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“No Strings Attached” a Bankable Yarn

All sex comedies are not created equal, apparently. No Strings Attached triumphed where Love and Other Drugs failed not too long ago. The Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher rom-com won the weekend with $20 million. The Way Back and The Company Men barely registered with audiences premiering at fourteenth and twentieth places respectively.

With little by way of competition a naughty little picture about sex without commitment latched onto the top spot with an adequate haul. January is a dull month in the business, so $20 million, and for a romantic comedy no less, is notable. Just last week another comedy about divorce, a bromance of sorts, starring Vince Vaughn and Kevin James made the same. Unfortunately, that was over a four-day holiday weekend shrinking its worthiness in comparison.

The Way Back
, that film you’ve never heard of, somehow did better than The Company Men, a movie with notable stars. Still both films were dirges with unlikable stories including corporate layoffs and chain gangs. Moviegoers ignored them in favor of Oscar worthy holdovers True Grit, Black Swan, The Fighter, and The King’s Speech.

The Top Ten

1.  No Strings Attached - $20.3M (weekend)…$20.3M (gross)
2.  The Green Hornet - $18.1M…$63.4M

3.  The Dilemma - $9.7M…$33.3M
4.  The King’s Speech - $9.1M…$58.6M
5.  True Grit - $8.0M…$138.6M
6.  Black Swan - $6.2M…$83.5M
7.  The Fighter - $4.5M …$73.0M
8.  Little Fockers - $4.3M…$141.1M
9.  Yogi Bear - $4.0M…$88.8M
10. Tron Legacy - $3.7M …$163.2M

14. The Way Back - $1.46M …$1.46M

20. The Company Men - $0.76M …$0.81M

Haven’t we seen this before? Some pale chick vomiting and speaking in a man’s voice? It’s that time of year I guess where unwanted films pop into theaters left an right. This banal horror is called The Rite and has managed to receive 2,900 screens across the nation. Anthony Hopkins stars as the faithful priest and Colin O’Donoghue as the archtype skeptic who doesn’t believe in exorcisms. Let me guess, by the end of the movie he will believe and be running from the devil like a real sissy. It’s been done far too many times.

The Mechanic
starring Jason Statham and underrated performer Ben Foster is directed by Simon West of 1408 and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider fame. This is a remake of a Charles Bronson classic, though studios are hoping no one makes comparisons. It looks like a good shoot-first-ask-questions-later type with likeable leads. Statham isn’t box office gold but he does alright for an action star in a time when such a type is no longer desired. The shoot-em-up debuts at 2700 cinemas this Friday.

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