Blog
The Many Faces of Ebenezer Scrooge: A History of A Christmas Carol on Film
Charles Dickens enjoyed great popularity in his lifetime, and that popularity hasn’t waned to this day. Despite an incredibly prolific assortment of characters and stories, which have been adapted to stage and screen over the years, perhaps the most iconic of them all (and certainly one of the most quotable) has proven to be Ebenezer Scrooge and A Christmas Carol. Though Dickens wrote other storie...[Read More]
My Ten Favorite Christmas Movies
Christmas is almost upon us, and with the holiday comes Christmas movies. We all have ones we like and ones we don’t. So in the spirit of the holiday, I want to share with all of you a list of my favorite Christmas films. Now, these may not be the most traditionally popular choices (though some may be just by chance), rather they’re the movies I think make Christmas a bit better, but you can proba...[Read More]
Weekend Box-Office: Numbers Up from Before, But the Game Isn’t Quite Afoot for Sherlock Holmes
Things are picking up steam at the box office after a two-week decline, but the big end of the year blockbusters still are not performing up to expectations. Sherlock Holmes: A Games of Shadows debuted in first place, but only managed to bring in an estimated $40 million…much better than New Year’s Eve’s debut (which landed in fourth this week with an unimpressive $7.4 million estimate), but appar...[Read More]
Detroit Film Critics Society Announces the Best of 2011 Winners
The Detroit Film Critics Society is pleased to announce the Best of 2011 winners and nominees in ten categories. The society was founded in spring 2007 and consists of a group of twenty-two film critics (our very own Mike Tyrkus is a proud member of the society) who write or broadcast in the Detroit area as well as other major cities within a 150-mile radius of the city including Ann Arbor, Grand ...[Read More]
Interview with Carl Colby, director of The Man Nobody Knew
Award-winning filmmaker Carl Colby’s latest documentary, The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby, is a personal quest to understand who his father really was. I interviewed Carl via telephone on Wednesday, December 7, 2011. He was gracious with his time and spoke openly and candidly about the film and his father. What follows is an edited version of our conversatio...[Read More]
Detroit Film Critics Society Announces the Best of 2011 Nominations
The Detroit Film Critics Society is pleased to announce the Best of 2011 nominees in ten categories. The society was founded in spring 2007 and consists of a group of twenty-two film critics who write or broadcast in the Detroit area as well as other major cities within a 150-mile radius of the city including Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing, and Flint, Michigan. Each critic submitted t...[Read More]
Weekend Box-Office: New Year’s Eve Winner of the Non-Winning Weekend
Small numbers last week, smaller ones this week…that doesn’t bode well for the two new films debuting on this week’s Top 10, which finally managed to dethrone The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 from the top spot. New Year’s Eve opened to an estimated $13.7 million, while the Jonah Hill comedy The Sitter opened to an estimated $10 million. Breaking Dawn – Part 1 slid to third place with an e...[Read More]
Weekend Box-Office: On A Slow Weekend, Breaking Dawn Still Drawing Crowds
The numbers might be miniscule this week, but with no new releases to speak of (barring the NC-17 rated Shame, which didn’t make the Top 10), the top contenders remained about the same. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 remained the top draw for the third week in a row, though it dropped considerably from its $60+ million earnings last week, picking up only an estimated $16.9 million. It h...[Read More]
Weekend Box-Office: Breaking Dawn Thankful for Audiences This Thanksgiving
Last year at this time, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 led the box office pack. This year, another Part 1 does the same…The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 held the top spot for a second week in a row with an estimated $62.3 million. While the film hasn’t wowed critics, with $221 million in domestic gross (over twice its production costs) it is unlikely Summit Entertainment is ...[Read More]
Weekend Box-Office: Breaking Dawn Leaves Competition Drained
Is it surprising to anyone anymore that a Twilight film debuts in the #1 spot? Well, it’s happened once again, as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 not only took the top spot, it savaged the competition, making an estimated $139.5 million, which was almost as much as the gross of the entire Top 10 last week. Happy Feet Two also debuted, but the animated 3D film fell to a very distant (but ...[Read More]
Bela Lugosi’s Not Really Dead: A Vampire Movie Primer
Vampires are so commonplace in entertainment these days that I cannot fathom how anyone could find them mysterious, otherworldly, or especially frightening. In our narcissistic age, people romanticize vampires because the idea of staying young forever trumps any of the existential sadness of such a proposition. Furthermore, the horror aspect of the undead has been entirely co-opted and taken to ex...[Read More]
Weekend Box-Office: Immortals Makes Legendary Debut
In an up weekend, the early estimates put Immortals way ahead. Despite pretty visuals, the film has received harsh critical attention, but that still didn’t stop it from making an estimated $32 million in its debut weekend. In fact, none of the new releases this week, despite their box office performances, were all that critically well-received…Adam Sandler’s Jack and Jill placed second with an es...[Read More]