Black Sheep @ The Box Office

Turkey time has come and gone and apparently it was not so difficult for a good chunk of you to roll yourselves off of your couches and make your way to one of the many movies released this past week. Granted, the majority of the money was split almost evenly between two family films but 'tis the season, right?

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (PART ONE) (click title for review) narrowly held on to its crown this weekend, after pulling in stellar numbers all week. The total cume now stands at $220 million in North America, putting it well on track to easily become the most successful film of the franchise. Coming in second place, which could turn into first place for the weekend if the estimates don't hold after the official numbers are released tomorrow, is Disney's 50th animated feature, TANGLED, an update on the "Rapunzel" story. With $69 million in five days, it far surpassed my expectations and, from what I hear, the film ain't half bad either.

On the other hand, three other wide releases played to very tepid audiences this weekend. The most successful of the trio was the Christina Aguilera / Cher musical romp, BURLESQUE (click title for review). Like everything else Aguilera released this year, her film debut was not well embraced, pulling in less than $4K per screen. Performing only slightly better per screen was the romantic drama, LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (click title for review), with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway. The film, which features Gyllenhaal as a Viagra salesman, probably would have benefitted from popping a couple of little blue pills itself if it wanted to make an, uh, bigger impression. And, after spending years playing to the family crowd, The Rock returns to action in FASTER with a very slow start, with the lowest average of any of the four wide releases.

Just below the Top 10 again this week is the Danny Boyle directed true story, 127 HOURS (click title for review), starring James Franco. Adding another 185 screens saw the film's returns improve another 88%, the Top 10 now closer than ever. The big art house success this week though is the Oscar front runner, THE KING'S SPEECH (click title for review), from director, Tom Hooper. This Colin Firth period piece played to a fantastic per screen average of $87.5K on just four screens in all of North America, certainly leaving distributor, Alliance, a little speechless.

NEXT WEEK: As awards season approaches, there is more excitement on the limited release front than the wide front, with only one semi-wide release next week, THE WARRIOR'S WAY (???) on 1500 screens. More importantly though, the oft delayed Jim Carrey / Ewan McGregor gay prison comedy, I LOVE YOU, PHILIP MORRIS, finally sees life on the outside, on 6 screens. And Darren Aronofky's highly anticipated ballet thriller with Natalie Portman, BLACK SWAN (click title for review), hits 19 screens.

Source: Box Office Mojo

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS

Written by Charles Randolph, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz

Directed by Edward Zwick

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway and Oliver Platt

Jamie Randall: You're my little blue pill.

Ordinarily, I would say that any film that starts with The Spin Doctors’ “Two Princes” is destined to be a disaster. LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS takes place is 1996 though so I guess I can be reasonable. The catchy ditty that consumed the airwaves that year is blasting in a high-end stereo store, where Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) is using his charms to make the sales and get the ladies while he’s at it. He hasn’t a care in the world until he meets a girl (Anne Hathaway) who has no choice but to take life seriously. The twosome are charming together and so disaster is averted but sadly, only so far as to achieve disappointment.

Director Edward Zwick (DEFIANCE) often makes socially conscious films and LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS is no different (although arguably much less serious than say, BLOOD DIAMOND, as far as issues go). Jamie is a pharmaceutical representative for Pfizer at just the right time to cash in on the Viagra explosion. This allows Zwick to explore supposedly scandalous themes like the evils of the drug companies and how they’re ruining our immune systems while getting disgustingly rich. Zwick is never really interested in the matter at hand though. He just uses hot topic scenarios as backdrops for the real story - in this case, the reluctant love between Jamie and Hathaway’s Maggie Murdoch. To make matters worse, and of course much more poignant, Maggie has early on-set Parkinson’s. And so the real question is how life can be so terribly unfair as to give these two people a transformative love that will only get harder and harder to hold.

My answer to that is pretty simple. That’s life, folks. For all of Zwick’s fascination with serious subjects, he rarely seems to comprehend the actual impact of these hardships on the people involved. Maggie pushes people away because she doesn’t think its fair for anyone to have to deal with her condition. Meanwhile, Jamie is frustrated that he can’t fix her with a pill like everything else and has to accept that love is hard. While these are real struggles, the tone is kept pretty light while both of them accept that love is a drug all unto itself. Fortunately for LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS, Gyllenhaal and Hathaway get along brilliantly. They are playful and sharp, like lovers should be, and thanks to Zwick’s somewhat voyeuristic gaze, they are hot and naked a whole heck of a lot too. They are certainly the only addictive element to the film though and when the buzz wears off, there is no withdrawal at all.