Black Sheep @ The Box Office: Blindsided!

After two weeks settling for the runner-up position, THE BLIND SIDE capitalizes on good word of mouth and lackluster competition to take the crown from two-week champ, NEW MOON. I caught up on movies I missed in theatres this weekend and had to choose between these two films. I went with NEW MOON. Let me just say, that was definitely the wrong choice. God that was painful to sit through. I guess I should have gone with the crowd.


THE BLIND SIDE man not have grossed NEW MOON numbers but with another $20 million this weekend, it is well on its way to become Sandra Bullock's highest grossing title. Just when it seemed like she couldn't command her asking price anymore, this year she scores one-two punch that began with THE PROPOSAL this past summer also grossing over $100 million. Could an Oscar nomination be that third good thing in the string?


The week's biggest opener hardly has anything to brag about but at least it can brag that it did better than everything else that opened this weekend. Coming in third place was Jim Sheridan's post-war family drama, BROTHERS. The film received mixed reviews from critics, including this one, and, without any Oscar buzz to build on, should drop off the radar pretty quickly. Still, at least it made the radar. Opening in 7th place, an action film not seeing any action, ARMORED. And even further down the list in tenth, another Robert Deniro flop, EVERYBODY'S FINE. Everyone except for Deniro's Oscar chances that is.


Below the Top 10, awards season contenders continued to platform and exceed expectations. Earlier this week, the National Board of Review named UP IN THE AIR the best picture of the year and this weekend, it debuts to $1.19 million on just 15 screens. The film's star, George Clooney, was also named the best actor of the year. While the NBR ignored it, PRECIOUS was honoured with the most nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards this week. This week it suffers a steep drop out of the Top 10 but its $36 million take before any major awards recognition is an incredible foundation going into awards season. And THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG continues to attain stellar results on just two screens, falling off just 5% this week and pulling in another $744K. Its wide release next week will have many eyes watching, including mine.

NEXT WEEK: Clint Eastwood's next awards hopeful, INVICTUS, hits 2150 screens. THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG goes from 2 screens to over 3300. Peter Jackson's latest, THE LOVELY BONES, starts on just 3 screens. And Tom Ford's directorial debut, A SINGLE MAN, begins its limited run.

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BROTHERS

Written by David Benioff
Directed by Jim Sheridan
Starring Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Sherpard and Mare Winningham


Grace: I can’t feel it. Shouldn’t I be able to feel it?

I have a brother. He is two years younger than me and about five inches taller. Like most siblings, when we were little, we had our moments. We could on occasion play together for hours but we would certainly on many another occasion get into some serious kicking and screaming. Fortunately, unlike most siblings, we managed to find an adult relationship based mostly on respect – based somewhat on trading sarcastic quips back and forth but mostly on respect. Naturally, we have our issues; we are brothers after all. There’s some jealousy here and some competition over there but that’s to be expected and it balances itself out because what we have is real. I wish I could say the same about Jim Sheridan’s BROTHERS but sadly these brothers are too contrived to feel like anything close to the real deal.


The brothers in question here are the Cahill boys, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Sam (Tobey Maguire). Their history is so cluttered with the kind of rivalry that can only be concocted by a screenwriter. It’s like reading “Brothers for Dummies” at times. Sam is a decorated army captain while, when we first meet Tommy, he is being released from prison. Fortunately, Tommy’s prison release is perfectly timed with Sam’s departure to Afghanistan. This way, the whole family can get together at the dinner table one last time and, because what would a family dinner be without this, the whole family drama implodes before dessert is served. You see, Daddy (Sam Shepard) is a bit a of a drinker and a former army man himself so you know which of his sons is his favorite. Oh why can’t Tommy be more like his brother, Sam? His father actually asks that. That was the first time I groaned.


What makes BROTHERS watchable, and it is watchable, is the incredibly engaging young cast. Along with Natalie Portman, Gyllenhaal and Maguire dig their boots into this family’s roots, no matter how intentionally tangled they are. They each brave through the warzone of manipulation that is this film’s plot to carve out as memorable a character as they can. When Sam is believed to have been killed in Afghanistan what seems like five minutes after he arrives there, Grace (Portman) finds unexpected solace in the brother that stayed behind. The trouble here is that we know that Sam isn’t dead, that he is only being held prisoner by some of the most clichéd Arab men I’ve seen in a while on film. Instead of feeling unhealthy yet potentially cathartic, their budding relationship, and the one Tommy fosters with her two daughters, just feels like filler until Sam inevitably returns.


I’ve come to expect a certain level of excellence from Sheridan. For the most part, he is able to create simple understandings of complex emotions but he was disadvantaged from the start here. Based on a 2004 Danish film, David Benioff’s screenplay is just too forced and his constraints as a writer place restraints on all the talent attached to BROTHERS. Subsequently, everyone is trying way too hard to make this work when the only way to bring peace to siblings split by life’s different paths is just to get them together and let it happen all by itself.

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