Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest. Bon Cop, Bad Cop — CDN $2,587,117 — N.AM $2,587,117 — 100%Miami Vice — CDN $6,157,546 — N.AM $55,112,000 — 11.2%Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest — CDN $38,517,189 — N.AM $392,400,000 — 9.8%John Tucker Must Die — CDN $3,123,271 — N.AM $35,701,000 — 8.7%Step Up — CDN $1,774,365... Read more

And no, we’re not talking about the Wolverine spin-off — that’s a whole other movie entirely. Reports the LA Daily News: The surprise clip at the end of this summer’s “X-Men: The Last Stand,” belied the film’s title, leaving room for yet another stand of the mutant brigade. But when and which of the mutant posse will be back are the outstanding questions. Exec producer Lauren Shuler Donner reports that renegotiations will be in order for the fourth installment of... Read more

I’ve been on something of a Japanese kick lately. Last week, a friend and I attended a screening of Akira Kurosawa’s second-to-last film Rhapsody in August (1991) — a screening that was hosted by local author Douglas Coupland, who explained some of the reasons why he feels a personal connection to that film. I appreciated the film on some levels, and I can see why it has such a personal significance for Coupland, but overall I found it too didactic.... Read more

It’s that time of year again … the time when I begin to scrounge around for information about upcoming DVD sets of classic cartoons. Amazon.com has a page up for the fourth installment in the Looney Tunes: Golden Collection series, and some customers have posted some tantalizing notes regarding what these discs might contain, but very little has been made official so far; there isn’t even any cover art. Meanwhile, UltimateDisney.com has some info on what we can “expect” from... Read more

Maybe this chart will help. (Hat tip to GreenCine Daily.) Read more

Ignore the rumours. Disney said today that it will still distribute Mel Gibson‘s Apocalypto on December 8, reports Reuters. Read more

Last year, in a post on the then-upcoming Russian sci-fi/horror hybrid Night Watch (2004), I mentioned that “North American theatres often get the artier films from overseas . . . but don’t always get the more popular films.” Now comes this Reuters story on Iranian films, which makes the same basic point: International audiences have come to know Iranian cinema as a lyrical but slow-paced genre where horses slog through snowy Kurdish mountain passes and children spend two hours looking... Read more

The cold shoulder returns! Earlier this year, the studios released one major film after another without screening them for critics first. But then came the month of May, and the onset of all those major summer blockbusters, and once again the studios were nice to us; with movies that big, there was nothing to gain by alienating the press and generating bad word of mouth, and there was really nothing to lose, either, because the marketing campaigns for all those... Read more

The Hollywood Reporter, via Reuters, says Brett Ratner, who brought the X-Men franchise to a rather lame end this summer, is developing a remake of The Boys from Brazil (1978). The original film was one of several from that era — including The Odessa File (1974) and Marathon Man (1976) — that were haunted by the lingering presence in the real world of Nazis who had escaped punishment for their crimes; the film even starred Gregory Peck as Auschwitz doctor... Read more

I hate needles. So much so that I remember getting a mild case of the shivers when I saw The Godfather Part III (1990; my comments) on the big screen with my friend Suseh back in ’91. I had had jaw surgery several months before that film came out, and I was destined to have it again in a few months, and the scene depicted above — this, of all scenes! — made me cringe. Why? Because of that IV... Read more