One Year Ago--September 21, 2018: Directors who become well-known for working primarily in one genre will frequently have at least one film on their resume that's a complete departure from what they're primarily known for. For Eli Roth, director of such gorefests as Hostel and The Green Inferno, that film will be The House With a Clock in Its Walls, less because of its genre (fantasy isn't that far away from horror), but because of its rating: PG. Roth's first family-friendly film starred Jack Black as an amateur warlock who takes in his orphaned nephew (Owen Vaccaro) and begins to teach him magic, while also looking for, along with a friend and fellow witch played by Cate Blanchett, the titular clock, which is counting down to something very bad. Reviews were mixed, but with not much else out, House easily won the weekend with $26.6 million. Business dropped off fairly quickly, and it ended up with a final gross of $68.6 million. Farther down the chart, Michael Moore, perhaps our most famous documentary filmmaker, released his latest doc, Fahrenheit 11/9. The film may have aped the title of Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, still the only documentary to hit $100 million at the domestic box office, but not its grosses, as the film opened in 8th with $3 million, and would end its run with $6.4 million. Moore seemed to learn the same lesson that conservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza learned when his pro-Trump documentary, Death of a Nation had opened a month earlier: that not that many people are willing to spend money to see a film about the guy who insists on being the constant center of attention, and frequently gets his wish. Opening in 11th was Life Itself, an ill-fated attempt by director Dan Fogelman to recreate the magic of his hit TV soap opera This is Us for the big screen. After being trashed by critics, audiences took a pass as well, as the film opened to $2.1 million and finished its brief run with $4.1 million. Opening even worse was Assassination Nation, a satire in which a town's deepest secrets gets leaked online, leading to open warfare in the streets of the upscale community. It opened in 15th place to a mere $1.1 million, and other than an ill-advised wide re-release of Schindler's List, was 2018's lowest-grossing wide release, finishing its run with only $2 million. Opening in limited release is the biopic Colette, starring Keira Knightly as the renownded early 20th century writer. The film performed decently at the box office, ultimately earning $5.1 million, but despite mostly good reviews and several BAFTA nominations, it was a non-factor in year-end awards on this side of the pond, earning only one Independent Spirit nomination. Another potential Oscar nominee that ended up striking out was the western The Sisters Brothers, starring John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix as the bounty hunter siblings, hired to track down Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed. Despite the strong cast, which also included Carol Kane and Rutger Houer in one of his final film roles, the film never broke out of the art houses, ultimately grossing $3.1 million.
Five Years Ago--September 19, 2014: After the success of The Hunger Games the book, publishers of YA novels stopped looking for the next Harry Potter and started buying books about teenagers in a dystopian future fighting the system. After the success of The Hunger Games the movie, studios and filmmakers began adapting those books. The Maze Runner very much falls into both categories, as the book came out about a year after The Hunger Games book and the movie came out about 2 1/2 years after The Hunger Games movie. Dylan O'Brien starred a teenage boy who wakes up in a mysterious, walled-off field with no memories except his name. Together with the other boys in the field, they try to figure out how to escape through the ever-shifting maze that surrounds the field. The Maze Runner, movie version, didn't quite live up to the example of The Hunger Games, movie version, but it did all right for itself, opening at #1 with $32.5 million and finishing with $102.4 million. The film was enough of a success that the next two books in the series would also be adapted. Since the surprise success of Taken in 2009, Liam Neeson had revitalized his career starring in action movies playing men with special sets of skills. Audiences suddenly seemed to lose interest in that formula, however, with A Walk Among the Tombstones. Neeson played an ex-cop who finds himself tracking down murderers who are going after family members of drug dealers. The thriller opened to $12.8 million, and finished with $26.3 million. To round out the trifecta of this weekend full of cheer, opening in third was the all-star dramady This is Where I Leave You, about a dysfunctional family whose dysfunction is on full display during the week they're sitting shiva for the family's late patriarch. Jane Fonda played the family's mother, Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Adam Driver, and Corey Stoll the kids, and Rose Bynre, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant, and Abigail Spencer as various spouses, friends, and kids of the mourners. Despite the undeniably stacked cast, critics were largely underwhelmed with the overstuffed film, and audiences agreed, as it opened to $11.6 million and ended its run with $34.3 million.
