Tracy Morgan

Box office report: Is “Shutter Island” Scorsese’s biggest?

Marty's latest may outdo "The Departed." Kevin Smith's "Cop Out," horror remake "Crazies" also open strong

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Box office report: Is Leonardo DiCaprio and Michelle Williams in "Shutter Island"(Credit: Cooper - 1)

This will be shorter than usual. First of all, there isn’t all that much news to report and second of all, I spent the day at Disneyland, which was far more crowded than usual. Curse you, “Captain Eo”! You marred my Sunday in three dimensions! Point being, I’m pooped. So “Shutter Island” pulled a repeat at No. 1 this weekend, dropping just 45 percent for a $22.2 million second weekend and a new total of $75 million.

Despite the mixed reviews and word of mouth, the Scorsese thriller is still the only real event movie out there for people who don’t need a return trip to Pandora. While I didn’t care for “Shutter Island” one bit, I am heartened that a moody, complicated, two-hour-plus, non-sequel, R-rated thriller from Martin Scorsese is a genuine smash hit. In this day and age, it’s always refreshing to see an adult-driven genre picture to reach heights only usually accorded to franchises and animated films. The picture is Scorsese’s fifth-biggest domestic grosser, and will reach no. 3 on that list by next weekend. Whether or not it can surpass the $132 million earned by “The Departed” is an open question, but it won’t have any demo competition until “The Green Zone.” That Bourne-goes-to-Baghdad thriller opens March 12. (I have no idea if that’s an accurate summary, by the way, but it’s sure how the Paul Greengrass/Matt Damon film is being sold by Universal).

Nos. 2 and 3 went to new releases. Both performed a bit above expectations. Kevin Smith’s “Cop Out” nearly doubled his previous personal-best opening weekend with $18.5 million (his previous high, “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” opened with $11 million back in August 2001). This also marks one of Bruce Willis’ best debuts over the last decade, as his star power has decreased since he stopped working with M. Night Shyamalan. It’s his 11th-best opening weekend, and most of the bigger openings were from the 1990s. This isn’t just a case of waning star power as much as Willis choosing non-commercial ventures. No one expected “Alpha Dog” or “Lucky Number Slevin” to play like “Armageddon,” so this solid opening with a purely commercial picture is a good sign.

As for Smith, this will easily become his biggest-grossing picture, as he’s never had a film gross over $31 million (Warner spent $30 million making this one). I’d argue that while the whole “Kevin Smith tossed off airplane” controversy helped push the film into the public consciousness, it still doesn’t excuse how the media covered said event (essentially: “Ha ha, Kevin Smith is fat!” rather than “Hey, Southwest Airlines ejected a passenger who clearly was not too obese to fly!”). As it is, Smith’s movies are often greeted by one controversy or another (Kevin Smith vs. the Roman Catholic church, Kevin Smith vs. GLAAD, Kevin Smith vs. the overexposure of “Bennifer”). It will be interesting to see how the film plays long-term. Despite terrible reviews, it still pulled in a solid 3.13x multiplier, implying theoretically positive word of mouth. It will also be interesting to see if Tracy Morgan gets more film work as a result of this opening, as the film was clearly sold on his antics as much as Willis’ star-power.

Number three went to the remake of “The Crazies,” which Overture opened to $16.5 million. The surprisingly well-reviewed remake of a 1973 George Romero picture pulled in a 2.75x multiplier, which is about normal for a horror film. With this opening and “Law-Abiding Citizen,” “Capitalism: A Love Story” and “Righteous Kill,” Overture is establishing itself as a major player. For what it’s worth, my wife and I watched the original version of “The Crazies” last night, and it’s a shockingly good and genuinely disturbing little picture. If the remake is any good, might I suggest you check out director Breck Eisner’s previous film, the vastly underrated “Sahara”? Anyway, fourth place went to the film that cannot be killed (until next weekend, when it will likely be killed), “Avatar.” Dropping just 13 percent, the James Cameron epic crossed $700 million in its 11th weekend. Alas, this will likely be the last weekend of tiny drops, as Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” opens on Friday and will steal all of the IMAX screens and most of the 3D auditoriums.

