Cinema Audio Society

SOUND MIXING (Live Action): Gravity
SOUND MIXING (Animated Film): Frozen

SOUND MIXING (TV Movie): Behind the Candelabra
SOUND MIXING (One Hour TV): Game of Thrones
SOUND MIXING (Half Hour TV): Modern Family

A "Frozen" Box Office

2...1...2...3...2...1.  No we're not suffering from binary Tourettes-- that's the box office ranking trajectory of Disney's seemingly unstoppable Frozen, which in it's sixth week of national release tops the box office chart.  After a big opening in November, the animated film rebounded over the holidays, nearly stealing the thunder away from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  Surprising, especially in the blink-and-it's-gone normal track record for current films, Frozen rang supreme for the first weekend of the 2014.  The film, which is just a hop skip away from the $300 million mark, unseated the only new film in the marketplace-- Paranormal Activity: The Mark Ones-- and gave all the new and shiny Christmas toys a run for its money.

1. Frozen- $20.7 / -27% / $297.8 total
2. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones- $18.2 (NEW)
3. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug- $16.2 / -44% / $229.6 total
4. The Wolf of Wall Street- $13.4 / -27% / $63.2 total
5. American Hustle- $13.2 / -29% / $88.7 total
6. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues- $11.1 / -43% / $109.1 total
7. Saving Mr. Banks- $9.0 / -32% / $59.3 total
8. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty- $8.2 / -35% / $45.6 total
9. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire- $7.4 / -26% / $407.4 total
10. Grudge Match- $5.4 / -23% / $24.9 total
11. 47 Ronin- $5.4 / -49% / $32.6 total
12. Walking with Dinosaurs- $3.7 / -48% / $31.3 total
13. Tyler Perry's A Medea Christmas- $3.1 / -54% / $50.4 total
14. Philomena- $1.5 / -12% / $19.6 total
15. Inside Llewyn Davis- $1.1 / -5% / $6.9 total
16. Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom- $1.1 / -50% / $6.9 total
17. Her- $0.7 / +11% / $2.9 total
18. Nebraska- $0.6 / -9% / $7.0 total
19. Believe- $0.5 / -71% / $5.9 total
20. The Book Thief- $0.5 / -11% / $19.1 total
21. Gravity- $0.5 / -1% / $255.6 total
22. Thor: The Dark World- $0.4 / -23% / $203.4 total
23. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2- $0.4 / -6% / $117.6 total
24. 12 Years a Slave- $0.3 / -12% / $38.4 total

LIMITED RELEASES

• August: Osage County- $0.1 / -21% / $0.4 total
• Lone Survivor- $0.08 / -8% / $0.3 total
• The Past- $0.04 / +17% / 0.1 total
• The Invisible Woman- $0.03 / -5% / $0.1 total

In other news, Martin Scorsese's controversy-laden The Wolf of Wall Street appears to be not quite in as much trouble as first predicted after a troubling post-Christmas decrease and a reported "C" rating from CinemaScore.  The film, which Musings and Stuff has plenty to write about (even though the Internet has pretty much exhausted the entire subject) is coming together nicely, and may even be a hit when all is said and done-- that the film cost a reported $100 million is a hard pill to swallow however.  David O. Russell's American Hustle, by contrast, traded spots with Wolf from the previous week, but his ABSCAM con job cost a far more manage $40 million and thus is already in more sturdy shape.  Neither is Saving Mr. Banks nor The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in quite the trouble previously predicted either-- awards may not be in the cards per se (though Emma Thompson is assured a Best Actress nomination at this point), but those are in decent shape as well.  Banks even has a chance to clear $100 million, while Mitty will perform better abroad, as most Ben Stiller films do.

In just a click of a heel, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire will top Iron Man 3 as the top selling movie of 2013 as well as become the highest grossing film in the franchise.  This is interesting on a few levels, but mostly due to the fun (sad) fact as pointed out by The Film Experience, as it will become the first movie since The Sound of Music all the way back in 1965 to be a years top seller exclusively headlined by a member of the fairer sex.  Jennifer Lawrence, with an Oscar already and a third nomination just around the corner surely isn't lacking for prizes, but that's deserving of something-- perhaps a tea party with Julie Andrews at the very least.

What did you see this weekend?

