It may be the New Year, but here at the Flashback, it's still Thanksgiving, meaning a feast of holiday blockbusters and Oscar contenders--and a few turkeys to boot!
One Year Ago--November 22, 2019:
New Wide Releases:
Frozen II--1/$130.3 million/$477.4 million/4/77%/64--Back in 2013, while everyone expected Frozen to be a solid hit, I don't think anyone expected it to become the behemoth it would become. This, and the success of Wreck-It Ralph a year earlier, prompted Walt Disney Feature Animation, who had made all of two sequels in their first 80 years of existence, to make follow-ups to both films. This time, everyone expected Frozen II to be utterly huge, and it delivered. The follow-up finds Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel) being drawn by a mysterious force into the nearby Enchanted Forest (which no one has been able to penetrate for decades) along with sister Anna (Kristen Bell), her boyfriend Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his reindeer Sven, and living snowman Olaf (Josh Gad), where they learn about their family's not-so-heroic past. Also lending their voices were Sterling K. Brown, Evan Rachel Wood, Alfred Molina, Martha Plimpton, Jason Ritter, Jeremy Sisto, and Ciaran Hinds. While reviews were solid, most reviewers considered this a comedown from the first one, but audiences flocked in huge numbers, as it ended its run the highest-grossing non-Pixar film in history. The Original Song "Into the Unknown" would get an Oscar nomination.
Director: Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood--3/$13.3 million/$61.7 million/46/95%/80--In 2018, the documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor?, about beloved children's TV host Fred Rogers, proved to be a surprise mainstream success, grossing $22 million. Therefore, expectations for this film, a fictionalized look at the relationship between Rogers (Tom Hanks) and a cynical reporter (Matthew Rhys) were fairly high. While critics responded positively, audience response was more muted, as it did decent business, but ultimately underperformed. Chris Cooper played Rhys's estranged father and Christine Lahti played his editor. Hanks would be nominated for Supporting Actor at the Oscars.
Director: Marielle Heller
21 Bridges--4/$9.3 million/$28.5 million/84/53%/51--In what would turn out to be his final lead role in a wide-release movie, Chadwick Boseman played a policeman who, to capture a couple of cop killers (Stephan James, Taylor Kitsch), persuades the powers that be to close down all the bridges into and out of Manhattan. During the investigation, Boseman realizes that this goes much deeper than a couple of drug dealers over their heads. J.K. Simmons played Boseman's commanding officer, Sienna Miller played another cop, and Keith David played a deputy chief. Despite this being Boseman's first non-MCU role since before Black Panther, this ran into some serious competition and ended up dramatically underperforming.
Director: Brian Kirk
New Limited Releases:
Dark Waters--$11.1 million/116/90%/73--This drama starred Mark Ruffalo as an attorney who agrees to represent a West Virginia farmer (Bill Camp) who believes giant chemical company DuPont has dumped substances that have poisoned his cows. Ruffalo discovers that the chemical, PFOA, is unregulated by the EPA but is extremely dangerous, causing cancer. He struggles to convince both DuPont to do the right thing and the town to sign onto the lawsuit. Anne Hathaway played his wife, Tim Robbins his boss, Victor Garber played a DuPont attorney, Mare Winningham a townsperson, and Bill Pullman another lawyer. Despite the fact that the film was clearly made to win awards, and despite the solid reviews and well-known cast, this ended up getting ignored by both audiences and awards groups.
Director: Todd Haynes
Five Years Ago--November 20, 2015:
New Wide Releases:
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2--1/$102.7 million/$281.7 million/7/69%/65--The epic YA franchise came to a close with the rebels, including Jennifer Lawrence's Katness, staging a final assault on the Capital, during which no character is safe from harm. Once again, most of the all-star cast returns, including Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Jena Malone, Mahershala Ali, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, in his final released role (he had died nearly two years earlier). Even though the film was a huge success, it was clear that the franchise was beginning to run out of steam, as it had easily the lowest gross of the four Hunger Games movies.
