Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson drew a solid crowd for their romantic drama Water for Elephants which premiered in third place with an estimated $17.5M. Based on the best-selling novel, the PG-13 film averaged $6,212 from 2,817 locations and played heavily to female audiences, lovers of the book, and Twilight fans that follow Pattinson religiously. Critics had mixed feelings but the built-in audiences came out anyway giving Fox the best opening for an adult drama this year so far. Mature-skewing thrillers and comedies have done exceptionally well this year, but regular dramas have seen more modest numbers on the first weekend. An A- CinemaScore suggests a good run ahead as counter-programming to a steady diet of testosterone flicks about to attack multiplexes.

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The surprise is Water for Elephants -- starring Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson and Christoph Waltz -- which is overperforming in early business at the domestic box office.

(...)

Heading into the weekend, Fox 2000's Water for Elephants was projected to post an opening weekend gross of between $13 million to $15 million.

Water, based on the bestselling book by Sara Gruen, has been gaining momentum in recent days, particularly among younger females, and has every chance now of doing more business. The film's strongest demo, according to tracking, is older women.

The Hollywood Reporter

  CNN /  Via

Robert Pattinson has nothing but love for his recent experience on the set of “Water for Elephants,” director Francis Lawrence's adaptation of the popular novel that's set to open in theaters Friday. It was a far cry from his current job, finishing the grueling six-month shoot for the back-to-back filming of the last two “Twilight” films, based on Stephenie Meyer's final book in her bestselling series of young adult novels, “Breaking Dawn.”

Pattinson took a moment for a brief phone interview before he was needed on the set of a night shoot for the vampire mega-hit. He seemed downright exhausted. “I'm just arriving at set, thinking I'm going to work all night,” he said. “I'm kinda losing my mind.”

Question: Sorry to hear you're so exhausted. Can you tell us what your time was like on “Elephants,” with Reese Witherspoon?

Pattinson: It's easily one of the best experiences I've had making a film and it's by far one of the best experiences in my life. It didn't even feel like work and a lot of that had to do with Reese. She makes an effort to make it like that. I think she believes that it's really important to enjoy your work, especially when you have to be there for so many hours every day. I made a great friend out of it.

Question: How did working with the animals impact the environment?

Pattinson: When you have totally unpredictable elements, and there are dangerous elements in every single scene, everyone is in the same boat. If you're trying to herd up a pack of horses, it doesn't matter who you are. There is manure everywhere and everyone was filthy all the time. It was an egalitarian set because of that. It's quite inspiring to be around [the elephant]. It doesn't really matter what your taste is, everyone is going to like being around an elephant. It's not like being around another actor some people may not like.

Question: Reese mentioned that she found the paparazzi attention on you unlike anything she's seen before. What do you think?

Pattinson: She's trying to sound humble about all this but she's in all these magazines every week. It's a circus outside her marriage. Plus, I always see her [in them] buying her sandwiches and going to yoga.... I guess she's kind of accepted it in a lot of ways.... It's just a strange situation to be in if you're a sane person to have that kind of attention put on you.

LATimes

Roger Ebert - Read the full review at the source - 3 stars

There's something endearingly old-fashioned about a love story involving a beautiful bareback rider and a kid who runs off to join the circus. What makes "Water for Elephants" more intriguing is a third character, reminding us why Christoph Waltz deserved his supporting actor Oscar for "Inglourious Basterds" (2009). He plays the circus owner, who is married to the bareback rider and keeps her and everyone else in his iron grip.

The story, based on the best-seller by Sara Gruen, is told as a flashback by an old man named Jacob (Hal Holbrook), who lost his parents in 1931, dropped out of Cornell University's veterinary school, hit the road and hopped a train that happened, wouldn't you know, to be a circus train. Played by Robert Pattinson as a youth, he is naive and excited, and his eyes fill with wonder as he sees the beautiful Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) on her white show horse. The owner August (Waltz) is prepared to throw him off the train until he learns young Jacob knows something about veterinary medicine.

In an age of prefabricated special effects and obviously phony spectacle, it's sort of old-fashioned (and a pleasure) to see a movie made of real people and plausible sets. The production designer, Jack Fisk, has created a believable one-ring circus here, and even the train itself has a personality. (August and Jacob spend an implausible amount of time walking or running on top of it, but never mind.)