The only limited releases were the foreign-language Oscar nominee “A Prophet” ($170,000 on nine screens), “Formosa Betrayed” ($69,000 on 15 screens), the documentary “Art of the Steal” ($40,300 on three screens) and “The Yellow Handkerchief” ($39,600 on seven screens). Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer” expanded to 43 screens and made another $870,000. It’s new total is $1.1 million. While the film was not cheap ($45 million), Summit Entertainment is only on the hook for whatever they paid for North American distribution rights, so this should be a nice non-”Twilight” feather in their cap to go along with their likely Oscar glory for “The Hurt Locker.” Other than that, it was just a matter of various films crossing arbitrary marks. “Valentine’s Day” crossed $100 million, “Percy Jackson and the … too tired to type out the full title for this terrible movie” and “Dear John” crossed $70 million, while “The Wolfman” sits at just $57 million (on a reported budget of $150 million). “Crazy Heart” crossed $25 million and “When in Rome” crossed $30 million. At $248 million, “The Blind Side” is less than $10 million from passing “Star Trek,” after dropping just 10 percent in its 15th weekend.

Join us next weekend for the likely-to-be-huge debut of Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland.” While I likely won’t see it until opening night (it was a choice of seeing it early by myself or waiting until Friday and letting my wife come along), I do hope it’s closer to this than to this. Alas, if you’ve read this, you know where my instincts lie. Also opening is the Antoine Fuqua police drama, “Brooklyn’s Finest” (also from Overture) and the IFC Jon Hamm thriller, “Stolen.” Oh AT&T U-Verse, why don’t you carry IFC On Demand?

Scott Mendelson is a blogger for Open Salon.

Tracy Morgan en fuego!

On "The Daily Show," the "30 Rock" star leaves Jon Stewart in tears with riffs about bears and Christopher Cross

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Tracy Morgan en fuego!Tracy Morgan on The Daily Show

Best “Daily Show” interview in weeks? Tracy Morgan, who had Jon Stewart in tears at Wednesday night’s taping. After Stewart compliments Morgan on his hair, Morgan warns the audience, “Hold onto your women! I could take your girl with my haircut. At least that’s how it is in my community. Somebody could get pregnant.” (Later in the evening, Morgan continued his tear on “Jimmy Kimmel,” with the video parody “Impregn8ed.”)

The madness spins out from there, with Morgan explaining what it means to be old school, sexually speaking, then weaving in Evel Knievel in a wheelchair jumping phone books, Christopher Cross and a Russian bear on a bicycle (Isn’t that the plot of a John Irving novel?), and a strip club for “fat dudes” called “Chickendale’s.” 

They should’ve extended this interview by about five minutes. To make up for it, NBC should immediately book Morgan on “The Marriage Ref.” Can you imagine the brilliant advice for squabbling married couples that might tumble from this man’s mouth?  Throw out Kelly Ripa and replace her with Morgan, stat!

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Heather Havrilesky is Salon's TV critic and author of the rabbit blog. Her memoir, "Disaster Preparedness," published in 2010.

Tracy Morgan cries for his mom — and we cry, too

The zany "30 Rock" comedian breaks down in tears on NPR's "Fresh Air." Is there a punch line in that?

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Twelve minutes into his “Fresh Air” interview yesterday, “30 Rock’s” Tracy Morgan was in tears. The rambunctious, notoriously volatile Morgan had been recalling his troubled childhood in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. — he was both wistful and angry talking about his father, who returned after five tours of duty in Vietnam with a heroin addiction he eventually kicked — but the conversation turned painfully emotional when Morgan explained how he left his mother to live with his dad, returning a year later to get his siblings.

“It was a terrible situation,” said Morgan. “It wasn’t my mother’s fault. Something just went off on me. I wanted better for me. That was the hardest day of my life, and I heard my mother cry. It just broke me down, and I think about it now. I never meant to hurt my mother.” Morgan’s voice cracked, and he began to weep.

The normally placid Terry Gross, who had sounded cautious from the get-go, was on high alert now. It was a nerve-wracking moment, hearing the tough-guy facade fall away to reveal that deep-down, childish, clichéd longing: He just wanted to talk to his mom again. Practically every male comedian ever has mommy issues, but this was incredibly touching: We hate to see a grown man cry, except when we love to see a grown man cry.

“Are you OK to keep going?” said Gross. Morgan agreed that he was. (Meanwhile, some of us at home were yelling into the radio, “For god’s sake, give the man a hug, Terry!”)

