he is a big deal. The action
is paced well and the movie never has any slow parts. There seems to have
been some edits done after the preview was put together like a fight on an
airport runway, but it did not affect the film. The ending is somewhat of
a letdown, but a sequel is quite easily done from this flick. Hopefully a
stronger script or a better focus on who is the real bad guy since Shaft 2000
actually had about 4 villains in charge of causing havoc. This movie is
more entertaining than the first one, but probably not as important. Final
Review: 3 stars out of 5; 6 1/2 out of 10; B-; thumbs up.
the
females. Their mouths and eyes are too big and the animation can be
stiff sometimes. However, the story quality of Anime is usually
superb. When I heard Titan A.E (After Earth) was coming out I was somewhat
excited because they were using state of the art computer animation to make all
of the space stuff look better than anything that has been seen in animation
before. The early previews showed this and I was impressed. After
seeing the movie, I am still impressed. However, Don Bluth and his cronies
could not animate everything with computers, so they had to keep the traditional
animated style for the main characters and common backgrounds. It is very
reminiscent of Bluth's "Space Ace" video game days. Titan After
Earth's story is sci fi acceptable with it's "Battlefield Earth" type
of alien invasion destroying the planet and one brave young buck being the
saviour of all humanity plot. Matt Damon is the voice of our hero, Cale (Kael
-Clark Kent) who's world, Earth (Krypton) is destroyed by the Drej (red sun) and
is given a ring by his father near the end that will light
up Kael's hand with the image of a map to the Titan ship that is the key to
bringing the human race back. He needs the help of the voices of
Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman, Nathan Lane, John Leguizamo, and Janeane Garafolo
to find it. Not all of those characters are his friends though.
Barrymore has never looked better I must say. Animation does her
good. She should stick with it. Garafolo actually seemed to put a
lot of effort in her character and she sounds more aggressive than she does in
her live action roles. It may also be her best character ever on
film. Pullman pretty much does the same acting he did in ID4 which pretty
much the same acting he does in all of his movies. Leguizamo also gets
into his voice acting by playing a frog like scientist creature that sounds
nothing like his regular voice. Nathan Lane is channeling his cat
character from Stuart Little with a little twinge of a British Dr. Smith type
accent. Also, his character looks suspiciously similar to a certain Jar
Jar Binks. The movie is exciting and looks great for the most part.
There are little plot points that don' t make sense such as 
how
Cale escapes a force field cell with just his fingers and why the Drej eject one
character into space encased in a protective casing when they should have
just sent her out with just the clothes on her back. I guess it was done
so that the plot would continue. The Drej language is funny as well
because it is all just electronic noises with their dialogue shown in
subtitles. However, when they say "get the humans," their noises
go on for about 30 seconds. You wait for the next line, but there isn't
one and it gets confusing. There are big animated set pieces like the red
bat planet with the oxygen balls over some type of sea, the ice crystal level,
and a segment that seemed to be added because someone had a lot free time where
the Cale and crew's main ship is chased by these aliens that look like the ones
from the Abyss. Titan A.E. is okay, but not as great as the producers
hoped it would be. I liked it enough, but with its two pronged animation
style and somewhat derivative plot, many people will be disappointed.
Final Review: 2 1/2 stars out of 5; 5 1/2 out of 10; C; thumbs up.
Not great, but okay for a look see.
looking. I guess he is playing the Rachel Leigh Cook part in Boys and
Girls. I guess it should be called "He's All That." Jason
B is trying to get his career going by playing the hapless loser role in movies,
and in fact his next movie is called "Loser" in which he plays another
character that can't get laid and that is with another American Pie chick who
got famous for being the object of Kevin Spacey's affection in American
Beauty. It seems that the mass public is getting sick of the post
teen/entering college movie. They are predictable and the previews pretty
much show the entire film. People get these plots for free on regular
television now. No one is going to pay for the same crap over and over
again. Prinze works a lot and has a movie every six months in the
theaters. He is a likable actor with some talent who is pretty much out of
the shadow of his "Chico" father who was huge some 25 years ago.
He is also getting too old to be playing these college romance parts and he will
have to advance to the next level soon or it will be FOX or WB 20 something soap
opera for him. Biggs is getting sort of pathetic in his role choices and
is still trying to ride his pie sex horse. His longevity is not very solid
if he does not start to change the characters he has been playing lately.
Boys and Girls may be in the top ten next week, but it does not look like it has
long for this world since not many boys and girls are going to the cineplex to
see a movie they just saw a few months ago called "Down to You" with
Freddie Prinze Jr.
films in which some of Hollywood's great male stars