Scott Mendelson's Blog
Open Salon's resident movie nerd and box office geek.
Scott Mendelson
- Location
- Woodland Hills, California, United States
- Birthday
- April 02
- Bio
- A ten-year Salon reader, Mendelson also has a film and politics blog/column at Mendelon's Memos: located at: http://scottalanmendelson.blogspot.com/.
He is also a free lance voice over artist and occasionally contributes film reviews for www.ValleySceneMagazine.com.
MY RECENT POSTS
- Why the Twilight Saga
mattered...
November 14, 2012 11:07AM - Box Office review (11/11/12):
Skyfall sets 007 record.
November 12, 2012 09:59AM - Open Salon review: Skyfall
(2012)
November 05, 2012 09:04AM - Open Salon review: Seven
Psychopaths (2012)
October 09, 2012 02:39PM - Audiences liked our original
films? Let's make sequels!
September 12, 2012 11:33AM
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “Beside the point. One
can enjoy Beasts of the
Southern Wild
(which will
likely e…”
July 17, 2012 01:02PM - “For what it's worth,
Pan's Labyrinth didn't cross
my mind
once while watching
the…”
June 23, 2012 10:05AM - “10 - "the departed" -
saw it, liked it, put it on my
2006
best-of
list.…”
May 07, 2012 05:47PM - “Hate to tell you this,
but I saw The King's Speech
four
months ago, back when
it…”
March 14, 2011 10:34AM - “There is a single press
screening for The Rite
tomorrow
night, but other
responsi…”
January 24, 2011 02:42PM
Scott Mendelson's Links
There's a choice quote in this Emily Browning interview
over at Nylon Magazine, which was reported by
Cinemablend that merits a mention. Its implications are
kinda shocking,. The crux is the discussion of changes that
Zach Snyder had to make in order to ensure Sucker Punch
(review… Read full post »
MARCH 24, 2011 6:48PM
Open Salon Review: Sucker Punch (2011)
Sucker Punch2011
115 minutes
rated PG-13
by Scott Mendelson
Zach Snyder's Sucker Punch is an experiment and a
question: Is is possible to make a female-driven action fantasy
without falling prey to certain misogynistic messaging? Just
as its difficult to make an anti-war film becaus… Read full post »
Battle: Los Angeles2011
116 minutes
rated PG-13
by Scott Mendelson
Rare is the movie that loses points for being too realistic.
But Jonathan Liebesman's alien invasion picture feels less
like an epic and more like a genuinely plausible war picture.
This is not a bad thing,… Read full post »
MARCH 10, 2011 10:41AM
Open Salon Review: Little Red Riding Hood (2011)
Red Riding Hood2011
100 minutes
rated PG-13
by Scott Mendelson
Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood is a
picture that works in spite of itself. Much of
the acting is overly formal and stilted, the film looks
claustrophobic and stage bound, and the narrative flirts with
societ… Read full post »
FEBRUARY 18, 2011 10:34AM
Blu Ray review: All-Star Superman (2011)
All-Star Superman2011
75 minutes
rated PG (violence, action, sensuality, language, and brief
innuendo)
Available from WHV on February 22nd on DVD, Blu Ray, iTunes,
and OnDemand
by Scott Mendelson
If you ask most casual comic book fans to name their favorite
Superman story, they are likely… Read full post »
This is the first, and hopefully last article I'll be
writing about Mr. Bieber that doesn't involve
his present and future film projects. I have nothing against
the kid, but I have no more business discussing Bieber's worth as a
musician than I do discussing LeBron James's first year on… Read full post »
FEBRUARY 8, 2011 8:09PM
Team of Rivals: GOP and Dems vote down Patriot Act in House.
Today, Dennis Kucinich and the Tea
Partiers were on the same side. If Obama wants to be on the
wrong side of this issue (as he seems to be on the wrong side in
nearly every aspect of the 'War on Terror'), then so be it.
But the House
… Read full post »
I have written a
couple times about the David E. Kelly
Wonder Woman reboot that is apparently scheduled for
this fall on NBC. The show will allegedly involve a somewhat
'realistic' take on the Amazon warrior, with Diana being a CEO by
day and a vigilante at night. The pilot… Read full post »
JANUARY 31, 2011 10:56AM
Open Salon Box Office Review (01/30/11)
While there were two major openers
over the weekend and both of them opened within expectations,
the real news was the performance of the
various Oscar nominees that were in a position to capitalize on
last week's nominations. Generally speaking, the news was
good all around. Topp… Read full post »
Is Chris Nolan the new Steven
Spielberg? Inception
received eight nominations, including Best Picture, but Nolan
failed to receive a directing nod this morning. That is
arguably the biggest surprise in the otherwise predictable batch of
Oscar nominations
today. Even as someo
… Read full post »
As the lone new wide-release of
the weekend, the Ivan Reitman romantic-comedy, No Strings
Attached, debuted with $20.3 million. The $25 million
picture was a solid win for both Natalie Portman and Ashton
Kutcher. Portman probably deserves credit, as this was the
first mainstream p… Read full post »
JANUARY 18, 2011 12:59PM
A look at who should appear in the sequel to Red.
