Our critics’ takes on the 9 Best Picture nominees

The writers here at Film Journal seem to agree with The Academy and its selection of the top films of 2013. Each of the nine Best Picture nominees found favor with our critics when it first premiered last year.  Spike Jonze’s dystopian love story, Her, came the closest to receiving what could be considered a negative review, with critic David Noh singling out “eternal sufferer” protagonist, Theodore Twombly, for being too passive a hero. Yet, even with Twombly’s persistent moroseness, the character's world was nonetheless full of “droll moments and real surprise,” Noh acknowledged. As is the case with several directors whose films received nominations, Spike Jonze turned in one of his finest works in years.

Here’s what the FJI critics had to say about the best films of 2013:

12 Years A Slave:
12 Years a Slave is a landmark film, complete with a terrific ensemble (Paul Dano, Sara Paulson and Brad Pitt need to be mentioned in certain key roles), and the vision and skill required to do justice to such historically complex material. It is one of those rare pieces of art that all its successors taking a shot at the same topic will be measured against.

Click here for the full review.

American Hustle:
With a crackling script and masterful direction, Russell has made a fiction that is stranger—and way more fun—than the truth. He has the help of a dream cast of actors, all at the top of their games.

Click here for the full review.

Dallas Buyers Club:
Screenwriters Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack don’t fall back on any heroic or clichéd turns but keep Woodroof on an outlaw course where no pro-gay marches or quilts sweeten the way or soften the character’s macho, prejudicial core. Yet it’s McConaughey’s savvy incarnation of this Lone Star brute that makes this gritty tale worth the ride.

Click here for the full review.

Captain Phillips:
But Captain Phillips functions most as a handsomely, elaborately produced “hardware” movie that satisfies in both its details and the sustained suspense of its action elements.  And by having Hanks in the starring role.

Click here for the full review.

The Wolf of Wall Street:
Unlike its mostly slimy characters, The Wolf of Wall Street favorably impresses on every level. Perversely enjoyable and entertaining, this wild ride of a film offers a motor-mouth chorus of really bad boys whose rousing cantata celebrates the recent era of easy money and financial funny business. Audiences—their values be damned—will sing along.

Click here for the full review.

Nebraska:
Like a Hitchcock MacGuffin, the non-existent prize is the peg on which screenwriter Bob Nelson hangs an alternately charming and caustic road movie about the often exasperating bonds between parents and children and how we could all benefit from taking the time to get to know those sometime-strangers we call Mom and Dad.

Click here for the full review.

Philomena:
Philomena is as much a sharp exploration of class, sexuality, faith and relationships as it is a wittily written, devastating account of the barbaric treatment of unwed mothers in Ireland as recently as the 1950s, with a plum role for the remarkable Judi Dench.

Click here for the full review.

Gravity:
Cuarón and his team have created screen spectacle with a searing human dimension, and bring a true sense of wonder to a groundbreaking movie experience.

Click here for the full review.

Her:
It's a fiendishly clever concept, his most satisfying outing since the brilliant Being John Malkovich, rife with droll moments and real surprise.

Click here for the full review.

The Internet is of course full of Oscar lists and countdowns today, posing much more of a distraction than usual for film-lovers. In-keeping with this spirit of enjoyable diversions, here’s another (brief!) list outlining What the Internet Has to Say About Oscar:

Film.com: The 12 Best Acceptance Speeches in Oscar History
Replete with video and fully subjective commentary.

Entertainment Weekly: The 10 Most High-Powered Oscar Races of the Past 25 Years
A fun trip down commemorative lane. Who knew Kate Winslet had already received three nominations by age 26? More importantly: Can Jennifer Lawrence best her record?

Vulture: Where to Stream This Year’s Oscar-Nominated Documentaries
A fantastic resource.

Indiewire: Interview: Lupita Nyong’o
Months before she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for 12 Years a Slave.

Vanity Fair: Celebrating The Oldest-Ever Class of Best Actress Nominees
Take that, Sexist Agism.

Battering 'the best'

Considering the many nomination announcements in recent weeks, including those for the Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe awards, as well as the unveiling of the 2014 New York Film Critics Awards winners, it seems this year’s Oscar frontrunners can boast clearly defined leads. To recap: The NYFCC named American Hustle its Best Picture of the year, while, with four nominations, 12 Years A Slave garnered the most SAG nods. The Golden Globes divided its love equally between the two contenders, nominating each for seven awards. In other words, American Hustle (which opens wide tomorrow) and 12 Years Slave are the industry’s sweethearts, and America -- or at least her film critics -- loves them. Right?

Not quite. Peter Debruge of Variety recently published a screed that attributed Hustle’s popularity to a fortuitous alignment of its stars – all of the film’s major names are at the top of their games, and, in the case of Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and director David O. Russell, fresh off last year’s award-winning Silver Linings Playbook, at the height of their popularity, guaranteeing their collaboration would generate a certain amount of fanfare. But Hustle, Debruge contends, doesn’t deserve the praise: It’s a hot mess. Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice doesn’t lambast 12 Years A Slave, but she does challenge the positive consensus. “Is there any blood in its veins?” she asks.