The dynamic in the story depends on August's jealousy of Marlena, and her stubborn loyalty to their marriage contract. This is where Waltz makes his contribution. Shorter than Pattinson, indeed hardly taller than Witherspoon, he rules over everyone as a hard-bitten taskmaster whose easy charm conceals a cold inner core; it's the same dynamic he used as the merciless Nazi in "Inglourious Basterds." He's much given to offering champagne toasts with a knife hidden inside.

Variety - Adding full review for those that can't read Variety's site

In an extravagant gamble worthy of the fictional Benzini Brothers Circus itself, Fox gives Sara Gruen's grassroots bestseller "Water for Elephants" the glossy, big-budget treatment fans crave, counting on adult women -- plus a younger female contingent keen on seeing "Twilight" heartthrob Robert Pattinson paired with sweet-as-pie Reese Witherspoon -- to prop up a production with a cost apparently on par with a small tentpole. Unlike the story's colorful gang of roustabouts, who dismiss ticket buyers as "rubes," the filmmakers clearly value their public, crafting a splendid period swooner that delivers classic romance and an indelible insider's view of 1930s circus life.

A present-day prologue finds nursing-home escapee Jacob Jankowski (played with endearing mock surliness by Hal Holbrook) reminiscing about his tenure under the big top. Taken in by a young circus worker (Paul Schneider) and then encouraged to share his story, Jacob proceeds to explain how a family tragedy on the eve of vet-school exams spared the would-be Cornell grad a predictable life, and led to his hitching a ride with the Benzini Brothers' traveling show instead.

Transitioning smoothly back to the character's spring awakening, director Francis Lawrence suggests how robust and alive Jacob's memories have remained all these years, faithfully recreating the initial disorientation and awe the young Polish-American experienced upon first encountering the circus. Looking far more handsome than Holbrook ever did, Pattinson brings the same sullen sensitivity to 23-year-old Jacob that he has to the "Twilight" pics -- perfectly fitting for an overnight orphan so recently derailed from his intended life path.

A daisy-fresh college boy out of place among Camel (Jim Norton), Kinko (Mark Povinelli) and the other grizzled old drunks he meets aboard the Benzini Brothers boxcar, Jacob must instantly adjust to the show's elaborate caste system. The stakes, made almost instantly clear, are high: One wrong move and Jacob could be "redlighted," or thrown from the speeding train between stops. Such castoffs seldom survive, and the practice becomes an important subplot for the Depression-era story, as the show's ruthless ringleader regularly jettisons employees whose salaries he can no longer afford.

In the novel, this cruel boss is a separate character from August, the man whose porcelain-fair wife Jacob unwisely covets in the story's central love triangle. Writer Richard LaGravanese streamlines things for the sake of the film, however, eliminating Uncle Al to create a larger and more complex role for Christoph Waltz, custom tailored to the thesp's mix of menace and charm. Elegantly streamlining Jacob's immersion, LaGravanese focuses auds on his protagonist's point of view -- a strategy that comes at the expense of the book's memorable sideshow and supporting cast, while allowing us to learn the ropes and discover luminous star performer Marlena (Witherspoon, the picture of classic glamour) and her jealous husband (Waltz) through his eyes.

Whereas most contempo cinema seems to have lost the art of the character introduction, "Water for Elephants" takes care to create a certain mystique around its key personalities before revealing them onscreen, a tactic that caries through to August's game-changing acquisition of Rosie, a stubborn 73-year-old pachyderm who imbues the film with a giddy sense of wonder from the instant she appears. So intense is our connection with the creature that August's cruelty toward her becomes almost unwatchable, even though the most taxing scene is merely suggested and not seen.

Rosie also accounts for most of the pic's emotional highs, as in the story's eureka moment, which LaGravanese cleverly reconfigures to tie in with an otherwise underdeveloped subplot about the paralysis-inducing consequences of drinking contaminated Jamaican ginger extract, or "Jake." Set against the dual backdrops of the Great Depression and Prohibition, "Water for Elephants" plunges us full-bodied into the world of circus troupes, an all-but-lost slice of recent history ripe for such a spectacular reimagining.