Director: Francis Lawrence
The Night Before--4/$9.9 million/$43.1 million/66/68%/58--'Twas the night before Christmas, and three friends (Seth Rogan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anthony Mackie) who annually spend Christmas Eve together, decide to end the tradition with a night of debauchery in New York, in this raunchy comedy. Michael Shannon played a drug dealer, Lizzie Caplin played Gordon-Levitt's ex-girlfriend, Mindy Kaling her friends, and cameos from Miley Cyrus and James Franco as themselves. Given that Rogen was coming off This is the End and Neighbors, the grosses of this were considered a disappointment.
Director: Jonathan Levine
Secret in Their Eyes--5/$6.5 million/$20.2 million/101/39%/45--This poorly received remake of the 2009 winner for Foreign Language Film from Argentina starred Chiwetel Ejiofor as an FBI agent investigating the murder of the daughter of his best friend (Julia Roberts). When the prime suspect turns out to be a valuable FBI informant who the agency wants to protect, Ejiofor finds himself trying to figure out how to build a case against him. Nicole Kidman played an assistant DA, Dean Norris played Ejifor's partner, and Alfred Molina played the DA. Despite the stellar cast, the poor reviews and competitive release date ensured this would be a disappointment.
Director: Billy Ray.
New Limited Releases:
Carol--$12.7 million/117/94%/94--Todd Haynes directed his first feature film in 8 years with this period drama about a woman (Cate Blanchett) going through a bitter divorce, who meets and begins a relationship with a younger, female aspiring photographer (Rooney Mara), even though in the 1950s, being in a lesbian relationship could be devastating in her custody battle for her daughter. Sarah Paulson played Blanchett's friend, and Kyle Chandler played her ex-husband. A companion piece to his 2002 drama Far From Heaven (another 50s-set melodrama about repressed homosexuality and the upper middle class), it ended up being just as acclaimed, and also picked up a raft of Oscar nominations, but no Best Picture nom. It would be nominated for six, including Actress for Blanchett, Supporting Actress for Mara, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Costumes, and Score.
Director: Todd Haynes
Mustang--$0.9 million/232/97%/83--After committing the crime of swimming with some boys, five orphaned teenage sisters in rural Turkey are confined to their house by their grandmother, who prepares to start marrying them off, even though the girls have other ideas. Despite being set in Turkey, filmed in Turkey, starring Turkish actresses, and being in the Turkish language, this earned its Foreign Language Oscar nomination for France.
Director: Deniz Gamze Erguven
Expanding:
Spotlight--8/$3.5 million
Ten Years Ago--November 19, 2010:
New Wide Releases:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1--1/$125 million/$296 million/5/77%/65--The trend of splitting the final book of a YA franchise into two separate movies began with the final two installments of the decade-spanning Harry Potter series. With Voldermort (Ralph Finnes) now firmly in control of Britain's wizarding community, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson) go on the run, both to stay one step ahead of You-Know-Who's clutches and to track down and destroy his horcruxes, in order to be able to defeat him once and for all. As usual, the cast is a virtual who's who of British thespians, with this one including Bill Nighy, Richard Griffiths, Julie Walters, Fiona Shaw, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Jason Issacs, Timothy Spall, Michael Gambon, Robbie Coltraine, Brendon Gleeson, Domhnall Gleeson (Brendon's real-life son, though they're not playing related characters in this), David Thewlis, John Hurt, Frances de la Tour, Rhys Ifans, Imelda Staunton, and Miranda Richardson. The film got decent reviews, but at this point, the film could have consisted entirely of Daniel Radcliffe reading the phone book for 2 1/2 hours, and it would have opened north of $100 million. It would be Oscar nominated for Visual Effects and Art Direction. The final film of the series (at least until the Fantastic Beasts movies) would open the following July.
Director: David Yates
The Next Three Days--5/$6.5 million/$21.2 million/113/51%52--After his wife (Elizabeth Banks) is convicted of murdering her boss, an ordinary guy (Russell Crowe) begins to try to figure out how to break her out of prison and flee the country, in this thriller from Crash director Paul Haggis. Brian Dennehy played Crowe's father, Olivia Wilde played a friend, and Liam Neeson cameoed as an expert in prison breaks. Thanks to the mixed reviews and Crowe's fading star power, it underperformed, even when taking into account the 800-pound wizard it opened against.
