Once again, another reminder of the days when we used to leave our houses to do things other than search for toilet paper.
While February releases are usually so-so, they are, overall, better than the dire output of January, and the occasional very good--and sometimes even great--film is not uncommon.
One Year Ago--February 1, 2019:
#1 Movie:
Glass--$9.6 million
New Wide Releases:
Miss Bala--3/$6.9 million/$15 million/110/22%/41--Hollywood makes so few movies aimed at the Hispanic market that it seems churlish to criticize them for making this one. However, if you are going to make a film for Hispanics, why make it an English-language remake of a popular, widely available, Spanish-language film from just a few years ago? Gina Rodriguez does a 180 from her Jane the Virgin role by playing a woman who rather improbably finds herself caught up in a battle between a drug cartel, the Tijuana police, and the DEA. People who have seen both films report that the Mexican original is much better.
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
They Shall Not Grow Old--10/$2.4 million/$18 million/104/100%/91--2018 was one of the best box office years for documentaries ever, with Won't You Be My Neighbor, RBG, Free Solo, and Three Identical Strangers all becoming legitimate box office hits. Rounding out that list was They Shall Not Grow Old, which had a few Fathom screenings in late 2018 and early 2019, before finally getting a proper theatrical release. Peter Jackson and his team took black and white footage from World War I and painstakingly colorized it and synchronized in sound, while adjusting the frame rate to the 24 frames per second that we are used to. The results stunned both audiences and critics, who praised how the process made the 100-year-old footage feel timely and relevant.
Director: Peter Jackson
February 8, 2019:
New Wide Releases:
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part--1/$34.1 million/$105.8 million/29/85%/65--After The Lego Movie became one of the most unexpectedly beloved smashes of the teens, the inevitable sequel had sky-high expectations. While critics and audiences liked The Second Part just fine, pretty much everyone agreed it was well below the level of its predecessor. Set several years after the events of the first film, perpetually happy Emmet (Chris Pratt) has to save his friends from a suspiciously friendly alien (Tiffany Haddish). Elizabeth Banks and Will Arnett also return from the first film. Unfortunately, the disappointing grosses from this will probably ensure that The Lego Movie 3 remains unconstructed.
Director: Mike Mitchell
What Men Want--2/$18.2 million/$54.6 million/53/42%/49--Part of a small trend of gender-flipped remakes, What Men Want is a redo of the 2000 romcom What Women Want, where chauvinist pig Mel Gibson played a chauvinist pig who discovered he could read women's minds. A huge hit at the time, it has not aged well. This version casts Taraji P. Henson in the Gibson role, who in this version is an ambitious sports agent who keeps bumping up against the glass ceiling. After a series of wacky hijinks, she discovers she has gained the ability to read the thoughts of men, and uses her newfound abilities to get ahead at work. Of course, there are more hijinks. This one was not anywhere near as well received as the original was at the time.
Director: Adam Shankman
Cold Pursuit--3/$11 million/$32.1 million/77/69%/57--The latest entry in the ongoing series of films staring Liam Neeson as various men with particular set of skills, this one has him playing a snow plow operator who takes bloody revenge against the members of a drug cartel that murdered his son. Laura Dern plays his wife, and Emmy Rossom plays a local cop. Director Hans Petter Moland, making his American debut, remade his own Norwegian film.
Director: Hans Petter Moland
The Prodigy--6/$5.9 million/$14.9 million/111/42%/45--Yet another horror movie about an evil kid, this one stars Taylor Shilling, who becomes convinced that her son is possessed by a serial killer who is using him to complete his evil deeds. This is about what you would expect.
Director: Nicholas McCarthy
New Limited Releases:
The Wandering Earth--$5.9 million/135/71%/57--This sci-fi thriller, a smash hit in its native China, has a plot that would be right at home coming out of a Hollywood studio. As the sun is becoming a red giant some five billion years ahead of schedule, a group of Chinese astronauts and scientists attempt to move Earth out of the solar system and send it to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, over 4 light years away.