It's an intoxicating place to be, reminiscent of Ray Bradbury's breathless dark-carnival tale "Something Wicked This Way Comes." Considering the unassuming roots of the book on which "Water for Elephants" is based, along with its misfit-focused subject, there's no small irony that the pic should attract such a first-choice roster of collaborators: From dream-cast headliners Pattinson, Witherspoon and Waltz all the way down the line to d.p. Roberto Prieto, composer James Newton Howard (whose rich orchestral score sadly lacks a clear theme) and production designer Jack Fisk, the show is strictly A-list.

The wild card here is Lawrence, who ably rises to the challenge. Despite his flashy musicvideo origins, the helmer takes an assured classical approach to his widescreen canvas, transitioning smoothly from future-looking sci-fiers "Constantine" and "I Am Legend" to this project's more nostalgia-driven demands.

More reviews from Rotten Tomatoes

MercuryNews | LA Times | MovieWeb | StarTribune | The Boston Globe | The Arizona Republic | MSN Movies | Toronto Star | Spirituality and Practice | ModaMag | Hollywood & Fine | Slant Magazine | Movie Minute | BrianOrdof.com | Seatle Times | Time | Rolling Stone | Philadelphia Inquirer | Minneapolis Star Tribune | Kurt Loder - Reason Magazine


Via

From Moviehole


Remember Me

I know, I know, ‘but it’s got that guy with more gunk in his hair than Liz Hurley does in her nether regions’ but c’mon! many-a-good-actor have started out in the cinematic mailroom and graduated to an awe-impressive high-rise suite – just look at Robin ‘Mork’ Williams, Josh ‘Goonies’ Brolin, Tom ‘Bosom Buddies’ Hanks or Stephen ‘Evil Ed’ Geoffries! (Ok, bad example) – ain’t Robert Pattinson innocent until the gavel slams down!? This film, a heartrending relationship drama (it’s both about the rapport between a young couple and also one between a young man and his estranged father) that played to the tick of a 9/11 countdown, proved there’s much more to “Twilight” vamp Robert Pattinson than blank stares, sparkles and tree hopping. Quite simply, Pattinson was an eye-opener in this film. Skeptics need see it.

Full list at Moviehole | Thanks to _lilac_wine_
Via RPLife

Massively Underrated: Youth in Revolt / Remember Me

Youth in Revolt was an innovative comedy, but it was released during a time period where people skip the theatrical experience. And if Remember Me had featured Ryan Gosling instead of Robert Pattinson it would have been correctly hailed as great. But people got far too caught up in the ending and Pattinson's celebrity to catch that he was really freaking good in this movie. Definitely worth a watch if you you're a fan of relationship dramas

Full list at Film.com | Via


And from LA Times

Last week, we wondered which film was the most under-appreciated of 2010. Through tweets, e-mails and comments, many of you weighed in with your choices.

Some of the more popular picks didn't surprise -- they were big-release movies with a distinct sensibility that got dissed despite (or because) they felt unique -- "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" most notably among them, or even the Sept. 11 romantic tearjerker "Remember Me."

Via

Unofficial “Remember Me” Site : 

Our talented guest blogger Jessegirl is back again and this time has written a very comprehensive and interesting article on critic bias and the audience reaction to Remember Me.

I would like to dedicate this piece to those who had the vision, courage, respect and integrity to bring this beautiful film to the screen, so that the sorrow of September 11th and those innocents who died there will not be forgotten.
-jessegirl- July 26, 2010

“You must have been watching another movie!”

It is curious how a masterpiece like Remember Me has not been better received by critics. Even more puzzling is how determined they were to use their influence to actively keep people away, apparently based on the film’s ending, the touted ‘twist’. Clap for the critics, who did this job particularly well. Domestically, RM’s (RM=Remember Me) gross was lower than it could have been. Given that RM wasn’t a blockbuster, huge box office was never expected.

However, the majority of those people who did go to see it were baffled by RM’s poor critical ratings; many viewers disagreed markedly with the critics. The refrain echoed by so many was: “You must have been watching a different movie.” I’ve addressed this disconnect elsewhere but here I’ll tackle the thorny issue of the movie’s ending.