If the old adage “you can’t please everyone” won’t surprise anyone, some might be taken aback by the contemporary negativity surrounding other roundly popular, and what are now considered canonical, films. TIME magazine, for instance, had this to say about greatest-film-of-all-time Vertigo back in 1958: “The mystery is not so much who done it as who cares.”

Inspired by this spirit of contrariness -- or maverick insight, if you prefer -- we’ve compiled a list of against-the-grain reviews for some of the most critically lauded and beloved films of all time. Taste certainly does lie in the eye of the viewer.

We like to think the one who called Audrey Hepburn awkward had a cataract.

Gone With the Wind – Reviewed by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. for The Atlantic, 1973

And how badly written it is! There is hardly a sharp or even a credible line. It is picture-postcard writing, as it is picture-postcard photography (and, for that matter, picture-postcard music). Melanie and Scarlett, the women's-serial rewrite of Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp, are too much: one too good to be true, the other too wicked. As Ms. Scarlett, Vivien Leigh gives a thin and shallow performance. She does not enrich the part by the slightest idiosyncrasy or originality. It is far more external and far less interesting as a rendition of a Southern bitch than Bette Davis' Jezebel or Miriam Hopkins' Temple Drake. Olivia de Havilland and Leslie Howard are beyond belief.

Full Review

Casablanca – Reviewed by TIME magazine, 1942

Nothing short of an invasion could add much to Casablanca.

Rebel Without a Cause – Reviewed by Box Office Magazine, 1955

Others, and presumably they will be a vast majority, may be prone to opine that the story has few, if any, believable characters, situations or passages of dialogue.

Thus handicapped by the script's utter implausibility, which is alleviated not one whit by the strained direction of Nicholas Ray, Dean's delineation is far below the arrestingly high standards set by the above-mentioned portrayal in "Eden." His supporting cast, both its juvenile and adult components, are projected with even less effectiveness.

Full review

Vertigo – Reviewed by TIME magazine, 1958

The old master, now a slave to television, has turned out another Hitchcock-and-bull story in which the mystery is not so much who done it as who cares.

Lawrence of Arabia – Reviewed by Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1962

The fault seems to lie, first in the concept of telling the story of this self-tortured man against a background of action that has the characteristic of a mammoth Western film. The nature of Lawrence cannot be captured in grand Super-Panavision shots of sunrise on the desert or in scenes of him arguing with a shrewd old British general in a massive Moorish hall.

The fault is also in the lengthy but surprisingly lusterless dialogue of Robert Bolt's over-written screenplay. Seldom has so little been said in so many words.

Full Review

My Fair Lady – Reviewed by Geoff Andrew  for Time Out: London

Hepburn is clearly awkward as the Cockney Eliza in the first half, and in general the adaptation is a little too reverential to really come alive.

Full Review

Rosemary’s Baby – Reviewed by Renata Adler, The New York Times, 1968

Everyone else is fine, but the movie—although it is pleasant—doesn't quite work on any of its dark or powerful terms.

I think this is because it is almost too extremely plausible. The quality of the young people's lives seems the quality of lives that one knows, even to the point of finding old people next door to avoid and lean on. One gets very annoyed that they don't catch on sooner. One's friends would have understood the situation at once. So that for most of its length the film has nothing to be excited about.

Full Review

Chinatown – Reviewed by Gene Siskel for The Chicago Tribune, 1974

As much as I admire the work of both (Roman) Polanski and (Jack) Nicholson, I found "Chinatown" tedious from beginning to just before the end. . . .

The majority of problems are to be found in Polanski's direction of Robert Towne's ("The Last Detail") script. The opening shot of almost every scene has been so artificially overcomposed as to make one aware of Jack Nicholson wearing '30s clothes while standing in a room decorated to look like a '30s room while talking to stereotypes plucked from an assortment of '30s movies.

The Silence of the Lambs – Reviewed by Dave Kehr for The Chicago Tribune, 1991

It`s easy to understand why [director Jonathan Demme] might want to shake off the cute and cuddly image that has settled on his work (though his films have always contained a beckoning dark side, an edge of violence and despair).

But ``The Silence of the Lambs`` does more than avoid sweetness and light. It`s a gnarled, brutal, highly manipulative film that, at its center, seems morally indefensible.

Full Review

The Artist – Reviewed by Jaime N. Christley for Slant Magazine, 2011

The idea of making a film about the American cinema between 1927 and 1933 seems as daunting a prospect as making a film about the entire cinema—in other words, the difference between conceiving the magnitude of a galaxy and the magnitude of the universe. You might as well make a 100-minute film about the Renaissance. Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist neatly sidesteps this unsolvable dilemma by ignoring everything that's fascinating and memorable about the era, focusing instead on a patchwork of general knowledge, so eroded of inconvenient facts that it doesn't even qualify as a roman à clef.

Full Review

American Hustle – Peter Debruge for Variety, 2013

How has “Hustle” conned so many intelligent people into declaring it a masterpiece? This is a messy C-minus movie at best, one that makes Michael Bay’s “Pain & Gain” look downright disciplined by comparison.

