Box Office: 'Non-Stop' Checks In Ahead of 'Son of God'; 'Frozen' Crosses $1B

1. Non-Stop- $30M
Not even the son of God dares challenge the box office authority of Liam Neeson, and the grizzled old action star (think about that for a second...Kinsey is an action hero) is on top with Non-Stop. The Taken model continues to pay dividends for Neeson in this unlikely stage of his career, proving that he is one of the most bankable genre stars around. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger would trade in their sagging muscles for his numbers any day. This gives Neeson two movies in the top 3, let's not forget he plays a key role in The LEGO Movie, and only bodes well for his next two films: Taken 3 and Run All Night. Expect Non-Stop to continue performing well, easily recouping its $50M budget, and shooting past $100M or very close to it.
2. Son of God- $26.5M
Thanks to a coordinated campaign against Darren Aronofsky's Noah, there was some talk earlier this week that Son of God may beat Non-Stop as religious groups sought to make their presence felt. They certainly showed their strength in numbers as the film, which is basically made up from leftover scraps of last year's The Bible miniseries, debuted to a biblical $26.5M. It's still a far cry from what The Passion of the Christ did a decade ago, but that was more of an event picture backed by a ton of early hype.
3. The LEGO Movie- $21M/$209.3M
4. The Monuments Men- $5M/$65.6M
Surpasses $100M worldwide.
5. 3 Days to Kill- $4.9M/$20.7M
Tumbles 60% after a mediocre start. As we said last week, this is one producer/writer Luc Besson will be pimping hard in France, so it may still perform reasonably well. Plus it only cost $28M.
6. Robocop- $4.5M/$51.2M
Robocop has served its brand of justice overseas with a worldwide haul of $187M.
7. Pompeii- $4.3M/$17.7M
Luke warm domestically, but a scorcher overseas with $65M overall.
8. Frozen- $3.6M/$388.7M
Big news on the Frozen front, as the hit animated film has hit the $1B mark worldwide. That makes it the highest-grossing Disney animated film, surpassing The Lion King, and the second highest overall when factoring in Pixar's Toy Story 3. 
9. About Last Night- $3.4M/$43.7M
10. Ride Along- $3M/$127.1M

In other news, Disney expanded Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-nominated The Wind Rises into an additional 475 theaters, resulting in 400% bump from last week. Domestically it only stands at $2M after two weeks which isn't bad for a Japanese animated film geared towards adults, and with $114M racked up worldwide already it doesn't really matter.

And finally, Paramount pumped out a super-sized R-rated cut of Anchorman: The Legend Continues, supposedly with 95% of fresh material. The hook worked, no doubt bolstered by claims this is the final Ron Burgundy movie, and it earned $1.3M in about 1000 theaters.

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Review: Hayao Miyazaki's 'The Wind Rises'

It's sad that so much controversy has swirled around Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises. The legendary Studio Ghibli director, who has entertained millions for years and changed the face of animation in more ways than one can count, deserves to have his apparent swan song given our full attention, since it marks a clear and obvious coda to his career. Despite the outrage by some that the film glosses over Japan's actions during WWII, The Wind Risesis foremost a final, personal look at the nature of creativity, the limitless value of imagination, and the glory of flight.

Miyazaki's love of aeronautics and fascination with flight has long been obvious, captured beautifully in everything from Nausicaa Valley of the Wind, Porco Rossi, and Kiki's Delivery Service. But unlike those fantastical tales, The Wind Rises is a grounded, real life biopic with swaths of surreal imagery that his loyal fans will immediately recognize. The story offers a fictionalized account of the life of Jiro Horikoshi, designer of Japan's Zero fighter plane, flown during WWII. But when we first meet him, Jiro is simply a young man with a love of planes and a desire to be a pilot. He looks up to the famed Italian engineer Giovanni Caproni, and is visited by him in his dreams often. In that dreamscape, surrounded by giant ships of unfathomable design, Caproni convinces Jiro that designing aircraft is his true calling. Filled with the desire to be helpful to his country during its need for brilliant and innovative minds, Jiro goes to university as a builder rather than a flyer.