Ten Years Ago--September 18, 2009: As anyone who has ever sat though one of the feature films based on Dr. Seuss's books can attest, it is not exactly easy to adapt a short picture book for kids into a full-length motion picture. So it's understandable why critics approached Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs with trepidation. However, under the guidance of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the film turned out to be a lot of fun, earning better than expected reviews. Audiences were enthusiastic as well, as the film opened in first with $30.3 million and would gross $124.9 million by the end of its run. Critics were about as enthusiastic about The Informant!, starring Matt Damon as an executive at agribusiness conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland, who informs the FBI of a price-fixing scheme involving his and several other companies. The story just gets stranger from there. Director Steven Soderbergh adapted a relatively straight book about the case into a rollicking comedy. Why critics were near unanimous with their praise for Damon, they were much more mixed about the film itself. Audiences were relatively uninterested as well, as the film opened in 2nd to $10.5 million and would finish its run with $33.3 million. After I Can Do Bad All By Myself in 3rd, 4th went to the generically titled Love Happens, starring Aaron Eckhart, coming off The Dark Knight, as a self-help guru still mourning the death of his wife, and Jennifer Aniston as the florist who, as the title tells us, is destined to bring him out of his funk. The dramady got largely negative reviews and was mostly ignored by audiences, opening to $8.1 million and concluding with $23 million. Flopping completely was the hugely hyped horror comedy Jennifer's Body. Megan Fox, coming off two extremely successful Transformers films, played Jennifer, a popular high school cheerleader who, after an unfortunate encounter with a Satan-worshiping rock band, develops a taste for the flesh of her male classmates. Amanda Seyfried plays her best friend, who realizes what is going on and has to stop her. Despite all the hype, critics were mostly dismissive and audiences all but ignored the Diablo Cody-scripted film, as it opened to $6.9 million, or barely more than the relatively unhyped Sorority Row had opened to the previous week. Jennifer's Body grew cold at $16.2 million.
Fifteen Years Ago--September 17, 2004: Speaking of hype, there wasn't a movie opening during the fall of 2004 that had the advanced hype of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. The alternate universe 1939-set epic starred Jude Law as the titular Sky Captain, trying to stop a mad scientist from destroying the planet. Gwyneth Paltrow played an intrepid reporter, and Angelina Jolie played a Navy commander. This was the first film to be shot entirely in front of blue screens, which was being discussed as the future of film-making. Once the film finally opened, critics generally liked it, though most conceded it wasn't quite the future of film-making. Audiences proved to be much more fickle. The film opened at #1, but its $15.6 million take showed that audiences weren't particularly sold on it. Sky Captain ended up burning out quickly, finishing its run with $37.8 million. Not nearly as hyped, but about as successful, was comedian Bernie Mac's attempt to become a leading man, with the baseball comedy Mr. 3000. Mac played a selfish superstar who retires the moment he gets his 3,000th hit, only to discover years later, a mistake in the stats meant he actually only had 2,997 hits. This prompts him to come out of retirement to collect those elusive three hits. Could he learn a lesson about teamwork in the process? If you've ever seen a movie, you can probably figure out the answer. Angela Bassett, an actress who deserves much better roles than the protagonist's love interest, played his love interest. Mac proved he was more valuable as a supporting player as the film opened to only $8.7 million and finished up its run at $21.8 million. Last week's champion Resident Evil: Apocalypse finished third, while another sports comedy, Wimbledon, opened in fourth. The romantic film starred Paul Bettany and Kristin Dunst as tennis players who fall in love during the titular tournament. Critics found the movie fun but forgettable, and audiences chose the latter, as it opened to $7.1 million and finished at $17 million. Way, way, way down in 22nd place was National Lampoon's Gold Diggers, a comedy about two ne'er-do-wells (former child actors Will Friedle and Chris Owen) who marry two elderly sisters (Louise Lasser and Renee Taylor), expecting to inherit their money when they die. Somehow, this found itself playing in over 1,000 theaters, mostly to nothing but empty seats. The film earned a whopping $0.4 million its opening weekend, which was also its closing weekend for the most part. By the end of its very short run, it had managed to get its gross to just above $0.5 million.