“In the book you discuss how you and your mother never reconciled,” said Gross, referring to Morgan’s new memoir, “I Am the New Black.”

“One day we will,” said Morgan. “Maybe one day she’ll pick up this book. Maybe she’ll read it.”

Gross said, “Do you intend part of it to be a way of saying to her, ‘Let’s talk’?”

“When you talk to someone they can just argue with you, and shut you off, and walk out the room. When you talk to someone on the phone, they can hang up on you. But when you write them a letter, they have to read that letter. They just have to read that letter. Me, I forgive my mother, and I moved on. That’s for me. My mother had to forgive herself. I understand, Mommy. That’s all I’m saying. I understand the position you was in, and why you did what you did. I love my mother,” said Morgan.

The best comedy has a layer of sadness behind it, and Morgan’s sadness, perhaps unsurprisingly, is layered thick. His character on “30 Rock,” as written by the mothership of all girl crushes, Tina Fey, plays on his vulnerability as well as his “ghetto comedy” zaniness. But a man who misses his mother and isn’t afraid to say it in public is more than funny — he is fearless.

But will this book help to reconcile Morgan and his mother? (And why do we sense an Us Weekly cover story coming down the pike?) All we can hope is this is one letter that gets sent. And forgive us now, because we’re going to go call our own mother. 

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Jami Attenberg's fourth book, "The Middlesteins," will be published in 2012.

“First Sunday”

Ice Cube and Tracy Morgan aim to uplift in this slapdash comedy about a couple of small-time crooks.

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There’s something a little, if not greatly, insulting about the way slapdash comedies like “First Sunday” are sold. The thinking seems to be that black audiences will flock to see any old thing that showcases black stars — in this case, Ice Cube, Katt Williams, Loretta Devine and the disarmingly weird Tracy Morgan. But “First Sunday” is simply a case of wasting gifted performers on material that feels slapped together and unshaped. The movie is an obvious bid to cash in on the “Friday” franchise, which began, in 1995, with F. Gary Gray’s “Friday” and was followed by two other pictures made by different directors. All three of those pictures, like this one, starred Ice Cube. (Cube was also a producer on those films, as he is on “First Sunday.”)

But not even Cube, often a terrific actor and always a warm and engaging one, is a magic bullet, and his presence in “First Sunday” doesn’t count for much. “First Sunday” was written and directed by David E. Talbert (it’s his feature debut), who has written numerous plays as well as a TV special for Jamie Foxx. The movie is designed to be uplifting and inspirational, but everything about it is tired and listless. It doesn’t so much make you feel the spirit as drain it out of you.

Cube and Morgan play petty crooks who decide to rob a church for what could be characterized as a nominally good reason: Cube’s estranged girlfriend (Regina Hall) is about to move the couple’s kid to another state, which means Cube, who can’t cross state lines without violating parole, won’t be able to see him. She has a $17,000 debt she can’t pay, which spurs Cube, with the help of his hapless sidekick, to steal the church’s money.

But Cube and Morgan have virtually no chemistry; at times they barely seem to be in the same movie. Cube glowers and scowls through most of the picture, before he finally, and predictably, sees the light. Morgan has a few decent bits — including one in which he’s freaked out by a creepy print of “white Jesus,” whose eyes, he claims, are following him around the room — but Talbert doesn’t know what to do with the actor’s strange and mesmerizing underwater-ballet comic timing. (Maybe nobody, aside from the mad geniuses over at “30 Rock,” knows what to do with Morgan’s timing, but if you’ve got him in your movie, it’s your job to figure it out.)

The picture is packed with unfunny bits that barely qualify as bits: The gags are so limp that they give even extraordinarily likable actors, like Devine, nothing to cling to. Williams, as the church choir director, gets the best lines — he works indignation as if it were a dapper suit of clothing. (In a courtroom scene, when a nerdy white prosecutor calls the assembled group a bunch of miscreants, he responds huffily, “Miscreants? We are African-Americans!”) Mostly, though, the only laughs to be had here are tepid and measured ones. By the end of “First Sunday” — at which point several semi-bad characters have been redeemed in the eyes of the Lord — we’re supposed to feel uplifted and energized, buoyed by the movie’s positive message. The magic holy water didn’t work on me: I left the theater thinking that if this is the best material we have to offer these actors, then surely we’re all doomed.

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Stephanie Zacharek is a senior writer for Salon Arts & Entertainment.

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