f13.net

I used to do this every week at another site.  I quit during the post-holiday dead zone, when there was nothing worth writing about, but now I've picked it up again.  Since I've already typed it all out, I may as well paste it here.  Numbers from boxofficemojo.

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#1 - Ice Age: The Meltdown, Week 1
Weekend gross: $68m
Budget: $80m

Fox reminds Dreamworks and Disney/Pixar that feature animation is a three-way fight.  Seems well-liked by viewers, and clocks in at a brisk 90 minutes, perfect for taking the kids to.

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#2 - Inside Man, Week 2
Weekend gross: $15.4m (-46.7%)
Gross to date: $52.5m
Budget: $45m

See Spike?  White people are perectly willing to go to your movies when you make one that doesn't look like it sucks ass.  Having Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster on hand didn't hurt, of course.

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#3 - ATL, Week 1
Weekend gross: $11.5m
Budget: Not available

Okay, I've never heard of this before.  But it stars two guys named TI and Big Boi, and the flash ad at the top of Mojo says something about music, so I'm guessing it's about rap.  I wonder if the Spike/Denzel tag team stole away the black audience and hurt this movie more than expected.

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#4 - Failure to Launch, Week 4
Weekend gross: $6.4m (-38.2)
Gross to date: $73m
Budget: $50m

Yes, it's making money.  Yes, it has legs.  But am I the only one who thinks Sarah Jessica Parker has a face like a donkey?  And that Matthew McConaughey is wasting himself on crap like this?  I want to see MM in full-on Reign of Fire fucking lunatic mode, playing John Rambo in a book-authentic remake of First Blood.  Forget that soggy Stallone shit and those horrible sequels, the book was the grim and dark tale of a crazy-ass  man who terrorizes a small town because he doesn't know what else to do with himself.  In the end, good old Colonel Trautmann blows Rambo's fucking brains out with a shotgun because he knows the poor man is just too screwed up to live.  Now that's a fucking movie.

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#5 - V for Vendetta, Week 3
Weekend gross: $6.3m (-49%)
Gross to date: $56m
Budget: $54m

M for Moderate Success via Reasonable Budget.  This is going to poop out well shy of $100m, but since the studio didn't go fucking apeshit with the budget, everyone is sitting pretty.  Compare this to one of my past whipping boys, the Orlando Bloom drama Elizabethtown, which cost $57m despite a total lack of explosions.  (And only made $26m total anyway.)

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#6 - Stay Alive, Week 2
Weekend gross: $4.5m (-58%)
Gross to date: $17.2m
Budget: Not available

You die in the game, you die for REAL!  ZOMG!  Trash-horror like this always turns a profit because it's so damned cheap to make.  Still, this is no Saw in terms of box office.  Anemic.  Friend of mine saw it and said it didn't totally suck, but he'll watch anything.

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#7 - She's The Man, Week 3
Weekend gross: $4.4m (-39.3%)
Gross to date: $26.6m
Budget: $20m

Okay, what the fuck?  Is this the 19th century?  Is anyone really supposed to believe that a pretty young girl could pass for a boy just by cutting her hair short and putting on jeans?  Hello assholes, I see girls with short hair and jeans every god damned day, and I don't think they're male!  (Hillary Swank did a better job than most in Boys Don't Cry, but even so, not really convincing.)  I have seen a few women that could pass for men this way, true, but they'll never get put into a movie.  Anyway, it's making decent money for a little fluff comedy like this.

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#8 - Slither, Week 1
Weekend gross: $3.8m
Budget: $15m

Another relatively cheap horror flick, this one about zombies or some shit.  But based on the name, people will think it's about snakes, and everyone knows snakes go on planes.  Not with zombies.  This one actually cost a just a little bit of money to make, and thus won't even turn a trash-horror profit.

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#9 - The Shaggy Dog, Week 4
Weekend gross: $3.2m (-64.1%)
Gross to date: $53.5m
Budget: Not available

Recipe for misanthropy:  Next time a film you love crashes and burns at the box office, remember that a movie about Tim Allen turning into a dog made fifty million dollars.

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#10 - Basic Instinct 2, Week 1
Weekend gross: $3.2m
Budget: Not available

Nobody wants to see Sharon Stone's pussy now that she's sixty.

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#11 - Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, Week 2
Weekend gross: $3.1m (-54.4%)
Gross to date: $11.4m
Budget: Not available

Git 'er done?  FUCK YOU DIE DIE DIE FAT FUCK MAKING ME DUMBER WITH EACH BREATH!  MOVIE FAIL!  HA!

You post about movies at another site? They allow you there? Is this a joke? Was there a Star Wars trailer before one of these movies or something? Black is white. Up is down. Everything is wrong right now.

Edit: Ironically, I don't mind anybody posting the box office roundup. I'm just shocked. SHOCKED... that it was you.

I liked it.

No sir, you certainly are not. I am surprised she hasn't sued the Democratic Party for using her likeness.

I liked the Roundup as well. I wish I wasn't so old and full of hate and loathing for the general populace to go to the movies often.

I laughed, I cried, I wondered why anyone would go to any of these films at current prices.

*sighs*

I must be getting old, because most movies just don't seem worth it any more.

I liked it. But where is the comparison to UO?

She looks like Shannon Sharpe.

http://cbs.sportsline.com/cbssports/team/ssharpe

http://www.imdb.com/gallery/granitz/4568/Events/4568/SarahJessi_Count_8149900_400.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Parker,%20Sarah%20Jessica

An enjoyable 28 seconds of forum browsing. Thanks.

Additional positive feedback.  By all means, keep it up.

Thank god Larry the Cable Guy is failing.  Hope we never hear from him again.  We will, but I hope we don't.

Yeah something like this is nice, lets me pat myself on the back for not watching all this trash (actually I saw V but I thought it was decent and that was the first movie I've seen since Jarhead so fuck you Hollywood).

Wait, when did WUA come back?  My life has meaning again.

Welcome back, flaky.

My Mom says I have a lot of personality.

I have no idea who you are.

Dagon bless his noodly appendage. (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=6248.0)

He hath given us WUA and Mediocre.

That's how you know it's real.

The wife and I saw "Thank You For Smoking" last night. Entertaining. Katie Holmes is useless. She had some mouth herpes thing going on in one part of the movie. Someone should put her out to pasture.

OMGWTF!!!!  I liked it, too.  I still think WUA is Ray, though.  Anyway....  I LOVED that other Ice Age movie and that's what I would go see if I were ever inclined to go to a crowded, smelly, sticky theatre filled with smelly, sticky children.  I'll absolutely buy it on DVD.  The first one made me giggle the entire time.  (granted, I was stoned) 

PS WUA isn't in the spell checker thingy

Who is Ray?

And anyway, everyone knows that I'm Schild's own personal Tyler Durden.  He gets a headache and passes out, and when he wakes up suddenly there are a bunch of posts on how UO and Star Wars rule.  Even he doesn't realize what he's doing.

Everything you do is magic.

Like a mystery condom in the toilet.

The fresh numbers are up on boxofficemojo, so here we go again.  The top ten, plus a special addition for the sake of sheer sadism.

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#1 - Ice Age: The Meltdown, Week 2
Weekend gross: $34.5m (-49.3%)
Gross to date: $116.4m
Screen count: 3969 (+5)
Budget: $80m

Easily held the lead against middling competition.  The 50% dropoff isn't bad, but isn't great either.  And holy shit, look at that screen count.

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#2 - The Benchwarmers, Week 1
Weekend gross: $20.5m
Screen count: 3274
Budget: $33m

Rob Schneider was an ordinary derpty-derp, when one day, derpa derp!  And now, derpty-derpty derpa doo!  Anyway, yeah him and David Spade.  Not a bad opening, really.  It's as much as Deuce Bigalow 2 made in it's entire run.  If it has any legs, it should end up pretty profitable.

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#3 - Take the Lead, Week 1
Weekend gross: $12.8m
Screen count: 3009
Budget: Not available

Antonio Banderas in a "hip-hop ballroom drama"?  WTF?  Who's greenlighting this shit?  I don't know how much they spent making this, but getting owned by Rob Schneider on a roughly equal number of screens has to hurt.  I don't expect this to have much stamina, either, since anyone who does give a shit probably saw it on the opening weekend.  (See ATL at #7.)