Twenty Years Ago--September 17, 1999: In 1999, Martin Lawrence still have a pretty good movie career going, so it wasn't a big surprise that his action comedy Blue Streak opened at #1. Lawrence played a jewel thief who hides a valuable diamond he just stole in a building under construction right before being arrested. When he's released two years later, he's dismayed to find out the now-completed building is a LAPD station. To retrieve it, he has to pretend to be a cop, which it turns out out he's better at than the actual cops. Critics were lukewarm, but audiences turned out,as the film made $19.2 million its opening weekend and finished with $68.5 million. Like Eli Roth and The House With a Clock in Its Walls 19 years later, For Love of the Game was an anomaly for its directer, Sam Raimi, the rest of whose filmography is heavy on fantasy and horror and Spider-Man and dark thrillers and light on romantic baseball dramas. The film starred Kevin Costner, returning to the diamond for the first time since his back-to-back home runs a decade earlier with Bull Durham and Field of Dreams. This time, he played a pitcher reflecting on his life and career while in the middle of throwing a perfect game. Critics were decisively more negative then they were about his late 80s baseball moves, and audiences weren't in the mood to head back to the ballpark, either. The film opened in second to $13 million (just slightly more than the 7th weekend of The Sixth Sense) and struck out with only $35.2 million. Despite opening on only 16 screens, American Beauty managed to come in 11th for the weekend, with $0.9 million, thanks to rapturous reviews. The darkly comic satire of suburban life and ennui starred Kevin Spacey as a man going through the motions until his spirit is revived by the sight of his teenage daughter's sexy best friend (Mena Suvari, in a storyline that seems far more creepy today now that we know about Spacey's personal proclivities). Annette Bening plays his wife, who is far more concerned with social standing and possessions than about her husband, Thora Birch plays their daughter, Wes Bentley played the mysterious boy next door that Birch starts a relationship with, and future Oscar winners Chris Cooper and Allison Janney play his parents. The film's reputation has fallen considerably since its release, but at the time it was considered profound and moving by most (though even then there were a number of dissenters). Audiences agreed, as American Beauty was one of the biggest hits of 1999, ultimately grossing $130.1 million. It would be nominated for eight Oscars, winning five, including for Alan Ball's original screenplay, Sam Mendes's direction, Kevin Spacey's lead performance, and the film itself.
Twenty-Five Years Ago--September 23, 1994: The second weekend of Timecop won a slow weekend. How slow? Quiz Show expanded to 219 theaters, where it grossed $2.9 million...and it still finished fourth. The only wide release was the first of 1994's two skydiving thrillers, Terminal Velocity. Charlie Sheen played the owner of a skydiving school who gets mixed up with a beautiful Russian spy (Nastassja Kinski), on the run from her former colleagues (including James Gandolfini). Critics howled, and audiences mostly found better things to do. It opened in second with $5.5 million, and hit its own terminal velocity at $16.5 million. Arriving in limited release was the third of 1994's Best Picture nominees whose poster inexplicitly focused on the back of the leading man. The Shawshank Redemption, directed by Frank Darabont, and based on a non-horror novella by Stephen King, starred Tim Robbins as a Maine banker wrongly convicted of murdering his cheating wife. Imprisoned at Shawshank Penitentiary for life, he gradually befriends a number of his fellow prisoners, including Morgan Freeman (whose reputation as the ultimate narrator probably stems from this film), as he changes the prison culture for the better, which has the unintended side effect of empowering the corrupt warden (Bob Gunton). Between its title (in 1994, no one outside of King's fanbase knew what a shawshank was or how it could redeem somebody), its poster (again the back of Tim Robbins, in a shot that only makes sense once you've seen the movie), and a general disdain for prison movies, the film did poorly, ultimately finishing its run with $28.3 million. However, the film's 7 Oscar nominations, including Best Actor for Freeman and the aforementioned Best Picture, and terrific word-of-mouth from those who did see the film, led to Shawshank becoming one of the top video rentals of 1995. A quarter-century later, it has become one of the most beloved films of all time, ensconced as the best movie ever according to IMDB voters, and seems to play somewhere on cable every week (this week: Monday night at 6 on AMC).
