The third straight triumph of "Gravity" at the box office surprises a little. The fact that it outperformed the competition by almost fifty percent is pretty astounding. That means good word-of-mouth. Maybe people want pure, extremely well-made escapism that doesn't offend anyone a-tall, and at just over an hour and-a-half doesn't waste your time. The less-than-stellar opening of "Carrie" by one of the best female directors working today (okay, one of the few too) is tough to take. De Palma, director of the 1976 original, was very supportive of the remake, and his film tapped into teen angst, parent-teen tensions, and big high school events gone wrong. Many can empathize. Maybe that is just what we want: empathy and real people, or pure escapism. I'm sure there's an algorithm out there that boils down to those two categories at times. Still, the new "Carrie" debuted at $17 million, a hair shy of "Captain Philips," so the latter is holding strong, probably because it combines the two categories mentioned above.
|
|
|