I hope I do this topic justice but it is really too large to cover in a little piece like this. I’m aware that I cannot cover all bases; I just hope I speak to the important ones adequately. At the end, I’ve listed the sources from which I obtained the quotes. The three articles—Brevet, Bartyzel and Reesman—and their comments, are a rich source for discovering rare critical impartiality and substantive viewer comments. I participated and it was an interesting experience. Laremy Legel’s review is one of the best.

Read the analysis at the Unofficial “Remember Me” Site!

Remember Me - DVD

Directed by: Allen Coulter
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Emilie de Ravin, Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper, Martha Plimpton, Lena Olin, Peyton List, Ruby Jerins, Meghan Markle
Certificate: 12
Running time: 100mins
Release date: 26/07/10

Robert Pattinson can act. This is coming from a person who doesn’t necessarily detest the ‘Twilight’ franchise but simply thinks that the world wouldn’t be at a massive loss if it was without it, because to be honest it’d give the heartthrob at the centre of it more of a chance to stretch his skill in films like this.

A tale of love and loss (and no bloody vampires for a change!), the great and all powerful Pattinson plays rebellious son and tortured soul, Tyler Hawkins. Distant from his father (Pierce Brosnan), mourning a brother and caring for a sister, the lad is an emotional wreck who is eventually tamed by kindred spirit and just as screwed up Ally (Emilie De Ravin) who has Daddy issues of her own in the form of (Chris Cooper). Both with fathers they can’t connect with and missing a family member they can’t bring back the two lend a helping hand in each other’s lives before hitting the predictable rocky patch and recovering from it.

‘Remember Me’ is refreshing for a number of reasons. Firstly it gives the aforementioned lad from those ‘Twilight’ films a chance to prove he can do more than just look cold, grey and constipated opposite Kristen Stewart. With ‘Remember Me’ he’s a troubled youth on the road to ruin, stretching past the tree climbing, vampire pouting he’s now attached to, here we have him butting heads with Brosnan’s well delivered father figure, cracking jokes with his best mate and gelling perfectly with a love interest that unlike Bella the Bore actually reacts.

This is as much Ravin’s film as it is Pattinson and she shines just as brightly. Ally is as wild and fiery as her new beau carrying half the weight of the film that has a gut punch of an ending on its back, that only after viewing a second time echoes through the story and the characters involved, making it feel more than a cheap shock that some might see it as.

‘Remember Me’ is a film that is all about acceptance and moving on orchestrated by two strong leads at its centre. My only hope is that one of them manages to shake off the franchise they’re so cemented in once it’s all done and continue to surprise us like he has with this.

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The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

A Summit Entertainment release and presentation of a Temple Hill production, in association with Maverick/Imprint, Sunswept Entertainment. Produced by Wyck Godfrey, Karen Rosenfelt. Executive producers, Marty Bowen, Greg Mooradian, Mark Morgan, Guy Oseary. Co-producer, Bill Bannerman. Directed by David Slade. Screenplay, Melissa Rosenberg, based on the novel "Eclipse" by Stephenie Meyer.
It goes without saying that the faithful will devour "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," the third movie in Stephenie Meyer's immensely popular supernatural love-triangle saga, and also the one in which Bella must finally choose between her two beastly suitors. The pleasant surprise this time around is that the result finally feels more like the blockbuster this top-earning franchise deserves. Employing a bigger budget, better effects and an edgier director ("Hard Candy's" David Slade), "Eclipse" focuses on what works -- the stars -- even as the series' parent-friendly abstinence message begins to unravel. Summer release should reap Summit's biggest yield yet.

Taking a cue from the "Harry Potter" series, which maintains continuity on the writing and casting fronts while introducing a different feel with each change of director, the "Twilight" producers have embraced a variety of different visions behind the camera. Capitalizing on her indie sensibility and keenly observed teen insights, Catherine Hardwicke set the tone with the low-budget first film, with Chris Weitz expanding (and flattening) the world with his broader, daytime soap-opera style in "New Moon." Now, the task falls to Slade, who clearly understands how to work with actors while also demonstrating a welcome competence in the action and melodrama departments.

It's no easy task taking a piece of material auds already know inside-out and spinning it in such a way that individual scenes still generate tension and suspense. Slade sets us on edge from the outset with an atmospheric vignette merely alluded to in the book, as small-town boy Riley (Xavier Samuel) is ambushed and bitten by an unseen vampire in shadowy Seattle (looking every bit as ominous as Tim Burton's Gotham City).

