Riding to the Rescue of Limited Releases
February 5, 2010
With Oscar nominations announced earlier this week, most of the buzz is with previous limited releases expanding, including Up in the Air, Precious, Crazy Heart, etc. There are still a few releases on this week's list, but it is likely that they will all be overshadowed by the holdovers.
District 13: Ultimatum - Buy from Amazon
Eyes Wide Open - Reviews
Frozen - Reviews
The Red Riding Trilogy: 1974, 1980, and 1983 - Reviews
The sequel to District 13, which was a French action film directed by Pierre Morel. This film is as stylish as that one, but not as satisfying. Also, not a genre that tends to do particularly well in limited release. That said, it could do well on the home market. District 13: Ultimatum opens tonight in 9 theaters, spread throughout the nation.
A gay romance set in an ultra-orthodox community in Jerusalem. That's a niche market of a niche market. Unfortunately, the reviews are not strong enough to lift the film into the mainstream, even into the mainstream of the average art house moviegoer, which tends to be more open to niche market films. Eyes Wide Open opens tonight at the Cinema Village in New York City.
The latest from writer / director Adam Green is a horror / suspense film opening with mixed reviews in more than 100 theaters. For a limited release, that's three strikes right there. There was some buzz going in for the film, so maybe it will be a hit on the home market (kind of like one of Adam Green's earlier films, Hatchet) but it us unlikely to be a big success until then.
A three-part, five-hour long British mini-series that is based on a series of four novels by David Peace. (I'm not sure why they turned four novels into three movies.) Reviews have been mixed with a number of critics complaining that it feels like a TV movie as opposed to a theatrical release, which it is, but also about the overly complicated nature of the plot. The Red Riding Trilogy starts a special one week run tonight at the IFC Center as one long movie, but will expand to Los Angeles next week as three separate films.
Filed under: Limited Releases, Banlieue 13: Ultimatum, Frozen, Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1974, Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980, Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1983