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#4 - Inside Man, Week 3
Weekend gross: $9.1m (-40.6%)
Gross to date: $66m
Screen count: 2867 (+37)
Budget: $45m

Still doing almost ten million and hanging around the top five in it's third week, this one is showing a little staying power.  As far as thrillers go, I'll admit that I'm pleased to see Spike Lee and Denzel Washington beat the shit out of the much-hyped V for Vendetta and those douchetastic Wachowskis.

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#5 - Lucky Number Slevin, Week 1
Weekend gross: $7.1m
Screen count: 1984
Budget: Not available

It has Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman, but it stars Josh Hartnett?  Huh?  Way to go, cockfags.  Why do they keep putting this guy in movies?  They paired him up with Harrison Ford in... whatever the hell that one movie was called, and that tanked too.  If you can't make money in movies with Ford and Willis, you can't make fucking money.  Seriously, he was okay in that bodysnatcher-wannabe movie where they killed Jon Stewart, but that was a shitty teen horror flick and came out a million years ago anyway.

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#6 - Failure to Launch, Week 5
Weekend gross: $4.1m (-36.5%)
Gross to date: $79.1m
Screen count: 2616 (-458)
Budget $50m

Sarah Jessica Moose-face and Naked Bongo Boy, bla bla bla.  It's showing good legs, but damned if I feel like writing about it anymore.

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#7 - ATL, Week 2
Weekend gross: $3.7m (-67.5%)
Gross to date: $17.2m
Screen count: 1602
Budget: Not available

Look at that drop-off.  That's what I'm talking about when I say a limited-appeal movie is going to crash in it's second weekend.  Anyway, this will dick a little over twenty million.  If that isn't signifigantly more than the budget for a flick like this, then someone needs to be shot for wasting money.

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#8 - V for Vendetta, Week 4
Weekend gross: $3.3m (-46.5%)
Gross to date: $62.2m
Screen count: 2003 (-907)
Budget: $54m

I hate this movie more the longer I think about it.  Those franchise-wrecking plagarist assclown Wachowskis spew forth what looks like another pretentious pile of crap, get a whole lot of press, and then get owned in the face by Inside Man.  Ha.

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#9 - Phat Girlz, Week 1
Weekend gross: $3.1m
Screen count: 1056
Budget: Not Available

Who gives a shit?

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#10 - Thank You for Smoking, Week 4
Weekend gross: $2.4m (+49.4%)
Gross to date: $6.2m
Screen count: 300 (+174)
Budget: Not available

One of those smaller movies that starts with limited release and creeps upward, rather than making a splash upon opening and then fading.  The per-screen average is okay, but not stunning.  If we assume 10x screens would have equaled 10x gross (unlikely) then it would have bumped Benchwarmers down to #3 this week.  Meh.

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Special Bonus Sadism Entry!

#16 - Basic Instinct 2, Week 2
Weekend gross: $1m (-68.8%)
Gross to date: $5.2m
Screen count: 1453
Budget: Not available

Anatomy of a bomb.  I'm going to track this one just to see how quickly the theaters start dumping it.  It's going to shed a lot of screens next week.

How the fuck does a sandlot baseball movie starring Deuce Bigalow and Joe Dirt cost $33 million to make? What did they spend it on, hookers and blow? Union workers? If that isn't the height of Hollywood Excess, I don't know what is.

And Basic Instinky 2 made $5.2 million in two weeks? I'm sure Sharon Stone's stretched out vagina cost more than that.

First of all, you just aren't funny. Secondly, The Benchwarmers didn't screen in advance for critics so it's doubtful word of mouth will carry this movie beyond the first weekend.

Never thought I'd see Shockeye stick up for the Napoleon Dynamite guy.

Edit: And Haem, they spent the money on advertising. Who needs advance screening when advertising is running 24/7 on every channel including Oxygen?

They wasted their money.

Finally saw Napoleon Dynamite.  Not to bad on its own and in the context of anti-brat pack, pretty damn funny.

I was in the theater to see V For Vendetta when the initial, really long trailer/making of for Benchwarmers came on.  Behind me were a bunch of teenaged guys, probably 16-19.

With each predictable, dumbass joke, these guys would start laughing this brutally retarded sounding laugh, and going "Oh man, this is gonna be soooo good!"

I honestly thought they were being sarcastic- just trying to poke fun at what was obviously going to be Every Shitty Schneider/Spade Comedy Movie Ever, but by the end of the preview, I wasn't sure anymore.  Were they serious?  Were they watching someone get hit in the nuts with a baseball and thinking to themselves, "Finally, a movie that has the sort of thing I, as a teen in American society, want to see." while furiously masturbating?

It's really troubled me, over the past few weeks.

Fuck, the most original joke in the entire preview was the bit where Jon Heder burns his hand on the hot potato.  Hilarious.

The hot potato joke was funny. The rest? Not.

Don't read the thread then?  I don't expect that every single person on f13 or the other site will enjoy my rambling.


Word of mouth is created by viewers, not critics.  If it does no more than double it's opening weekend over the course of it's entire run, it will still be doing pretty well for these guys.  Dickie Roberts and Joe Dirt only made $20m and $27m total, respectively.  Deuce Bigalow 2 did $22m, and The Hot Chick did $35m.  If this ends up at $40m it will be fine.  Of course, as Haemish pointed out, the budget was rather high.

When a movie doesn't screen in advance for critics it is usually because the movie is putrid shit. Word of mouth from the viewers would then back up the fact the movie is putrid shit. Thank you for playing.

It's a Rob Schneider movie, who cares? He had a momentary bout with funny in Deuce Bigalow and the rest of the shit he's touched has Not Been Funny. Critic screenings would have been a waste of money.

I just found out that Rob Schneider is NOT the bloke from The Superboy Show.  And THEN I found out that the guy from The Superboy Show is the same guy from The Dukes of Hazzard tv show!  Someone should write a book....

I like seeing the numbers, but I dont agree with a lot of your opinions.

Also, I liked you better as pissed off WUN, spewing hate and vitriol.

Either way, the whole movie was probably bankrolled on Adam Sandler's pocket change, so I doubt they care how much it makes anyways.

I think he's HIGHlarious.  Did I mention I'm his biggest fan?

Yes.

No shit, I thought it was fucking Citizen Kane until Shockeye told me they didn't screen it for the critics.  Why don't you just say it will have poor word of mouth because it looks like it sucks ass next time?

I've never understood the point of this sort of shit. Movies you see in the theater are more and more irrelevant with each passing day. Why not post TV rating or best-seller lists?

Who really gives a shit what movie came in #1 this week? Am I missing whatever is supposed to make this exciting and interesting information?

The fun part is when some douchebag spends eighty million dollars making a movie, and it limps in with twenty million in grosses.  Or when an over-the-hill actress throws her mummified pussy out there and has to watch the world turn its nose up at it.

WindupSchadenfreude?

(Spellchecker doesn't have schadenfreude.)

Why are you guys being such dicks? Movies are just as interesting as Digital Devil Saga 3 or Tokimeki Memorial.  He's just providing discussion and an attempt at humor which I find successful. 

If you don't like it, start your own thread about something you find more interesting.  Then WUN can come post in it saying it's a lame thing to start a thread about, and the balance will be preserved.

tits

I sorta agree with Dusematic. This is a pretty productive thing for WUA. I'm almost proud of him. My rittle boy is growing up. On that note, there won't be a DDS 3 and Tokimeki Memorial sucks.

I also agree.

Movies may not matter to you.

Personally, I don't give a shit about The Shield or Fantasy Sports.

I don't give a shit about MMORPGs. Well, not at this very moment at least. They don't deserve my time. But we'll see, I think I'm the one reviewing Auto Assault.... Seriously.

Yay!  You've had it too easy.  Now you suffer.  Finding a job, two console games a day, Auto Assult... your cup runneth over.  (just not in the same way as my avatard)

I think you missed the point of this site.  Someone posts something and then the rest of us kill time by either baiting them into a frothing rage, ignoring thier disscussion and starting a tangental one (probably in an attempt at baiting the OP), picking apart thier point in psychotic detail (more baiting), grieflinking (err, more baiting), or just generally trolling.

The humor and discussion of the original post you like so was entertaining for all of thirty seconds, Shockeye (and by extension you) have provided several times that amount of entertainment with a simple one liner of no particular merit.  I think you should be thankful.

You're gay (and by extension, so is your post).

Now you're getting it.

Feel the love. And by "love" I mean frothing irrational murderous rage.

I feel it.  The love.  For cock.

