Free Republic

DreamWorks and Universal/Comcast Corp.’s Thank You for Your Service is struggling this weekend, despite solid reviews and an alleged hunger for serious adult dramas about worthwhile subject matter. The film made $1.505 million yesterday for a likely $4.1m debut weekend. The Miles Teller drama, about a group of marines returning home from Iraq, is suffering the same fate that greeted the likes of The Lucky Ones, Lambs for Lions, Valley of Elah and Rendition a decade ago. Hollywood made a go at confronting the post-9/11 realities a decade ago, but nobody showed up. Sure, it’s easier to get audiences of...

Even if terrible reviews and the exploding scandal around Harvey Weinstein were not an issue, past as prologue informs us that director George Clooney’s Suburbicon would still be in trouble. While the Hollywood bubble, which includes the lackey entertainment media, likes to pretend Clooney is a Big Star, moviegoers disagree, most especially when it comes to the films he directs. Other than the forgettable mess that was Monuments Men, which squeaked over $75 million (and probably still lost money), American audiences have expressed a startling indifference towards everything Clooney’s directed. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) grossed just $16 million,...

The Coens have done it again.

OGDEN — On Friday, judges charged with selecting the 2012 Federal Duck Stamp image pared down 192 artistic entries to 75. On Saturday morning, the panel of judges gathered at Weber State University to score each entry again by holding up scores hidden from other judges but visible to the audience as each new image was shown. As artists and art fans looked on, the judges eliminated all but 17 paintings. And at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, the final announcement was made. The 2013 Federal Duck Stamp will feature a common golden eye, with fine green feathering on its head, white...

So there’s this guy named the Dude, and some dudes break into his apartment and pee on his rug, so the Dude, an LA burnout whose real name is Jeffrey Lebowski, goes to find the other Jeffrey Lebowski, a rich guy the intruder dudes were actually looking for, so he can get him to replace the soiled rug, which totally tied the room together. That’s the basic premise of “The Big Lebowski,’’ the Coen Brothers’ 1998 stoner caper, which also involves bowling, nihilism, a kidnapping, and many, many White Russians - a cocktail whose parts combine more cogently than the...

No doubt some filmgoers will be more than a little surprised by the overtly religious themes explored in A Serious Man, the latest film from brother-filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen***** While they are Jewish and were reared in a religious home in suburban Minneapolis, the Coens have never dabbled in heavy-handed religious fare à la Cecil B. de Mille's epics, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ or, more unfortunately, John Travolta's tribute to his Scientology faith, Battlefield Earth. A Serious Man is a black comedy set in the Coen brothers' real-life hometown of St. Louis Park, Minn., in 1967...

As their next film, Joel and Ethan Coen will put their spin on "True Grit," the iconic Western that won an Oscar.Not a traditional remake, the Paramount film will be more faithful to the Charles Portis book than the 1969 pic, also distributed by Par.Portis' novel is about a 14-year-old girl who, along with an aging U.S. marshal and another lawman, tracks her father's killer in hostile Indian territory.But while the original film was a showcase for Wayne, the Coens' version will tell the tale from the girl's p.o.v.Pic will be their first period Oater.Project reteams the brothers with Scott...