Full Article

12 Years A Slave – Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek for The Village Voice, 2013

It's all so perfect, so right.

But is there any blood in its veins? 12 Years a Slave is a pristine, aesthetically tasteful movie about the horrors of slavery. Aside from a characteristically nuanced lead performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor—plus an oak-tree-tall supporting one by Benedict Cumberbatch, as well as a breath of movie-star vitality from Brad Pitt in a very small role—it's a picture that stays more than a few safe steps away from anything so dangerous as raw feeling. Even when it depicts inhuman cruelty, as it often does, it never compromises its aesthetic purity.

Full Review

Golden Globes gives most nods to 'Slave,' 'Hustle'

If the New York Film Critics Circle is Team American Hustle, having named David O. Russell's manic, crowd-pleasing dramedy its Best Film of the year, and the Screen Actors Guild is Team 12 Years A Slave, having nominated Steve McQueen's lauded period piece for the most number of awards, then the Golden Globes is neutral Switzerland. The Globes is the latest organization to sound off on those films and performances it believes outshone the rest of the film industry's output in 2013. At seven each, American Hustle and 12 Years A Slave have walked away with the same number of nominations.

Clearly these two are the frontrunners, but what about the rest of the nipping-at-their-heels contenders? Forest Whitaker is notably absent from the below list, while Kate Winslet is a new addition to the conversation. There's still over a month before the Oscars announce their bids, however, leaving plenty of time for the players (or rather, their studio handlers) to rearrange themselves on the great awards chessboard.

2014 Golden Globe Nominations: Motion Pictures

Best motion picture, drama
12 Years a Slave
Captain Phillips
Gravity
Philomena
Rush

Best Actor in a motion picture, drama
Chiwetel Ejiofor,12 Years a Slave
Idris Elba, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
Robert Redford, All is Lost

Best Actress in a motion picture, drama
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Judi Dench, Philomena
Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks
Kate Winslet, Labor Day

Best Director – motion picture
Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
Paul Greengrass, Captain Phillips
Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
Alexander Payne, Nebraska
David O. Russell, American Hustle

Best Screenplay – motion picture
Spike Jonze, Her
Bob Nelson, Nebraska
Jeff Pope Steve, Philomena
John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave
David O. Russell and Eric Singer Warren, American Hustle

Best motion picture, musical or comedy
American Hustle
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
Nebraska
Wolf of Wall Street

Best Actress in a motion picture, musical or comedy
Amy Adams, American Hustle
Julie Delpy, Before Midnight
Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Enough Said
Meryl Streep, August: Osage County

Best Actor in a motion picture, musical or comedy
Christian Bale, American Hustle
Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio, Wolf of Wall Street
Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis
Joaquin Phoenix, Her

Best Animated Feature film
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Frozen

Best Foreign Language Film
Blue Is The Warmest Color (France)
The Great Beauty (Italy)
The Hunt (Denmark)
The Past (Iran)
The Wind Rises (Japan)

Best supporting Actress in a motion picture
Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine
Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
Julia Roberts, August: Osage County
June Squibb, Nebraska

Best supporting Actor in a motion picture
Bradley Cooper, American Hustle
Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave
Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
Daniel Bruhl, Rush
Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips

Best Original Score – motion picture
All Is Lost - Alex Ebert
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom - Alex Heffes
Gravity - Steven Price
The Book Thief - John Williams
12 Years a Slave - Hans Zimmer

Best Original Song – motion picture
"Atlas," The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
"Let It Go," Frozen
"Ordinary Love," Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
"Please Mr. Kennedy," Inside Llewyn Davis
"Sweeter Than Fiction" One Chance

SAG Announces 2014 Nominees

With four nods, including a Best Actor bid for Chiwetel Ejiofor and one for the coveted Best Cast, 12 Years A Slave has racked up the most 2014 Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.

In the next tier down, SAG awarded three nominations each to Dallas Buyers Club, August: Osage County and Lee Daniels' The Butler. Nebraska, American Hustle and Captain Phillips have all earned two nods per film.

The list of this year's movie nominees is outlined in full below. Combined with last week's NYFCC awards, which film do you think has the edge at this year's Oscars?

