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Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” is a box-office disaster, and the police officers who boycotted the movie are taking credit for its disappointing ticket sales. The violent Western was released on Christmas Day and has grossed $42.9 million so far. At this rate, it’s set to barely pass its production budget of $50 million — meaning big losses for the Weinstein Co., which spent another $25 million to $35 million on prints and promotion. Police Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch, the first union official to call for a boycott of the film, said, “With nearly 1 million law enforcement...

not much to say Good movie, not a waste of money However, i guess it was anti-climactic, if our government had changed things since then, it would have meant more, but knowing they are still covering up for the lack of support, which the movie CLEARLY COVERS the repeated calls for it... It is worth the price. Go see it.

The brutal 1820s frontier revenge thriller "The Revenant" landed a leading 12 nominations for the 88th annual Academy Awards, while the acting categories were again filled entirely by white performers a year after the Oscars came under withering criticism over its lack of diversity. The strong showing Thursday for "The Revenant," including a best actor nod for Leonardo DiCaprio and best supporting actor for Tom Hardy, follows its win at the Golden Globes. It sets up director Alejandro Inarritu for a possible back-to-back win following his sweep of best picture, director and screenplay for "Birdman" last year. ...

In The Moonlighter movie, 1953, Fred MacMurray's dog alterts him to a prowling cougar. The dog is game, prompts him to the hunt, locates the cougar, MacMurray shoots the cat, he has to pull the dog off the dead cat.A great dog, a man's dog, the dog of a boy's heart. Not particularly large, a medium small dog.Such a dog is Sheldon.A 10 second Sheldon movie. https://www.facebook.com/kardiokult.life/videos/1692003041083875/

With the Golden Globe awards airing last Sunday and the Oscar nominations coming out later this week, I recently took a look at the films of the past year and come up with my annual list of the ten best movies of the year.Overall, 2015 was a great year at the movies with a lot of great films arriving (including big budget fare like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Jurassic World). There were plenty of box office failures as well (including financial flops like Fantastic Four and cinematic duds like Fifty Shades of Grey) but overall, the local cineplex...

"Birth of the Dragon," a film about a pivotal fight between Bruce Lee and Shaolin Master Wong Jack Man that took place in Northern California in 1965, is currently shooting in various San Francisco locations. The film stars Hong Kong actor and martial arts master Philip Ng as Bruce Lee. San Francisco's Film Commission confirmed to Hoodline that the production will be working in the city through Monday. The publication reported that the last shooting location is scheduled to take place on Spofford Street in Chinatown. According to Variety, the film began shooting in Vancouver, Canada in November under the...

Left work a little early yesterday to see a 4:30 showing of The Revenant starring Leonardo DiCaprio. I ended up in the slowest ticket line, but eventually got my annual $20 refillable popcorn tub, a bottle of lemonade and walked briskly to the theater since by then it was 4:50. I thought for sure I had missed the beginning, which is one my few pet peeves. Nope, previews were still on. Is America the only country where movies never start on the time posted? Thank, God for it. It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a movie, longer still since...

History records that The Wizard Of Oz was edited by one Blanche Sewell, an Oklahoman and thwarted actress who also cut together such memorable films as Red Dust, Go West, and Grand Hotel during her 25-year career in Hollywood. But what if Oz had been assembled instead by an extremely diligent file clerk, one who cherished order and neatness over meaning and context? That is the unlikely scenario behind "Of Oz The Wizard," a bizarre and thorough alternate edit of the 1939 family classic by filmmaker Matt Bucy. He has chopped The Wizard Of Oz, all 101 minutes of it,...

Does this name sounds especially cool for American audiences or something? I had a discussion on a Russian cinema forum a few weeks before about this name. I basically shot the original poster's idea off, saying that this name is a very common Polish last name. But, this week i absolutely unrelatedly watched Vanishing Point and here is another Kowalski! After that, i just can't ignore this anymore. Even today i randomly clicked on Noble Bigot and again stumbled on quote by yet another Kowalski. What's going on? How can Polish last name (not even the most popular one) can...

You may have heard of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, the new film from blow-'em-up-real-good director Michael Bay of Armageddon and Transformers fame. ... ... ... It's going to make its debut at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 12 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington as part of a promotional push, Paramount Studios confirmed Wednesday. 13 Hours... revolves around the six-man security team that defended the American diplomatic compound at Benghazi, Libya, during an attack by terrorists in 2012 that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. ... ... ... Tickets are free through ticketmaster.com and thirteenhoursmovie.com as long as supplies last....

