Monday, 03 November 1997

WEEKEND REVIEW

Ouch! I know you can't see it in my photos, but I am bleeding profusely from the nose after getting tagged hard by Boogie Nights' number four opening with just $5.1 million! I guess Middle America wasn't ready for a film about porn that didn't include porn. And I wish I could blame it on New Line being a small studio, but their magnificent Money Talks opened with $10.65 million just weeks ago! Argh! The one salvation here is that the picture should end up doing so little business (my guess: under $30 million total domestic) that if New Line plays its cards right, it could become the Oscars' "Little Movie That Could" for 1997.

Meanwhile, the unstoppable slasher films continue to do big box office. I Know What You Did Last Summer camped out at number one for the third week, dropping just 20 percent to $10 million. Devil's Advocate, where Al Pacino slashes the scenery with his tongue before chewing it up real good, dropped a modest 25 percent to summon another $7.6 million for third place. And Kiss The Girls slashed-n-smooched its way to fifth place with another $3.6 million, dropping just 30 percent in week five.

Another surprise, though not as unpleasant, was the success of Red Corner. I guess the China visit worked for the film -- which got roundly panned by the critics -- rather than against it. Pretty Man Richard Gere got a liberal $8.3 million to take second place. Also, Switchback, Paramount's quiet entry into the All Hallows Eve thriller market, stayed quieter than I thought it might, pulling in just $3 million for seventh place.

The rest of the Top Ten is made up of holdovers, all of which I came pretty close to predicting. Big deal! I'm already bleeding. Anyway, Brad was glad that Seven Years in Tibet took in another $3.4 million in its fourth week for sixth place. Fairy Tale: A Forgotten Release, grabbed another $2.9 million while the grabbing was good for eighth. Gattaca ran out of puns -- $2.7 million for ninth. And In & Out took tenth with $1.8 million.

Check out what my predictions were on Friday. Email is your way of showing me you feel my pain. Or maybe you just want to rub it in.