Box Office Outlook: Hopkins vs. Hoffman vs. Carell vs. A Man with a Saw

By Katey Rich

In sharp contrast to last weekend's demolition derby among prestige films, this weekend features a shockingly small number of wide releases and a handful of other quiet openers. Though Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kevin Bacon, Anthony Hopkins, Ron Livingston and even Jimmy Carter are going head-to-head, none of their films open on more than 20 screens. They're probably all cowering in fear of one man (and no, it's not Steve Carell): Jigsaw, the horror meister from Saw IV.

SAW IV. It's not being screened for critics, and really I'd rather pretend it didn't exist at all, but Saw IV is almost guaranteed to conquer the box office this weekend (those people who came out for 30 Days of Night will almost surely be back for more), so we have to at least acknowledge it. Just for comparison's sake, though, here are the Rotten Tomatoes sites for Saw, Saw II, and Saw III. A downward trend when you started at 46%? Not great news, guys. I'd rather put myself in one of those torture instruments in the film than see these movies, but alas, I'm out of touch with the general public once again. I'll put up some critical reviews on Monday, along with some begrudging acknowledgement of the scads of money it made.

DAN IN REAL LIFE. Peter Hedges wowed everyone when he made his directorial debut with 2003's Pieces of April, but given that he wrote the novel and screenplay for the sublime What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and successfully adapted Nick Hornby's About a Boy, it really shouldn't have been a surprise. Now he's back with what looks like a classic screwball comedy: Dan (Steve Carell) meets the perfect woman (Juliette Binoche) only to discover she's engaged to his brother (Dane Cook). Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney play the brothers' parents, Emily Blunt appears as a sexy neighbor, and Broadway actress Allison Pill plays Dan's teenage daughter.

Maybe the presence of Dane Cook threw me off, but I stil wasn't expecting this one to get the critical applause it did. "And at the center of it all is a vulnerable and understated performance by Carell," writes our own Kevin Lally, " which confirms that the former "Daily Show" madcap and current "Office" fool is also quite an accomplished movie actor." "Carell shows a whole new side to his talents," agrees Peter Travers at Rolling Stone. Kirk Honeycutt at The Hollywood Reporter bemoans the "labored and unconvincing" ending, but concedes, "No matter. Getting there was all the fun." Still there are some grouches out there: "We root for Carell even as he drifts through the movie in a minor key," writes the Philadephia Weekly. Reel Views cries "It's cloying, artificial, and not the least bit romantic," and actually says it's worse than The Family Stone (say it ain't so!)

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD. As unwieldy as it is, what a great title. This is Sidney Lumet's 45th (!) film, a dark crime thriller about two brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) who scheme the "perfect crime"-- knocking over their parents' (Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris) jewelry store. The brothers get the goods, and get to pull off an inside job, and the parents get the insurance money. If we've learned anything from Hollywood, though, it's that crime doesn't pay, and everything goes inevitably, horribly wrong. Marisa Tomei also stars. The title gets its name from an Irish toast: "May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil know you're dead."

The film has been earning raves since its debut at the New York Film Festival, with critics crediting it for erasing the memory of Lumet's cinematic sins of the last few decades: "His touch in Before the Devil is so sure, so perfectly weighted, that it's hard to imagine him capable of making a bad movies," writes David Edelstein. Our Rex Roberts notes the film's "unrelenting perversity" but praises Hawke and Hoffman's "mesmerizing" performances that "reinforce the filmmaker's reputation as an actors' director." The New Yorker's David Denby chimes in on the acting as well: "While shooting his movies, Lumet grabs his actors and shakes them into giving more and more [...] In this case, his bullying panache feels right." J. Hoberman at The Village Voice sums it up neatly: "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is less Sidney Lumet's comeback than his resurrection."

JIMMY CARTER MAN FROM PLAINS. I love this title too, if only because of the defiant way it includes "Man from Plains" as part of Carter's title, the way political strategists will doggedly try to attach positive phrases to their candidates' names. Jonathan Demme followed Carter on the tour for his controversial book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which found the 39th President in headlines more than he had been in the previous decade. The film becomes as much about Carter as the controversy he created, featuring supporters from both sides of the Israel-Palestine debate as Carter encounters them on his travels.

Most critics seem glad to see Carter back in the spotlight. "To many, the Cassandra-like Carter makes more sense in hindsight than when he lived in the White House," wrote Variety , calling the film a "peerless portrait." Ed Gonzalez at Slant agrees, callling it "a poignant portrait of a great man" and crediting Demme for "chart[ing] the poetry of Carter's soul." J. Hoberman at the Village Voice is a little bored, though: "It's a measure of Demme's quiet desperation that he would cite, as one of the movie's "excitements," the opportunity to see NPR radio interviewer Terry Gross in the flesh." (Hey, you leave Terry Gross alone!)

SLIPSTREAM. Anthony Hopkins readily admits he's willing to "annoy people a little bit" with Slipstream, a film which he wrote, directed, stars in and even scored. The bare-bones plot description is that screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer is losing his mind, and the characters from his screenplay find their way into his life, turning everything upside down in a highly non-linear, illogical manner. Christian Slater, Jeffrey Tambor, Camryn Manheim and John Turturro all appear, along with Hopkins's wife Stella Arroyave.

"Annoy" was probably a good choice of words on Hopkins' part, since a good number of critics have simply thrown their hands up in frustration at this one. Aaron Hills at the Village Voice wrote what might be my favorite complaint: "Sir Anthony Hopkins has raised the bar to batshit insanity with this maddening passion project." "Slipstream fails miserably as a film about moviemaking, writing, REM sleep and historical atrocities," writes Time Out New York, while the Hollywood Reporter considers itself in on the "joke" Hopkins has called the film: "The ending is a letdown only if you've taken any of the film seriously." Susan Granger went along with the joke too, giving it "A stream-of-consciousness, playfully surreal, satirical 7." Film Threat, too, found method in the, well, you know: "It is a carefully orchestrated madness that has its own logic."