Director: Frant Gwo
The Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary--$3.5 million/160/93%/NA--The annual compilations of the fifteen shorts nominated in the three short categories continue to prove to be a popular draw among film buffs. The nominated docs were Black Sheep, about a black teenager who becomes a racist, End Game, about doctors who are end-of-life specialists, Lifeboat, about German volunteers who rescue refugees in the Mediterranean, A Night at the Garden, showing archival footage of a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939, and the winner, Period. End of Sentence., about Indian women who manufacture sanitary pads for women, helping to overcome the stigma of menstruation.
Director: Ed Perkins (Black Sheep), Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman (End Game), Skye Fitzgerald (Lifeboat), Marshall Curry (A Night at the Garden), Rayka Zehtabchi (Period. End of Sentence.)
Five Years Ago--January 30, 2015:
#1 Movie:
American Sniper--$30.7 million
New Wide Releases:
Project Almanac--2/$8.3 million/$22.3 million/98/36%/47--Yet another entry in the then-popular (but fast fading) found footage genre, this sci-fi drama (which had sat on the shelf for a year) was about a group of teens who discover the plans for, and subsequently build, a time machine. While none of them accidentally get their moms as teenagers to fall in love with them, they do create a whole mess of problems by jumping back and forth in time. Burying the film on Super Bowl weekend seemed like an appropriate response.
Director: Dean Israelite
Black or White--4/$6.2 million/$21.6 million/99/39%/45--It's usually a bad sign when a film debuts at the Toronto International Film Festival but doesn't get an initial release until the following January. Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer starred in this melodrama as, respectively, a young girl's maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother, who fight over custody of the girl after the death of Costner's daughter. Did I mention that Costner is a grieving widower with a drinking problem? Despite the well-regarded leads, this script probably should have been made by Lifetime.
Director: Mike Binder
The Loft--10/$2.8 million/$6 million/145/14%/24--Sitting on the shelf even longer than Project Almanac, this thriller was about five men (including Karl Urban and James Marsden) who co-own a ritzy loft that they maintain to carry out extramarital affairs. When the body of a young woman is found inside, the five men become suspicious of each other, figuring one of them must be the murderer. This was based on a Belgian film, which director Erik Van Looy had also helmed.
Director: Erik Van Looy
New Limited Releases:
Game of Thrones: Season 4 Finale--$1.9 million/186/NA/NA--This one week only, IMAX exclusive brought the final two episodes of Season 4, which had originally aired the previous June, to the (very) big screen, as a way to hype the upcoming Season 5 premiere. There were dragons and sword fights and boobs.
Director: Neil Marshall, Alex Graves
The Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live Action--$2.4 million/177/NA/NA--The short films nominated that year were Aya, about a woman who is mistaken for a man's driver and does not correct the error, Boogaloo and Graham, about two young boys who raise two baby chicks, Butter Lamp, about a photographer taking portraits of Tibetan nomads, Parvaneh, about a young Afghan immigrant recently arrived in Switzerland, and the winner, The Phone Call, which stars Sally Hawkins as a suicide hotline volunteer who tries to save the life of a caller who has already taken an overdose of pills (the caller was voiced by Jim Broadbent).
Director: Oded Binnun, Mihel Brezis (Aya), Michael Lennox (Boogaloo and Graham), Wei Hu (Butter Lamp), Talkhon Hamzavi (Parveneh), Mat Kirkby (The Phone Call)
February 6, 2015:
New Wide Releases:
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water--1/$55.4 million/$163 million/18/81%/62--The first movie based on Nickelodeon's beloved, long-running animated series SpongeBob SquarePants had premiered in 2004, at the height of the show's popularity, and had been somewhat of a box office disappointment. This second movie, which came out a bit over ten years later, long after the show had achieved "That's still on?" status, ended up roughly doubling the grosses of the first film. In this one, SpongeBob and the gang have to save the Krabby Patty formula from a pirate (Antonio Bandaras, in the flesh), which requires them to travel to the surface (and into 3D computer animation). The third SpongeBob movie, which will be entirely CGI, was scheduled for May until just a couple of days ago. Now, it's set for late July, which might still be too optimistic.