This is the second largest, second geekiest, and second flamiest board out of the two at which I post this.  By all means, have at me.   :-)

Well, as I learned in grade school: First worst, second best, third raspberry cow turd.

Calling bullshit on that one, the Hot Chick was watchable if not quite funny.

Are you being serious?

Also, I don't give a shit about most movies, especially the ones I am "supposed" to care about, but I find that I enjoy this thread.  WUA has finally found the correct meds, I guess: the ones that entertain me.

Yeah, I actually was.  When you say something like "what's the point of this?" you're being dumb and not funny.  I mean, c'mon, it's no secret that certain people have it out for WUA.  It's not like I'm super pissed off about it, but a spade's a spade.

Hahaha.  That's nice of you, Dusematic, but for comparison here's an exchange from one of my old box office threads on the other site.



This place is a cozy little den of lovable curmudgeons by comparison.

You shouldn't be such an asshole, they'd like you better.

That's why everyone loves me.

You're nothing to me now. You're not a brother, you're not a friend. I don't want to know you or what you do.  You're dead to me.

Who, me?

Certainly you can't mean me.

Everyone loves me.

Perhaps some people don't love me as much as they love the cock, but they still love me.

Hot off the presses.

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Back at it again.  Two new releases in the top ten this week, one a hit and the other a stinker.  Here we go, numbers from Mojo as always.

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#1 - Scary Movie 4, Week 1
Weekend gross: $40.2m
Screen count: 3602
Budget: $45m

SM3 opened with $48m, but this is still very good, especially considering the budget.  I'll root for it just because it has Leslie Nielsen, who is eighty goddamned years old.  Since I have a habit of throwing out goofy-ass ideas for movies when I do these things, I'll toss this one out there:  A sequel to Forbidden Planet that takes place fifty years after the original, with a place in it for Nielsen to reprise his role.

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#2 - Ice Age: The Meltdown, Week 3
Weekend gross: $20m (-40.8%)
Gross to date: $147.2m
Screen count: 3873 (-96)
Budget: $80m

Still plugging away, still making bank in it's third week.  What's really funny here is that even at this point, it positively trounced the opening of Disney's The Wild.

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#3 - The Benchwarmers, Week 2
Weekend gross: $9.9m (-49.6%)
Gross to date: $35.8m
Screen count: 3282 (+8)
Budget: $33m

A fifty percent dropoff is on the high side of what I expected, but in two weeks it's already recouped production costs.  Everything from here on out can cover promotion, and they'll make their real money on DVD.  Schneider's The Animal opened at about the same in 2001 and finished at $57m, for what it's worth.

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#4 - The Wild, Week 1
Weekend gross: $9.6m
Screen count: 2854
Budget: $80m

Owned in the fucking face.  Toys R Us declined to make toys for this flick, after execs saw an early screening and thought it looked like shit.  Good call.  Critical reaction can be summed up as "What the fuck?  We just saw this movie last year when it was called Madagascar, only this version sucks more!"  Walt would be spinning in his grave if he weren't frozen stiff.

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#5 - Take the Lead, Week 2
Weekend gross: $6.7m (-43.7%)
Gross to date: $22m
Screen count: 3009
Budget: Not available

Well the dropoff was nothing like the plummeting crash I expected, so that's good, right?  Right?  Given the screen count, someone in charge probably expected more from this than they're getting, though I have no idea why.  Still, I'd love to know the budget.  They could still get by with their skins intact, if not actually make money, if they kept it well under control.

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#6 - Inside Man, Week 4
Weekend gross: $6.4m (-29.6%)
Gross to date: $75.4m
Screen count: 2477 (-390)
Budget: $45m

Spike Lee's most successful movie ever, by far.  Maybe he'll calm the fuck down now, because being an Angry Black Man doesn't work very well when you're also a nerd.  It's also a pretty good showing for Denzel Washington.  Man on Fire, John Q, and Training day all finished in the seventies, and this one is still going.

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#7 - Lucky Number Slevin, Week 2
Weekend gross: $4.7m (-32.4%)
Gross to date: $14.3m
Screen count: 1989 (+5)
Budget: Not available

Again, Josh Hartnett?  They could have advertised Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman playing Scrabble and made more money than this, but they went and gave Hartnett top billing.  Oh well, guess what Josh?  They'll still be putting Willis and Freeman in movies after this.  You may not be so lucky.

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#8 - Thank You For Smoking, Week 5
Weekend gross: $4.5m (+94.5%)
Gross to date: $11.5m
Screen count: 1015 (+716)
Budget: $6.5m

Triumph of the small budget.  Even on a per-screen basis this isn't really packing them in THAT much, but who cares?  It's all free money at this point.

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#9 - Failure to Launch, Week 6
Weekend gross: $2.6m (-36.9%)
Gross to date: $83.1m
Screen count: 1950 (-666)
Budget: $50m

I'm done trying to think of things to say about this movie.  It's inoffensive and moderately successful.  Good for those involved.  Next.

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#10 - V for Vendetta, Week 5
Weekend gross: $2.2m (-34.7%)
Gross to date: $66m
Screen count: 1380 (-623)
Budget: $54m

Another one I won't miss when it slips from the chart next week.  It wasn't a stinkbomb, but they have to have hoped for more from it.  The Wachowskis suck.  Also, just for the hell of it I'll state that Equilibrium > Matrix Trilogy.

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*SPECIAL BONUS SCHADENFREUDE ENTRY*
(Would I be using that word if it weren't for Lisa Simpson?  Doubtful.)

#27 - Basic Instinct 2, Week 3
Weekend gross: $0.17m
Gross to date: $5.8m
Screen count: 323 (-1130)
Budget: Not available

A few things that finished higher than Basic Instinct 2 this week were...  The tenth weekend of The Pink Panther, the sixth weekend of Shaggy Dog, and the seventh weekend of Deep Sea 3-D, a friggin' IMAX picture.  Look at the screen count as theater owners flee the sinking ship.

One problem with your interpretation of box office is that comments concerning films "recouping" their production costs are based on 100% of the grosses.  You aren't taking into account the amount of money held by the theaters, which can be anywhere from 30-50%.  A film usually has to gross at least (depending upon its marketing costs) 200% of its production costs to be profitable at the box office release stage.  This of course doesn't include TV and DVD (or any other subsidiary rights) which can end up making a fair amount.

30-50% is generous. The big movies leave the theaters with as little at 15% for the first two weeks. Your point holds, regardless.

Most movies lose money at the box office. They make money from DVD sales, merchandise, product placement, deals with fast good restaurants, etc. Movies are essentially advertisings for the DVD as well as a place for advertisers to sell their wares. The actual box office take is more irrelevant with each passing day.

The money isn't in showing movies in the theater, and it hasn't been for a while.

I'm all for discussing movies. Movie grosses? Not so much. There is a distinction.

There is a dstinction but also a close linkage. Most movie economics are related to the box office performance. There are plenty of movies that flaunt whatever the rule of thumb is, certainly, but there is a rule of thumb. If a movie does $100M at the box office, that figure is used to determine the first print run for the DVD. A $200M box office performance will get a bigger initial DVD print run than a $100M box office performance.

As I understand it, cable and broadcast TV rights are also significantly determined by the gross run of the film unless it is a big movie that has been "presold."

The preselling might explain why Catwoman was all over the TV when I was in a hotel in Arizona.

Three new releases in the top ten this week. One is a hit, one is a disappointment, and one is an unmitigated flop. All numbers from Mojo as per usual, so here we go.

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#1 - Silent Hill, Week 1
Weekend gross: $20.1m
Screen count: 2926
Production budget: $50m

I hadn't been paying much attention to this one previously, since it looked like either another cheap craptastic horror flick, or something by Uwe Boll. This weekend, though, I had a couple people tell me they had gone to see it, and that it was genuinely entertaining. Lo and behold, I see today that it's come back with a respectable twenty million dollar opening. If it has decent legs, it'll do pretty well in the final accounting.

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#2 - Scary Movie 4, Week 2
Weekend gross: $16.8m (-58.2%)
Screen count: 3674 (+72)
Gross to date: $67.4m
Production budget: $45m

Dropoff percentages don't mean everything, part one. Despite a second-weekend hit closer to sixty percent than fifty, this flick has already made as much as V for Vendetta has in it's entire run, and on a smaller budget to boot. Scary Movie 5 is already a certainty, as if you had any doubts.

