Mid-October has been, in recent years, the unofficial end of the fall movie season. The last couple weekends of the month are usually devoted to throwaways and horror films, as studios try to avoid Halloween and clear the deck ahead of the holidays.
Sorry that we've slipped a month behind. Hopefully, we'll get caught up in the next few weeks.
One Year Ago--October 18, 2019:
New Wide Releases:
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil--1/$37 million/$113.9 million/24/40%/43--Disney's quest for world box office domination hit a speed bump with the underperformance of the sequel to its surprise 2014 smash reimagining of Sleeping Beauty, which, save for the documentary Penguins, ended up domestically being the studio's lowest grosser of the year not inherited from the Fox merger. This despite the return of Angelina Jolie to the title role and the additions of Michelle Pfeiffer and Chiwetel Ejiofor to the cast. Still, it outgrossed all of those Fox titles except for Ford v. Ferrari, which made less than $5 million more. In the follow-up, Maleficent has reluctantly granted Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning) permission to marry Prince Phillip (Harris Dickinson), only to discover treachery is planned against fairies, and the nefarious orders goes all the way to the top. Pfeiffer played Harris's mother, Ejiofor played the leader of a rebellious clan of fairies, and Juno Temple, Leslie Manville, and Imelda Staunton return from the first film as Fanning's guardian fairies. Despite the mixed reviews and disappointing box office, the Makeup and Hairstyling were still nominated for an Oscar.
Director: Joachim Ronning
Zombieland: Double Tap--3/$26.8 million/$73.1 million/40/68%/55--The weekend's other big sequel made nearly as much as the original had done ten years earlier, though of course ticket prices had increased during the decade. It was a bit of a miracle that the four principals from the first film all came back, given their career trajectories since the first one. The quartet (Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, and Emma Stone) have taken up residence in the White House, but leave for Memphis after Breslin takes off with a hippie (Avan Jogia). There, they meet a motel owner (Rosario Dawson) and two other zombie hunters (Luke Wilson, Thomas Middleditch) who bear a striking resemblance to Harrelson and Eisenberg. This one wasn't as well-received as the first film, but did better critically than many ten-year-later sequels.
Director: Ruben Fleischer
New Limited Releases:
The Lighthouse--$10.9 million/117/90%/83--This bizarre character study/psychological horror film, Robert Egger's follow-up to The Witch, starred Robert Pattinson as a newly recruited lighthouse keeper on an isolated rock off of New England, and Willem Dafoe as the veteran who he works with and quickly develops an adversarial relationship with. The two, who are barely hanging onto sanity to begin with, really begin to lose it once a storm prevents the ship coming in with their relief, and the rations are found to be gone. Critical response was strong, and audiences made this an art-house hit. The striking black & white Cinematography was Oscar-nominated.
Director: Robert Eggars
Jojo Rabbit--$33.4 million/76/80%/58--Director Taika Waititi followed up his first mega-mainstream film Thor: Ragnarok with a comedy set in Nazi Germany, in which he played Hitler. Not the real Hitler, but the imaginary friend of Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis), an ardent 10-year-old Nazi whose worldview becomes increasingly shattered when he discovers his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is not only a member of the resistance, but is hiding a Jewish teenage girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in the attic. Sam Rockwell and Rebel Wilson played Hitler Youth leaders. The film received mixed reviews, but was a big player at award season, ultimately earning six Oscar nominations, including Picture, Supporting Actress for Johansson, Costumes, Production Design, and Editing, and winning for Original Screenplay.
Director: Taika Waititi
The Cave--$0.1 million/549/97%/83--Documentarian Feras Fayyad, who earned his first Oscar nomination for Last Men in Aleppo, his 2017 documentary about the Syrian Civil War, earned his second for this doc about Amani Ballour, a young female physician who was in charge of an underground hospital treating refugees and victims of the regime. Even though it was not a box office success in the US, the film was highly acclaimed and, as mentioned, earned an Oscar nomination for Documentary.