Thirty Years Ago--September 22, 1989: Michael Douglas had taken time off after his double triumph of Fatal Attraction and Wall Street in 1987. He returned to theaters in Ridley Scott's Black Rain, playing a tough New York cop who, along with partner Andy Garcia, accompanies a Yakuza member home to Japan. When said member escapes, Douglas goes ahead and starts investigating the Japanese underworld. The thriller, one of two movies 1989 movies called Black Rain (the other is a Japanese drama about the fallout from the nuclear bombs dropped on the country at the end of World War II, a topic that is touched on in Scott's film, though one suspects the studio went with the title because it sounded cool) would prove to be a solid hit for Douglas, even if critics found it slick and empty. It opened at #1 to $9.7 million and would earn $46.8 million. The only other opening of note was the South African apartheid drama A Dry White Season. Donald Sutherland played a school teacher who, after witnessing the truth of the government's oppression of the country's black population, begins to work against it. Marlon Brando, who hadn't made a film since 1980, came out of retirement to play a prominent attorney who agrees to help Sutherland. Brando's small role got him his eighth and final Oscar nomination, and apparently encouraged him to return to acting, as he would average a new movie every two years or so for the next decade. Brando's presence didn't really make the film a hit, but it did OK on the art house circuit, grossing $3.8 million.
Thirty-Five Years Ago--September 21, 1984: Since mid-August, only two films from major studios had opened: the exceedingly minor Oxford Blues and Flashpoint. Hollywood finally came roaring back to life with the release of Carl Reiner's All of Me. The comic fantasy starred Steve Martin as an uptight lawyer whose wealthy, dying client (Lily Tomlin) plans to transfer her soul into a beautiful younger woman (Victoria Tennant, the future Mrs. Steve Martin), but thanks to an error, she ends up in his body, with control over his right side. Hijinks ensure as the two fight over control of his body while trying to get her out of him and into Tennant. Critics praised the movie, and it was a solid hit, opening to $5.8 million and ultimately grossing $36.4 million. Martin would win the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, but would become only the third recipient of the award to not receive a subsequent Oscar nomination. Coming in second was The Evil That Men Do, a thriller starring Charles Bronson as a former CIA hitman who comes out of retirement to take out a torture specialist-for-hire who murdered one of Bronson's friends. Bronson had enough of a fanbase that the movie opened to $4.5 million, but it ran out of steam quickly and ended at $13.1 million. After long-running holdovers Ghostbusters, Purple Rain, and Tightrope, came Until September. The romantic drama, the follow-up to Return of the Jedi by director Richard Marquand, starred Karen Allen as an American who starts an affair with a local (Thierry Lhermitte, who has mostly stuck to French films since), during a trip to Paris. Critics dismissed the film, and so did audiences. It made $2 million in its first weekend and finished its run with $4.2 million. Opening in limited release was Milos Forman's unconventional biopic of Mozart, Amadeus. The highly fictionalized account of his life starred Tom Hulce as the composer and F. Murray Abraham as court composer Salieri, who is horrified that someone as crude and immature as Mozart could have been gifted by God with such talent and vows to destroy him. The film would ultimately be nominated for 11 Oscars, winning 8, including Adapted Screenplay, Director for Forman, Actor for Abraham (over co-star Hulce) and Picture. It was also a huge commercial hit, grossing $51.6 million. One of the films Amadeus beat for Best Picture was Places in the Heart, which also opened in limited release. Sally Field starred as a recent widow who is determined to keep the family farm south of Dallas in 1935 out of the hands of the bank. In addition to the Picture nomination, John Malkovich, who played a blind border and Lindsay Crouse, who played Field's sister would get Supporting nominations, and director Robert Benton would get nominated for Director. The film would win for its original screenplay, and Field would win her second Oscar (and deliver her infamous "You like me" speech). Like Amadeus, Places in the Heart would also be a big commercial hit, earning $34.9 million.
Five Years Ago--September 19, 2014: After the success of The Hunger Games the book, publishers of YA novels stopped looking for the next Harry Potter and started buying books about teenagers in a dystopian future fighting the system. After the success of The Hunger Games the movie, studios and filmmakers began adapting those books. The Maze Runner very much falls into both categories, as the book came out about a year after The Hunger Games book and the movie came out about 2 1/2 years after The Hunger Games movie. Dylan O'Brien starred a teenage boy who wakes up in a mysterious, walled-off field with no memories except his name. Together with the other boys in the field, they try to figure out how to escape through the ever-shifting maze that surrounds the field. The Maze Runner, movie version, didn't quite live up to the example of The Hunger Games, movie version, but it did all right for itself, opening at #1 with $32.5 million and finishing with $102.4 million. The film was enough of a success that the next two books in the series would also be adapted. Since the surprise success of Taken in 2009, Liam Neeson had revitalized his career starring in action movies playing men with special sets of skills. Audiences suddenly seemed to lose interest in that formula, however, with A Walk Among the Tombstones. Neeson played an ex-cop who finds himself tracking down murderers who are going after family members of drug dealers. The thriller opened to $12.8 million, and finished with $26.3 million. To round out the trifecta of this weekend full of cheer, opening in third was the all-star dramady This is Where I Leave You, about a dysfunctional family whose dysfunction is on full display during the week they're sitting shiva for the family's late patriarch. Jane Fonda played the family's mother, Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Adam Driver, and Corey Stoll the kids, and Rose Bynre, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant, and Abigail Spencer as various spouses, friends, and kids of the mourners. Despite the undeniably stacked cast, critics were largely underwhelmed with the overstuffed film, and audiences agreed, as it opened to $11.6 million and ended its run with $34.3 million.