While there aren’t much in the way of big action sequences, one depicts the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the deadliest quake in Japan's history. Jiro was in the center of it, and during the evacuation meets Naoko, a woman who would come to be very important to him in time. But he's young and obsessed with his work, and it takes some time to realize just how much she means to him. With war on the horizon, though, Jiro focuses his energies on what would become his masterpiece, the Mitsubishi A5M Zero fighter.

Much of the first film plays out in straight forward, low key terms, with a heavy emphasis on the actual designs and the artistry behind them. Despite the eventual purpose behind these planes, Jiro sees himself as an artist, and perhaps in a reflection of his own career, Miyazaki portrays him as such. It's easy to see the correlation between Miyazaki and Jiri’s fierce devotion to their craft, along with the propensity for others to misunderstand their work. That's also why it's a little frustrating to have others criticizing Miyazaki for his depiction of Jiro as an honorable man who just happens to be creating weapons of war. The issue is actually tackled head on as Jiro works in a world where his work, designed and built out of love, is frequently co-opted by a government that only sees them as instruments of death. The second half of the film turns on a dime and becomes almost entirely a romance as Jiro and Naoko reunite. While the film always connects as an intriguing biopic of a man few outside of Japan know, the love story is sweeping, heartbreaking stuff. Their love, depicted in quiet terms for the most part, is short, complicated, and yet beautifully tender. She changes Jiro in all of the ways that truly matter, forcing him to embrace a world beyond just his work desk. On an emotional level it's perhaps the finest work of Miyazaki's career.

Miyazaki has never been one to shy away from politics or using his films to express his opinions on Japan's complicated history, one can look at his recent From Up on Poppy Hill as example, even though he knew it would cause some to deconstruct his work until their spirit no longer existed. He's talked about it many times in the past, and perhaps The Wind Rises is his final word on the issue; a glorious, final act of defiance proving that his films will always soar to the greatest heights.

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Boston Awards Voter Lobbies Against 'Morally Repugnant" 'The Wind Rises'

Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises has been met with great critical acclaim by awards voters so far this season, fitting for the legendary director's final film, but it's also been the subject of a great deal of controversy. The story largely follows the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the Japanese designer and engineer responsible for the Zero Fighter used in WWII. While the film romanticizes Horikoshi's story a great deal, many in Japan and South Korea have lambasted it for failing to examine the full effects of his work.

One critic who took great offense to this was Village Voice film critic Inkoo Kang, who lobbied hard against The Wind Rises before the Boston Society of Film Critics cast their votes in the Best Animated Film category. Here's the text of Kang's statement, provided by Indiewire...

The Japanese Imperial Army killed 30 million people -- a fact that is barely alluded to by the film.

As you may know, its most egregious offenses during WW2, which include orchestrated mass rape, slave labor, and medical human experimentation on live and conscious human beings, are not taught to students, nor are they mentioned in textbooks. 

After decades of denying that Japan had forced tens of thousands of Korean and Chinese women into sex slavery, one Japanese prime minister finally admitted his country's actions during the war. Every other prime minister has since reversed the apology, either minimizing or wholly denying those war crimes. 

Miyazaki's film is wholly symptomatic of Japan's postwar attitude toward its history, which is an acknowledgement of the terribleness of war and a willful refusal to acknowledge its country's role in that terribleness. 

The film also pits European and American powers, in the abstract, as Japan's rivals, but in fact, those planes were used to "pacify" Japan's Korean colony and invade China, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and many other countries, including, of course, the U.S. 

To me, the fact that the film glosses over the true purpose of those planes -- and never mentions the fact that those planes were built by Chinese and Korean slave labor -- is morally egregious. 

She would also refer to the film as "morally repugnant", Despite her comments, the group went ahead and awarded the prize to The Wind Rises, beating out Disney's Frozen. Chances are it will continue to gain Oscar buzz over the coming weeks, but it's clear that some voters will be thinking a little bit harder about the animation category this year.

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'American Hustle' Named Best Film by New York Film Critics Circle

It looks like holding David O. Russell's political caper American Hustle to the absolute last second has paid dividends, as the New York Film Critics Circle has named it the Best Film of of the year. The film topped all with three victories including Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Lawrence's ferocious performance.