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
BRUCE DERN / Woody Grant – “NEBRASKA” (Paramount Pictures)
CHIWETEL EJIOFOR / Solomon Northup – “12 YEARS A SLAVE” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
TOM HANKS / Capt. Richard Phillips – “CAPTAIN PHILLIPS” (Columbia Pictures)
MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY / Ron Woodroof – “DALLAS BUYERS CLUB” (Focus Features)
FOREST WHITAKER / Cecil Gaines – “LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER” (The Weinstein Company)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
CATE BLANCHETT / Jasmine – “BLUE JASMINE” (Sony Pictures Classics)
SANDRA BULLOCK / Ryan Stone – “GRAVITY” (Warner Bros. Pictures)
JUDI DENCH / Philomena Lee – “PHILOMENA” (The Weinstein Company)
MERYL STREEP / Violet Weston – “AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY” (The Weinstein Company)
EMMA THOMPSON / P.L. Travers – “SAVING MR. BANKS” (Walt Disney Pictures)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
BARKHAD ABDI / Muse – “CAPTAIN PHILLIPS” (Columbia Pictures)
DANIEL BRÜHL / Niki Lauda – “RUSH” (Universal Pictures)
MICHAEL FASSBENDER / Edwin Epps – “12 YEARS A SLAVE” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
JAMES GANDOLFINI / Albert – “ENOUGH SAID” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
JARED LETO / Rayon – “DALLAS BUYERS CLUB” (Focus Features)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
JENNIFER LAWRENCE / Rosalyn Rosenfeld – “AMERICAN HUSTLE” (Columbia Pictures)
LUPITA NYONG’O / Patsey – “12 YEARS A SLAVE” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
JULIA ROBERTS / Barbara Weston – “AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY” (The Weinstein Company)
JUNE SQUIBB / Kate Grant – “NEBRASKA” (Paramount Pictures)
OPRAH WINFREY / Gloria Gaines – “LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER” (The Weinstein Company)

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
12 YEARS A SLAVE (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH / Ford
PAUL DANO / Tibeats
GARRET DILLAHUNT / Armsby
CHIWETEL EJIOFOR / Solomon Northup
MICHAEL FASSBENDER / Edwin Epps
PAUL GIAMATTI / Freeman
SCOOT McNAIRY / Brown
LUPITA NYONG’O / Patsey
ADEPERO ODUYE / Eliza
SARAH PAULSON / Mistress Epps
BRAD PITT / Bass
MICHAEL KENNETH WILLIAMS / Robert
ALFRE WOODARD / Mistress Shaw
 
AMERICAN HUSTLE (Columbia Pictures)
AMY ADAMS / Sydney Prosser
CHRISTIAN BALE / Irving Rosenfeld
LOUIS C.K. / Stoddard Thorsen
BRADLEY COOPER / Richie DiMaso
PAUL HERMAN / Alfonse Simone
JACK HUSTON / Pete Musane
JENNIFER LAWRENCE / Rosalyn Rosenfeld
ALESSANDRO NIVOLA / Federal Prosecutor
MICHAEL PEÑA / Sheik (Agent Hernandez)
JEREMY RENNER / Mayor Carmine Polito
ELISABETH RÖHM / Dolly Polito
SHEA WHIGHAM / Carl Elway
 
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (The Weinstein Company)
ABIGAIL BRESLIN / Jean Fordham
CHRIS COOPER / Charles Aiken
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH / “Little” Charles Aiken
JULIETTE LEWIS / Karen Weston
MARGO MARTINDALE / Mattie Fae Aiken
EWAN McGREGOR / Bill Fordham
DERMOT MULRONEY / Steve
JULIANNE NICHOLSON / Ivy Weston
JULIA ROBERTS / Barbara Weston
SAM SHEPARD / Beverly Weston
MERYL STREEP / Violet Weston
MISTY UPHAM / Johnna
 
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB (Focus Features)
JENNIFER GARNER / Dr. Eve Saks
MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY / Ron Woodroof
JARED LETO / Rayon
DENIS O’HARE / Dr. Sevard
DALLAS ROBERTS / David Wayne
STEVE ZAHN / Tucker
 
LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER (The Weinstein Company)
MARIAH CAREY / Hattie Pearl
JOHN CUSACK / Richard Nixon
JANE FONDA / Nancy Reagan
CUBA GOODING, JR. / Carter Wilson
TERRENCE HOWARD / Howard
LENNY KRAVITZ / James Holloway
JAMES MARSDEN / John F. Kennedy
DAVID OYELOWO / Louis Gaines
ALEX PETTYFER / Thomas Westfall
VANESSA REDGRAVE / Annabeth Westfall
ALAN RICKMAN / Ronald Reagan
LIEV SCHREIBER / Lyndon B. Johnson
FOREST WHITAKER / Cecil Gaines
ROBIN WILLIAMS / Dwight D. Eisenhower
OPRAH WINFREY / Gloria Gaines

The SAG awards will be broadcast live on TNT and TBS on Saturday, January 18 at 8pm ET/5pm PT.

12 Years A Slave
 

American Hustle
 

August: Osage County
 

Dallas Buyers Club
 

Lee Daniels' The Butler
 

Nebraska
 

Captain Phillips
 

'American Hustle' wins top NYFC honor

The New York Film Critics Circle has announced its 2013 list of awardees, kicking Oscar punditry, predictions, and proselytizing into high gear. David O. Russell's American Hustle walked away with the Best Picture title, while star Jennifer Lawrence was named the year's Best Supporting Actress (cue mockingjay hand signal of solidarity). The list of winners is below:

 

 Best Picture: American Hustle
 Best Actor: Robert Redford, All Is Lost
 Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
 Best Director: Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
 Best Screenplay: American Hustle
 Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
 Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
 Best Animated Film: The Wind Rises
 Best Cinematographer: Bruno Delbonnel, Inside Llewyn Davis
 Best First Film: Fruitvale Station
 Best Foreign Film: Blue Is the Warmest Color
 Best Non-Fiction Film (Documentary): Stories We Tell
 Special Award: Frederick Wiseman