Director: Paul Tibbitt, Mike Mitchell
Jupiter Ascending--3/$18.4 million/$47.4 million/59/27%/40--In this goofy sci-fi epic from the Wachowskis, which had been delayed from a summer 2014 debut, Mila Kunis plays a housekeeper who discovers she's royalty who technically owns the entire planet Earth. Channing Tatum plays a pointy-eared solider sent to guard her, while Eddie Redmayne goes over the top as the film's primary villain. All this was just way too wacky for critics and audiences.
Director: The Wachowskis (Lana and Lilly, though the latter was still presenting as Andy at this time)
Seventh Son--4/$7.2 million/$17.2 million/108/11%/30--Even more delayed than Jupiter Ascending (it had originally been scheduled to open two years earlier), this goofy fantasy is about the titular seventh son (Ben Barnes) who becomes the apprentice of a witch hunter as they hunt down a powerful witch (Julianne Moore), while the kid falls for the witch's niece (Alica Vikander). How this silly thing ended up with such an overqualified cast is a mystery.
Director: Sergey Bodrov
Ten Years Ago--January 29, 2010:
#1 Movie:
Avatar--$31.3 million
New Wide Releases:
Edge of Darkness--2/$17.2 million/$43.3 million/73/56%/55--Mel Gibson had largely retreated behind the camera after Signs in 2002, but any thought he might have had about resuming his acting career was blown up but good in 2006 when he made drunken, anti-Semitic comments to the cop arresting him for DWI. Deciding that 3 1/2 years was long enough for penance, he made his first movie in nearly 8 years with this actioner, an adaption of a 1985 British miniseries directed by Martin Campbell. The director, who had gone on to direct such notable movies as GoldenEye, The Mask of Zorro, and Casino Royale, helmed this version as well. Gibson plays a cop whose daughter is murdered, and he discovers it has something to do with a shady defense contractor. Audiences weren't quite ready to forgive Gibson, who, with a couple of exceptions, has largely stuck to lower profile films since.
Director: Martin Campbell
When in Rome--3/$12.4 million/$32.7 million/89/17%/25--Not to be confused with the month's other frothy, European-set romcom, Leap Year, this one starred Kristen Bell who, after taking several coins out of a Roman fountain, finds herself pursued by the men who threw them in, which includes Danny DeVito, Jon Heder, Will Arnett, and Bell's real life future husband Dax Shepard. Unfortunately, the other coin belongs to Josh Duhamel, who she was actually in love with. The comedy did a bit better than Leap Year did, though neither was exactly a blockbuster.
Director: Mark Stephen Johnson
New Limited Releases:
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers--$0.5 million/236/96%/75--Despite a Best Documentary nomination, not too many were interested in this film that recounted the life of Ellsberg, an analyst who gave a treasure trove of classified material about the Vietnam War to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media outlets.
Director: Judith Ehrlich, Rick Goldsmith
February 5, 2010:
New Wide Releases:
Dear John--1/$30.5 million/$80 million/43/29%/43--Super Bowl weekend brought a surprising end to Avatar's box office dominance, as this weepy adaption of a Nicolas Sparks novel took the top spot. Channing Tatum, in his box office breakthrough, plays a soldier who falls in love with college student Amanda Seyfried while on leave. After he gets sent overseas, the two of them continue their correspondence, through the ups and downs of their relationship. Like they were with most adaptions of Sparks's novels, critics were underwhelmed, though it because one of the bigger hits of the early part of 2010.
Director: Lasse Hallstrom
From Paris With Love--3/$8.2 million/$24.1 million/108/38%/42--John Travolta went completely bald for this over-the-top action flick, whose plot of Americans with particular sets of skills tracking down Middle Eastern terrorists in the City of Lights was fairly reminiscent of the plot of Taken. Given that they were both directed by Pierre Morel, that shouldn't be too surprising. Travolta plays a CIA agent, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays the junior agent assigned to be his partner.
