Scream of the Bikini screenings this weekend!

ATTENTION L.A. READERS: SCREAM OF THE BIKINI SCREENINGS THIS WEEKEND!!!

Greetings gang. Sorry for the geographically localized post, but I wanted to let viewers in the greater Los Angeles area know of a few screenings of this ridiculous-hilarious-sexy-crazy movie I saw called Scream of the Bikini that will be playing in town this weekend!

A lost classic from South American director Fernando Fernandez, Scream of the Bikini is an action spy thriller thought lost to the ages in the 1960s, recently discovered, then translated into English by Germans where something obviously got lost in the translation. (Sort of like what they did with the Metropolis restoration, but with more bikinis and sexy intrigue). The film focuses on the adventures of supermodels by day/sexy secret agents by night Jasmine Orosco and Paola Apanapel who engage in intrigue, espionage, adventure, excitement, vespas, and pillow fights! Pajama-clad pillow fights! Between two gorgeous girls!

I feel the need to repeat the Hot Lady Pillow Fight Action, as that's pretty much all I ever want out of a movie.

Scream of the Bikini is winner of Best Comedy at the ThrillSpy International Film Festival AND 3 Maverick Movie Awards including Best Director. Scream of the Bikini is a hilarious bastard offspring of Barberella, Modesty Blaise, James Bond, and What's Up Tiger Lily.

The movie will be showing this Friday and Saturday, February 19th and 20th at the Laemmle Sunset 5 at midnight! It's a great flick to see with an audience (and with a little buzz, so feel free to have a cocktail beforehand). So if you're around and want to see the aforementioned hot chicks with pillows and vespas, please check it out and help support some indie cinema!

Here is the link to buy tickets at the Laemmle for Friday and for Saturday

And the Facebook Links: 
For the event: 
For the fan site

And the link to the official movie site

Dolph Sings!

Let's be honest, this is the greatest thing you will see all day. Probably the greatest thing this week, maybe of the month, and definitely in the top ten of the year.

More friends across the interwebz

Rob Grace, another friend of the blog (and featured extra in the Royal Tennembaums) is interviewed in this piece for Backstage. I actually saw the play he speaks of, and it was indeed a unique performance. And I admit, I am one of those who believed the play was written for the space. But then again, I also believed it to be a post-apocalyptic story, of which I am most certainly wrong.

Box Office Report: Valentine's Edition

Dude here again. It seems the reign of Avatar is crumbling slightly, and it's for the best. It's time to move on to new things, and progress forward. We've spent our time on Pandora, and it's a place we can always revisit on one way or another. But more movies need to come out, more unexplored worlds that require our attention. And that's okay.

Unless all these movies are in 3-D, because that's a trend ready to burn out fast. (And furious).

This weekend, a crowded "holiday" weekend slate comes in and cleans house.. Let's go to the numbers, shall we? (All in millions, remember, and these are the studio estimates. The actuals will be available on Monday).

1. Valentine's Day (WB)- $52.4, 3665 screens, week 1, $52.4 total

2. Percy Jackson and The Olympians... (Fox) - $31.1, 3356 screens, week 1, $31.1 total

3. The Wolfman (Uni) - $30.6, 3222 screens, week 1, $30.6 total

4. Avatar (Fox) $22.0, 2685 screens, week 9, $659.6 total

5. Dear John (ScrGm) - $15.3, 2975 screens, week 2, $53.1 total

6. The Tooth Fairy (Fox) - $5.6, 2748 screens, week 4, $41.5 total

7. From Paris With Love (LGF)- $4.7, 2722 screens, week 2, $15.8 total

8. Edge of Darkness (WB)- $4.5, 2615 screens, week 3, $36.0 total

9. Crazy Heart (FoxS)- $4.0, 1005 screens, week 9, $16.5 total

10. When In Rome (BV)- $3.4, 2125 screens, week 3, $26.0 total

So those are the numbers, but what do they mean? Well, it means the shame of Dear John has NOTHING on the shame of Valentine's Day taking in that obscene amount of money. On the one hand, I'm happy for Garry Marshall, who is truly one of the nicest men on Earth. But this also means we'll be treated to more vapid romantic ensemble "comedies" centered around holidays. While this bodes well for my "Arbor Day" script, it does not bode well for humankind.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief wins the race for longest title, but failed to capture some of the Harry Potter magic Fox was hoping for. Despite hiring the latter film's director. Still, a very respectable opening, and better than previous attempts to cash in on Potter. (Which also never seem to work).

The Wolfman finally saw a release! And it seems to have attracted enough interested folk to also have a respectable opening! Not bad, considering everything it took to actually get that movie on a screen. Of course if it continues success, that means more updated (or rebooted) monster flicks. Most likely in 3-D, but only after the fact.

Everything else seems status quo, returning to normal box office patterns and routines. Nothing too shocking, nothing Earth shattering. I feel this is because Avatar broke almost every record out there already, so it's not going to make that much of a difference what comes out. Even though Avatar only dropped 3 percent from last week's take. That movie's unstoppable. Until it gets kicked off the 3-D screens for all the other 3-D fare we're about to be assaulted with.

Below the radar, My Name Is Khan, which could be a documentary about either Ghengis Khan or Ricardo Montalban (Ed. Note: It's Neither) opened up on 120 screens to take in $1.8 million. Impressive. as it's also the highest per screen average of the whole group. Even more impressive? I have no idea what this movie is.

So there, you have my amazing break down. Next week, Scorsese finally gets to show us Shutter Island, which means I don't have to see that damn trailer anymore!

Until next weekend.......


(All Numbers courtesy of BoxOfficeMojo.com)

Weekend Round Up!