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#3 - The Sentinel, Week 1
Weekend gross: $14.3m
Screen count: 2819
Production budget: Not available

Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Kim Basinger and some others in a political thriller about some Secret Service crap, blah blah blah. I don't know what they spent on this, but it doesn't read like a cheap movie. An opening weekend this small has to be puckering someone's asshole out in Hollywood.

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#4 - Ice Age: The Meltdown, Week 4
Weekend gross: $13.2m (-33.7%)
Screen count: 3540 (-333)
Gross to date: $168.3m
Production budget: $80m

We live in the all-time golden age of American feature animation. It used to be that Disney would push something out the door every couple years, and that was it. Every once in a while someone else would try, but the results never went anywhere. Now Pixar, Dreamworks, and Fox are all putting out high-quality work that makes buckets of money. I just wish more of it was stuff I wanted to see.

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#5 - The Wild, Week 2
Weekend gross: $8.3m (-14%)
Screen count: 2854 (no change)
Gross to date: $22.2m
Production budget: $80m

Of course, that doesn't mean ALL feature animation is going to make money. Dropoff percentages don't mean everything, part two. That miniscule 14% fall sure would look nice if the damn movie had made any bank in the first place.

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#6 - The Benchwarmers, Week 3
Weekend gross: $7.2m (-26.8%)
Screen count: 3094 (-188)
Gross to date: $47.1m
Production budget: $33m

Well it's not displaying what I would call a great deal of stamina, but it is steadily plugging along towards solid profitability. It's already beaten all of Spade's neo-Laurel and Hardy flicks with the late Chris Farley, and will likely end up Schneider's biggest success outside of the first Deuce Bigalow.

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#7 - Take the Lead, Week 3
Weekend gross: $4.1m (-38.4%)
Screen count: 2413 (-596)
Gross to date: $29.4m
Production budget: Not available

Thirty million dollars is all anyone should have realistically expected out of a hip-hop/ballroom drama starring Zorro. I really want to see this movie's budget, just to learn whether those cutting the checks were realistic or not.

------

#8 - Inside Man, Week 5
Weekend gross: $3.7m (-41.7%)
Screen count: 2021 (-456)
Gross to date: $81.3m
Production budget: $45m

Winding down now, but has already made plenty of money. Been writing about it for a month now, not going to talk about it anymore.

------

#9 - American Dreamz, Week 1
Weekend gross: $3.6m
Screen count: 1500
Production budget: $17m

President Dennis Quaid goes on American Idol, hilarity ensues. Dead on arrival. I blame the Z in the title.

------

#10 - Friends with Money, Week 3
Weekend gross: $3.1 (+329.8%)
Screen count: 991 (+949)
Production budget: Not available

Jennifer Aniston in another one of those little movies that slowly creeps up from limited release. Does anyone reall care?

And alas, Basic Instinct 2 is completely gone from theaters now, so I have no special target to track for mockery. Perhaps the Robin Williams flick RV will be my next project, as the commercials I've seen for it look utterly devoid of humor.

Decent legs or not, it made that much money because the studio didn't let reviewers screen it for the weekend.

[edit] Eh, at least that's part of it. It probably could have pulled in 14 million even with prescreenings, simply because of hype and genre.

[edit] Anyways, this thread is a strange idea.

Oh, that is gonna suck. I mean SUCK.  Robin Williams hasn't been funny since before he quit cocaine back in the 80s. Someone needs to lock him up and keep him from headlining any comedy movies EVAR AGAIN. He can get a day pass to film supporting roles in dramas ala Good Will Hunting.

I was almost going to disagree with you (for some reason), but you are, in fact, right. Well, at least pretty close.


Robots (2005) (voice) .... Fender
Death to Smoochy (2002) .... 'Rainbow' Randolph Smiley
Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001) (voice) .... Dr. Know
Flubber (1997) .... Professor Philip Brainard
Jack (1996) .... Jack Charles Powell
The Birdcage (1996) .... Armand Goldman
Jumanji (1995) .... Alan Parrish
Aladdin on Ice (1995) (TV) (voice) (uncredited) .... Genie
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) .... Daniel Hillard/Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire
Toys (1992) .... Leslie Zevo
Aladdin (1992) (voice) .... Genie

Shakes the Clown (1992) (as Marty Fromage) .... Mime Class Instructor - Last funny movie

I thought he was good in Death to Smoochy.  I also liked him in Aladdin, but I was a lot younger then so my judgement is suspect.   :oops:

OK, since you're shedding tears, I'll give you Aladdin. But no Death to Smoochy (and no Aladdin On Ice....Which I haven't seen actually).

You have to give some credit to him in Mrs. Doubtfire. That movie did pretty well, and in fact took home an Oscar for the makeup job they did on Williams. It also won a lot of other comedic awards. Hell, IMBD says it grossed $219M in the US.

I think that one delivered.

I like Jack, Flubber and The Birdcage FOR WHAT THEY WERE. But they certainly weren't great movies by any stretch of the imagination.

RV, however, looks like someone shat National Lampoon's Vacation through a redneck's colon.

Flubber was an okay kids movie, Mrs. Doubtfire had it's moments, but this RV thing...  That commercial where he's talking to the kids playing basketball was just excruciating.  Made me feel embarrassed for Williams.

That's blushing, not tears.  Unless they're tears of blood.  But I'm not THAT broken up about it.

Oops, sorry about that  :oops:

That one an Oscar ?  Hell, Robin Williams was almost a Scottish Woman before the makeup job.  Not much work needed.

He used to ring Games Workshop UK mail order department quite often (around that time) using a sqeaky voice saying stuff like "I'm Nurgle, I'm Nurgle! & Blood for the Blood God!".  Or so I was told, they thought he was funny but a bit strange.

I love The Birdcage, not a wonderful movie, but one that you can watch just about any time you catch it on TV and be entertained.

His last HBO special was surprisingly good (especially compared to the crapfests that the last two Carlin ones have been). His cunnilingus gag pretty much made me forgive anything bad he has done in the last decade.

Not funny.  Ever.  I watched too much Mork & Mindy.  I might see RV if I can be guaranteed at least one groin kick for Robin.

I played soccer versus his kid, he was a dick of a parent on the sidelines.  Oh and I was kicked out of a party at his house, or actually I think it was his wife's (ex?) house.  But anyways we got kicked out and almost went back and beat the shit out of his kid (I was too drunk to notice if it was the one I had played soccer with but I assume so).

Anyways, I think his stand-up is pretty damn funny he was really great on Inside the Actor's Studio too.  I dislike Mrs. Doubtfire, the Birdcage is a classic, he was awesome in Alladin and I thought Death to Smoochy was great but more due to Norton then Williams.

My wife and I had sore abs from that bit the morning after. I haven't laughed that hard since (saw it on DVD last fall).

Is this anecdote supposed to reflect badly on him or you? I'm confused.

I assume almost beating the shit out of someone simply entails talking about doing it for years after the incident.  Next time you tell that story to someone you might want to leave that part out as it makes you and your friends sound like bitches.

One time I almost considered thinking about beating the shit out of some guy's son who was a total dick on the badminton court, but then I decided against it.

Years ago, I almost kicked the entire lineup of Slipknot's ass (OK, I'm not that egotistical. I probably would have just hurt some of them).

IF I'd known it was Slipknot at the time though, I'd probably have a better story to tell you now.

Ok, so I had to get up at 3am today.  But it's only 1pm now, and I'm caffinated all to hell!  So let's get to it!  I took a week off, and now I'm ready to go.  Numbers from Mojo as per usual.

----------

#1 - Mission Impossible, Week 1
Weekend Gross: $48m
Screen count: 4054
Budget: $150m

Given the hype, and the ASTRONOMICAL screen count, one tends to expect more from this movie.  MI2 opened with $9m more despite being on about 400 fewer screens.  And while MI1 opened a little lower at $45m, it did so on about 1000 fewer screens than this one.  It's doing okay, but... meh.  Let's see how the dropoff goes next week.

----------

#2 - RV, Week 2
Weekend Gross: $11.1m (-32.4%)
Screen count: 3651 (+12)
Total gross: $31m
Budget: $50m

Am I the only one surprised to see this flick doing this well?  The advertisements I've seen looked about as funny as skin cancer.  Then again, I guess "Robin Williams in anything" has a chance to sell after a glut of shitty horror flicks and a movie about 9/11.

