Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds grossed an impressive $20 million on its second weekend, proving the word of mouth on the movie is as strong with audiences as it is with critics. The movie has earned $73.8 million thus far and will become Tarantino's biggest hit to date.
Basterds took the number-two slot in the weekend box office derby, beating out the $17.4 million gross of Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, which I'm curious to see, even though it's supposedly awful (I really like Zombie's The Devil's Rejects). The Final Destination took first place with $28.3 million.
District 9 added $10.7 million to its haul for a total gross of $90.8 million in three weeks, making it the most profitable movie about illegal immigrants ever made.
I'm thrilled to see Basterds doing so well. It was a fantastic movie, probably my favorite of the year next to Star Trek.
And yeah Halloween 2 was mediocre. Zombie seemed bored by the whole thing, its as if you could feel his interest in the movie leave the more it went along. After the beginning, and the entire, excellent hospital sequence, the whole film just went downhill. He's a good director, and he shows great improvement with each film he makes, but he just needs better material. His next film is supposed to be a remake of The Blob. Hopefully he has more fun doing that one then he did H2.
Posted by: Juan | August 30, 2009 at 11:21 PM
Juan's on the money. Zombie isn't totally incompetent, but the white trash aesthetic does him no favors. After the hospital sequence, the film never really makes an attempt to scare you. Hell not even the acts of violence are all that memorable (save for maybe a face stomping scene).
Posted by: Chris | August 31, 2009 at 11:49 PM
Off-topic, but kind of not...
The French film MARTYRS isn't exactly my kind of Horror movie, but at the same time I think it's an example of "Torture Porn" done right. I mean, could you imagine mainstream audiences rushing to see a sequel of this? Maybe the most subversive thing about the film is the graphic violence it presents in broad daylight. Plus the characters are worthy of our sympathy and well played. And the film gets extra points for including the single most Horrifying and Sad character I've ever seen in a Horror movie: the woman with the metal thing covering her eyes.
Posted by: Chris | September 01, 2009 at 12:14 AM
Check out this post, Chris, that I made when I got back from my sick leave. Not sure if you ever read it, but I'm not a fan of MARTYRS.
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/reeling/2009/05/the-return-or-where-the-hell-have-you-been.html
Posted by: Rene Rodriguez | September 02, 2009 at 03:40 PM
I read it and I agree with what you said here: "As it turns out, there's a 'reason' why so much screen time is devoted to her suffering, but it's not enough to justify having to sit through it."
The truth is I probably enjoy talking about it more than I... "enjoy" watching it. It's a film directed by a man with graphic violence directed towards women that never felt misogynistic to me. The most potent stuff to me is related to the amount of guilt the women felt for their actions (part of me believes the 2nd half is just a nightmare/a guilt trip). This is a surprisingly genuinely sad Horror movie. And, you know, I gotta give props to the movie for presenting violence in a way that, uh, scars you. There's nothing fun about it. I don't know.
Posted by: Chris | September 03, 2009 at 02:22 AM