Director: Paul Haggis
Expanding:
Fair Game--10/$1.5 million
Fifteen Years Ago--November 25, 2005:
#1 Movie:
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire--$54.7 million
New Wide Releases:
Yours, Mine, & Ours--3/$17.5 million/$53.4 million/50/6%/38--This remake of the 1968 comedy starring the odd couple paring of Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda had who are universally considered their 21st century equivalents in Rene Russo and Dennis Quaid. Former high school sweethearts who have both been widowed, they reconnect even though he's a rigid Coast Guard admiral and she's a free-spirited artist. Oh, and he has 8 kids and she has 10. Despite this, they get married, but discover that their two broods don't exactly mesh well together. Among the kids, the most famous names are Danielle Panabaker and, appropriate for a movie produced by Nickelodeon, then-current Nick star Drake Bell and then-future Nick star Miranda Cosgrove. Adults co-starring included Rip Torn, Linda Hunt, Jerry O'Connell, and David Koechner. Despite the terrible reviews and glut of family films already out, this proved to be a minor hit.
Director: Raja Gosnell
Rent--5/$10 million/$29.1 million/94/46%/53--Spike Lee was originally supposed to direct this adaption of the Broadway smash hit musical about a diverse group of 20-something friends dealing with love, sickness, poverty, and hope in pre-gentrified New York. Somehow, though, the film ended up being directed by Chris Columbus, who also recruited most of the original Broadway cast, even though, almost 10 years after the show's off-Broadway premiere, the cast was now a decade too old for the roles. Joining original cast veterans Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Jesse L. Martin, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Idina Menzel, and Taye Diggs were Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thoms. The first of the holiday season's two flop musicals starring the original Broadway leads, it stands, along with The Producers, as textbook examples as how to not adapt a musical.
Director: Chris Columbus
Just Friends--6/$9.3 million/$32.6 million/85/42%/47--In high school, overweight Ryan Reynolds was in love with his best friend (Amy Smart), but she didn't return his affections. Ten years later, having lost the weight and now looking like Ryan Reynolds, he returns to his home town with his client, a vapid pop star (Anna Faris) in tow, and finds himself falling for Smart all over again. Julie Hagerty played his mother, Stephen Root played his boss, and Chris Klein a rival for Smart's affections. Despite being poorly received when it came out, in recent years, it has emerged as a cult classic and a holiday season favorite.
Director: Roger Kumble
In the Mix--9/$4.5 million/$10.2 million/144/13%/31--The first--and to date, only--starring vehicle for musician Usher, he played a club DJ-turned-mob bodyguard in this romcom/Mafia thriller. Assigned to protect the daughter (Emmanuelle Chriqui) of his boss (Chazz Palminteri), the two find themselves becoming closer, just as a war is breaking out between Palminteri and a rival gang. Robert Davi played another mobster, and Kevin Hart, in an early role, played a friend of Usher's. The genre mixing didn't go over too well, and this got lost in the Thanksgiving crush of new releases.
Director: Ron Underwood
The Ice Harvest--10/$3.7 million/$9 million/148/47%/62--John Cusack is a mob lawyer who has stolen $2 million from his boss and is trying to escape town on Christmas Eve, only to discover a winter storm has made the roads impassable. That's a problem because his partner in crime (Billy Bob Thornton) can't be trusted, and his boss (Randy Quaid) is in town looking for him. Connie Nelson played a strip club manager who Cusack likes, and Oliver Platt played the very drunk husband of Cusack's ex-wife. This was a change of pace for director Harold Ramis, who had dealt with black comedy in many of his previous films, but never as pitch black as in this one. Despite the talented cast, the film got mixed reviews and was a complete flop.
Director: Harold Ramis
New Limited Releases:
The Polar Express--$10.9 million/142/56%/61--A year after its successful run in theaters, Robert Zemeckis's motion-captured animated film returned for a holiday season run exclusively in IMAX theaters. The success of its 2005 run led to return engagements in IMAX becoming an annual tradition, though no subsequent re-release would make anywhere near the money that this one did. The 15 years worth of Christmas season runs have added an extra $25 million to the film's domestic grosses.