----------

#3 - An American Haunting, Week 1
Weekend Gross: $6.3m
Screen count: 1668
Budget: $14m

Blah, blah, blah.  Speaking of shitty horror flicks...  Donald Sutherland is a better actor than a movie like this deserves, someone please put him in something good.

----------

#4 - Stick It, Week 2
Weekend Gross: $5.5m (-48.9%)
Screen count: 2044 (+6)
Total gross: $18m
Budget: Unknown

Gymnastics comedy starring Jeff Bridges.  I never thought anything would make me miss writing about that Antonio Banderas ballroom-dancing flick.  Hope they didn't spend much on this, because it's taking a serious dropoff on top of an unimpressive gross.

----------

#5 - United 93, Week 2
Weekend Gross: $5.2m (-54.6%)
Screen count: 1819 (+24)
Total gross: $20m
Budget: $15m

Betcha they could have kept the dropoff below 50% if they had just added some snakes.  Then again, it's not like they spent much.

----------

#6 - Ice Age: The Meltdown, Week 4097 (aka week 6)
Weekend gross:  More than everything below it ($4m)
Screen count: Still too many (2426)
Total gross: A shitload ($183m)
Budget: Way less than they're making ($80m)

GO AWAY!  I AM TIRED OF TALKING ABOUT YOU, ICE AGE!

----------

#7 - Silent Hill, Week 3
Weekend Gross: $3.9m (-58.2%)
Screen count: 2556 (-376)
Total gross: $40.8m
Budget: $50m

Fifty million dollars was too much to spend on this movie.  I won't bag on it, I just think they overbudgeted.

----------

#8 - Scary Movie 4, Week 4
Weekend Gross: $3.7m (-51.8%)
Screen count: 2537 (-881)
Total gross: $83.7m
Budget: $45m

Will creep up to double it's production budget by the time the fat lady sings, respectable by any standard.  Expect Scary Movie 5 two years from now, complete with tired spoofs of everything else on this list.

----------

#9 - Akeelah and the Bee, Week 2
Weekend Gross: $3.4m (-43.4%)
Screen count: 2195 (+0)
Total gross: $10.6m
Budget: Unknown

NASONEX!  Anyway, there's some question as to whether this or Hoot actually scored the #9 spot, but I don't give enough of a shit to look into it.  Neither do you.

----------

#10 - Hoot, Week 1
Weekend Gross: $3.4m
Screen count: 3018
Budget: $15m

I don't care if it IS just some happy animal kiddie-book adaptation, if it's on 3k screens it should make more than this.  Now, to go off on the mandatory weekly tangent, you know what I'd like to see?  More Star Wars movies!  No wait, really.  What GL ought to do is take some interesting directors, hand them a bag of money, and let them make Star Wars movies that have nothing to do with the existing ones.  Set them somewhere else within the continuity entirely, KOTOR style, and just let them run amuck.  Would never happen in a billion years, but what the hell.  It's my thread.

I've heard that same idea before and really... it's shit.  The last thing the movie industry needs is to take talented directors and get them to churn out fucking Star Wars movies.  I can barely even sit through the original SW movies these days.

Amen.

Star Wars is 1.5 pretty good movies with 4.5 shitty ones mixed in. I don't get it. It's Knights in Shining Armor with glowsticks. I understand the appeal somewhat but enough is enough, it's not like the world of Star Wars is really super-interesting and needs to be riffed on for all eternity.

Meanwhile, on my other forum...


They gave me a more F13 reception than F13 did.  You guys are slipping.  :-D

Why isn't there a thread about Terry Gilliam doing the new Harry Potter Movie? Afterall, Harry Potter is the new Star Wars. Or something. Overrated, overblown sci-fi/fantasy with a giant ego and no sense of soul.

HAY WHO WUD WIN IN A FIGHT BETWEEN VOLDEMORT AND THE EMPORER??//?

LOL I THINK IT WUOLD BE TEH EMPORER!  UNLIMITED POWAR!!!

I saw the first Harry Potter movie and read the book because of all the hype, the movie was OK, nothing too stimulating - a pretty good childrens/young teens movie but very little there for an adult.  The book was something that if you are an adult and you use any word other than childish to decribe it you should have your license to present opinions to the public revoked, I'm not sure there was more than 3 words with more than two syllables in the whole thing.  That said, I will go watch a Terry Gilliam directed Harry Potter movie opening weekend.

The books are meant to be childish according to the majority of people I know. Most of the adults who talk about it says the books make them feel like an imaginative kid again.

But when I think of imaginative kid, I tend to think of retarded toddler. I don't know, I've only read portions of the Harry Potter series, but I just can't bring myself to read them at length. I was reading more complicated books by 4th grade. The world hath gotten stupider since those days.

Frankly, So You Want to be a Wizard? (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0152049401/sr=1-1/qid=1147186394/ref=sr_1_1/103-8793051-2599831?%5Fencoding=UTF8) by Diane Duane was the same story but better - still targeted at kids but much more nuanced and absolutely much better written.

Maybe I think that because I read it when I was 12 or 13 and I haven't revisted the books to reevaluate my opinion but I think even the young me would have scoffed at Harry Potter.  I had read the Lord of the Rings and The Shining by the time I was 11 and I am pretty sure Harry Potter wouldn't have held my attention even then.

Harry Potter and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts both are just hype (though people tend to throw money at hype).

You shut your damn whore mouth.


I'd think this opening weekend was a disaster for MI3. As for RV, I can't imagine what the fuck anyone would see in this movie. I LIKE Robin Williams, and I just felt bad for him having to appear in it.

Anecdotaly, my brother saw MI:III last weekend and said it was much better than he expected.

Can't really call $48m a disaster, since MI2 opened at $57m and MI1 opened at $45m.

Ok...

I went to the video store last night after checking the theaters.  There is literally nothing worth watching.  I'm not sure if this is a blessing or a curse... but deciding that going for a run was a better option than going to or renting a movie just shocked me.

If someone can recommend anything released in the past 2 years, I'd be grateful.  I found absolutely nothing that interested me.

Hmm...Have you seen....

The Motorcycle Diaries

The Aviator

Shaun of the Dead

A History of Violence

March of the Penguins

Wallace and Gromit -- The Curse of the Were Rabbit (yes, I'm recommending Wallace and Gromit)

?

There are a few there that I hadn't considered.  Thanks for taking the time to point those out.

Your welcome and good luck  :-)

I'd add "The Upside of Anger" to the list.

A Costner movie. Funny man.

I still think it would be cool if George Lucas grabbed (insert your pet director here, I'll say Luc Besson) and said "Here's a hundred million dollars worth of my action figure money.  I'm going to go busy myself with other things until around 2010 or so.  Have a Star Wars movie ready when I get back."   :-P

I could maybe understand it if there are some directors out there who just really want to make a Star Wars movie.  I don't want Luc Besson doing Star Wars just because Lucas dropped off a truckload of cash at his house though.

Edit:  So pretty much you'd be stuck with Kevin Smith.

See, I'd heard years ago that there was talk about Besson doing one of the prequels, but that he declined because he knew it would just be Lucas breathing down his neck for a couple of years and he wouldn't have any freedom.  /shrug

And while at the time I was like "Star Wars + Besson = ZOMG!" I can understand where he was coming from.  So I really wouldn't mind seeing what he would do if he knew he'd be free to do whatever he wanted.  He has the right sort of sensibility to do something that fits the setting yet goes it's own way.

I mean, it's not like I'm saying they should hand it to Tarantino or something.  :wink:

To be perfectly honest I couldn't stand The Fifth Element.  I'd be happy if he never did another Sci-fi movie again.  I mean I really, really, hated that movie.

I did at the time, because I was apeshit for The Professional, and it had recently motivated me to go rent La Femme Nikita, and I wanted more stuff like that, and I wanted it NOW.  (Run-on sentence FTW.)  It's grown on me over the years though, even if the story was sketchy at best.  (The fuck was that ball thing?  They never defined it beyond "evil".)

Watched 'Man on Fire' the other day.

I liked it.

Dunno what the problem is, but I haven't felt compelled to go see anything since....

Damn, I can't even remember the last movie I went to. I may have been 40 Year Old Virgin, but I'm not positive.

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
Mirror Mask (Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean CGI/live action movie - gorgeous to look at)
Septem8er Tapes
Good Night and Good Luck
40-Year Old Virgin
Lord of War
The Ice Harvest
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Those are just a few of the ones I've watched this year.

Haemish:

I take it you've seen Mirrormask?  Mind posting some thoughts?

