Monday, 23 February 1998

WEEKEND REVIEW
A weekend of surprises. Titanic had its biggest weekly drop to date: just over 20 percent to $21 million. Could Titanic sail into the $20 million sunset next week? Could it actually lose first place? The Wedding Singer held onto second place with good word-of-mouth. Sphere remained in third, despite bad news all around and has underperformers Senseless ($5.7 million) and Palmetto ($2.8 million) to thank for that. Look for things to get worse for both films next week. I did, however, run into Elisabeth Shue this weekend and parenthood agrees with her. She looked sensational, and the kid was adorable, too. Dropping from the Top Ten were Blues Brothers 2000, Great Expectations and The Replacement Killers. Meanwhile, The Apostle moved up to 10 with a strong $2.3 million and a solid $3,402 per-screen average.

THE GOOD: Titanic edged E.T. by passing the $400 million mark to become the second-biggest film of all-time. Next up, Star Wars, which has a $58 million lead after this weekend.

THE BAD: Disney offered sneak previews of Krippendorf's Tribe and they ran at about 40 percent capacity, at least here in L.A. Not a good sign. I won't bother commenting on the quality of the film. I'll leave that to our Reader Of The Day below.

THE UGLY: Dangerous Beauty opened in limited release and immediately lept to the front of the line as Worst Movie of 1998. Catherine McCormack proved, especially in one unintentionally hilarious scene, that her emotional range as an actress, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, runs the gamut from A to B. And Rufus Sewell plays the male lead in a style that could best be described as a cross between Marty Feldman and Eric Estrada. In fact, if I didn't know better, I would assume the film was a Mel Brooks parody. It's a film that seems to believe that women's liberation is best acquired on one's knees. I actually walked out on the film (something I never do), but the next day I went back out of fairness and hoped to find something that might redeem this turkey. Nothing did.

JUST WONDERING: Do the comments above mean that I am a critic, even though I protest the title whenever anyone levels it at me?

BAD AD WATCH: Miramax offers just one pull quote for Senseless. "The Hippest, Most Outrageous Comedy Of The Year!" The scribe credited is from "Movie Reviews & More." I, for one, have never heard of it. Miramax must have looked harder.

READER OF THE DAY: The reliably direct Erin P wrote: "I caught a sneak of Krippendorf's Tribe last Thursday and was thoroughly sickened and saddened by every single player in this movie. Stupid, overdone comedies that rely alternately on sex jokes and dirty bathroom humor and depend on children for many of the laughs are wretched beasts that moronic studio execs should stop at the door. After I told my roommate about it, she said, "You know, you just described 'South Park.'" And I said, "Yeah, but 'South Park' is funny."

---

E-ME: Can Dark City unseat Titanic? Or will it be U.S. Marshalls on March 6? Or The Man In The Iron Mask on March 13? It's a pick `em bet.