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Syriana--$50.8 million/56/73%/76--Stephen Gaghan, who won an Oscar for his script for Traffic, wrote and directed this even more ambitious take on the global oil industry, amid the merger of two giant American oil conglomerates. Matt Damon played an oil industry analyst who becomes the advisor to the crown prince of a Middle Eastern country with vast petroleum reserves, George Clooney played a CIA agent who runs afoul of both the agency and the crown prince, Jeffrey Wright played a Washington-based lawyer hired to smooth over the merger with the Department of Justice, Christopher Plummer played Wright's boss, Amanda Peet played Damon's wife, Chris Cooper as the CEO of one of the merging firms, Tim Blake Nelson as an oilman who has ties to one of the companies, William Hurt as a colleague of Clooney's, Tom McCarthy as Clooney's superior, and Viola Davis as a CIA employee. While reviews weren't as strong as the reviews for Traffic were, it still became a surprise hit, and Clooney (who was also nominated that year for Director for Good Night, and Good Luck) won the Oscar for Supporting Actor, while the Original Screenplay was also nominated.
Director: Stephen Gaghan
The Libertine--$4.8 million/166/33%/44--Johnny Depp starred in this fictionalized biopic of 17th century British earl John Wilmot, whose scandalous lifestyle eventually led to his early death. Wilmot, fond of women and drink, was constantly in and out of trouble with King Charles II (John Malkovich), while becoming famous for his poetry, and romancing an actress (Samantha Morton), even though he was already married to Rosamund Pike. The film debuted at the 2004 Toronto Film Festival, and was released in Britain before the end of that year, but sat on the shelf for a year before an Oscar-qualifying American release, which resulted in zero Oscar nominations. It then sat on the shelf again for three months, before finally going semi-wide in March, where it flopped.
Director: Laurence Dunmore
Twenty Years Ago--November 24, 2000:
#1 Movie:
How the Grinch Stole Christmas--$52.1 million
New Wide Releases:
Unbreakable--2/$30.3 million/$95 million/23/70%/62--In this much-anticipated reunion of The Sixth Sense star Bruce Willis and director M. Night Shyamalan, Willis played a security guard who is not only the only survivor of a devastating train accident, but emerges completely physically unscathed. This attracts the attention of Samuel L. Jackson, the owner of a comic book store who has a genetic condition that results in his bones being extremely fragile. Jackson's theory is that Willis is a real-life superhero, which he dismisses at first, before slowly beginning to realize that Jackson might be right. Robin Wright played Willis's estranged wife. Given the sky-high expectations, both audience and critical reaction to the film was quite muted when it originally opened, but has now been largely re-evaluated and is considered possibly Shyamalan's finest film. In 2016, Willis would make a cameo appearance in Split, and both this and that film would be followed by Glass in 2018, which tied the two films' narratives together.
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
102 Dalmatians--3/$19.9 million/$67 million/38/31%/35--Glenn Close returned as Cruella de Vil in this live-action sequel to 1996's live-action remake of 101 Dalmatians. After her prison term, she tries to reform, but eventually the desire for a dalmatian fur coat proves too strong to resist, and she teams up with Gerard Depardieu to steal the necessary puppies. Ioan Gruffudd played the owner of a animal shelter that sets out to stop her, Jim Carter played a policeman, and Eric Idle voiced a parrot. The film received mostly negative reviews, but did moderate business, though its grosses paled compared to those of The Grinch. It also became one of the year's more surprising Oscar nominees, as the Costumes got a nod.
Director: Kevin Lima
New Limited Releases:
Quills--$7.1 million/140/75%/70--In this heavily fictionalized biopic of the last days of the Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush), he is being held in a mental institution under the guidance of Catholic priest Joaquin Phoenix. When his latest book, smuggled out of the institution by laundress Kate Winslet, causes a scandal, Napoleon orders harsh doctor Michael Caine to either stop his writing or have the institution shut down. A battle of wills between Rush and Caine results, with Phoenix and Winslet caught in the middle. Billie Whitelaw played Winslet's mother, and Stephen Moyer played an architect working for Caine. The film was well-received, if controversial, but despite the strong cast it didn't break out of the art house circuit. It would earn three Oscar nominations: Actor for Rush, Costumes, and Art Direction.