Ten Years Ago--September 18, 2009: As anyone who has ever sat though one of the feature films based on Dr. Seuss's books can attest, it is not exactly easy to adapt a short picture book for kids into a full-length motion picture. So it's understandable why critics approached Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs with trepidation. However, under the guidance of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the film turned out to be a lot of fun, earning better than expected reviews. Audiences were enthusiastic as well, as the film opened in first with $30.3 million and would gross $124.9 million by the end of its run. Critics were about as enthusiastic about The Informant!, starring Matt Damon as an executive at agribusiness conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland, who informs the FBI of a price-fixing scheme involving his and several other companies. The story just gets stranger from there. Director Steven Soderbergh adapted a relatively straight book about the case into a rollicking comedy. Why critics were near unanimous with their praise for Damon, they were much more mixed about the film itself. Audiences were relatively uninterested as well, as the film opened in 2nd to $10.5 million and would finish its run with $33.3 million. After I Can Do Bad All By Myself in 3rd, 4th went to the generically titled Love Happens, starring Aaron Eckhart, coming off The Dark Knight, as a self-help guru still mourning the death of his wife, and Jennifer Aniston as the florist who, as the title tells us, is destined to bring him out of his funk. The dramady got largely negative reviews and was mostly ignored by audiences, opening to $8.1 million and concluding with $23 million. Flopping completely was the hugely hyped horror comedy Jennifer's Body. Megan Fox, coming off two extremely successful Transformers films, played Jennifer, a popular high school cheerleader who, after an unfortunate encounter with a Satan-worshiping rock band, develops a taste for the flesh of her male classmates. Amanda Seyfried plays her best friend, who realizes what is going on and has to stop her. Despite all the hype, critics were mostly dismissive and audiences all but ignored the Diablo Cody-scripted film, as it opened to $6.9 million, or barely more than the relatively unhyped Sorority Row had opened to the previous week. Jennifer's Body grew cold at $16.2 million.
Fifteen Years Ago--September 17, 2004: Speaking of hype, there wasn't a movie opening during the fall of 2004 that had the advanced hype of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. The alternate universe 1939-set epic starred Jude Law as the titular Sky Captain, trying to stop a mad scientist from destroying the planet. Gwyneth Paltrow played an intrepid reporter, and Angelina Jolie played a Navy commander. This was the first film to be shot entirely in front of blue screens, which was being discussed as the future of film-making. Once the film finally opened, critics generally liked it, though most conceded it wasn't quite the future of film-making. Audiences proved to be much more fickle. The film opened at #1, but its $15.6 million take showed that audiences weren't particularly sold on it. Sky Captain ended up burning out quickly, finishing its run with $37.8 million. Not nearly as hyped, but about as successful, was comedian Bernie Mac's attempt to become a leading man, with the baseball comedy Mr. 3000. Mac played a selfish superstar who retires the moment he gets his 3,000th hit, only to discover years later, a mistake in the stats meant he actually only had 2,997 hits. This prompts him to come out of retirement to collect those elusive three hits. Could he learn a lesson about teamwork in the process? If you've ever seen a movie, you can probably figure out the answer. Angela Bassett, an actress who deserves much better roles than the protagonist's love interest, played his love interest. Mac proved he was more valuable as a supporting player as the film opened to only $8.7 million and finished up its run at $21.8 million. Last week's champion Resident Evil: Apocalypse finished third, while another sports comedy, Wimbledon, opened in fourth. The romantic film starred Paul Bettany and Kristin Dunst as tennis players who fall in love during the titular tournament. Critics found the movie fun but forgettable, and audiences chose the latter, as it opened to $7.1 million and finished at $17 million. Way, way, way down in 22nd place was National Lampoon's Gold Diggers, a comedy about two ne'er-do-wells (former child actors Will Friedle and Chris Owen) who marry two elderly sisters (Louise Lasser and Renee Taylor), expecting to inherit their money when they die. Somehow, this found itself playing in over 1,000 theaters, mostly to nothing but empty seats. The film earned a whopping $0.4 million its opening weekend, which was also its closing weekend for the most part. By the end of its very short run, it had managed to get its gross to just above $0.5 million.