Director: Pierre Morel
Expanding:
Crazy Heart--8/$3.6 million
Fifteen Years Ago--February 4, 2005:
New Wide Releases:
Boogeyman--1/$19 million/$46.8 million/64/13%/32--Barry Watson led a TV-centric cast as a man haunted by childhood memories of the title character, who still wants to get him. Given that this territory had already been covered as comedy by Monsters Inc. less than four years earlier, it would have seemed to be foolhardy to try to make a serious horror movie about the creatures lurking in closets, but the film ended up becoming a minor hit, and led to low-budget horror films being releases on the next few Super Bowl weekends.
Director: Stephen Kay
The Wedding Date--2/$11.1 million/$31.7 million/88/11%/32--Like Barry Watson, Debra Messing wasn't able to make the leap from TV to movie stardom, with this wan romantic comedy being her only real shot at a leading role. She played a woman who, needing a date for the wedding of her sister (a then-unknown Amy Adams), hires an escort (Dermot Mulroney). Of course, they end up falling in love. The casting of Mulroney was probably intended to get audiences to think there was a connection between this and My Best Friend's Wedding, but it only served to remind everyone how much better the Julia Roberts vehicle had been.
Director: Clare Kilner
February 11, 2005:
New Wide Releases:
Hitch--1/$43.1 million/$179.5 million/11/68%/58--Will Smith was in the middle of a phenomenal hot streak when he starred in this smash romcom, playing a "date doctor" who helps schlubby men learn how to find love, including latest client Kevin James. Meanwhile, he falls for Eve Mendes, but discovers that the tactics that work for his clients are getting him nowhere. Smith was so popular that the film was pretty much sold on his star power. Luckily, the film turned out to be pretty good, too.
Director: Andy Tennant
Pooh's Heffalump Movie--5/$5.8 million/$18.1 million/121/80%/64--After the success of 2000's The Tigger Movie and 2003's Piglet's Big Movie, Disney returned to the Hundred Acre Wood for this gentle, very short (less than 70 minutes) animated film for very young kids. Despite Pooh's name in the title, the real star is young kangaroo Roo, who befriends a young heffalump (aka an elephant), while the rest of the gang is in search of what they think are fearsome monsters. Even though the film charmed critics, it proved to be a box office disappointment. Disney wouldn't make another Pooh movie for theaters until 2011's Winnie the Pooh.
Director: Frank Nissen
New Limited Releases:
Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior--$4.6 million/168/85%/69--A vehicle for Tony Jaa, an expert practitioner of Muay Thai, or Thai boxing, the film has him attempting to recover the decapitated head of his village's Buddha statute from a drug dealer and the crime lord he works for. Mostly, it's an excuse to see Jaa in action, taking out many, many, many henchmen and bad guys. While he didn't become the next Jackie Chan, he has built a pretty nice career.
Director: Prachya Pinkaew
Twenty Years Ago--February 4, 2000:
New Wide Releases:
Scream 3--1/$34.7 million/$89.1 million/27/39%/56--The third and, at the time, final entry in Wes Craven's series of horror comedies reunites survivors Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox Arquette and her then-husband David Arquette on the set of a horror movie based loosely on the events of the first two films whose cast and crew is being stalked by yet another serial killer. This allows the already extremely meta series to take it up even more. New potential victims include Patrick Dempsey, Parker Posey, Scott Foley, and Jenny McCarthy. Unlike the relatively smooth shoots of the first two films, this one was plagued by rewrites and production problems, which caused it to miss its original holiday release date. Despite a big opening, it ended up as the lowest grosser of the franchise--at least until Scream 4 came along in 2011.