 

‘Thor’ proves its mighty earning mettle

As predicted, Thor: The Dark World ruled the multiplexes this weekend. The latest Marvel action (with a hefty dose of comedy) flick earned $86 million at the domestic box office and $180 million worldwide. It looks as if the lauded sequel will soon out-gross its predecessor: By the end of  summer 2011, Thor had earned a successful $450 million worldwide, while The Dark World has already amassed a stellar $327 million after only two weeks. Many are crediting Thor’s appearance in 2012’s The Avengers with increasing interest in his character. The “Avengers Effect” was certainly in play for Iron Man 3, which saw a significant boost in sales over Iron Man 2 (36%) after it opened post-Avengers. Not everyone is thrilled with what is undoubtedly a blockbuster debut, however. 3D attendance was down from the first Thor, and 3D sales made up just 39% of The Dark World’s overall gross, falling short of Gravity-influenced expectations. But that’s splitting hairs on a well-coiffed head. Lacking as it does any significant competition, Thor is expected to hold onto its title for some time.



Unfortunately for everyone else, standing next to a Norse god is bound to dwarf you.  This weekend’s No. 2, Bad Grandpa, earned just $11.3 million, down 44% from last weekend. The good news? Even with the inevitable dropoff, Grandpa is the second highest-grossing Jackass film of all time, on track to earn well over $100 million.

Third and fourth place just missed out-grossing Grandpa. Free Birds and Last Vegas earned $11.2 and $11.1 million, respectively. Their overall cumes are equally waddle-neck-in-neck:  Audiences have more or less ignored the critics and helped Free Birds earn $30.2 million and Last Vegas $33.5 million to date.



Dropping faster than an intergalactic deity to Earth, Ender’s Game suffered a sales dip of 62% to earn $10.3 million. That brings the film’s total up to $44 million, which, considering its advance hype, production costs and this weekend’s steep sophomore dropoff, qualifies it as a bomb. Expect the film to hang around for another week or two, but once Katniss and co. stage their multiplex takeover come November 22 for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Ender’s Game will be all but over.

Not so with Steve McQueen’s everyone-loves-it 12 Years A Slave. After expanding wide to 1,144 locations, Slave earned $6.6 million to bump its total earnings up to $17.3 million. The rollout, and profits, will continue this coming weekend when the film screens at roughly 1,300 theatres.



Finally, with the weekend’s smallest opening, The Book Thief earned a solid $108,000 from four locations. The film, though, isn’t tracking too hot on Rotten Tomatoes – 59% rotten – and Fox has yet to announce further expansion plans.

‘Ender’s’ does decent domestic business, ‘Thor’ nails the competition overseas

Thanks to Gravity, October’s box-office highlights were flush with excitement and the hyperbolic language of success: The film was record-breaking, Oscar-worthy, earth-shattering (more or less). Now that the fervor surrounding Alfonso Cuaron’s hit has cooled - Gravity dipped 35% this weekend, its largest drop in sales to date - box-office numbers have stabilized accordingly. The first weekend in November wasn’t a dud, simply one in which expectations were met without being exceeded. It’s back to business as usual.

At least until Thor: The Dark World opens domestically, that is. The Marvel comic-book flick and sequel to 2011’s Thor earned $109 million in 36 overseas markets.  It had the fourth best international debut this year, and will likely experience little trouble overtaking Ender’s Game when it opens in theatres across the country this weekend. Game proved a stable player, grossing $28 million domestically. That’s certainly a respectable bow, though many pundits are questioning the film’s tenacity. For how long can the sci-fi feature remain No. 1 in the face of the tough, hammer-wielding competition?  Is the scrappy Ender any match for big, blonde and beautiful Thor? The odds don’t seem to be in his favor.

Last Vegas performed as predicted, earning approximately $16.5 million. That’s a nice haul for CBS Films, whose highest grossing film, The Woman in Black, earned only a few million more ($20.9 million) when it debuted last year. Of course, Last Vegas’ opening doesn’t compare with many of its actors’ successes past (on more than one level) but it’s likely the enjoyable comedy will enjoy a nice run before ending up a footnote in its cast’s long list of credits.

Likewise, it doesn’t look as if Free Birds is in danger of becoming a children’s classic. Critics don’t like it, and, according to the film’s opening numbers, audiences are a bit lukewarm. Clocking in at No. 4, the animated feature about a group of turkeys who travel back in time to prevent their ritualistic slaughter from becoming a Thanksgiving tradition, earned $16.2 million. For weeks, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 has been the only kid-friendly feature available. There was certainly an opening for a new smart, fun and inventive cartoon. Unfortunately, Birds doesn’t fit the bill.

This weekend’s domestic box wasn’t all ho-hum, however. Bad Grandpa continued to do great business, earning a little over $20 million. To date, the Jackass film has earned $62 million and is on track to surpass the franchise’s most successful movie, Jackass: Number 2, sometime this week.