Director: Philip Kaufman
Twenty-Five Years Ago--November 24, 1995:
New Wide Releases:
Toy Story--1/$29.1 million/$191.8 million/1/100%/95--The feature film debut of Pixar and of computer animation came wrapped in an engaging story about toy cowboy Woody (Tom Hanks) whose position as the top toy in the bedroom of elementary school-aged child Andy is threatened when the kid gets a Buzz Lightyear action figure (Tim Allen), who quickly reveals he thinks he's the real Buzz Lightyear and not simply a toy, a child's plaything. After the two of them get lost, they have to rely on each other to get back home before Andy's family moves. Leaving nothing to chance, Disney hired a stellar supporting vocal cast, including Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, Annie Potts, R. Lee Ermey, Laurie Metcalf, and John Ratzenberger, who would become the good luck charm of Pixar, voicing a character in every subsequent movie of theirs to date. Toy Story was not only an enormous commercial and critical hit, but it would be a game changer in the world of animation. Within a decade, computer animation would have almost completely supplanted traditional 2D hand-drawn animation, at least in terms of feature films. It would earn three Oscar nominations, for Score, Song for Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me", and for its Original Screenplay, making it the first animated film to be nominated for its writing. The film itself would be followed by three sequels.
Director: John Lasseter
Money Train--4/$10.6 million/$35.4 million/50/22%/NA--Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, who had teamed up previously in the largely forgotten Goldie Hawn vehicle Wildcats in 1986 and much more successfully as the leads in 1992's White Men Can't Jump, made their third and final film together (aside from Snipes's cameo in the Harrelson-starring Play It to the Bone in 1999), with this forgettable thriller about two NYC transit cops who decide to rob the titular train, which contains the collections from the New York subway system, partly to pay off Harrelson's gambling debts and partly in revenge against the greedy head of the subway (Robert Blake) who considers the train more important than human life. Jennifer Lopez had one of her first leading roles as a fellow transit cop that both Snipes and Harrelson are interested in, Chris Cooper played a serial killer stalking the subway, and future TV stars Aida Turturro, Vincent Pastore, Enrico Colantoni, and Dean Norris had minor roles. Critics slammed the film, and it ended up making less than half of what White Men Can't Jump had done.
Director: Joseph Ruben
Casino--5/$10 million/$42.5 million/40/80%/73--Robert De Niro and director Martin Scorsese worked together for the 8th and, until The Irishman in 2019, final time (not counting a extended commercial for, ironically enough, a couple of Asian casinos) in this movie, based on a true story (with all the names changed) about a mob-connected handicapper who gets the opportunity to run one of their Vegas casinos. He revolutionizes the industry, but eventually, everything comes crashing down, both because of his gangster friend (Joe Pesci) who didn't realize when enough was enough, and his marriage to Sharon Stone, a hustler who would rather be strung out on drugs and alcohol than be a wife and mother. As usual, Scorsese had a top-notch cast including James Woods as Stone's former pimp who still has a hold on her, Don Rickles (in his second film of the weekend) as De Niro's casino manager and right-hand man, Alan King as a mob lawyer, Kevin Pollack as the casino's respectable figurehead owner, Dick Smothers as a corrupt senator, and Frankie Avalon as himself. While mostly giving it positive reviews, critics weren't that impressed by it, considering it not much better than Goodfellas Go West. Still, in more recent years, the film's reputation has improved. Stone would get the movie's only Oscar nomination, for Actress.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Nick of Time--9/$2.8 million/$8.2 million/125/32%/NA--In this poorly received thriller, Johnny Depp played an ordinary guy who is told by a couple of mysterious people (Christopher Walkin and Roma Maffia) that he must kill the governor of California (Marsha Mason) at a campaign event, or his young daughter will be murdered. Depp tries to stop the plot, trying to alert a campaign worker (Gloria Reuben) and a shoe shiner (Charles S. Dutton) about what's going on. Peter Strauss played the governor's husband. The gimmick of this film is that it took place in real time, with the 90 minute running time corresponding with the 90 minutes in which the film took place. Audiences didn't care.
