The Roundup with Jeff Stockton (Season 29 Round 9)

 

 

 The box office got back on track a bit this round after a rough patch. Here's The Roundup....

3. Box Office

The box office is still quite anemic, but at least the round earned a profit overall unlike the last couple of rounds.

2. Starkweather

Lon Charles is the master of the true story (especially crime) film for a reason. Starkweather is probably one of his hardest to watch projects to date. Not because it is bad, but because of detailed and harrowing it is. Yet despite the violence and inhumane acts, Lon Charles' script still manages to make Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate feel like actual characters and not exploitative (which is no small feat in a film like that).

1. The Crow: Midnight Garden

This one really took me surprise. It takes the moodiness and emo-esque qualities of the IP and amps them up  a lot more than Jacob Jones' films managed. The music, the imagery, the characters - all worked together perfectly. One of my fellow critics mentioned plot holes, but I didn't notice any myself.

3. Adam Driver

Is Adam Driver a movie star? If you asked me after Murder Mysteries, I would have said "Absolutely" - but now after the consecutive major box office flops of A German Tragedy and Solace, I'm not so sure anymore.

2. A German Tragedy

Like one of my fellow critics, I too became intrigued when the play in question in the plot was revealed as Faust. I thought it would have been a great opportunity to parallel the plot of that play within the story of the film in the main character's quest for theater glory. I was not impressed with what we got instead. It wasn't a bad film, but it was a missed opportunity to do something more unique.

1. Profits

The studio has garnered barely over $400 million in profit leading up to the final round of the season. Based on the performance of the previous two Spider-Man films, Requiem could very well double that number for the studio, but it would still result in a highly disappointing season at the box office overall unless In Five Years and Connected become surprise mega-hits.