Word: boffo
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...genre to pull off, but to my mind, the grief drama is the most miserable beast to take on (think how the mighty Peter Jackson got mired in it in The Lovely Bones). If there's no romance to counter the loss, the box office tends not to be boffo (as with Nick Cassavetes' 2009 My Sister's Keeper which may have infuriated as many people as it moved). In theory, losing someone you love shouldn't be any less universal than finding someone to love, but it tends to be such an inwardly focused experience - most of us just...
Explain to me, then, why Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel earned more than $75 million in its first five days of release. Was the boffo gross due to brand recognition after the 2007 movie about Simon, Theodore and Alvin was a hit? But that's no guarantor of success; the Stuart Little, Scooby-Doo and Garfield sequels all tanked. Were parents seeking a celluloid babysitter over the Christmas holiday? They could have taken the cherubs to The Princess and the Frog or Disney's A Christmas Carol, worthy efforts that, together, took in only about a fifth...
...came to a head this past week after Il Giornale published a series of articles alleging that Dino Boffo, editor of Avvenire, the Italian Bishops Conference daily newspaper, was a "homosexual known to the Italian secret services" and had paid damages to a woman in a 2004 harrassment case. Feltri wrote that he was publishing these accusations against Boffo, who had criticized Berlusconi's private life, as a response to his "moralistic campaign" against the Prime Minister. Il Giornale also hammered away at the Church for past scandals involving pedophile priests. After repeatedly and vehemently denying Feltri's charges, Boffo...
...Boffo affair, which on the surface ended in apparent victory for the Prime Minister and as a slap against the Catholic Church, could nevertheless backfire on Berlusconi. The impression that he is now out for blood - and that no one is safe - may convince top Catholic politicians to abandon the Prime Minister despite his support for their legislative priorities on gay partnerships and euthanaisa. "There's a limit to everything, and once you go beyond the limit, things get dangerous," says one influential Catholic editor. "These incidents that spread chaos, scare everyone. The situation now is very fluid." Nonetheless...
...Basterds. Quentin Tarantino's World War II epic dropped a less-than-expected 47% from last weekend to pull in about $20 million. In 10 days, the polylingual action drama has amassed $73.8 million in the North American market and another $60 million abroad - which, in any language, means boffo. The South African sci-fi thriller District 9 was next with a $10.7 million weekend and a $90.8 million three-week total. For the first time in, well, quite a while, the films in the top four box-office slots were all R-rated kill-fests...