One of the most intriguing movies I've seen in a long time is The Big Short. It's about the housing bubble and what we now call the Great Recession, based on Michael Lewis's bestselling book "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine." The main characters are money managers who not only realized that the housing bubble was being supported by unsustainable subprime mortgages, but also found a way to make millions of dollars from the inevitable crash. Here are 10 things moviegoers need to know. Lesson 1: There will always be bubbles. Vernon Smith is an economist who won a...

The Christmas Eve showing of “It’s a Wonderful Life” may be intended to make you believe in the importance of even an ordinary person’s life, but underneath that, what are the film’s secret hidden messages, the ones that become apparent only after two or three eggnogs? Let’s mull over some of the wackier possibilities. It’s a salute to atheism. It’s “the least religious but most humanist film you could ever see,” said David Wilson in The Guardian, because it suggests people should fix their problems on Earth rather than waiting for God to help out. Regarding Jimmy Stewart’s character George...

Rush Limbaugh has stated several times that the assassination of John F. Kennedy ushered in the era of modern liberalism. Liberals back then just couldn't handle the fact that the assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald, a communist who lived for awhile in the Soviet Union. So they attempted to blame America and the "rightwing" for Kennedy's assassination. In the current update of that attitude, liberals hate to see radical Muslims blamed for acts of terrorism. The prefer and wish for such acts to have been committed by somebody they can associate with conservatives. The latest example of this is Samuel L. Jackson who...

Did you know that the Millennium Falcon's cockpit was inspired by the WWII B-29 Superfortress bomber? Did you know that the Star Wars saga most famous spacecraft featured a cockpit clearly inspired to a World War II heavy bomber? Well, the iconic greenhouse-style window of the Millennium Falcon was designed with the style of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, a strategic bomber flying 30 years before Han Solo and Chewbacca first appeared driving the iconic spacecraft into the hyperspace, in mind.

Cinematographer Haskell Wexler, the socially conscious two-time Academy Award winner who lensed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and many other masterpieces, has died. He was 93.Wexler died in his sleep Sunday at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, his son, Oscar-nominated sound man Jeff Wexler, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The Hateful Eight, billed as "the 8th film by Quentin Tarantino", has opened in selected cities in 70mm format. I'd thought by this stage that some new young hungry film critics would have emerged who'd like to make their names by having a go at the aging enfant terrible. But, judging from the reviews, that does not seem to be the case. On the other hand, I gather there's some sort of boycott being mounted by those offended by Tarantino's recent remarks re black men who get shot by cops. It would be, as they say, ironic were the director...

Every year as we celebrate the birth of Christ, one time-honored tradition is that of sitting in the warmth of our homes and enjoying classic Hollywood films with friends and family, if not alone, as we savor the days of Christmas. These cinematic treasures help us appreciate the momentous reality of Christ becoming man because they exemplify, in many respects, the goodness and virtue he embodied, and which a Christian—"a bearer of Christ"—is called to live. Often this happens through characters such as George Bailey and Ebenezer Scrooge, in, respectively, It's a Wonderful Life (1945) and A Christmas Carol, produced...

Early on in “The Hateful Eight,” John Ruth (Kurt Russell) keeps repeating the line “slow like molasses.” Later on, another character informs his gang that their mission is going to take patience. This describes “The Hateful Eight” well, too: It deserves your patience. “The Hateful Eight,” the latest film by Quentin Tarantino, shows the very odd path that one of the greatest living filmmakers has decided to take. While many directors start out conventional and then experiment once they have clout, Tarantino has abandoned much of the nonlinear storytelling on which he made his name (with "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp...

America is obsessed with Star Wars. I'm not making a value judgment, just a statement of fact. It's everywhere, even in car commercials on radio. What the movie franchise has to do with cars is a mystery, but it's probably working because why else would they do it? It certainly worked on me. I watched "The Force Awakens" Thursday at 11 p.m., Friday at 9:40 a.m. and Saturday at 7 a.m. Like I said, it's not a value judgment because I'd be judging myself. No value judgment is being made, but there are judgments to be made in regards to...

My review is below the fold - no spoilers. I saw the movie in Imax-3D format. Next Review: The Hatefull Eight (70 mm) on December 31, 2015.