One place where it couldn't secure a win was in the Best Director category, with Steve McQueen earning the honor for 12 Years A Slave. Robert Redford received a significant bump, winning Best Actor for his mostly wordless turn in All is Lost, while likely Oscar favorite Cate Blanchett won for Blue Jasmine. The Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis secured a single victory in the Best Cinematography category, a far cry from the Best Feature win it earned at the Gotham Awards yesterday. One thing of note is the serious groundswell of support for Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises, with critics groups perhaps giving the legendary director the send off he deserves.

So does mean we should begin updating the Prognosticator 2000? Eh, probably not. It's still too soon to start drawing any conclusions, but things will get real interesting when the National Board of Review weighs in tomorrow. Full list of winners below:

Best Film:
"American Hustle"
Best Director:
Steve McQueen, "12 Years a Slave"
Best Screenplay:
Eric Singer & David O. Russell, "American Hustle"

Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett, "Blue Jasmine"
Best Actor:
Robert Redford, "All Is Lost"
Best Supporting Actress:
Jennifer Lawrence, "American Hustle"
Best Supporting Actor:
Jared Leto, "Dallas Buyers Club"
Best Cinematography:
Bruno Delbonnel, "Inside Llewyn Davis"
Best Non-fiction Film:
"Stories We Tell," directed by Sarah Polley
Best Foreign Language Film:
"Blue is the Warmest Color," directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
Best Animated Feature:
"The Wind Rises," directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Best First Feature:
"Fruitvale Station," directed by Ryan Coogler

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New U.S. Trailer for Hayao Miyazaki's 'The Wind Rises'

Any time a new Hayao Miyazaki film is released it's a big deal, but with the legendary animator recently announcing his retirement from directing there has been even greater attention paid to The Wind Rises. Opening internationally earlier this year, the biopic on the life of Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the WWII Zero fighter plane used by the Japanese, caused a bit of controversy over its politics. Controversy is something Miyazaki is probably familiar with, but it still may have led in some way to his decision to call it a career.

With the film expected to make a serious bid for an Oscar, a new U.S. trailer has been released which lets the beautiful imagery and some glowing quotes from critics do the talking. Disney will release The Wind Rises on February 21st.


Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises – Official Trailer by FanReviews

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Studio Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki Announces His Retirement

Shortly after the release of Princess Mononoke in 1997, revered Studio Ghibli filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki retired from the profession he had helped define since 1961, stating at the time "I think that 'Princess Mononoke' will be the last (feature-length) movie that I make in this way."

Much to our benefit, he kept right on going, coming back in 2001 with Spirited Away, which many see as a highlight of his stellar career. He followed it up three years later with Howl's Moving Castle, and while he's periodically mentioned the idea of retiring for good, Miyazaki has kept right on producing more animated gems. As his latest film The Wind Rises was premiering at the Venice International Film Festival, Studio Ghibli president  Koju Hoshino revealed that the 72-year-old Miyazaki is once again hanging it up, saying simply “He wants to say goodbye to all of you.” 

The announcement comes as Miyazaki is facing critical backlash for the supposed anti-war stance of The Wind Rises, which details the story of  Jiro Horikoshi, the aeronautical engineer who designed the Zero Fighter plane Japan used in WWII.  Miyazaki's films often depict the causes he champions, in particular environmentalism and world peace, which have left him open to political attack. It's unlikely this has anything to do with his latest decision, and there's always the possibility he continues to work in the arena of short films rather than features.

Whether this retirement sticks or not, Miyazaki's contributions to cinema, not just animation, will go down as legendary. The Wind Rises will be released in the U.S. at a later date by Disney, just as they've done with The Secret World of Arrietty and Ponyo. 

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New Subtitled Trailer for Hayao Miyazaki's 'The Wind Rises'

Ruling the Japanese box office for a month, and courting a bit of political controversy in the process, The Wind Rises is another smash hit and a potential classic for legendary animator, Hayao Miyazaki. Unfortunately it's still without a U.S. date, so those eager to check it out may want to book their tickets for the Toronto and Venice film festivals where it will be playing.

The film explores the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed the Japanese Zero Fighter war plane, used during WWII. But the film goes deeper than that, exploring Japan's economic hardship and social unrest in the 1920s. It's a beautifully animated film, and while there are glimmers of hopefulness, there's also a great deal of sadness that would have been apparent even without the subtitles.

Could this be the next Grave of the Fireflies? Check out the trailer for The Wind Rises below and judge for yourself.

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