There's a couple of things stirring up on the old internets that are worthy of your interest.



"IT'S A TRAP!"

First up, another wacky editorial over at Moviesonline, this time about bad date movies.

There's also a review for From Paris With Love and District B13: Ultimatum up there.



PARKOUR!

Next, friend of the blog Brian Dickett has finally granted an interview! Here's his press release:

This is Brian Dickett. I'm sending you all a quick update on some of the exciting projects I worked on over the past year. I was interviewed by an online magazine called "Eerie Digest," which showcases people who work in the film industry on projects of a supernatural nature. Among the topics I discuss are:

1. "Night of the Demons" - a feature film where I was the Lead Digital Artist.
2. "Monster Mutt" - a fantastic feature film for kids that I was delighted to be the Visual Effects Supervisor on.
3. "Ghost Writer" - a pilot for a TV show for which I was the Second Unit Director, Visual Effects Supervisor, and Editor.
4. PlasterCITY - An amazing Post-Production house in LA where I will be helping with their new visual effects department.

You can read all about it @:
www.eeriedigest.com
Scroll down to find the article, but I'd also encourage you to read the articles with Julian Moss and Joe Taranto. I worked with them on the "Ghost Writer" pilot and they're incredible people.

So check that out at the link provided. It's a fun read of a fascinating man.

(He's somewhere in this picture. At the very least, it's his house. the chap is quite elusive).

And finally, here's, uhhh... CUTE THINGS EXPLODING!!!



This comes courtesy of Andrew Bentler, the man responsible for the opening title sequence for Night 2 of THE STORM! (Also a major force in the Fantastic Mr. Anderson video I'm curiously not posting for once). He's an all around resident genius. They've even got shirts made! Check out his madness.

And why not one more weird thing? Here's a picture of my cup, after I drank most of the root beer that was in it. This picture is not doctored.



Made my day. Hopefully it does the same for you. Pay it forward!

Moviesonline stuff

Things have been starting up again over at the Moviesonline site, and I kicked things off this week with a list of what I consider the best sci-fi flicks of the past decade.

Check it out, why don'tcha?

I'm hoping to do more fun things for them, similar to the Fanastic Mr. Fox video I did some time ago.

What's that? You don't know what Fantastic Mr. Fox thing I speak of? Thankfully YouTube is here to enlighten you.



(There's also a semi-coherent review of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus up, but it's ok because that's a semi-coherent movie).

Box Office Report: The unthinkable has happened!

Dude here again. Well, it finally happened. There are no records left for Avatar to break. It's technically the most successful motion picture in history. It broke the international take last week, and then this previous week, on the day it was nominated for 9 Oscars, it overtook the Titanic record. So there's nothing left to talk about regarding big blue, and it's time to move on.

Oh, and none of you give me that "Adjusted for inflation" bullshit, because that's stupid.

This weekend, a film least likely overtook the champ. And another release didn't overtake the champ. Let's go to the numbers, shall we? (All in millions, remember, and these are the studio estimates. The actuals will be available on Monday).

1. Dear John (ScrGm) - $32.4, 2969 screens, week 1, $32.4 total

2. Avatar (Fox) $23.6, 3000 screens, week 8, $630.4 total

3. From Paris With Love (LGF)- $8.1, 2722 screens, week 1, $8.1 total

4. Edge of Darkness (WB)- $7.0, 3066 screens, week 2, $29.0 total

5. The Tooth Fairy (Fox) - $6.5, 3218 screens, week 3, $34.3 total

6. When In Rome (BV)- $5.5, 2456 screens, week 2, $20.8 total

7. The Book of Eli (WB)- $4.8, 2820 screens, week 4, $82.1 total

8. Crazy Heart (FoxS)- $3.6, 819 screens, week 8, $11.1 total

9. Legion (ScrGm) - $3.4, 2339 screens, week 3, $34.6 total

10. Sherlock Holmes (WB) - $2.6, 1805 screens, week 7, $201.5 total

So those are the numbers, but what do they mean? Well, it means Dear John, a movie so cloying my ticket stub actually had sap dripping from it, managed to take in an impressive $32 million. It overtakes the Avatar and ensures that we'll have plenty more Nicholas Sparks' weepy adaptations. Hooray for that.

You know what's funny? Avatar arrives, this giant, 800 lb gorilla, and sits on top of the charts demanding money, and everybody pays until the records are broken, then it quietly leaves. At least, that's how I envision it.

John Travolta sent us From Paris With Love. Audiences replied "Return to sender". I love postal humor!

The Academy Award Nominations were announced this week, and the biggest boost given was to Crazy Heart, which actually opened on the same day as Avatar, and is now making an appearance in the top ten. The dude certainly does abide, doesn't he?

That Edge of Darkness flick probably didn't benefit from Mel Gibson calling a dude an asshole live on the air. However, that incident inspired me to actually go check it out now. I have a feeling in real life Mel's as crazy as Riggs. And that's just the tops.

What the hell is The Tooth Fairy still doing in the top 5?

Below the radar, The Red Riding Trilogy opened up on one screen. It took in $15,500 on that one screen. Pretty impressive, but I wonder how many people thought it was some sort of foreign fairy tale adaptation, and not Britain's answer to Zodiac?

So there, you have my amazing break down. Next week, a crap load of movies comes out, including the long awaited Wolfman, and a movie that looks even worse than Dear John AND He's Just Not That Into You COMBINED! It's going to be very exciting. Oh, Percy Jackson's next week, too! I'm willing to bet all the new releases cancel each other out, and Avatar reigns supreme once again. (It won't. That's a horrible bet. Avatar's done, moving on).

Until next weekend.......

(All Numbers courtesy of BoxOfficeMojo.com)