Director: John Badham
Thirty Years Ago--November 23, 1990:
#1 Movie:
Home Alone--$21 million
New Wide Releases:
Three Men and a Little Lady--2/$13.8 million/$71.6 million/15/38%/51--In this less-successful sequel to Three Men and a Baby, 1987's highest-grossing movie, the three men (Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, Ted Danson) are still living together with the baby-now-little lady (Robin Weisman, in her only major feature film), and her mother (Nancy Travis), except that Travis wants to get married and has picked snooty Englishman Christopher Cazenove as her husband, even though she and Selleck are secretly in love with each other. Hijinks ensure. Finoa Shaw played the head of a British girls boarding school. The film did all right, but made nearly $100 million less than its predecessor.
Director: Emile Ardolino
Predator 2--$8.8 million/$30.7 million/38/31%/46--At least Three Men and a Little Lady brought back the original cast. In the weekend's other disappointing sequel to a film from 1987, Arnold Schwarzenegger is nowhere to be found, replaced by Danny Glover, as a L.A. cop who discovers that the Predator has decided to start taking out both rival gangs and the LAPD. Gary Busey played a federal agent, and Ruben Blades, Maria Conchita Alonso, Robert Davi, and Bill Paxton play various LAPD officers. Without Schwarzenegger, the film would make roughly half of what the original made. The franchise was put on ice after this, but would be thawed out in the aughts for a pair of crossovers with the Alien franchise, followed by two stand-alone sequels to the original film.
Director: Stephen Hopkins
New Limited Releases:
Mr. & Mrs. Bridge--$7.7 million/109/80%/73--The team of Merchant Ivory, who had struck out in 1989 by attempting a contemporary-set film with the flop Slaves of New York, returned successfully to their wheelhouse of period films with this drama starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward as the titular couple, him a straight-laced, emotionally repressed lawyer, her a somewhat ditzy housewife, as they deal with the changing times of the 1930s and 1940s, and the effects those times have on their children (Kyra Sedgwick, Margaret Welsh, Robert Sean Leonard). Despite solid reviews and the presence of Newman, the film didn't break out of art houses, but did earn Woodward a Best Actress nomination at the Oscars.
Director: James Ivory
Expanding:
Dances With Wolves--3/$9.5 million
Thirty-Five Years Ago--November 22, 1985:
New Wide Releases:
King Solomon's Mines--1/$5 million/$15.1 million/55/8%/29--At least some of the DNA in Steven Spielberg's classic Raiders of the Lost Ark came from the 1885 adventure novel King Solomon's Mines and its various adaptions. For the centennial of book's original publication, it came full circle with a new adaption that was clearly patterned much more after the 1981 film more than the previous book adaptions. Richard Chamberlain, making one of his periodic attempts to become a movie star instead of a TV star, played adventurer Allan Quatermain, who is hired by Sharon Stone (in her first leading role) to find her missing father, who had been captured by Herbert Lom and Raiders vet John Rhys-Davies, who are seeking the fabled mines and the vast treasures within. Critics largely panned the film, and like the previous weekend's champ, Once Bitten, didn't last long against the holiday movie lineup. The producers were so confident that this would be a success that they filmed its sequel, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, in which Chamberlain and Stone returned, immediately after filming this. That opened in January of 1987 to little business.
Director: J. Lee Thompson
One Magic Christmas--2/$2.7 million/$13.7 million/63/47%/NA--Disney's awful 1985 continued with this fantasy, which, despite its cheery title and G rating, proved to be surprisingly dark (a common refrain for the films the studio churned out that year). Mary Steenburgen does not have any Christmas spirit, not too surprising since her husband (Gary Basaraba) is unemployed and the family is about to be evicted. So, Santa sends a guardian angel (Harry Dean Stanton) to show her just how magical Christmas can be. The Ontario-shot film marked the film debuts of both Elias Koteas and six-year-old Sarah Polley (who, despite both eventually being favorites of director Atom Egoyan, would work together just one other time, in his decidedly not-Disneylike 1994 drama Exotica). Its grosses weren't too bad, but it and the next week's Santa Claus: The Movie would more or less cannibalize each other's grosses.