Director: Feras Fayyad
Five Years Ago--October 15, 2015:
New Wide Releases:
Goosebumps--1/$23.6 million/$80.1 million/38/78%/60--Teenager Dylan Minnette, who appeared on two episodes of R.L Stine's The Haunting Hour, discovers his new neighbor (Jack Black) is not only the renowned kid-friendly horror author, but that the original manuscripts of his books are holding in the actual creatures he wrote about--which he learns when he accidently opens them and unleashes the horrors on his town. It's up to him, Stine, Stine's daughter (Odeya Rush), and Minnette's new friend (Ryan Lee) to save everyone and get the creatures back into the books where they belong. Amy Ryan played Minnette's mother, and the real R.L. Stine has a cameo toward the end of the film. Critics were surprisingly kind to this PG horror-comedy, which mixed in multiple characters from Stine's books into the narrative, and thanks to the season, it became a moderate hit. A sequel, which only Black returned for, came out in 2018.
Director: Rob Letterman
Bridge of Spies--3/$15.4 million/$72.3 million/42/90%/81--In 1960, attorney Tom Hanks received a letter from East Germany, which the CIA interprets as an attempt by the country to facilitate a prisoner exchange between a recently shot down pilot and Hanks's former client (Mark Rylance, in the first of three straight films he'd do for director Steven Spielberg), who had been convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. Traveling to Berlin, he enters into delicate negotiations with the Communist country to not only secure the pilot, but also an American grad student who was also being held by East Germany. Alan Alda played Hanks's boss, Billy Magnussen played Hanks's co-counsel, Jesse Plemons (who was also in the still-playing Black Mass) played another American pilot, and Amy Ryan, in her second movie of the weekend, played Hanks's wife. The film did solid business, though given the reviews and the teaming of Spielberg and Hanks, it probably should have made even more money. It would earn six Oscar nominations, including Picture, Original Screenplay, Score, Production Design, and Sound Mixing, and Rylance would win Supporting Actor.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Crimson Peak--4/$13.1 million/$31.1 million/83/72%/66--In this gothic horror, a rich, young, American woman (Mia Wasikowska) whose father had just been murdered, marries a penniless English baron (Tom Hiddleston) and moves with him to his family's deteriorating estate, where they live with Hiddleston's sister (Jessica Chastain). Wasikowska gradually comes to realize the house is haunted and her husband and sister-in-law are keeping many, many horrifying secrets. Charlie Hunnam played Wasikowska's friend, who harbors suspicions about Hiddleston and Chastain. Despite good reviews and stylish direction by Guillermo del Toro, audiences largely skipped this Halloween offering.
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Woodlawn--9/$4 million/$14.4 million/114/73%/57--Christian directors Andrew and Joe Erwin realized that they had the makings of an evangelical Remember the Titans in their own family, thanks to their dad, who in the early 70s was a seminary student who helped to convert two newly integrated high school football teams to Christianity in Alabama, which helped lead them to great heights both on and off the field. Sean Astin played the elder Erwin, with Nic Bishop and C. Thomas Howell as the high school coaches, Sherri Shepard as the mother of one of the team's star quarterback, and Jon Voight as Alabama coach Bear Bryant. This got surprisingly decent reviews and, while it was no War Room, it did decent business.
Director: Andrew Erwin and Joe Erwin
New Limited Releases:
Room--$14.7 million/111/93%/86--A young mother (Brie Larson) and her 5-year-old son (Jacob Tremblay) are held captive in a small shed, until she concocts a daring plan for their escape. However, it turns out adjusting to the outside world might be too big of a task for the two of them in this highly acclaimed drama. Joan Allen and William H. Macy played Larson's parents. This would be one of the most praised movies of the fall and, despite the modest box office take, would make stars out of Larson and Tremblay. It would earn four Oscar nominations, for Picture, Director for Lenny Abrahamson, and Adapted Screenplay, and Larson would win Best Actress.
Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Truth--$2.5 million/174/63%/66--In the fall of 2004, Dan Rather, the longtime face of CBS News, delivered a report on 60 Minutes, the longtime flagship show of CBS News, detailing that President George W. Bush had frequently been AWOL during his days in the Texas Air National Guard, using documents from the time. Within hours of the report's airing, evidence that the incriminating documents were faked were circulating, and the scandal eventually brought down Rather and the entire team behind the story. Based on a book by segment producer Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett), the movie postulates that the validity of the documents were never disproven, and that the furor over them obscured the larger story that Dubya probably did spend most of his time AWOL. Robert Redford played Rather, Topher Grace, Elisabeth Moss, and Dennis Quaid played the production team, Stacey Keach as the source of the documents, and Dermot Mulroney as one of the investigators into the story. Despite the fine cast, critics were mixed and audiences ignored it.
Director: James Vanderbilt
Beasts of No Nation--$0.1 million/401/91%/79--When Netflix acquired this drama, about a child soldier (Abraham Attah) caught up in a civil war in West Africa and the brutal military commander (Idris Elba) who takes him under his wing, no one realized just how thoroughly the company, which had started out as a mail DVD rental company before becoming a streaming pioneer, would shake up the movie industry. A mere five years later, they have essentially become a major studio themselves, though one that largely limits their movies to their service, and the ones that do get theatrical release do so day and date with their debut on the service. Oh, and since Netflix didn't distribute the film themselves to theaters, its one of the few that we have reliable box office figures on. While this ended up not being an Oscar player (though Elba's performance did get nominated for several precursor awards), many of Netflix's subsequent releases would be.
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Ten Years Ago--October 15, 2010:
New Wide Releases:
Jackass 3D--1/$50.4 million/$117.2 million/23/65%/56--In the wake of Avatar, 3D movies were suddenly very lucrative, and this long-running reality comedy series, in which grown men agree to allow awful things to happen to them for entertainment purposes, saw its box office soar well above its two predecessors. Like the previous entries in the film series (and in the original MTV series the movies were spun off of), the crew, led by Johnny Knoxville, do such things as play tetherball with a beehive filled with bees and launch themselves and the Port-a-Potty they're sitting in into the air. Director Spike Jonze, who co-created the franchise and served as a producer, made a cameo appearance. Despite the film's success, this was the end of the series in that form, other than a straight-to-DVD compilation of stunts that didn't make the final cut of the main movie. However, the franchise would "present" a spin-off movie, Bad Grandpa, in 2013.
Director: Jeff Tremaine
Red--2/$21.8 million/$90.4 million/38/72%/60--Retired and extremely dangerous CIA operative Bruce Willis is targeted for assassination, and fearing they're also going after the government employee he has a crush on (Mary-Louise Parker), he kidnaps her, recruits other former agents (including John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Brian Cox, and Helen Mirren) and uncovers a conspiracy involving the Vice President (Julian McMahon). Karl Urban played an FBI agent tracking down Willis, Richard Dreyfuss played an arms dealer, and Ernest Borgnine, in his final appearance in a major film, played a CIA employee. The all-star cast helped the film be a surprising critical success, and a sleeper fall hit.
Director: Robert Schwentke
New Limited Releases:
N-Secure--$2.6 million/166/NA/NA--This melodrama, which somehow managed to be unfavorably compared to a Tyler Perry movie by the handful of critics that saw it, starred Perry vet Cordell Moore (in what appears to be his only major film role) as a obsessive-compulsive creep whose fiancée (Essence Atkins) cheats on him, so he takes up with Perry vet Denise Boutte. Hijinks ensure, mostly in front of empty auditoriums.
Director: David M. Matthews
Hereafter--$32.7 million/88/47%/56--Clint Eastwood seemed like an odd choice to direct this drama about three people who find themselves able to, or attempting to, communicate with the dead, but here we are. Matt Damon played a medium tired of talking to the dead and Cecile de France played a French journalist who becomes obsessed with the afterlife after surviving the 2004 tsunami. Together, they slowly make their way toward each other, along with a young British boy (newcomers Frankie and George McLaren, who shared the role) who is mourning the death of his twin brother. Jay Mohr played Damon's older brother, Bryce Dallas Howard played a woman who Damon was interested in, and Richard Kind played one of Damon's clients. Despite a poor reception and mediocre box office, the film's Visual Effects were Oscar-nominated.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Conviction--$6.8 million/140/67%/61--In this based-on-a-true story drama, clearly made as Oscar bait, Hilary Swank played a woman who is convinced that her brother (Sam Rockwell) is innocent of the murder he was convicted of, and decides to become an attorney herself to free him, despite the large personal cost. Director Tony Goldwyn (who, since this, has stuck to acting and TV directing) managed to land a very solid cast, including Minnie Driver as Swank's law school friend who helps her on the case, Melissa Leo as a cop whose testimony put Rockwell away, Juliette Lewis as Rockwell's ex, who also testified against him, and Peter Gallagher as the head of the Innocence Project. Reviews weren't bad, but box office was minimal, and the film was largely ignored by year-end awards.