I'd like to know if it's worth it to go down and argue with the Blockbuster people to get my account activated or not.

Did you like Labyrinth? It's pretty much that, only all CGI except for some of the actors and muppets and David Bowie and his leather pants.

Some I've seen recently and liked, which aren't mentioned yet.

Revolver - It tries a bit hard to be cool at times, but it's still a very intresting watch.
Syriana - Anti oil corporation movie with a very respectable line up of actors, I found it fairly enjoyable in the end even if I almost decided to stop half way through.
The Weather Man - Cage movie, I liked it.
Danny the Dog - I like Jet Li  :-D

If your video store has it, i highly recommend the series "The Long Way Round" with Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman. It's a story about their trip across Europe and Asia on a pair of motorcycles, and makes for fantastic viewing.

It's the best thing Ewan has ever done.  And I don't mean that in a bad way at all.

:)

I have to say that i was not particularly inclined towards his work up until that time, but having seen this series i was more than impressed.

How good was the CGI in Mirrormask?  I ask, because I distinctly remember the budget for that film being no more than 4 or 5 million.

Banlieue 13 (http://www.banlieue13-lefilm.com/site1/index.html)

It was pretty, but not "realistic" by any stretch.  The world in Mirrormask was supposed to look like a drawing come to life, so they could get away with things looking "fake" and not have it break immersion.

Amazingly gorgeous. If you have ever looked at Dave McKean's collage-type photography/paintings (and if you've seen Sandman covers, you have), and if you liked them, it's exactly like that only with motion. It's a beautiful, beautiful movie.

The story is decent enough to watch. It won't edify you in some new way, but it's an enjoyably melancholy piece. If you hate Neil Gaiman's writing, you won't like it. If you like his writing, you'll probably like Mirror Mask.

I'll say Mel Brooks.

Wait...

Last movie I watched was Kunoichi: The Lady Ninja and I highly recommend it to everyone.

Thanks.  Will check it out sometime in the near future, then.  Gaiman = the man.

Is Revolver the new Guy Ritchie movie?

You win the thread.  :-D

Did she totally flip out and kill people  ?

Yes.  With a nipple lightning attack.  That is probably only the second weirdest ninpo technique in the film.

Took my sweet time doing it this week, but here it is, hot off the presses of the other forum where I've been doing this since late last year.
________________________

Yeah, it's really late this week. Eat me, I didn't feel like doing it until now. Numbers from Mojo as usual.

------

#1 - Mission Impossible 3, Week 2
Weekend gross: $25m (-47.6%)
Screen count: 4059 (+5)
Total gross: $85.1m
Budget: $150m

It's not doing awful, but neither I nor a lot of other people can quite shake the feeling that this isn't doing as well as it should. Then again, it is the third in the series. I know everyone is waiting to bury Tom Cruise, but this could just be a case of routine sequel fatigue.

------

#2 - Poseidon, Week 1
Weekend gross: $22.1m
Screen count: 3555
Budget: $160m

Stand back and take a good look, this is the kind of shit I wait for. Poseidon isn't "underperforming" or "scraping by" or waiting to be "salvaged by DVD sales" or any of that shit. It's a goddamned certified FLOP of epic proportions. Foreign grosses only added a couple million to that total, meaning that someone over at Warner Brothers is responsible for flushing nine fucking figures worth of money directly down the toilet. Holy shit.

EDIT:  Brandon Gray had this to say over at Mojo: "Warner Bros.' $160 million remake of the 1972 blockbuster, The Poseidon Adventure, sold nearly as many tickets out of the gate as Volcano and Speed 2: Cruise Control among recent mega-budget, disaster-oriented pictures."

I can spew venom for a thousand years and never come up with a putdown as good as this mildly-worded little sentence.

------

#3 - RV, Week 3
Weekend gross: $9.9m (-9.6%)
Screen count: 3536 (+115)
Total gross: $43.2m
Budget: $50m

Why does this keep making money?! Look at that, a dropoff of less than ten percent! If it can keep showing legs like this, it'll end up at least modestly successful. How is this possible? It looks like such shit in the ads. Has anyone seen this? Were the ads just poorly chosen? Is it, in actuality, really funny? I need to know.

------

#4 - Just My Luck, Week 1
Weekend gross: $5.6m
Screen count: 2541
Budget: $45m (estimate from IMDB)

Bombs away. Did this fail because Lindsay Lohan is a skanky whore who has alienated the public, or because Lindsay Lohan is just a talentless slut whom anyone with a brain should have known wasn't going to adequately open a forty-five million dollar picture?

------

#5 - An American Haunting, Week 2
Weekend gross: $3.5m (-38.4%)
Screen count: 1703 (+2Cool
Total gross: $10.8m
Budget: $14m

I'm glad this movie came along. It proved that the people who go to see all these cheap-shit horror flicks that have come out lately aren't going to see EVERYTHING that gets shoveled out there. Again, Donald Sutherland was in this? The hell? Is he broke?

------

Okay, from now on I'll be going back to the old one-liner format for the bottom half of the top five. At least during weeks where there's nothing interesting going on down there. I mean, I can't imagine trying to think of something to say about Akeelah and the Bee or Ice Age yet again.

Rank - Title - weekend/gross/budget - (cheap shot remark)

#6 - United 93 - 3.5/25/15 - (Muthafuckin' snakes! I mean terrorists!)
#7 - Stick It - 3/22/? - (Too easy.)
#8 - Ice Age - 3/187/80 - (That snake joke two places up was pretty cheap.)
#9 - Akeelah and the Bee - 2.4/14/? - (You know you don't give a fuck.)
#10 - Hoot - 2.2/6/15 - (The corpse-fucking scene scared me. Wait, wrong flick...)

It's his latest http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365686/.

No, really. It is. Granted, $25m is not too bad, but a 47% drop in one week? That's death. That means word of mouth ain't glowing, and if it drops that much again next week, you're looking at it limping to about $110 million gross in about 5 weeks of screen time. AWFUL. DVD might get it to break even, but it will be terrible. And I want to see this movie, but the numbers look real bad.


Yeah, holy shit that's bad. Lots of screens, but not a lot of people seeing it. And compared to the budget, that's like box-office crotchrot. Another movie I want to see, but another movie I'm not at all suprised by the numbers.


I can't imagine how it has even made that much. It looks like total shit. Either it's family-friendly and socceer moms are recommending it, or it just hits that "this shouldn't be funny, but people like it" note perfectly. I expected it to be the end of Williams' career, yet it seems almost like a resurgence. HOW?


Based on that budget, if he was broke when he took the role, he's still broke and getting broker.

With the alternatives at the theater, it's either watch this or go sit at a bar for the evening.


My guess is that it's because she lost her boobs.  Doesn't bode well for DVD sales either, when you eliminate the creepy older guy demographic.

In other news, I watched Kung Fu Hustle last weekend.  Totally awesome.  I'm serious this time, not like with that Kunoichi movie.  Now the wife is a Stephen Chow fan.

I don't think Lohan's boobs

Actually, forget it. Just forget it.

I thought a 47% drop from opening week is pretty standard for just about anything.  Anyhow, apparently this had a word wide release where according to some numbers I've heard it's already made $225mil+.

It's a good movie. I would recommend seeing it.

Ending felt like they were going to bust out into song like in 40yroldvirgin.

Maybe this isn't the right place to put this (if so my apologies) but I just rented Tristan & Isolde and I'm 2/3 of the way through.  I'm really enjoying it, and I had never heard of it before (the older I get the more that happens; I'm becoming culturally illiterate quickly).  Anyway, it's a period piece set during the Dark Ages.  And it's not totally stupid.

(People were apparently much better looking back then.  And they all have good teeth, no signs of malnutrition.  Overlooking those things - and who wants to watch a movie full of ugly people with bad teeth anyway? - it's a pretty good movie).

As of right now it's up to $90m domestic and $128m foreign, meaning gross has already exceeded budget by $70m.  It could be doing better, but nobody is going to lose money on it.  And the dropoff percentage is, from what I understand, pretty much as expected and just a hair better than that of the prior MI movies.

My mistake then. It still doesn't sound like a big success. More like an SWG success.

Dont feel to bad. I tend to watch TV and try to stay culturally aware and I dont think I had heard of it till it came out on DVD. I bought it and enjoyed it. Home you do as well.

T&I was one of those movies dumped into a quiet release during the post-holiday dead zone.  Got no publicity and made no money.  I get the impression they would just as soon have not released it at all.  Hell, the only reason I know about it is from doing threads like this.

