By Sarah Sluis
Twilight (3,419 screens) debuted with sold-out midnight screenings last night, and finished at #5 among all-time pre-sold tickets (per Movietickets.com), right below The Dark Knight. With the help of "Twilight Moms," the most obvious expansion of the teen girl demographic turning out for the film, the
vampire romance will continue to sell out screenings throughout the weekend. Among non-Twilight-reading and Twilight-reading critics, the film has inspired polarized opinions. A decent portion have acknowledged the film's ability to pull heartstrings despite some corny moments, but for others, like our critic Ethan Alter, those moments, combined with some trite camera setups and technical sloppiness, make the film unbearable. A friend who accompanied the press screening called Twilight "teen fantasy reduced to its most basic form. There is something so pure about a film that doesn't try to trick you into thinking it's clever, or appealing to anyone outside its demographic. It's exactly the film for exactly its audience. That's rare."
Bolt (3,651 screens) opens after a non buzz-generating sneak preview last weekend. With a large portion of the screens exhibiting in 3D, the film will receive a boost in revenue from higher ticket prices
at those venues. A solid film, our executive editor Kevin Lally called Bolt "an unpretentious, consistently entertaining romp...with plenty of heart". As Lally notes, the breakout press story is that of Disney animator Mark Walton. A hyperactive fanboy who naturally possesses hamster-like qualities, his scratch recording of the hamster Rhino was so good, it made it into the final film. Coupled with the celebrity voices of Miley Cyrus, John Travola, and "Curb Your Enthusiasm"'s Susie Essman, the film should please adults and kids alike.
On the specialty side, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas expands to 406 screens, Muslim-lesbian romantic drama I Can't Think Straight opens on 3 screens, drug-induced superhero hallucination picture Special debuts on 1 screen, and Laotian immigrant documentary The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) opens at New York City's IFC Theatre.
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