Director: Tony Goldwyn
Fifteen Years Ago--October 21, 2005:
New Wide Releases:
Doom--1/$15.5 million/$28.2 million/96/19%/34--Based on the humongously popular video game, but arriving about a decade after the game's heyday, this horror thriller starred Karl Urban as a Marine who, after a distress call from a research center on Mars, is sent, along with his team, to rescue the survivors and, more importantly, secure the research data. There, Urban discovers his sister (Rosamund Pike) and realizes that the monstrous attacking creatures are mutated humans. Dwayne Johnson (then still being billed as The Rock), played the Marine squad's leader, and future Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher played one of the survivors on the Mars base. Reviews were horrid, and the film fell off a cliff after its opening weekend, becoming one of the few titles to earn more than half of its final gross on its opening weekend.
Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Dreamer: Inspired By a True Story--2/$9.2 million/$32.8 million/83/64%/59--Boasting probably the most superfluous subtitle this side of Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, this girl-and-her-horse drama (which I hear is inspired by a true story) starred Dakota Fanning as the daughter of a trainer (Kurt Russell), who after losing his job after one of his horses is injured in a race, takes the horse for himself, only to realize that the horse might still be able to race. Elisabeth Shue played Russell's wife and Fanning's mother, Kris Kristofferson played Russell's father who teaches Fanning all about horses, David Morse played the horse's original owner, and Luiz Guzman as another trainer. Reviews and box-office were largely mixed.
Director: John Gatins
North Country--5/$6.4 million/$18.3 million/120/69%/68--In this drama (also, like Dreamer, inspired by a true story, though also, like Dreamer, being heavily fictionalized), Charlize Theron played a single mother in northern Minnesota who gets a job at the local iron mine, only to endure intense sexual harassment from her male co-workers. After getting nowhere with the company's management and being sexually assaulted by (then largely unknown) Jeremy Renner, Theron hired an attorney (Woody Harrelson) to take on the mine and its indifference to the treatment of female employees. Richard Jenkins and Sissy Spacek played Theron's parents, Frances McDormand played her friend, Sean Bean (in his second movie of the fall where he didn't die) played McDormand's husband, a young Amber Heard played Theron in a flashback, and Corey Stoll made his film debut as a miner. Reviews weren't great and box office was lousy, but the film still earned an Actress nomination for Theron and a Supporting Actress nomination for McDormand at the Oscars.
Director: Niki Caro
Stay--13/$2.2 million/$3.6 million/177/27%/41--Not even the likes of Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts could convince anyone to pay to see this thriller, which was the weekend's other movie to fail to double its opening weekend box office. McGregor played the new psychiatrist of college student Ryan Gosling, who is threatening to commit suicide. After Gosling disappears, McGregor attempts to track him down before it is too late, only to realize that the world is becoming more and more surreal and bizarre. Watts played McGregor's girlfriend. The film featured a strong supporting cast, including Bob Hoskins, Janeane Garofalo, and BD Wong, but the film was largely dismissed by critics (with a few exceptions). Director Marc Foster, whose last movie had been the Oscar-nominated hit Finding Neverland, would bounce back with his next film, Stranger Than Fiction.
Director: Marc Foster
New Limited Releases:
Shopgirl--$10.3 million/143/60%/62--Steve Martin is the rare author who stars in the adaption of his own book, playing a wealthy man who finds himself in a love triangle involving an employee (Claire Danes) of an upscale department store. Danes finds herself falling for Martin, who showers her with gifts but keeps her at arm's length, while finding herself also intrigued by a roadie for a band (Jason Schwarzman). Brigette Wilson-Sampris played Danes's co-worker, and Frances Conroy played her mother. This got decent reviews, but even with Martin, it only appealed to a limited audience.