I finished watching it and enjoyed it very much.

I guess the only things that Hollywood spends money on advertising for are tired recycled concepts with big names.

Where is the TV thread?

Everything Rasix just said is true.

I was totally going to skip last week's roundup, since WoW has been taking up a large portion of my idle PC time recently.  I had planned on doing this weekend's report today, but then I realized it's a three-day weekend and the numbers aren't going to be out yet.  So with no further ado, here's the BOR for the weekend of May 19 - 21.  I'll try and get the next one done at a reasonable time, really.

------

#1 - The DaVinci Code, Week 1
Weekend gross: $77m
Screen count: 3735
Budget: $125m

I know the critics hated this movie, but come on.  It's Tom motherfucking Hanks.  He's one of the very few real old-school-style movie stars in Hollywood, and no pissant critics can stop him from opening an anticipated movie with big money.  Still, let's see how it holds up in week two.  I believe it had already cracked $100m during thw workweek though, so it'll probably do okay.

------

#2 - Over the Hedge, Week 1
Weekend gross: $38.4m
Screen count: 4059
Budget: Not available

Animated Dreamworks bit about cute talking animals.  This opening is no disaster, but given the screen count and Bruce Willis as a voice actor, I have to imagine they were hoping for more.  The first Shrek opened bigger than this, five years ago.

------

#3 - Mission Impossible 3, Week 3
Weekend gross: $11.3m (-54.6%)
Screen count: 3450 (-609)
Total gross: $103.5m
Budget: $150

Mister Cruise, keep this shit up and you'll be handing in your official movie star decoder ring.  Yes, I know that the overseas take has already put this movie well into the black.  That's fine, for the studio.  But you're Tom Cruise.  People don't pay you obscene amounts of money to star in movies so they can do mediocre domestic business and then rely upon foreign grosses to turn a profit.  They can hire any asshole to do that.

------

#4 - Poseidon, Week 2
Weekend gross: $9.2m (-58.4%)
Screen count: 3555 (+0)
Total gross: $36.8m
Budget: $160

What's worse than an opening weekend around 1/8th of your budget and almost non-existent foreign business?  All of that plus a dropoff of nearly sixty percent!  Holy shit!  Now even the most deluded corporate spinmeister (Titanic had a low opening too!  And they both have boats!) can do nothing but admit that this is a failure and a money-sink of truly epic proportions.

------

#5 - RV, Week 4
Weekend gross: $5m (-49.7%)
Screen count: 2925 (-611)
Total gross: $50.3m
Budget: $50m

God damned motherfucking son of a bitch.  It's reached its budget.  Yes, I know there are marekting costs and other shit to recoup before a movie becomes truly profitable, but still.  This looks like the biggest pile of felch-vomit to come down the pipe in ages, and yet it has made fifty million dollars and recouped it's basic production costs.  With a couple more weeks of lingering around the charts and then DVD sales and whatnot, it will have turned out to be a downright profitable venture.  And you thought there was a god.

------

Rank - Name - weekend/total/budget - (Putdown)

#6 - See No Evil - 4.5/4.5/8 - (Cheapy horror flick, just opened.  Who keeps seeing these?)
#7 - Just My Luck - 3/10/? - (Lindsay Lohan vehicle drops dead in 2nd week.  Whore.)
#8 - An American Haunting - 1.5/13.5/14 - (Limping to budget is abject failure, when it's this small.)
#9 - United 93 - 1.4/28/15 - (I give up.  You try thinking of a 9/11 joke.)
#10 - Akeelah and the Bee - 1/15.7/? - (I still don't give a shit.)

Okay, I'm actually on the ball this week in terms of getting it out there in a timely fashion.  I'll ditch the preamble and get right to the meat.  Numbers from www.boxofficemojo.com as always, and note that I'm using the three-day weekend figures.

------

#1 - X-Men: The Last Stand, Week 1
Weekend gross: $103.1m
Theater count: 3690
Budget: $210m

Remember when the first story elements leaked, and everyone figured this movie was going to suck ass?  That all went away after we started seeing trailers, and from what I hear the film has lived up to them.  Still, after a huge holiday opening like this, it pretty much HAS to take a large dropoff in the second weekend.  And look at that motherfucking budget, a hundred million dollars more than X2.  Oh they'll make a fat profit in the end, but come on.  There's no reason it should have cost this much.

------

#2 - The DaVinci Code, Week 2
Weekend gross: $34m (-55.9%)
Theater count: 3754 (+19)
Total domestic gross: $136.4m
Budget: $125m

The dropoff was over fifty percent in the face of X3, but who cares?  They're already breezing past their production costs on domestic box-office alone.  And get this:  The film has made an additional three-hundred and ninteen million dollars overseas, leaving them only thirty-six short of the half-billion mark.  In two weeks.  Way to go, Catholic protestors.  You sure showed Hollywood.

------

#3 - Over the Hedge, Week 2
Weekend gross: $26.8m (-30.1%)
Theater count: 4093 (+34)
Total domestic gross: $75.9m
Budget: Unknown

Shrek 2 cost $75m to make.  Assuming this picture cost around the same, it'll turn a profit.  Still, this is pretty lackluster for Dreamworks.  If Cars does decent business for Pixar, they can fairly claim to have trounced their rival in this round.  Keep in mind that dropoff percentages are nerfed downward this week thanks to the extended weekend.

------

#4 - Mission Impossible 3, Week 4
Weekend gross: $6.7m (-41%)
Theater count: 3053 (-397)
Total domestic gross: $113.9m
Budget: $150

See, everyone wonders why I harp on the mythical "domestic gross > production budget" mark, since it's not always all that relevant from a business perspective.  But it is signifigant in an emotional penis-waving sort of way, and that can count in Hollywood.  For example, MI3 has already made $279m worldwide, putting it solidly in the black.  And yet, the fact that Tom Cruise made a $150m flick that has put only $113m worth of American asses in seats after a full month does reflect negatively upon him.

------

#5 - Poseidon, Week 3
Weekend gross: $5.5m (-40%)
Theater count: 3245 (-310)
Total domestic gross: $45.1m
Budget: $160m

At least Cruise can take comfort at not having been in Poseidon, the biggest fucking failure I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing since I started doing these posts.  It'll be lucky to limp to $60m domestically, and overseas business is absofuckinglutely dead, totalling less than $10m to date.

------

Rank - Name - weekend/total/budget - (Putdown)

#6 - RV - 4/56/50 - (Smallest dropoff of anything in major release this week!  WTF!)
#7 - See No Evil - 2.6/8.5/8 - (Should have called it Please See Evil, people are obeying the title.)
#8 - Just My Luck - 1.8/13.4/? - (Porno title: Just My Fuck, starring Lindsay Blowhan.)
#9 - United 93 - 0.8/29.6/15 - (Only movie this week not to move a spot.)
#10 - An American Haunting - 0.7/14.6/14 - (Fuck horror movies already.)

Actually, I'm going to make a bit of a prediction here. Expect the dropoff for this one to be slow. I went to see it, and while it doesn't quite have the depth of humor of, say, the original Shrek, it's still very amusing and has quite a few legitimately funny moments for both parents and kids. This one is going to have a lot of word-of-mouth power. If I had more money, I might actually go see it again.

Well that might be because it wasn't actually released overseas yet. The release date for poseidon in germany is the 7/13/06 and since most movies are released simultaneously in western europe I assume that it will be released in the UK and other western european countries on the same date. Worldwide releases are more common than a few years ago but for most movies it still takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months until they are released outside the US.

It might break even however since the latest Petersen films were more popular outside of the US than in the US (perfect storm for example) but by the time it is released here the bad word of mouth will already have swapped over from the US so I wouldn't count on it. Why anyone would do a superfluous remake of a second rate 70's disaster movie is beyond me however. This spells bad business decision.

Quite frankly I disagree with the sentiment that domestic gross is all that counts. Take King Kong for example. It has grossed nearly 548 million dollar worldwide and is currently number 34 on the list of the top 50 grosses of all time worldwide. It is still regarded as a failure however because it didn't meet expectations and "only" grossed 218 million domestic (at roughly a 200 million budget)

If nothing else, it should make execs sit up and take notice when Cruise asks for a big payoff to star in a movie from now on. But they won't, because then he'll tell them about the history of movie-making.

"You don't know the history of douchebaggery. Ido!"