The specialty division  also chugged along at a good clip. One Oscar hopeful, 12 Years A Slave,  grossed $4.6 million from 410 locations, while another, Dallas Buyers Club, made $264,000 from nine theatres. Both are set to expand this coming weekend, and will most likely keep spinning their critical praise and positive word-of-mouth into more profits.

Big names to dominate weekend box office

With a host of major releases bowing this weekend, moviegoers of every age, demographic and level of taste should have little trouble finding something to satisfy them. Sci-fi flick Ender’s Game has been generating the greatest amount of buzz as the first installment in a would-be franchise for Summit Entertainment (a company in need of another tentpole, now their Twilight series has faded). The adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s young adult novel has been tracking strong in pre-sales, with reviews just this-side of positive (63% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes).  Odds are, Ender’s Game, which is opening in 3,407 theatres tonight, will likely score somewhere in the high $20 million range.

If Game is looking to draw a crowd of teenagers, Free Birds is after their younger brothers and sisters. It’s been all Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 all the time for the past few weeks, so far as kid features are concerned. Lacking any family friendly challengers the animated sequel has been doing solid business, consistently ranking among each weekend’s top five highest-grossing films. Although our critic Michael Sauter thought Birds was one mess of a turkey, parents who’ve already seen Cloudy 2 will most likely welcome the change of pace. Free Birds will debut very widely, in 3,736 locations. Look for earnings as low as $15 million and as high as $20+ million.

With brother in one theatre, and baby sister in another, you’ll most likely find grandpa down the hall in cinema 3 yucking it up at Last Vegas. You couldn’t ask for a better cast – Michael Douglas, Kevin Kline, Morgan Freeman, and Robert De Niro – though no one would fault you for wishing writer Dan Fogelman had invested his script with a little more wit or originality. Critics haven’t been falling for the comedy’s tried tropes and gags, but if you don’t mind a little derivativeness, watching the four leads throw self-seriousness to the wind is a hoot. In all likelihood Last Vegas won’t do banner business, but a respectable $14 million would be just that.

About Time will likely rank among the weaker of Friday’s major debuts, even with its director’s legions of faithful – young women capable of reciting every line of his beloved film Love, Actually – in attendance. Richard Curtis’ latest, about a young man with a nifty family gene that allows him to travel back in time, also boasts romance queen Rachel McAdams as the love interest. Between director and leading lady, About Time (175 theatres) is expected to draw a small, devoted crowd that may translate to roughly $2 million in sales.

Last but by no means least (quite the opposite, in fact) specialty release Dallas Buyers Club will open in nine theatres, and 12 Years A Slave will expand to 410 theatres. Each early Oscar contender has received strong reviews and is expected to do very strong art-house business.

'Bad Grandpa' schools 'The Counselor'

It finally happened: Gravity has been dethroned. The reigning victor, Bad Grandpa, debuted to a successful $32 million this past weekend. While the film’s opening haul is a good $20 million less than 2010’s Jackass:3D, the last movie released by the popular Jackass franchise, it’s still more than double Grandpa’s $15 million production budget. In other words, the old man’s antics didn’t disappoint. Certainly, fans of the series, its spate of films and Johnny Knoxville himself have remained loyal: 63% of viewers were over the age of 25, meaning they were most likely those same teenagers, now all grown up, who first watched the "Jackass" TV show in their parents’ basement when it aired in the early 2000s.  Never underestimate the pull of nostalgia. Pundits believe Grandpa’s older crowd and relatively even gender breakdown (56% male) bodes well for its continued box-office success.

Though Gravity has finally slipped from the top slot, its fall hasn’t been from grace. These past three days have seen the thriller rake in another $20 million, experiencing a dip of 32%. The weekend’s sales have helped the film inch ever closer to the $200 million domestic mark. Unfortunately, Gravity’s earning power will likely wane come Friday, when Ender’s Game opens and overtakes the country’s IMAX theatres. By the time Gravity does fade, many speculate the film will have earned $250 million overall.

Chugging along at No. 3 is the ever-solid Captain Phillips. Tom Hanks’ pirate drama and something of a career comeback vehicle dropped just 28% to earn a little under $12 million. Its respectable total domestic earnings have been tallied at $70 million.

And then there’s The Counselor. With everything going for it – acclaimed director, acclaimed writer, acclaimed x 5 cast of actors – how could it have gone so wrong? The much-maligned chatty drama earned a disappointing $8 million, although, to be fair, its earnings are on par with Fox’s predictions. Critics didn’t like it, and either audiences listened, or determined for themselves from viewing the film’s trailer there just wasn’t enough there there to be of interest. Another week or two and The Counselor will most likely pack up and bow out.

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 completes this weekend’s top 5. The kid favorite has tenaciously and consistently ranked among the box office’s top performers, even if it is tracking a little behind the first Cloudy. This weekend may have seen the last of its glory days, however – Free Birds is looking to take a sizable peck out of the family market when it opens this Friday.