Director: Anand Tucker
Twenty Years Ago--October 20, 2000:
#1 Movie:
Meet the Parents--$16 million
New Wide Releases:
Bedazzled--2/$13.1 million/$37.9 million/64/50%/49--In this neutered remake of the 1967 original, nerdy Brendan Frasier makes a deal with the Devil (Elizabeth Hurley) to become a different person to impress the co-worker (Frances O'Connor) that Frasier has a crush on. Of course, this is a deal with the Devil, which means that there's an ironic twist in each scenario that she places him in. Orlando Jones played one of Frasier's co-workers, and director Harold Ramis's old friend Brian Doyle-Murray played a priest.
Director: Harold Ramis
Pay It Forward--4/$9.6 million/$33.5 million/76/39%/40--For a school assignment, a pre-teen (Haley Joel Osment) comes up with an idea to do good deeds for other people, and then tell the recipients to do good deeds for others. As the "pay it forward" movement spreads, Osment decides one of his good deeds is to set up his teacher (Kevin Spacey) with his divorced mother (Helen Hunt, in her second film of the fall). Jay Mohr played a reporter trying to track down the founder of the movement, James Caviezel played a homeless drug addict Osment also helps, Jon Bon Jovi played Hunt's ex-husband, and Angie Dickinson played Hunt's mother. Despite sky-high expectations based on the cast, critics were appalled at how treacly the film turned out to be, and maybe even more appalled by the film's twist toward the end. Audiences also ignored it.
Director: Mimi Leder
The Legend of Drunken Master--5/$3.9 million/$11.6 million/129/83%/74--One of Jackie Chan's first successful leading roles was in the 1978 action comedy Drunken Master. 16 years later, Chan followed up with a sequel, Drunken Master II, which never got an official American release, but did play at film festivals and was seen by U.S. martial arts fans on bootleg videos. With Chan finally finding an appreciative mainstream audience in the U.S. in the late 90s and early aughts, Miramax dusted off the now-six year old film, dubbed it into English, changed the title, made some minor edits, and released it in theaters nationwide. This did in the neighborhood of other Chan Hong Kong movies getting a belated American release, though after this one, Chan's North American wide releases were largely limited to American-made movies.
Director: Chia-Laing Liu
Twenty-Five Years Ago--October 20, 1995:
New Wide Releases:
Get Shorty--1/$12.7 million/$72.1 million/19/88%/82--John Travolta proved that his Pulp Fiction comeback wasn't a fluke with this popular adaption of Elmore Leonard's best-seller (which launched a small run of beloved Leonard adaptions, including 1997's Jackie Brown and 1998's Out of Sight). Travolta played a Miami loan shark whose pursuit of a deadbeat brings him to LA, where he finds himself getting involved in the movie business. Gene Hackman played a hack producer who Travolta befriends, even though Hackman owes Travolta's clients money. Rene Russo played Hackman's girlfriend, a B-movie actress who becomes involved with Travolta, and Danny DeVito played a big star who used to be married to Russo. Also in the cast were Delroy Lindo as a drug dealer Hackman also owes money to, Dennis Farina as Travolta's disagreeable boss from Miami, James Galdolfini as Lindo's bodyguard, a former stuntman, David Paymer as the deadbeat Travolta was originally tracking down, and Bette Midler in a cameo as the owner of an actually good script that Hackman wants to turn into a movie. Critics raved, and the film was a solid success. It was followed ten years later by the much less well-received sequel Be Cool, of which only Travolta and DeVito returned from the first film.