Director: Phillip Borsos
Starchaser: The Legend of Orin--6/$1.6 million/$3.4 million/127/NA/NA--This animated film which, rare for animation in 1985, had a PG rating, is notable primarily for being one of the first animated 3D films and for having some early computer animation, a full ten years before Toy Story. The film itself is an unabashed ripoff of Star Wars, in which a callow-but-brave youth, a seemingly heartless smuggler, a space princess, and a robot face off against a masked evil.
Director: Steven Hahn
Bad Medicine--8/$1.3 million/$2.7 million/133/NA/NA--Steve Guttenberg gets rejected from every American medical school he applied to, so he enrolls in one in Central America, run by dictatorial dean Alan Arkin. The rather immature Guttenberg grows up as he learns to care (in both senses of the word) for the local villagers, even though he's not supposed to be offering medical treatment. Not even Guttenberg, coming off the first two Police Academies and Cocoon, could drum up much interest in this comedy, which co-starred Julie Hagerty, Curtis Armstrong, and Julie Kavner as fellow med students, as well as Gilbert Gottfried.
Director: Harvey Miller
New Limited Releases:
White Nights--$42.2 million/17/46%/46--When his plane crash-lands in Siberia, Russian ballet dancer and defector Mikhail Baryshnikov (who, of course, is really a Russian ballet dancer and defector), is captured by the KGB and sent to Leningrad, home of American defector and tap dancer Gregory Hines. Hines agrees to try to convince Baryshnikov to stay willingly, though he secretly is wanting to defect back to the United States himself. Helen Mirren played Baryshnikov's former girlfriend, who was left behind when he left, Isabella Rossellini, in her English-language debut, played Hines's pregnant wife, Geraldine Page played Baryshnikov's agent, and John Glover an American diplomat. Critics praised the dance sequences between Baryshnikov and Hines, but were less impressed with the rest of the film, though it would prove to be a solid hit with audiences. The film would get two Song nominations at the Oscars, with Lionel Richie's "Say You, Say Me" winning over "Separate Lives", sung by Phil Collins. After meeting on the set of the film, Mirren and director Taylor Hackford would marry in 1997.
Director: Taylor Hackford
Forty Years Ago--November 21, 1980:
New Wide Releases:
Song of the South--$19.8 million/35/50%/54--Disney was not yet embarrassed by its 1946 feature, intended to the studio's answer to Gone With the Wind, even though the film's unenlightened stance on race relations in the post-Civil War South was already quite controversial. But at least this holiday season, those concerns were largely ignored by audiences in favor of nostalgia for the film's animated sequences and the still-impressive merging of actor James Baskett with the animated background and interaction with animated characters, not to mention "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", which, even as the film itself is stuffed down the memory hole, remains one of Disney's signature tunes to this day. It would win an Oscar, as would Baskett, albeit an honorary one (Baskett, it should be noted, was not nominated for a competitive Supporting Actor award--the category that year was filled by five white actors--and I don't know if he was awarded the honorary award after he didn't get nominated, or was awarded it to ensure he wouldn't be nominated, which would have bumped out one of the aforementioned white actors). The film would get one more re-release in 1986, before disappearing--most likely permanently--into the Disney vault.
Director: Harve Foster and Wilfred Jackson
New Limited Releases:
Alligator--NA/NA/80%/62--One of the better received Jaws ripoffs, it helped that it had a script by John Sayles (who had also written Piranha, another Jaws ripoff). A giant, man-eating alligator is loose in the Chicago sewers, but no one is willing to believe cop Robert Forster, at least until the gator's attacks become too obvious to ignore. Michael Gazzo played the chief of police, and Dean Jagger was the evil industrialist whose waste byproducts was responsible for the gator's growth and viciousness.
Director: Lewis Teague
Expanding:
The Private Eyes
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