Not much happens for the first 300 pages of Meyer's novel, during which vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) vie for the affections of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), with our increasingly impatient heroine determined to surrender both her virginity and her humanity to the brooding bloodsucker (to his credit, Bella's 109-year-old boyfriend wants to marry her first).

Slade and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg wisely intercut these puppy-love scenes with uneasy horror-movie jolts. After all, "Eclipse" builds not to a showdown between Edward and Jacob (no matter how often he takes off his shirt, the poor wolfboy will never be Bella's first choice), but to an uneasy alliance between the Cullen clan and Jacob's tribe of shape-shifters, united to protect Bella from the vengeance-seeking Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard, taking over the role from Rachelle Lefevre) and her army of "newborns," undisciplined but super-strong new vampires.

Rather than attempting to elevate Meyer's swoony prose to the level of literature (the poor scribe exhausts herself trying to find synonyms for "perfection"), Rosenberg's task is to faithfully adapt the material for fans in such a way that works onscreen; that means having the freedom to remove, reorder or completely rewrite certain passages. She also has to contend with "Eclipse's" muddled message -- Bella's in a hurry to be bitten, while everyone else is telling her to slow down -- and devises a nice graduation speech for best friend Jessica (Anna Kendrick) on the merits of not rushing into things.

Despite the somewhat simple-minded source, the producers plot everything as if it were a strategic game of chess, paying off earlier gambles -- Jacob played third wheel in the past, but gets the sexier kiss here -- while seeding future films. Of particular interest is a wide-eyed young newborn (played by Jodelle Ferland), subject of Meyer's spinoff novella "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner," who serves as an effective tool in setting up the powerful Volturi's villainy for the two-part "Breaking Dawn" finale.

"Eclipse" feels the most cinematic of the series so far, taking scenes out of the lunchroom and Swan house as much as possible. Slade shares Hardwicke's aesthetic of using dramatic aerial photography to give the otherwise intimate tale a more epic sweep, and expands on it by repeatedly lining up the various clans like the subjects of a Vanity Fair cover shoot, their iconic group poses helping to make the movie seem as big as its following. Though Slade inherits "New Moon" d.p. Javier Aguirresarobe, his choice of lenses and shooting style (including a fair amount of handheld camerawork) gives things a more dynamic energy.

Visual effects have improved considerably, with no fewer than 11 companies working on everything from Edward's sparkling skin to CG wolves that realistically blend with live-action characters. A scene of Bella side-by-side with canine Jacob feels perfectly plausible, but nothing beats the sight of vampires and werewolves going at it in the climactic battle. If anything, the digital work outshines the other departments, with bad makeup, lifeless wigs and creepy contacts being the elements that disrupt the fantasy.

Camera (Deluxe color, Panavision widescreen), Javier Aguirresarobe; editors, Art Jones, Nancy Richardson; music, Howard Shore; music supervisor, Alexandra Patsavas; production designer, Paul Denham Austerberry; art director, Catherine Ircha; set decorator, Rose Marie McSherry; costume designer, Tish Monaghan; makeup designer, Charles Porlier; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS), James Kusan; sound designer, Shatz; supervising sound editor, Leslie Shatz; re-recording mixers, Shatz, Marshall Garlington; makeup effects prosthetics, WCT Prods.; special effects coordinator, Alex Burdett; visual effects supervisor, Crystal Dowd; visual effects, Tippett Studio, Image Engine, Hatch, Lola FX, Wildfire Visual Effects, Prime Focus, CID Hollywood, Rodeo FX, Hammerhead Prods., Savage Visual Effects, Make; stunt coordinator, John Stoneham Jr.; associate producer, Isaac Klausner; assistant director, Justin Muller; second unit director, E.J. Foerster; casting, Rene Hayes, Stuart Aikins, Sean Cossey. Reviewed at Aidikoff screening room, Beverly Hills, June 25, 2010. (In Los Angeles Film Festival.) MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 124 MIN.

With: Anna Kendrick, Michael Welch, Justin Chon, Christian Serratos, Xavier Samuel, Sarah Clarke, Gil Birmingham, Jodelle Ferland.

Contact Peter Debruge at: peter.debruge@variety.com.