Annie Award Nominations

Despicable Me 2 leads the nominee tally for the 41st Annual Annie Awards; Frozen and Monsters University tied with ten apiece.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Ernest & Celestine
Frozen
A Letter to Momo
Monsters University
The Wind Rises

BEST DIRECTING
The Croods
Epic
Ernest & Celestine
Frozen
Turbo 

BEST VOICE ACTING
Steve Carell, Despicable Me 2
Pierre Coffin, Despicable Me 2
Terry Crews, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2
Billy Crystal, Monsters University
Josh Gad, Frozen
Paul Giamatti, Turbo
Kirsten Wiig, Despicable Me 2 

BEST ANIMATED SHORT SUBJECT
Despicable Me 2: Puppy
Get a Horse!
Gloria Victoria
My Mom is an Airplane
The Numberlys

Frozen

What's old feels strikingly and delightfully new with Disney's fifty-third animated feature Frozen, a fresh and engaging musical charmer that hews closely to the Mouse House's patented wheelhouse, yet nevertheless is sharply woven together with the very fabrics that established said wheelhouse.  Loosely based on Hans Christen Anderson's The Snow Queen, Frozen is yet another princess fairy tale to add to the canon, but one made with a generous supply of warmth, tenderness and visual aplomb, beckoning back to the hallowed Disney Renaissance days.  And that's the remarkable thing about a good Disney flick, the way it charms the senses back to that child-like sense of wonder, magic and possibility, one that begs you to tear down all the formulaic trappings on the wall and  marvel at something mystifying.   With its grand sense of play Frozen does that just enough to pull at the heartstrings and, in its stronger moments, make you in believe in the beautiful hokum that can only be concocted in the land of make believe.

The film takes place in the make believe village of Arendelle, a lush Nordic retreat (rendered beautifully in all its wide screen glory by the films ace technicians) that houses two princesses-- Elsa and Anna.  First seen as playful imps, Elsa and Anna frolic about in carefree bliss; Elsa has a magical secret which makes playtime even more fun-- the magical ability to turn anything and anywhere into a wintery wonderland-- Ms. Freeze if you will.  With  power comes responsibility, just as with secrets comes a consequence-- a common movie totem and plot propellent-- and a young Elsa is forced to hide her gift and even cause her charming village to be nearly hidden away out of protection.  Such to the extent that when the two girls grow older and eventually become orphaned (this is a Disney film; that's a must too!) and Elsa is set to made queen, her coronation marks the first time in many a moon in which the gates to Arendelle have even been opened.  Princess Anna, however, made magically unaware of her sister's talents finds herself developing into a ripe and cheery young woman in the very mode of her Disney princess sisters of yore; at first it reads that co-directors and screenwriters Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee are aiming for parody; Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) is so perkily come hither.  Nearly intoxicated in boy-crazy rushes, she's instantly smitten with Prince Hans (voiced by Santino Fontana) that she becomes engaged to him only hours after meeting.

Frozen and the State of Animated Feature

The trailer debuted for Frozen, in house Disney's latest.  Looks very Ice Age-ish-- in fact, isn't the teaser essentially selling the same joke?  Anyhow it's something upon the horizon on the heels of this weeks release of Pixar's latest travesty, ahem-- fourteenth full length feature, Monster's University, a prequel to the positively delightful 2001 stand alone film Monsters, Inc.  2013 has been so far a fairly barren ground for animated features, with the box office sensation The Croods and the more earthbound grosses of Epic making up a largely artistically forgettable field for this years animated features Academy Award.

Much has been written of the current state of Pixar and the diminishing returns of the fabled studio house since 2011's Cars 2 broke their longtime tradition of excellence-- last years Brave was a decent movie (and the eventual winner of the Academy Award), but still left an impression as a minor achievement to say the least.  With Monsters University, the are continuing to further brand characters, and to say nothing of the film (I have not seen it yet), it strikes as an increasingly desperate undertaking for the house that prodded story as their most important asset.  Further pillaging will take place as a Finding Nemo sequel is in the works.

What's interesting about 2013's crop of animated features is just how few of them are original, and what impression that might leave at the end of the year-- on top of Monsters University, Despicable Me 2 opens in July and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 opens this September.  Looks like a potentially weak field at least on the onset-- GKids, this may well be your year to pounce.  Monsters, Inc. was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar in the first year of its inception and famously lost to Shrek (the funny thing about legacies is that sometimes you just never know-- at the time that seemed like the right move), so could Monsters University achieve what the first film failed to do?  The cases for Despicable and Cloudy are much fuzzier because neither of the their originals were in contention in the first place, rendering them longshots at best.

Based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson

That may be where Frozen comes in.  Coming off an especially strong 2012, in house Disney seems poised and more confident than ever, even if the sheen and shine of the early '90s Renaissance is well behind them.  With last years Wreck-It-Ralph (considered by many much more of a "Pixar" film than Brave) and Frankenweenie, Disney had it's most artistically fruitful year in over a decade.

Still this year doesn't exactly look the most promising.