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Now and Then--2/$7.4 million/$27.1 million/63/32%/50--Four childhood friends (Rosie O'Donnell, Demi Moore, Melanie Griffith, and Rita Wilson) gather together to reminisce about the summer 25 years earlier when the girls (Christina Ricci, Gaby Hoffmann, Throa Birch, and Ashleigh Aston Moore, no relation to Demi) were 12 and dealing with upheaval in all of their lives, including divorce, death, and first loves. Lolita Davidovich played Hoffmann's mother, Cloris Leachman her grandmother, Bonnie Hunt the younger Moore's mother, Hank Azaria Davidovich's new boyfriend, Janeane Garofalo a local psychic, Brendan Frasier a Vietnam vet the girls meet, 7-year-old Rumor Willis made her film debut as Hoffmann's sister, and Devon Sawa, who had briefly appeared earlier than year in Casper opposite Ricci, had a larger role as a local boy the girls don't get along with. Even though it wasn't a critical or commercial success at the time, its focus on pre-teen girls has made it a popular slumber party movie choice over the years, giving it a longer shelf life than the several other female ensemble movies from that fall.
Director: Lesli Linka Glatter
Never Talk to Strangers--5/$2.9 million/$6.9 million/136/13%/NA--In this poorly received thriller, Rebecca De Mornay played a phychiatrist who begins a relationship with new guy Antonio Bandares, only to begin receiving bizarre gifts and death threats. Could Banderas be responsible, or maybe De Mornay's creepy neighbor (Dennis Miller)? Neither critics nor audiences decided they cared at all, as the film wasn't even able to beat the third weekend of Banderas's poorly received Assassins this opening weekend.
Director: Peter Hall
New Limited Releases:
Mallrats--$2.1 million/183/56%/41--After breaking out the year before with the hit indie comedy Clerks, director Kevin Smith went relatively mainstream, only to have his follow-up project not only get much worse reviews, but make less money than his first film. This comedy starred Jeremy London and Jason Lee as best friends who were both dumped by their longtime girlfriends (Claire Forlani and Shannon Doherty) and spend the day at the local mall, where Forlani is participating in a dating game show run by her father (Michael Rooker) who has a grudge against London. A still largely unknown Ben Affleck, who had co-starred with London's twin brother, Jason, two years earlier in Dazed and Confused, played Doherty's slimy new boyfriend, his and Lee's future Chasing Amy co-star Joey Lauren Adams played a friend of London and Lee, Stan Lee made what was at the time a rare live action appearance as himself, Clerks star Brian O'Halloran played a contestant on the game show, while Smith and Jason Mewes reprised their roles as Jay and Silent Bob.
Director: Kevin Smith
Les Miserables--$0.7 million/210/80%/NA--This is not a straightforward interpretation of Victor Hugo's classic, much-adapted novel, but rather a story about people whose lives parallel the lives of the novel's characters, albeit a little over a century after the events of the book. Jean-Paul Belmondo played the Valjean stand-in, a business owner who agrees to provide shelter for a Jewish couple's child in the days before World War II, and then becomes a Resistance fighter. The film was well-received, even if it didn't do much business in North America.
Director: Claude Lelouch
Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision--$0.1 million/255/86%/NA--This documentary about the architect who, at the age of 20, submitted what would be the winning design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, proved controversial not because of its subject matter, but because of what it did, specifically win the Oscar for Documentary Feature in early 1995. To be fair, any of the nominees winning that year would have been controversial because the Academy had failed to nominate the year's most acclaimed and highest-grossing documentary, Hoop Dreams. That probably overshadowed this actual film, which was highly regarded.
Director: Freida Lee Mock
Thirty Years Ago--October 19, 1990:
#1 Movie:
Marked for Death--$5.1 million
New Wide Releases:
Quigley Down Under--3/$3.9 million/$21.4 million/59/59%/51--The title for this Australian-set Western suggests that Tom Selleck, who starred as the titular American gunslinger, was hoping for a new franchise (indeed the title suggests that this was already a follow-up to an earlier movie). Alas, mixed critical reaction and mediocre box office ensured we wouldn't see Quigley travel anywhere else. In his one movie, he answered an ad placed by rancher Alan Rickman, who wanted to hire him to eradicate the local Aborigines. Quigley instead goes to war against Rickman and his men, along with fellow American Laura San Giacomo. Ben Mendelsohn had a supporting role as one of Rickman's men.