Wrapping up with two films heavily weighted beneath their considerable buzz – and efficiently moving tickets for all that – 12 Years a Slave and Blue Is the Warmest Color made the specialty box office a great success over the weekend. After expanding to 123 theaters, Steve McQueen’s Slave earned a little over $2 million, bumping its total to $3.4 million. The film’s wide release is slated for this coming weekend, when audiences across the country will have their pick of 400 theatres from which to view the harrowing artistic achievement.

Despite (because of?) the public controversy surrounding French flick Blue Is the Warmest Color, the Cannes Palme d’Or winner did very fine business. Its weekend earnings amount to $101,000, with, hopefully, more $$ on the way.

Latest 'Jackass' looks to unseat 'Gravity'

Jackass spinoff Bad Grandpa may finally have the popular heft to unseat Gravity this weekend, bringing the latter’s nearly month-long reign over the box office to a worthy end. It’s been quite a run for Alfonso Cuaron and co.: Gravity has earned $177 million domestically and close to $300 million worldwide. Business this weekend is expected to remain steady, if no longer stellar. Pundits predict a haul in the mid $20 million range, which would amount to a 25% downturn in sales.

Bad Grandpa, on the other hand, is reportedly on track to double its production value. The Borat-style comedy, in which Johnny Knoxville plays the titular geriatric pervert on an eventful roadtrip with his chip-off-the-ole’-block troublemaker grandson, was produced for approximately $15 million. Odds are the Jackass faithful will help carry the film to a $30 million opening weekend. As respectable a figure as that may sound, however, it nonetheless pales in comparison with the franchise’s last debut. Jackass: 3D , released in 2010, was buoyed by expensive 3D sales to earn a whopping $50 million its first weekend out of the gate (or should we say pen?).

Ridley Scott/Cormac McCarthy collaboration The Counselor, also bowing tonight, certainly has a fancier pedigree to its name, but the critical drubbing it’s received will most likely undercut its ability to perform, and certainly compete with wide-appeal Grandpa. Our Rex Roberts didn’t completely pan the film that attracted the likes of megawatt stars Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and Cameron Diaz, but neither did he place himself in the minority of lauders. “The Counselor isn’t a bad movie,” he wrote, “just a bombastic one.” Audiences aren’t expected to bang down the doors in their haste to view this exhibition of hubris (on multiple levels). Fox believes the movie will earn between $8 and $10 million.

On the other end of the critical spectrum, French film and Cannes Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color may reap the benefits of universal praise and a healthy dose of salacious controversy. Not only does the three-hour drama about a young woman and her intense relationship with a female artist carry with it an NC-17 rating, but the film’s two leading ladies and their director have been engaged in a very public media battle over who was or was not exploited during the movie’s graphic lesbian sex scenes. The most recent installment of the he-said she-said argument/publicity gambit took the form of an open letter by director Abdellatif Kechiche, in which he charged actress Lea Seydoux with making “opportunistic calculations.” It all seems a bit juvenile for such high-brow fare, but let’s see if the nonsense helps move tickets. Blue Is the Warmest Color opens in just four theaters tonight.

12 Years A Slave expands considerably this weekend, playing in 123 theaters. After it over-performed at 19 locations last weekend the historical drama is expected to only gain momentum. Its recent Gotham Award nominations probably won’t hurt its earning potential, either.

'Gravity' holds strong amid weak box office

To no one’s very great surprise - albeit to much industry excitement - Gravity completed another successful box-office orbit this past weekend. With yet another $30 million haul, the intergalactic thriller has now earned over $170 million in domestic sales.  At 28%, its fiscal drop was a little steeper this weekend (compared with last weekend’s dip of 23%), but at this point in the film’s wildly successful run, focusing on five percentage points is akin to splitting hairs.

Furthering the déjà vu nature of today’s roundup, Captain Phillips again clocked in at No. 2. Tom Hanks’ suspense tale suffered from a larger slip in sales than Gravity did during its sophomore outing: Down 33%, to gross $17.3 million. In all, the Paul-Greengrass directed, modern day-pirate touting, Oscar-chasing Phillips has earned $53.3 million.

Unfortunately, it seems the rest of the domestic box office offered little audience incentive. Even with Halloween right around the corner, the lone horror feature, Carrie, proved itself unable to scare up business. The film didn’t perform nearly as poorly as the worst of the box-office naysayers had predicted Friday morning, though neither did it justify those optimists who thought (wished?) it could compete with Gravity. Instead, Carrie made an all right $17 million. Compared with Gravity, which skews slightly male, and Phillips, which draws an older crowd, those viewers who did see Carrie were mostly female (54%) and under the age of 25 (56%). Maybe it’ll fare better when it streams on Netflix?

Rounding out the top five (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 took the No. 4 slot with another solid weekend, earning $10 million to boost its overall gross to $93.1 million) Escape Plan earned roughly $9.8 million. The mostly male audience (66%) was also mostly over the age of 30, neatly aligning the Stallone/Schwarzenegger vehicle with this weekend’s theme of “to no one’s great surprise.”

Well, almost no one. Even given The Fifth Estate’s middling reviews, fans of Benedict Cumberbatch may not have expected the film to fare quite as poorly as it did. Apparently, American audiences found little of interest in the Julian Assange/WikiLeaks feature. The Fifth Estate raked in just $1.5 million, earning the lowest gross of any film that opened in over 1,500 theatres this year.