Director: Wes Craven
February 11, 2000:
#1 Movie:
Scream 3--$16.3 million
New Wide Releases:
The Beach--2/$15.3 million/$39.8 million/59/20%/43--After Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio was arguably the biggest star in the world. However, instead of taking advantage of his newfound power to cash in with some crowd-pleasers, he instead laid low, with only The Man in the Iron Mask (filmed before Titanic's release) and a cameo in Woody Allen's Celebrity coming to theaters for over two years afterward. When DiCaprio did finally arrive in a brand new film, it turned out to be as far from what would normally be the expected follow-up project by a newly minted star. DiCaprio played an American in Thailand who is given a map to a secluded beach, where he finds a small but thriving community led by Tilda Swinton. Of course, the idyllic surface hid a lot of turbulence just underneath. Critics found it largely pretentious, and after a decent opening weekend sampling, audiences stayed away in droves. It would take nearly three more years, until the one-two punch of Gangs of New York and Catch Me If You Can at the end of 2002, to show that DiCaprio star power wasn't just a one-time fluke.
Director: Danny Boyle
Snow Day--3/$14.3 million/$60 million/44/29%/34--A group of teens celebrate the titular day, which has closed the schools, by getting into hijinks, falling in love, and trying to stop an evil snowplow driver (Chris Elliott). Chevy Chase and Jean Smart play one kid's parents, and there are cameos from Iggy Pop and Pam Grier (the Pop cameo might have been left over from when the film was intended to be a movie spin-off of The Adventures of Pete and Pete). Critics predictably hated the Nickelodeon-produced film, but it ended up having solid legs.
Director: Chris Koch%59
The Tigger Movie--4/$9.4 million/$45.6 million/54/62%/53--While their older siblings were enjoying Snow Day, the pre-school and kindergarten crowd was enjoying the first theatrically released Winnie-the-Pooh movie since 1977. Exploring the dark side of the final line of the song "The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers" (well, as dark as a bright, colorful, G-rated film aimed at young children can be), the movie has Tigger deciding that it is no longer cool to be the only Tigger, and sets out to find the rest of his family. Its success would lead to two follow-up movies, including Pooh's Heffalump Movie, which would come out almost exactly five years later.
Director: Jun Falkenstein
Twenty-Five Years Ago--February 3, 1995:
#1 Movie:
Legends of the Fall--$5.1 million
New Wide Releases:
Boys on the Side--2/$4.8 million/$23.4 million/73/74%/61--In this ensemble film, Whoopi Goldberg and Mary-Louise Parker play opposites who agree to travel together from New York to Los Angeles, only to end up helping Goldberg's friend Drew Barrymore extract herself from an abusive relationship. The three women end up bonding, and eventually settle together in Tucson, where secrets and sickness rear their ugly heads. A young Matthew McConaughey played Barrymore's love interest. It would be the final film of prolific director Herbert Ross.
Director: Herbert Ross
The Jerky Boys--3/$4.4 million/$7.6 million/131/17%/NA--The titular duo had come to fame through a series of tapes recording their prank calls. The tapes eventually went from underground to mainstream, which is how they found themselves starring in a movie released by Disney. The duo, playing variations of themselves, make a prank call to the wrong person and end up in trouble with a mobster, played for some reason by Alan Arkin. Also cashing a paycheck are a pre-Sopranos Vincent Pastore, a post-Police Squad! (in color!) Alan North, Ozzy Osbourne, and William Hickey.
Director: James Melkonian
In the Mouth of Madness--4/$3.4 million/$8.9 million/122/59%/53--This feature-length tribute to the work of H.P. Lovecraft starred Sam Neill as an insurance investigator who is tasked with finding a missing horror novelist whose work tends to drive people insane. The task leads him to discover the horrible truth about the author, his work, and himself. Critics at the time were mixed, but the film has become a cult hit in subsequent years.