Twenty Years Ago--September 17, 1999: In 1999, Martin Lawrence still have a pretty good movie career going, so it wasn't a big surprise that his action comedy Blue Streak opened at #1. Lawrence played a jewel thief who hides a valuable diamond he just stole in a building under construction right before being arrested. When he's released two years later, he's dismayed to find out the now-completed building is a LAPD station. To retrieve it, he has to pretend to be a cop, which it turns out out he's better at than the actual cops. Critics were lukewarm, but audiences turned out,as the film made $19.2 million its opening weekend and finished with $68.5 million. Like Eli Roth and The House With a Clock in Its Walls 19 years later, For Love of the Game was an anomaly for its directer, Sam Raimi, the rest of whose filmography is heavy on fantasy and horror and Spider-Man and dark thrillers and light on romantic baseball dramas. The film starred Kevin Costner, returning to the diamond for the first time since his back-to-back home runs a decade earlier with Bull Durham and Field of Dreams. This time, he played a pitcher reflecting on his life and career while in the middle of throwing a perfect game. Critics were decisively more negative then they were about his late 80s baseball moves, and audiences weren't in the mood to head back to the ballpark, either. The film opened in second to $13 million (just slightly more than the 7th weekend of The Sixth Sense) and struck out with only $35.2 million. Despite opening on only 16 screens, American Beauty managed to come in 11th for the weekend, with $0.9 million, thanks to rapturous reviews. The darkly comic satire of suburban life and ennui starred Kevin Spacey as a man going through the motions until his spirit is revived by the sight of his teenage daughter's sexy best friend (Mena Suvari, in a storyline that seems far more creepy today now that we know about Spacey's personal proclivities). Annette Bening plays his wife, who is far more concerned with social standing and possessions than about her husband, Thora Birch plays their daughter, Wes Bentley played the mysterious boy next door that Birch starts a relationship with, and future Oscar winners Chris Cooper and Allison Janney play his parents. The film's reputation has fallen considerably since its release, but at the time it was considered profound and moving by most (though even then there were a number of dissenters). Audiences agreed, as American Beauty was one of the biggest hits of 1999, ultimately grossing $130.1 million. It would be nominated for eight Oscars, winning five, including for Alan Ball's original screenplay, Sam Mendes's direction, Kevin Spacey's lead performance, and the film itself.
Twenty-Five Years Ago--September 23, 1994: The second weekend of Timecop won a slow weekend. How slow? Quiz Show expanded to 219 theaters, where it grossed $2.9 million...and it still finished fourth. The only wide release was the first of 1994's two skydiving thrillers, Terminal Velocity. Charlie Sheen played the owner of a skydiving school who gets mixed up with a beautiful Russian spy (Nastassja Kinski), on the run from her former colleagues (including James Gandolfini). Critics howled, and audiences mostly found better things to do. It opened in second with $5.5 million, and hit its own terminal velocity at $16.5 million. Arriving in limited release was the third of 1994's Best Picture nominees whose poster inexplicitly focused on the back of the leading man. The Shawshank Redemption, directed by Frank Darabont, and based on a non-horror novella by Stephen King, starred Tim Robbins as a Maine banker wrongly convicted of murdering his cheating wife. Imprisoned at Shawshank Penitentiary for life, he gradually befriends a number of his fellow prisoners, including Morgan Freeman (whose reputation as the ultimate narrator probably stems from this film), as he changes the prison culture for the better, which has the unintended side effect of empowering the corrupt warden (Bob Gunton). Between its title (in 1994, no one outside of King's fanbase knew what a shawshank was or how it could redeem somebody), its poster (again the back of Tim Robbins, in a shot that only makes sense once you've seen the movie), and a general disdain for prison movies, the film did poorly, ultimately finishing its run with $28.3 million. However, the film's 7 Oscar nominations, including Best Actor for Freeman and the aforementioned Best Picture, and terrific word-of-mouth from those who did see the film, led to Shawshank becoming one of the top video rentals of 1995. A quarter-century later, it has become one of the most beloved films of all time, ensconced as the best movie ever according to IMDB voters, and seems to play somewhere on cable every week (this week: Monday night at 6 on AMC).
