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Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon in Invictus (2009)

What a deceptively slippery customer Clint Eastwood can be at times. There we were musing his latest film, the Oscar-nominated Invictus, was simply a burnished cenotaph to the magnificence of Nelson Mandela when it turns out to be a person of consequence more besides. Invictus, it transpires, is also a handy yardstick against which to measure the current US president. And sad to say he comes up wanting.

1. Invictus
2. Production year: 2009
3. Country: USA
4. Cert (UK): 12A
5. Runtime: 133 mins
6. Directors: Clint Eastwood
7. Cast: Julian Lewis Jones, Matt Damon, Matt Stern, Morgan Freeman, Patrick Mofokeng, Tony Kgoroge
8. More without ceasing this film

“You can bring over some liberty, but does that medium you can govern a country?,” mused Eastwood in a recent interview, comparing the achievements of Barack Obama to that of his movie hero. “Up until now [Obama] hasn’t shown much strength of leadership.”

One might have thought Obama’s year could not get any worse, what with the election of that guy with the truck, the resurgence of Sarah Palin and that psalm about how the people have as the final move got wily to his imposture of slaughtering their grandparents in the name of universal health care. Yet here comes the former Dirty Harry, quaking his head in solemn disapproval and channelling the spirit of the late Lloyd Bentsen to argue that he knows Nelson Mandela and that the president is nay Nelson Mandela.

Fortunately he moreover extends an olive branch. “I hope he sees my film and understands the message,” Eastwood added.

Assuming that Obama is too busy right now, the message in a nutshell runs something liking this. Fresh out of Robben Island, Mandela inherits a divided country and proceeds to knit it together through the medium of rugby. South Africa lifts the 1995 World Cup, white cops caper with black kids in the street and everyone lives happily ever after. This is because Mandela is such a warm, wise and far-sighted statesman; a force for good in a nation struggling to give in trust its shabby past to the dustbin of annals. The message, basically, is that Mandela is great.

Let’s not cast doubt on Eastwood’sitting integrity here. Presumably the director has everlastingly felt this way about Mandela, even back in the 80s when his fellow Republicans were reviling the man as a terrorist and petitioning against his release from prison. But still: using a film about Mandela as a means to descry the all-round uselessness of Obama? That seems a scintilla rich. Is this faithfully “the communication” of Invictus? And if so, can we assume that it’s one that Mandela (reportedly a close collaborator on the film) signed off personally?

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PG-13 | 1 hr 48 mins | Drama Movie
Director Lasse Hallström and scenario writer Jamie Linden worked together to adapt Nicholas Sparks’ novel relating to a young soldier who falls as being an idealistic college girl
Synopsis:
Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) was on spring enervate when first met John Tyree (Channing Tatum), who temporarily house. The soldiers fell in love with it practically love at first sight. In the nearest seven years, which time each of the deployment was more dangerous than the last, the delight letters that were sent to Savannah, John is the excepting that thing that makes him go. However, they love and sincere correspondence will ultimately result in consequences the couple good and brave soldiers of true love never be predicted.

Director: Lasse Hallstrom
Starring: Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried, Henry Thomas, Richard Jenkins, Keith Robinson

Movie Trailer Dear John

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A step back in time … The Princess and the Frog

The record rock-broken surge

1. Avatar
2. Production year: 2009
3. Country: USA
4. Cert (UK): 12A
5. Runtime: 161 mins
6. Directors: James Cameron
7. Cast: CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Zoe Saldana
8. More on this thin skin

It was already the biggest ever hit at the US and global box-offices (beating Titanic in both cases), so Avatar ascending to the top of the all-time UK chart arrives as a disdainful anti-climax. But it’s worth recording the performance: at the weekend, its eighth on release, Avatar overtook Mamma Mia! (£69.17m) to become the biggest-ever grosser at UK cinemas.

Mamma Mia! had taken 79% of its eventual total impure after eight weekends on unloose. If Avatar follows the same pattern, the sci-fi blockbuster is on hunt to take £91m in the UK. Back in the spring of 1998, Titanic had grossed just 70.6% of its eventual gross after eight weekends. If Avatar follows the Titanic revenue curve, it will state of facts on to outdo £100m, which is now a tantalising anticipation for backers Twentieth Century Fox.

