Punch Drunk Podcast Ep. 30- Remembering Paul Walker

Unfortunately we've had to edit the content on this episode at the last minute, we were planning on covering the new releases as usual but, much to our shock and dismay, Fast & Furious actor Paul Walker was killed in a car wreck yesterday afternoon. While we will still be covering this week's releases we thought it better to remember the career of yet another actor that we've lost far too young.

Listen To Film Internet Radio Stations with The Punch Drunk Podcast on BlogTalkRadio

Read More

Box Office: 'Catching Fire' and 'Frozen' Break Thanksgiving Records; 'Oldboy' Flops Hard

1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire- $74.5M/$296.5M
In what is generally a fairly soft holiday weekend, 'Catching Fire' set the box office alight with a whopping $74.5M, which grows to $110M if expanded to include Wednesday. That breaks the record previously held by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which hit the $82M mark in its second weekend twelve years ago. Worldwide the film has amassed $573M in a mere 10 days.
2. Frozen- $66.7M/$93.M
 As Catching Fire burns, Frozen is putting all of Disney's box office records on ice with a $93M five-day haul that ranks it as the studio's highest-grossing debut of all-time. The total more than trumps the $68M total for Tangled, which opened on the same weekend a couple of years ago and went on to earn more than $600M worldwide. The interesting thing to note is that Disney had planned for Tangled to be their final "princess" movie until it performed so well, and now they're on the verge of Frozen possibly becoming their top-grossing animated movie ever.
3. Thor: The Dark World- $15.4M/$186.7M
4. The Best Man Holiday- $8.4M/$63.4M
5. Homefront- $6.97M/$9.7M
Not even Jason Statham could best the might of this week's top two flicks, as Homefront opened to a dismal $9.7M, which admittedly is average for his solo films of late.
6. Delivery Man- $6.93M/$19.4M
7. The Book Thief- $4.8M/$7.8M
8. Black Nativity- $3.8M/$5M
Not even an obvious holiday family musical like Black Nativity, with an absolutely glowing cast, had any room to manuever this week. The Kasi Lemmons' adaptation of Langston Hughes' play earned $5M over the five days, but it may stick around for awhile as we inch closer to Christmas. 
9. Philomena- $3.7M/$4.7M
Bumping up more than 800 theaters and riding Oscar buzz for star Judi Dench, the real-life dramedy Philomena should stick around for the long haul as awards season rolls along.
10. 12 Years A Slave- $3M/$33.1M

It's hard to figure out exactly what FilmDistrict was thinking in their treatment of Spike Lee's Oldboy. After a brilliant, extremely creative art campaign emphasizing the film's more twisted aspects, they go and dump it in only 583 theaters with little in the way of TV promotion. The results are to be expected, $1.25M earned over the five-day holiday, making it unlikely the $30M feature will recoup its budget.

Read More

Review: 'Homefront', Starring Jason Statham and James Franco

James Franco played a creepy drug lord earlier this year in Spring Breakers to great effect. He has a very similar role in Homefront, though a lot of the creepiness is substituted for angry yelling. Sylvester Stallone writes a script that's aimed at cramming as many testosterone-fueled confrontations as possible without giving the film a backbone to hold it up when it falters.


Phil Broker (Jason Statham) is a DEA agent who quits after a drug ring bust doesn't end happily. That's the only reason given for Broker's "retirement" and it doesn't really make sense, but the script's by Sylvester Stallone, so apparently we're supposed to let it slide. 

Broker ends up in a very small town in Louisiana where everyone practically bullies him or his daughter Maddy (newcomer Izabela Vidovic). Honestly, everyone Statham comes across wants to either threaten him or beat him up. So much for small-town hospitality. 

Cassie Bodine (Kate Bosworth) is angry that her son gets taken down by Broker's daughter when the kid bullies her at school for no reason. Pissed off that no one's doing anything about it, she seeks help from her brother Gator (James Franco) to put some fear in Broker. Everything changes when Gator finds out that Broker is ex-DEA and he and his girlfriend Sheryl (Winona Ryder) plan a way to hand Broker over to the drug lord he took down on his last case so that Broker doesn't find out about Gator's own meth-cooking ways. 

The main cast is impressive, but the story is lacking. So why is that actors like Winona Ryder and Kate Bosworth are in this film? These are two talented women cast in a movie that undermines their talents as well as their presence. They're left as side characters who don't do anything for the movie as a whole and we're left sitting there wondering why the hell they're in this movie in the first place. 

Ryder looks great for her age, but her character tries to pass for a girl half her age in attitude and in representation. Bosworth's character is quick-tempered, but there's no real bite to her aggression, and beyond that there's really nowhere left for her character to grow.

Statham plays the usual kick-ass character that he's played in the past, though with a baseball hat on this time around. The main problem with the movie is that no one in it can go up against Statham and legitimately win. Everyone in the film gets their asses handed to them and not once do we fear for Statham's life because we know that he can take the person down. Franco isn't scary enough or physically equal to rise to the occasion. Even the final showdown is pretty anticlimactic. 

As mentioned earlier, Franco's character in Spring Breakers is much more appealing in terms of being the creepy drug dealer he should have probably been in in this film. In fairness, the story is weak and the script doesn't seem to want to give time to expand on the world its created. 

Instead, it jumps from point A to point B methodically and without any real backbone. There are hints to Statham and Rachelle Lefevre's characters becoming romantically involved. There are instances of character depth when Vidovic talks about the pain of missing her mother. In the end though, these things never amount to anything other than minutes of screen time.

While the story does lack and actors are underutilized, the action is fantastic. Director Gary Fleder puts more focus on the hand-to-hand combat instead of blowing things up, and it looks great. It's the only thing that's worth any merit in a film that's full of missed opportunities. And if you're a fan of Statham and Franco, Homefront is a movie best served on DVD. 

Read More

First Images from Sylvester Stallone's 'Homefront' Starring James Franco and Jason Statham

There's a pretty good chance you may have forgotten about Homefront, but once you hear the hodge podge of big stars and C-listers assembled for this action flick it's going to rocket to the top of your must-see list. First of all, it features a script by none other than Sylvester Stallone (!!!), based on a book by acclaimed crime novelist Chuck Hogan. And because Sly is never too far from any of this homies in The Expendables, Jason Statham is starring joined by the seemingly-random cast of James Franco, Winona Ryder, Kate Bosworth, Frank Grillo, Vincent D'Onofrio, Clancy Brown, and Mischa Barton. Friggin' Mischa Barton.

So is it a train wreck or decent testosterone-fueled B-movie schlock? There's a chance for either, and unfortunately the first batch of images don't tell us much. Directed by Gary Fleder (Kiss the Girls), the film has Statham as a DEA agent whose quite family life is upended when he runs afoul of a violent drug kingpin. Franco gets to add to his growing list of oddly-named thugs by playing Gator, the guy giving Statham's character fits, and hopefully we'll be treated to the surreal sight of watching them come to blows. My money's on Franco, and judging by what Statham had to say to USA Today, he took the villain role in an unexpected direction...

Staham: "He's a great actor and didn't go down the usual path of being a 'scary' villain. He has the ability to bring out the quirkiness and eerie side to this character."

Quirky and eerie Franco? Sign me up. No, this won't be heading straight to a Wal-Mart DVD bin near you, but will actually wind up in theaters on November 27th.

Read More