Thankfully for Cumberbatch, his other movie out this weekend, 12 Years A Slave, managed to exceed expectations. On Friday we speculated the film might make $30,000 or so at each of its 19 locations. This morning we learned Steve McQueen’s latest, acclaimed feature averaged $50,000 per theatre. Its total weekend haul amounts to $960,000, a wonderful start for an art-house flick. Fox Searchlight will screen the film in 100 more theatres this coming weekend.

Fellow critical darling All Is Lost may end up competing with Slave at the Academy Awards, but it proved itself a weak opponent at the box office. Robert Redford’s one-man drama took in just $97,400.

To pull the camera out, so to speak, and take a wider view of this weekend’s earnings: Those films that made up the top 12 earned a total of $96.4 million. Even given the endurance of Gravity’s run, that number still signals a 20% drop in earnings from this time last year. Let’s see if this coming weekend can improve October’s outlook.

Early Oscar 2014 predictions: best actor

With fall comes more than just a cooling of temperatures – within the film industry, the advent of chillier weather signals the heating up of that grand poobah competition, the Oscar race. This year’s crop of contenders is one of the strongest in recent memory. Already, records are being set (Alfonso Cuaron’s ‘Gravity’ pulled in the largest October opening-weekend haul to date), expectations exceeded (haven’t we already seen a million or two little-kid-gone-missing films? Not like Prisoners, we haven’t) and nerves shot (thank you, Paul Greengrass, for inducing a lingering headache after I felt compelled to hold my breath over and over again while watching Tom Hanks attempt to outwit a band of determined Somali pirates in your Captain Phillips). While the women of this season’s Oscar-bait films will be given their kudos in good time – Meryl’s back! – the men vying for the industry’s most coveted, or at least its shiniest, prize are worthy of particular note. The five-nominee limit seems particularly restrictive this year.

Those with the largest amount of buzz surrounding their performances include Chiwetel Ejiofor for Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave, Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club, Robert Redford in All is Lost, Forest Whitaker in The Butler, and the aforementioned pirate captive, Tom Hanks, in Captain Phillips. So that’s five, right? Technically speaking, yes. But with such a talented group to choose from, we wouldn’t be surprised if five or six other actors slipped into one of the coveted nominee slots.

Take Bruce Dern in Alexander Payne’s (Sideways) latest film, Nebraska. The twilight (referring to age, happily no association with the franchise) actor took home the Cannes Film Festival prize for Best Actor for his performance as a sick old man who travels with his son (Will Forte) from Montana over to the titular state in the hopes of claiming a $1,000,000 lottery prize. Word has it Nebraska was a festival crowd-pleaser, a sentimental favorite whose popularity (assuming the Cannes enthusiasm translates to a wider viewership when the film opens next month) could boost Dern’s chances.

Prisoners certainly has widespread appeal on its side, if box-office numbers are anything to go by (according to Rotten Tomatoes, the film is currently tracking at $47.5 million). And Hugh Jackman has been turning the heads of critics who’ve felt a bit lukewarm about the actor since his turn in the “mild box office hit” The Wolverine. In Prisoners, Jackman plays the father of a six-year-old girl gone missing, a man whose natural paternal anxiety evolves into something far darker when the investigation stymies and he feels compelled to take matters into his own hands. Prisoners boasts solid performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Paul Dano as well, but the movie really is the Jackman show.

Making a strong showing of his own, Idris Elba as Nelson Mandela in the upcoming biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom should also not be discounted. The Academy loves an epic, loves a romance, loves a history film, loves great actors playing giants of politics… it may very well love Elba and the vehicle behind him enough to give him a nomination.

For a few longer, though by no means faulty, shots, there’s Leo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming The Wolf of Wall Street, as well as Oscar Isaac in the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. After five films together the pairing of DiCaprio and Scorsese could almost be called classic, and certainly one which highlights Leo to great effect. And who doesn’t love a Coen film?

Finally, my particular vote for underdog (for all the aggressive campaigning behind his film) nominee goes to Michael B. Jordan for his star turn in Fruitvale Station. Our Tomris Laffly said Jordan turned in a “remarkably mature and humanistic performance,” one which proves the former cult TV staple (he’s previously appeared on “The Wire” and “Friday Night Lights”) is an eminently watchable adult force to be reckoned with.

In alphabetical order, then, here is our list of would-be Best Actor contenders for the 2014 Academy Awards:

-Ejiofor, Chiwetel (12 Years A Slave)

-Elba, Idris (Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom)

-Dern, Bruce (Nebraska)

-DiCaprio, Leonardo (The Wolf of Wall Street)

-Hanks, Tom (Captain Phillips)

-Isaac, Oscar (Inside Llewyn Davis)

-Jackman, Hugh (Prisoners)

-Jordan, Michael B. (Fruitvale Station)

-McConaughey, Matthew (Dallas Buyers Club)

-Redford, Robert (All is Lost)

-Whitaker, Forest (The Butler)