Thirty Years Ago--September 22, 1989: Michael Douglas had taken time off after his double triumph of Fatal Attraction and Wall Street in 1987. He returned to theaters in Ridley Scott's Black Rain, playing a tough New York cop who, along with partner Andy Garcia, accompanies a Yakuza member home to Japan. When said member escapes, Douglas goes ahead and starts investigating the Japanese underworld. The thriller, one of two movies 1989 movies called Black Rain (the other is a Japanese drama about the fallout from the nuclear bombs dropped on the country at the end of World War II, a topic that is touched on in Scott's film, though one suspects the studio went with the title because it sounded cool) would prove to be a solid hit for Douglas, even if critics found it slick and empty. It opened at #1 to $9.7 million and would earn $46.8 million. The only other opening of note was the South African apartheid drama A Dry White Season. Donald Sutherland played a school teacher who, after witnessing the truth of the government's oppression of the country's black population, begins to work against it. Marlon Brando, who hadn't made a film since 1980, came out of retirement to play a prominent attorney who agrees to help Sutherland. Brando's small role got him his eighth and final Oscar nomination, and apparently encouraged him to return to acting, as he would average a new movie every two years or so for the next decade. Brando's presence didn't really make the film a hit, but it did OK on the art house circuit, grossing $3.8 million.
Thirty-Five Years Ago--September 21, 1984: Since mid-August, only two films from major studios had opened: the exceedingly minor Oxford Blues and Flashpoint. Hollywood finally came roaring back to life with the release of Carl Reiner's All of Me. The comic fantasy starred Steve Martin as an uptight lawyer whose wealthy, dying client (Lily Tomlin) plans to transfer her soul into a beautiful younger woman (Victoria Tennant, the future Mrs. Steve Martin), but thanks to an error, she ends up in his body, with control over his right side. Hijinks ensure as the two fight over control of his body while trying to get her out of him and into Tennant. Critics praised the movie, and it was a solid hit, opening to $5.8 million and ultimately grossing $36.4 million. Martin would win the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, but would become only the third recipient of the award to not receive a subsequent Oscar nomination. Coming in second was The Evil That Men Do, a thriller starring Charles Bronson as a former CIA hitman who comes out of retirement to take out a torture specialist-for-hire who murdered one of Bronson's friends. Bronson had enough of a fanbase that the movie opened to $4.5 million, but it ran out of steam quickly and ended at $13.1 million. After long-running holdovers Ghostbusters, Purple Rain, and Tightrope, came Until September. The romantic drama, the follow-up to Return of the Jedi by director Richard Marquand, starred Karen Allen as an American who starts an affair with a local (Thierry Lhermitte, who has mostly stuck to French films since), during a trip to Paris. Critics dismissed the film, and so did audiences. It made $2 million in its first weekend and finished its run with $4.2 million. Opening in limited release was Milos Forman's unconventional biopic of Mozart, Amadeus. The highly fictionalized account of his life starred Tom Hulce as the composer and F. Murray Abraham as court composer Salieri, who is horrified that someone as crude and immature as Mozart could have been gifted by God with such talent and vows to destroy him. The film would ultimately be nominated for 11 Oscars, winning 8, including Adapted Screenplay, Director for Forman, Actor for Abraham (over co-star Hulce) and Picture. It was also a huge commercial hit, grossing $51.6 million. One of the films Amadeus beat for Best Picture was Places in the Heart, which also opened in limited release. Sally Field starred as a recent widow who is determined to keep the family farm south of Dallas in 1935 out of the hands of the bank. In addition to the Picture nomination, John Malkovich, who played a blind border and Lindsay Crouse, who played Field's sister would get Supporting nominations, and director Robert Benton would get nominated for Director. The film would win for its original screenplay, and Field would win her second Oscar (and deliver her infamous "You like me" speech). Like Amadeus, Places in the Heart would also be a big commercial hit, earning $34.9 million.
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