Director: Simon Wincer
Night of the Living Dead--6/$2.9 million/$5.8 million/116/66%/54--Perhaps the only film in history to be made because of a missing copyright notice, this remake of George A. Romero's 1968 zombie classic (which, due to that missing notice, went immediately into the public domain) starred, among others, Tony Todd and Katie Finneran as survivors trapped in a rural farmhouse during the zombie apocalypse. Romero wrote the screenplay and was the executive producer of this, which was filmed in color and upped the gore, but otherwise, according to critics, was largely a carbon copy of the original. Even with Halloween around the corner, audiences largely gave it a pass.
Director: Tom Savini
New Limited Releases:
White Palace--$17.5 million/68/52%/66--A 20-something widower yuppie (James Spader) and a 40-something blue collar waitress (Susan Sarandon) who lost her son find themselves falling for each other in this romantic drama. Of course, the course of true love does not run smooth, especially given the differences between their ages and backgrounds. Jason Alexander played Spader's best friend, Kathy Bates his boss, and Eileen Brennan Sarandon's sister. Most likely intended to be an Oscar-bait movie, it ended up getting disappointing reviews and was largely a non-factor in year-end awards.
Director: Luis Mandoki
Reversal of Fortune--$15.5 million/79/92%/93--Shortly before Christmas, 1980, unhappily married socialite Sunny von Bulow (Glenn Close) was found to have fallen into a deep coma in a freezing bathroom, causing severe brain damage and putting her in a vegetative state. Her husband, Claus (Jeremy Irons) is suspected, and eventually convicted, of giving Sunny an overdose of insulin in order to cause the coma. For the appeal, Claus hired renowned Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz to handle the case. The movie focuses on the appeal, as Dershowitz has to overcome the evidence and Claus's icy manner to try to show that his client (likely) couldn't have done it. Annabella Sciorra played Dershowitz's girlfriend and legal assistant, Christine Baranski and Julie Haggerty played two of Claus's girlfriends, Fisher Stevens a potential witness, and Felicity Huffman, in her second feature film appearance, played one of the law students assisting on the case. Even though the film was a box office disappointment, it would earn Oscar nominations for Director for Barbet Schroeder and its Adapted Screenplay, and Irons would win Actor.
Director: Barbet Schroeder
Expanding:
Avalon--7/$2.8 million
Thirty-Five Years Ago--October 18, 1985:
#1 Movie:
Commando--$4.2 million
Forty Years Ago--October 17, 1980:
New Wide Releases:
Times Square--NA/NA/50%/NA--After meeting in a mental hospital, two teenage girls--a street kid (Robin Johnson) and a politician's daughter (Trini Alvarado) decide to escape and rebel against Alvarado's father by starting a punk band, which becomes an underground sensation, thanks in part to a radio DJ (Tim Curry), who is against the politician's plan to gentrify Times Square. The drama flopped upon its original release, but has become a minor cult hit in the years since. Due to his dissatisfaction with studio interference, Moyle did not make another movie until 1990's Pump Up the Volume.
Director: Alan Moyle
New Limited Releases:
Kagemusha--$4 million/89/88%/84--Akira Kurosawa, who had stepped away from the samurai genre after 1962's Sanjuro, made a triumphant return in this epic about a petty thief (Tatsuya Nakadai) whose resemblance to a powerful lord (Nakadai) leads him to impersonate the lord after the latter is secretly killed. George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola helped secure financing for the project. The drama would be nominated for two Oscars, for its Art Direction and for Foreign Language Film.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
The Stunt Man--$7.1 million/75/89%/77--In this Hollywood satire, a fugitive (Steve Railsback) stumbles onto the set of a World War I epic, whose director (Peter O'Toole) agrees to hide him from the police and hires him as a stunt man. As the work becomes increasingly dangerous, Railsback realizes that O'Toole will go to any lengths to get the shots he wants. Barbara Hershey played the film-within-a-film's leading lady, who Railsback falls for, and Alex Rocco played a cop. While not a commercial success, the film was critically acclaimed and earned three Oscar nominations, O'Toole for Actor, Richard Rush for his Direction, and Adapted Screenplay. For whatever reason, Rush would not direct another movie until 1994's notorious Color of Night.
Director: Richard Rush
Expanding:
The Elephant Man
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