Tag: Anders Holm

About My Father Box Office Prediction

Stand-up Sebastian Maniscalco hopes audiences take a seat for the autobiographical About My Father, a cultural comedy that he stars in and cowrote. Laura Terruso directs with Robert De Niro playing the lead’s father who meets the parents of his son’s would-be fiancee. Costars include Leslie Bibb, Anders Holm, David Rasche, and Kim Cattrall.

Releasing over the long Memorial Day weekend, Father faces competition from another laugher headlined by a popular comedian. That would be The Machine with Bert Kreischer and it’ll interesting to track which comes out on top. Many comedies in recent years have faced tough odds at multiplexes. Both could suffer.

Maniscalco’s filmography is limited and consists of no high profile starring roles until now (he did play a supporting part alongside De Niro in The Irishman). I suspect this could fail to reach double digits over the four-day. A worst case scenario would be around $5 million. I’ll give it a little more credit.

About My Father opening weekend prediction: $6.2 million (Friday to Monday estimate)

For my The Little Mermaid prediction, click here:

The Little Mermaid Box Office Prediction

For my The Machine prediction, click here:

The Machine Box Office Prediction

For my Kandahar prediction, click here:

Kandahar Box Office Prediction

How to Be Single Movie Review

How to Be Single is about four single gals finding their way in the Big Apple and if that sounds like “Sex and the City”, you wouldn’t be wrong. There’s Alice (Dakota Johnson), our central Carrie character. Robin (Rebel Wilson) is the inappropriate Samantha like friend. Lucy (Alison Brie) is the Charlotte-ish hopeless romantic who’s constantly trolling dating sites for true love. And Meg (Leslie Mann) is the career woman (and Alice’s older sister) whose got it together, but realizes she needs a baby. Kind of like Miranda.

Alice is just embarking on her first dip into the single pool when she breaks up with her longtime boyfriend and sees what NYC has to offer. It includes a bartender (Anders Holm) that has the playa life down cold and a sweet widower and dad (Damon Wayans Jr.) still getting over his wife’s death. There’s also the ex-flame (Nicholas Braun) who keeps turning up. Truth be told, none of these relationships are terribly interesting or well-written and Dakota Johnson still seems to be struggling to infuse much personality into her performances. This is also a problem that plagued Fifty Shades of Grey, which was far more dreadful than this.

If anything, How to Be Single is just kind of dull and conventional. It sold itself as a raunch fest, but it’s not. My favorite moments involved Mann and her earnest younger boyfriend (a funny Jake Lacy), yet the script never succeeds in juggling its separate plot lines. More of those characters might have worked. Maybe. The screenwriters might have figured out a way to make them tiresome, too.

** (out of four)

 

The Intern Movie Review

Nancy Meyers brings her brand of comedic drama featuring a strong female character to the screen once again in The Intern. This time it’s Anne Hathaway as Jules, the CEO of a flourishing NYC online fashion company who’s struggling to balance her harried work life with her personal one. The latter includes her stay at home husband (Anders Holm) and little girl. Jules finds someone to assist with that balance in the form of Ben (Robert De Niro). He used to work at a phone book company (an obsolete business) and he’s battling general boredom in his retirement. The 70 year old widower decides to apply for a senior internship with Jules’s company and he’s soon assigned to work directly under her.

The Intern explores the issues of Jules deciding whether or not to hand control of the business over to an outside CEO. There’s also some marital issues at hand and her ongoing frustration with her distant mother, which helps explain some of her own personality quirks. We have Ben’s burgeoning romance with the company’s in house masseuse (Rene Russo). As the over two hour tale unfolds, the pathos level continues to increase as Ben and Jules become closer.

It’s all perfectly pleasant, continually earnest, and sad to say – a little dull. Hathaway’s performance gives her an interesting and strong character to play with, even if her work here comes off a bit mannered occasionally. De Niro is in Mr. Nice Guy mode and he’s just fine, even if this part isn’t exactly challenging in any way.

Frankly, there’s not much else to say here. The Intern can be a little bland but it’s engaging enough to not be a total waste of time. Faint praise, I recognize. If you’ve enjoyed Meyers pics such as What Women Want, Something’s Gotta Give and It’s Complicated, you’ll probably think this is decent.

**1/2 (out of four)