Director: John Carpenter
February 10, 1995:
New Wide Releases:
Billy Madison--1/$6.6 million/$25.6 million/65/40%/16--In Adam Sandler's first starring vehicle, he plays the titular Billy, the goofball heir to a hotel fortune who is content to spend his days in a drunken haze. When he learns that his father is planning to give control of the business to sleazy Bradley Whitford, he convinces his dad to let him go through all twelve grades in two week intervals to prove he's ready. Bridgette Wilson played his third grade teacher turned love interest. Critics were appalled, but the film was successful enough to launch Sandler's movie career.
Director: Tamra Davis
The Quick and the Dead--2/$6.5 million/$18.6 million/85/57%/49--Sam Raimi's revisionist western is probably best known for boasting early performances from Leonardo DiCaprio (who had already earned his first Oscar nomination, but was still a couple of years away from superstardom) and Russell Crowe, making his American movie debut. The star of the film is Sharon Stone, playing a mysterious female gunslinger who enters a quick-draw contest in a small western town ruled by a despotic criminal (Gene Hackman). Crowe plays a former henchman who is forced to participate in the contest, and DiCaprio plays a young gunfighter hoping to impress Hackman. Reviews were mixed, and even with all that star power, no one much wanted to see a Sharon Stone western.
Director: Sam Raimi
Thirty Years Ago--February 2, 1990:
#1 Movie:
Driving Miss Daisy--$6 million
New Wide Releases:
Stella--2/$4.3 million/$20.2 million/63/20%/45--After Beaches proved to be a big hit, Bette Midler decided to do another melodrama, choosing to remake the old chestnut Stella Dallas. She, of course, played Stella, a waitress who has a baby with a rich doctor but decides to raise the girl on her own. John Goodman plays her friend-turned-love interest, and Marsha Mason, Eileen Brennan, and a young Ben Stiller co-star. This time around, audiences largely stayed away.
Director: John Erman
Flashback--5/$2.9 million/$6.5 million/113/43%/NA--In this action comedy, Dennis Hopper played a hippie long on the run from the FBI for a (largely harmless) act of political protest. After being captured 20 years later, he is put under the charge of young FBI agent Kiefer Sutherland to be taken to trial. Hijinks ensure. This one has a solid supporting cast, including Carol Kane and Michael McKean, but was pretty much ignored.
Director: Franco Amurri
Heart Condition--9/$2.2 million/$4.1 million/131/0%/NA--Denzel Washington was weeks away from winning an Oscar for Glory. Bob Hoskins's last starring role was in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. So how did this vehicle for the two of them go so wrong? Hoskins played a racist cop who requires a heart transplant, the donor of which was recently deceased attorney Washington, who comes back as a ghost to haunt Hoskins until he solves Washington's murder. Apparently Washington decided comedy wasn't for him, as all but a couple of his subsequent films over the next 30 years were either action or dramas.
Director: James D. Parriott
New Limited Releases:
Men Don't Leave--$6.1 million/115/81%/NA--Jessica Lange starred in this comedy drama as a recent widow who is forced to downsize her comfy suburban life after discovering that her husband was deeply in debt. Then unknowns Chris O'Donnell and Charlie Korsmo played her sons, with Arliss Howard, Joan Cusack, and Kathy Bates in supporting roles. Critics were kind, but the film never broke out when it went wide in late February.
Director: Paul Brickman
Cinema Paradiso--$12 million/89/91%/80--Opening a few weeks before winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, this Italian comedy-drama tells the story of the relationship between a young boy in a small town after World War II and the middle-aged projectionist at the local theater. It struck a chord with American moviegoers, who made it the highest-grossing foreign language film in North America at that time.
