box office

‘Julie & Julia’: The perils of cooking up TOO much publicity

blogging, box office, L.A. Times, N.Y. Times, Writing

juliejulia

Leave it to Nikki Finke to find the most corrosive way to spin a rash of foodie stories. Proving she has lost none of her bile under new ownership, Finke flamed the NYT for excessive coverage of “Julie & Julia,” snarking about director Nora Ephron’s movies and cozy relationship with the paper in the process.

The Times has indeed gone to town on the movie – it’s been hard to miss the multiple tie-ins – but the paper hasn’t been the only one to use “Julie & Julia” as an excuse to whip up food features. The L.A. Times ran a similar story about cooking in Ephron’s kitchen while the New Yorker ran a feature about the director, a convivial hostess in her own right.

But why so many? And what does Judd Apatow know about the phenom?

‘Hurt Locker’: Shock and awe

box office, DG Creations, Movies, Writing

hurtlocker

Have to admit I was skeptical about “The Hurt Locker” despite all the rave reviews. Hadn’t I already seen a bunch of less-than-satisfying Iraq War movies? And when was the last time I enjoyed a Kathryn Bigelow movie – “Point Break”? That was 1991.

Happily, this was one movie that lived up to the hype. “The Hurt Locker” lays waste to all its Iraq war predecessors, and it does so in a straight-ahead manner lacking overt Hollywood sentimentality or symbolism. Watching the movie you get a sense of the dread, danger and uncertainty of war.

In that way, the movie reminded me of “Platoon.” But “The Hurt Locker” is much more dialed back; there are no operatic battles for the soul of a wide-eyed grunt in this movie. Sure, there are goners – war is hell, after all – but Bigelow spares sentimental foreshadowing so common in war movies. This just adds to the “will they or won’t they” suspense when the soldiers are out in the field waiting for Jeremy Renner’s bomb specialist to defuse explosives.

Summit is releasing the movie very carefully – it took a month before it expanded to the South Bay – but so far the strategy seems to be working. The pic earned $1.4 million from 238 theaters over the weekend, a big tick up from the previous frame.

One big surprise: My Friday afternoon aud skewed about 70/30 male/female. Given the rhapsodic reviews, I thought cinephiles of both genders would eagerly turn out. It’s definitely worth a look.