Titanic’s run in cinemas was sustained by 11 Oscar wins, which helped it reach the large (often older) audience that almost never goes to the cinema, as well of the same kind with repeat viewings among (typically junior female) devotees who became obsessed with the after the manner of tragedy romance. This column doesn’t have any research to back up its hunch, still our guess is that Avatar is even now benefiting significantly from repeat viewings, and is also reaching infrequent cinemagoers, but in the latter case probably not quite to the same extent that Titanic did.

The rule breaker

John Lasseter has always maintained that it’s the content (funny original storylines with heart) rather than the form (computer animation) that was important to the prosperous issue of Pixar films. And now that he is additionally boss of Disney Animation, he has taken the chance to prove his point with the traditional, hand-drawn 2D The Princess and the Frog. Considering big-screen animation has now becoming an almost without exception digital 3D domain, this step back in life is a gutsy move.

The film’s expansion at the weekend from a single cinema to nationwide saw a gross of £2.22m, which isn’t sufficiently big or small to defecate the abstract conclusively. On the single in kind four inches, a £2m opening is not to be sniffed at, and is well ahead of rival animation Astro Boy. On the other, Disney computer animation Bolt opened a year ago with £2.85m plus £2.61m in previews. Bolt eventually maxed out around £18m. If The Princess and the Frog comes close to that run over, then Lasseter will have proved his point, at least as far as the UK place of traffic is concerned.

The champ

Since The Princess and the Frog is technically an expansion rather than a new release, and Astro Boy’sitting gross (see chart) was boosted by £369,000 in previews earned the previous weekend, the top new film is in fact Clint Eastwood’sitting Invictus. The sports drama missed out without interruption a Best Picture Oscar nomination, settling conducive to nods since stars Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, and earned mixed reviews. An opening weekend just north of £1m is a decent result, but it will need lots of positive word of mouth to match Eastwood’sitting previous directorial effort: Gran Torino earned £8.3m last spring.

Youth In Revolt, starring Michael Cera, landed not too far behind Invictus, through an commencing of £744,000. With a production budget estimated at $18m (as against a reported $60m for Invictus), the film’s UK release may achieve decent profitability. The opening figure is too a relief later Cera’s Nick and Norah’sitting Infinite Playlist grossed around £730,000 in total a year ago.

The arthouse battle

Falling out of the top ten, despite a 42% rise in box-office receipts, is Best Picture Oscar nominee Precious. The film added 54 screens to its opening tally of 47, in the process diluting its screen average from a scorching £5,552 to a still-decent £3,656. Top extraneous language film is Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, which declined some other 38% and has taken £960,000 to date. The film lost 12 of its 79 screens, presumably in locations that had under-performed the previous weekend. Despite all the plaudits and accolades for this exceptional film, A Prophet is discovering the limits of its commercial seek reference of the case.

The future

This period of the year tends to produce more box-office strength in depth, and weekend takings because of the 10th-placed film (Up In The Air: £482,000) are the highest in spite of a title with that chart ranking considering the weekend of January 16-18 2009. This factor is adding vivacity to the market, but it’s primarily the continuing success of Avatar (down just 11% from the previous weekend) that powered overall weekend box-office to a 47% increase on the equivalent 2009 frame, when The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and He’s Just Not That Into You opened at fourth book of the pentateuch; census of the hebrews 1 and 2. The statistic is slightly warped by the fact that on this weekend a year ago, Bolt earned decent money in previews, but those takings were not reported until a week later. This Friday, three big new releases lead the charge: creature trait The Wolfman; starry ensemble romcom Valentine’s Day; and teen fantasy adventure Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief. The titles have been carefully programmed to co-exist and should all find their particular audiences.

UK top 10

1. Avatar, £4,338,774 from 417 sites. Total: £71,936,392
2. The Princess and the Frog, £2,219,769 from 460 sites. Total: £2,239,759
3. Astro Boy, £1,091,872 from 407 sites (New)
4. Invictus, £1,068,388 from 275 sites (New)
5. Sherlock Holmes, £783,681 from 397 sites. Total: £24,474,393
6. Edge Of Darkness, £768,013 from 412 sites. Total: £2,651,278
7. Youth In Revolt, £743,932 from 280 sites (New)
8. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, £729,683 from 470 sites. Total: £20,837,031
9. It’s Complicated, £560,573 from 412 sites. Total: £8,288,948
10. Up in the Air, £481,810 from 337 sites. Total: £5,580,729

How the other openers did

Asal, 10 screens, £36,707 + £6,145 previews
Holy Water, 14 screens, £4,499
The Island, 1 protect, £2,232
Tony, 6 screens, £1,055

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