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
February 9, 1990:
New Wide Releases:
Hard to Kill--1/$9.2 million/$47.4 million/25/38%/41--The early 90s were a strange time, a time when a former martial arts instructor with almost no discernible acting talent could become one of the biggest movie stars around. Hard to Kill was Steven Seagal's second film, but the first that ended up being a big hit. Seagal plays an LA cop who videotapes a mobster meeting with a powerful politician. Before he can reveal this to anyone, the politician's henchmen kill his wife and put him in a coma. Years later, when he wakes up, he discovers the politician is now a senator and is still eager to see him dead, and he has to rely on a nurse (his then-wife Kelly LeBrock) to protect him until he can get his revenge. Though Seagal's star didn't burn bright for long, for at least the first few years of the 90s, his films would reliably open at #1
Director: Bruce Malmuth
Loose Cannons--5/$2.2 million/$5.6 million/121/0%/NA--A week after distinguished actor Bob Hoskins and then Supporting Actor nominee Denzel Washington teamed up in the poorly received buddy cop comedy Heart Condition, came distinguished actor Gene Hackman and then Supporting Actor nominee Dan Ackroyd teaming up in the poorly received buddy cop comedy Loose Cannons. Hackman plays a DC cop who gets teamed with Ackroyd's brilliant-but-unstable detective to track down a film showing a prominent German politician as a young Nazi officer working with Hitler. Naturally, said politician is willing to do anything to keep that film under wraps. The film was directed by the notorious Bob Clark, whose only good movies had the word "Christmas" somewhere in their title.
Director: Bob Clark
Stanley & Iris--6/$2.1 million/$5.8 million/118/33%/NA--Jane Fonda plays a recent widow who meets cook Robert De Niro and eventually figures out he's illiterate. She teaches him to read as they fall in love. Despite the impressive leads and behind the scenes talent, the film flopped with both critics and audiences. This would be director Martin Ritt's last film, as he would die a few months after it opened, and Fonda would take a fifteen-year break from moviemaking after this.
Director: Martin Ritt
Thirty-Five Years Ago--February 1, 1985:
#1 Movie:
Beverly Hills Cop--$7.1 million
New Wide Releases:
Heavenly Bodies--9/$1.1 million/$1.8 million/144/NA/NA--The title made it seem like a soft-core exploitation movie and the poster made it look like a Flashdance ripoff, but this little-seen Canadian drama was, in reality, essentially a remake of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, with a small aerobics studio having to going head-to-head with their corporate competition, leading to an exercise dance-off.
Director: Lawrence Dare
Expanding:
The Killing Fields--2/$3 million
Tuff Turf--4/$1.9 million
February 8, 1985:
#1 Movie:
Beverly Hills Cop--$6 million
New Wide Releases:
Witness--2/$4.5 million/$68.7 million/8/92%/76--Despite his long and distinguished career (which includes appearing in no less than eight Best Picture nominees), Harrison Ford has only been nominated once for an Oscar. His sole Best Actor nomination came for this smash hit suspense drama, where he played a Philadelphia cop who has to hide out in an Amish community both to protect a young Amish boy (Lukas Haas) who witnessed a murder and himself from the corrupt cops (Danny Glover, Josef Sommer) who know he's on their trail. Kelly McGillis played Haas's widowed mother, who begins to develop feelings for Ford. A young Viggo Mortensen made his film debut playing an Amish neighbor. A year after opening, Witness would receive 8 Oscar nominations. In addition to Ford's, the film was nominated for Best Picture, and Best Director for Peter Weir, and would also be nominated for its cinematography, score, and art direction. It would win two awards, for its screenplay and for editing.
Director: Peter Weir
Mischief--5/$2.6 million/$8.7 million/92/50%/53--This period teen romantic comedy was about a nerdy teenager (Doug McKeon) who, with the help of a cool friend, is able to win over the prettiest girl in town (Kelly Preston). Terry O'Quinn and a young Jami Gertz play supporting roles.
Director: Mel Damksi
Heaven Help Us--7/$2.2 million/$6.1 million/110/33%/64--The weekend's other period comedy about the friendship of teenage boys starred Andrew McCarthy as a recent transfer to a Catholic boys school in Brooklyn, who befriends the class's outcasts (including Kevin Dillon and Patrick Dempsey). Donald Sutherland played the school's headmaster, with John Heard and Wallace Shawn playing priests and Mary Stuart Masterson as McCarthy's love interest.
