Well, it had to happen sooner or later and Grandpa was the
one to do it.
Jackass’ shock comedy Bad Grandpa finally knocked Gravity
off its No.1 box office high perch, where it’s been for the past few weeks,
grossing some $32 million this weekend.
Some are already calling this development proof positive of the decline of
civilization. Oh Puhleeze…
I, on the other hand, say the better film won.
But seriously folks…
Ridley Scott’s The Consuelor, a film which was written by novelist Cormac McCarthy
(No Country for Old Men, Blue Meridian)
basically tanked with just $8 million. Not hard to see why. The film
is cold, brutal, extremely violent and unrelentlessly grim, with nasty, unlikable
unsympathetic characters. And yet I liked it.
And, as with anything by McCarthy, it’s loaded with tons of
his own patented pretentious dialogue. Why say anything in 8 words, when you
can say it in a wordy, heavy handed monologue?
As I said to someone, I would HATE to be at a dinner a party sitting next to McCarthy. I would
ask him to pass the biscuits and he would instead give me a verbose 10 minute
speech on the futility of life, before he grabs a knife and cuts off my head.
And 12 Years A
Slave cracked the top ten, coming in at No. 8, with just over $3.4 million to date, on only 123 screens. It had the second highest
average gross per screen at $17,500.
The film with the highest per screen average was Blue is the Warmest Color, the three
hour long, Cannes Palm D’Or award-winning lesbian romance (or as I like call it girl-girl action) by
French/Tunisian filmmaker Abdellatif
Kechiche (Black Venus) which opened on only 4 screens with over $25,000
per screen.