Collider is
reporting that Summit Entertainment has hired Jon and Erich
Hoeber to pen a sequel to their hit comic book adaptation
Red. As you recall, the film
opened to around $22 million in mid-October and stuck around
seemingly forever, ending up with $90 million in domestic
grosses
The Green Hornet2011
119 minutes
Rated PG-13
by Scott Mendelson
There is a refreshing quaintness to Michel Gondry's The
Green Hornet. In an age where every comic book
adaptation and/or superhero adventure story sets out to be the
biggest, most explosive, most fx-filled, most fantastic
… Read full post »
DECEMBER 22, 2010 10:38AM
Why I won't be seeing Little Fockers in theaters...
The
Wolfman,
Salt,
Knight and Day, The A-Team, and
The Town. What do these films have in common?
Not too much, except I saw all of them in theaters, all on my
own dime and (more importantly) on my own time. I enjoyed
The A-Team and kinda-sorta liked Knight and… Read full post »
DECEMBER 17, 2010 11:10AM
Weinstein Company, Miramax team to pillage past glories.
It's not a little sad and a lot ironic. Say what
you will about Bob and Harvey Weinsten and Miramax, but they made
their fortune and glory in the 1990s by making or distributing
quirky and offbeat material, original stories with often original
ideas. They gave us The Crying
DECEMBER 14, 2010 3:03AM
Open Salon Review: Tron: Legacy (2010)
Tron: Legacy: an IMAX 3D Experience2010
125 minutes
rated PG
by Scott Mendelson
Tron: Legacy almost operates as a litmus test for how
much we will tolerate in our tent-pole film making. Just how
much bad dialogue, poor acting, inexplicable plotting, and
emotionally-vapid characteriz
… Read full post »
DECEMBER 13, 2010 10:17AM
Open Salon Box Office Review (12/12/10)
It was a
gruesome weekend for wide releases, as two sure-fire openers
underperformed, which frankly ought to make Disney very nervous for
next weekend. Debuting at a somewhat soft number one was
The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
The picture is the third in the… Read full post »
DECEMBER 8, 2010 10:30AM
Open Salon review: The Fighter (2010)
The Fighter2010
116 minutes
Rated R
Opens in select theaters on Friday, December 10th
By Scott Mendelson
The Fighter is a solid example of the old
cliché: "It's not what it's about, but how it's about it."
The story is a relatively standard underdog
… Read full post »
DECEMBER 6, 2010 12:44PM
Open Salon Box Office Review (12/05/10)
There was but a single new wide-release
this weekend, as the weekend after Thanksgiving is a scary time
for Hollywood. Few studios are willing to risk dealing with
the post-holiday hangover, so this weekend brings just
The Warrior's Way. But we'll get to that in a
minute. Fi… Read full post »
Black Swan2010
110 minutes
Rated R
Opens December 3rd in select theaters
By Scott Mendelson
Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan is a dazzling and often
intoxicating horror story. No, it's not a body count slasher
picture or a supernatural spook story, but it is every bit as
unnerving
… Read full post »
NOVEMBER 30, 2010 9:51AM
Open Salon Review: Tangled (2010)
Tangled2010
100 minutes
Rated PG (for 'brief mild violence'
- this one really
should have been a G)
by Scott Mendelson
The most impressive thing about Walt Disney's Tangled
is that it manages to incorporate nearly every standard element of
the classic Disney fairy-tale/90s cartoon w
… Read full post »
The Nutcracker 3D2010
105 minutes
rated PG
Opens Wednesday, November 24th in select theaters.
by Scott Mendelson
The Nutcracker 3D is one of the strangest cocktails
I've seen in a long time. It's technically a kids adventure
story, yet it eventually becomes, of all thing
… Read full post »
NOVEMBER 12, 2010 1:13PM
Open Salon review: From Colored Girls (2010)
For Colored Girls
2010
130 minutes
Rated R
by Scott Mendelson
For the record, I have not seen the original play For
Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is
Enuf. This is my first exposure to this material and should be
treated as such.… Read full post »
Saw VII2010
91 minutes
rated R
by Scott Mendelson
Saw VII is an unnecessary epilogue to a series that
already had a pretty satisfying finale. Saw
VI succeeded in returning Tobin Bell to the center stage,
while devising a compelling story that brought the story full
… Read full post »
OCTOBER 26, 2010 12:08PM
10 of the Scariest Horror Films of the Last 20 Years.
Last Halloween, we discussed the
very best direct-to-DVD horror films. The year before, we
dealt with the
very worst horror films that my wife ever forced me to watch.
This year, we're dealing with the new classics. The
goal of this list is pretty simple. I'm sure we'r… Read full post »
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