Director: Michael Dinner
New Limited Releases:
Fantasia--$8.2 million/98/94%/96--Disney didn't have a great 1985, as the studio would release several live-action films that flopped and arguably their biggest-ever animated fiasco. The fact that the studio couldn't drum up much interest in the re-release of their 1940 musical classic was an early sign that this wouldn't be the studio's year. Then again, Fantasia has always appealed much more to adults than to the kids that, at the time, made up the target audience of most of the studio's output.
Director: None credited (James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ford Beebe, Jr., Norman Ferguson, David Hand, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Ben Sharpsteen)
Expanding:
Mrs. Soffel--8/$1.6 million
Forty Years Ago--February 1, 1980:
American Gigolo--$22.7 million/29/68%/57--Finally, after a full month of almost no new movies opening, Hollywood began releasing new titles. The most controversial was this drama starring Richard Gere as a male escort who caters to wealthy LA women. When one of his clients is murdered, he becomes the prime suspect and realizes that the true murderer is trying to frame him. The film is probably best remembered today for a rather lengthy shot of Gere in the altogether, showing the world he has nothing to be embarrassed of.
Director: Paul Schrader
The Fog--$21.4 million/31/74%/55--The huge success of Halloween allowed John Carpenter to attract an impressive cast for his follow-up, which was not well received at the time by critics, though its reputation has improved substantially over the years. On the 100th anniversary of the deliberate sinking of a ship in the harbor of a small California town, a mysterious fog rolls in, carrying the vengeful spirits of the deceased crew. Adrienne Barbeau played a local DJ, Halloween star Jamie Lee Curtis played a visitor, her mother Janet Leigh played a town official, and Hal Holbrook as a priest.
Director: John Carpenter
Guyana: Cult of the Damned--$3.8 million/92/NA/NA--Coming out only a little over a year after the Jonestown massacre, this exploitation film, for some reason, changed most of the real-life participants' names. Stuart Whitman played Rev. Jim "Johnson", who leads the members of his church to the jungles of the South American country of Guyana, to live in an utopia. The reality was less than ideal, though, and when a group of Americans, led by Congressman "Lee O'Brien" (Gene Berry) come to investigate, "Johnson" decides to carry out the ultimate solution. The film managed to attract well-known actors like Joseph Cotton, John Ireland, and Yvonne De Carlo, but audiences decided to wait for the much better received TV movie about the tragedy (which used the real names), that would air in April.
Director: Rene Cardona, Jr.
The Runner Stumbles--NA/NA/55%/NA--This melodrama starred Dick Van Dyke as an aging priest whose friendly relationship with a much younger nun (Kathleen Quinlan) sets off gossip in their small, turn-of-the-century town. The film got mixed reviews and was little seen. It turned out to be the final film of Stanley Kramer.
Director: Stanley Kramer
February 8, 1980:
Hero at Large--$15.9 million/44/NA/NA--John Ritter's second attempt at movie stardom was better than his first, 1979s woeful Americathon, but it wasn't that much better. He played a struggling actor who, while in costume to promote a new superhero movie, foils a robbery, making him a folk hero. Anne Archer played his girlfriend.
Director: Martin Davidson
The Last Married Couple in America--$12.8 million/55/NA/NA--This comedy starred George Segal and Natalie Wood (in her last film released before her death) as a couple who begin to feel like anachronisms as all their friends start divorcing. This was the first of numerous movies released in 1980 about the effects the sexual revolution would have on marriage. None of them are particularly well-remembered today.
Director: Gilbert Cates
Midnight Madness--$2.9 million/96/NA/28--This wacky comedy, about a bunch of college kids (including Michael J. Fox, in his film debut) competing in an all-night scavenger hunt, was beaten to the punch by Scavenger Hunt, which had opened at Christmas. Even though that film was hardly a blockbuster, it did take the wind out of the sails of this one, which is only the second PG-rated film released by Disney.
Director: Michael Nankin, David Wechter
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