This is probably as good a place as any to mention that I watched Alien³ with deleted scenes this past weekend, and I found it rather understandable with the extra 30 minutes of film.  Unfortunately I ruined it by watching Alien: Resurrection.  I took back a bit of sanity by TiVoing Ghostbusters and finally assuing myself that I didn't imagine seeing Sigourney's nipple after all.

I don't plan on seeing any of the movies mentioned in the roundup.  I'll watch Alien³ again before that.  So there.

A friend and I saw this in the theatres when it came out.  We'd originally picked Hoodwinked (which we enjoyed, but were ticked off that it was only just over an hour long) and decided to theatre hop to see T&I.  It wasn't bad, but we were both glad we hadn't paid anything to see it, if that helps.  James Franco does nothing for me.  If there is going to be some hot, star-crossed lovers story going on, then I want the man to at least be someone I can fantasize about.

Went and saw this last night and we should have listened to the critics. The movie sucked. It's rare that the wife and I both aggree that a movie was bad but on this one we did. They made some changes from the book and it just threw off the entire logic of the movie. The ending was entirely illogical because of it.

Hollywood needs to quit it with the remakes.

But, but, but... then they'd have to come up with new ideas!  There's OODLES of movies the ADD-addled masses haven't seen yet becuase the movie is 10 years old or older.  Just THINK of the possiblities, man!  In 15 years we can remake Titanic and get gobs of money AGAIN!

And movies based on comic book characters.

And profitable movies.

Come on WUA, I know you have to have something to say about Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Fucking Drift making $24 million in its opening weekend.  I don't know how much they spent on that thing but that's still a lot more than it deserved.

But it has Vin Diesel in it...He lives life a quarter mile at a time. DO YOU?

Are you fucking kidding me? Are homes passing out retard candy at Halloween? I lost IQ points just watching the trailer.

"Sometimes to be in control, you have to LOSE CONTROL!!!"


Zomg.

And what's funny is that drifting takes an incredible amount of control. Damn kids.

I saw enough drifting in Cars already.

I thought we had a Snakes on a Plane thread, but I couldn't find it.

http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/06/the_snakes_on_a_plane_phenomen.html (http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/06/the_snakes_on_a_plane_phenomen.html)

I think that there were three of four of them in Useless News.

They must have spent TONS of money marketing Tokyo Drift because I saw a bazillion trailers and ads for it.

They spent their money a quarter million at a time.

I'll do a special BOR "Here's everything I missed while I was busy/lazy!" retrospective next time I have a day off, which should be sometime next week.

I hope Vin Diesel sits on you.

roofles.

This past weekend, I thoroughly enjoyed El Espinazo del Diablo (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256009/) (The Devil's Backbone).  It is beautiful in pretty much every way you can think of.  Previously, we watched The Eye (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325655/) which was enjoyable and did that thing I love where you can see spooky shit in the background if you are paying attention.  I'm glad my wife got onto this foreign horror film kick, it's helping me like movies again.

Ebert gave Tokyo Drift a thumbs up. Mind you, he did the same for the new Garfield. I'm starting to worry about the old boy.

There's a man that just doesn't give a shit anymore.

The Eye, Juon, Haute Tension, The ring, alll excellent foeign movies.

Yeah, finally got around to doing another one of these.  This weekend saw the biggest opening ever, so I kinda had to.

---------

#1 - Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest, Week 1
Weekend gross: $132m
Theater count: 4133
Budget: $225m

Single largest weekend gross in the entire history of movies. Holy shit. Superman can consider himself bent over a barrel and raped in the ass, thank you very much. I wonder what they're paying Johnny Depp for this. Whatever it is, he's earned it. Sure he may never do box office like this again, but right now Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and everything else ever made can kiss his ass. His ass in particular, since nobody is going to see this for Orlando Bloom.

---

#2 - Superman Returns, Week 2
Weekend gross: $21.8m (-58.4%)
Gross to date: $141.6m
Theater count: 4065
Budget: $260m

"You can't be more pleased." -- Some studio guy
"WRONG!!1!!!1" -- Lex Luthor

---

#3 - The Devil Wears Prada, Week 2
Weekend gross: $15.6m (-43.3%)
Gross to date: $63.7m
Theater count: 2882 (+35)
Budget: $35m

A nice bit of counter-programming to the Superman/Pirate duel, and a solid credit to Meryl Streep's box-office record. If this movie didn't make another dollar, it would still be the fifth most successful of her lengthy career. In the long-term, only Lemony Snicket ($118m) and Kramer vs Kramer ($106m) are likely to keep ahead of it. And depending on what sort of legs this flick shows, even those two may not be safe.

---

#4 - Click, Week 3
Weekend gross: $12m (-39.8%)
Gross to date: $105.9m
Theater count: 3458 (-306)
Budget: $82.5m

A remote control that controls REAL LIFE! OMG! Proof that an Adam Sandler movie will make money, even if it's written by a six-year old. Wait, that's every Adam Sandler movie. Oh well. In any case, the budget is a little high. Bad Hollywood.

---

#5 - Cars, Week 5
Weekend gross: $10.3m (-29.1%)
Gross to date: $205.5m
Theater count: 3379 (-327)
Budget: $120m

I'll admit, when I first saw an image of this flick's anthropomorphic automobile protagonist, I thought it looked pretty lame. I thought this would be Pixar's first big stinker. Shows what I know. Considering Disney owns both Pixar and the Pirates franchise, this has been their summer.

---

And the rest:

Rank - Title - weekend/total/budget - (snarky riposte)

#6 - Nacho Libre - 3.3/73.8/35 - (Looked like shit to me, but it did okay.)
#7 - The Lake House - 2.8/45.6/? - (Time-traveling mailbox? WTF?)
#8 - TF&TF: Tokyo Drift - 2.4/57.3/? - (Fucking stop with these already!)
#9 - Waist Deep - 1.8/19/? - (Nobody cares.)
#10 - The Breakup - 1.6/114.3/52 - (I wish Jennifer Aniston would touch my pee-pee.)

How could you forget A Scanner Darkly! Or is that not being released nationally, and only in metropolitan areas?

By request...

#17 - A Scanner Darkly, Week 1
Weekend gross: $0.4m
Theater count: 17
Budget: Unknown

Limited release obviously, but it boasts a $24k per-theater average, which is second only to the $32k average of Pirates.  For sake of comparison, the average for Superman this week was only about $5k.

I would probably see The Devil Wears Prada if so directed by my wife; it looks reasonably amusing (and Anne Hathaway is kinda hawt). I was looking forward to Cars until I heard about the heavy involvement of numerous NASCAR folks. HATE HATE HATE. Pirates was good; will probably wait to to see Superman on On Demand.

You really shouldn't. It's got some pretty good big-screen effects moments.

Bah. Now I have to leave my house again. Bastard!

Well, he was just hospitalized for a blood vessel bursting.  I think it might have been in his head.  And that might explain those ratings.

(http://www.thornyscrate.com/~wes/roleplaying/inspirational2/cthulu3.jpg)

Lotsa funny "inspirational" posters there. Thought this would amuse you guys

That may actually be a fair fight if you gave Cthulhu the Sword of Grey Skull and the One Ring.

(http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/6820/yhalothar4ox.jpg)

That's disgusting.

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!  Numbers from Mojo as always.

------

#1 - Gridiron Gang, Week 1
Weekend gross:  $14.4m
Theater count:  3504
Budget:  $30m

I think Rock has realized nobody wants him to be another Schwarzenegger, and so he's experimenting with this "acting" thing.  From what I hear, he's not bad at it.  Still, I'd love to see him in something grim and bloody, along the lines of the first Conan flick.

------

#2 - The Black Dahlia, Week 1
Weekend gross:  $10m
Theater count:  2226
Budget:  $50m

If you're going to spend fifty million dollars making a forties period piece, don't cast Josh "Nothing I'm in makes money!" Hartnett as the lead and then skimp on the publicity.  I had to check IMDB just to see what the hell this movie was about.  Speaking of the database, users on there don't seem to like it much either, giving it a 5.7 average rating.

------

#3 - Everyone's Hero, Week 1
Weekend gross:  $6m
Theater count:  2896
Budget:  Unknown

Apparently Christopher Reeve was working on this at the time of his death.  By all accounts it's a big smelly piece of animated crap, with Whoopie Goldberg as a talking baseball bat.  Or something.  I saw an advertisement somewhere, and it looked really unappealing.  I don't know what it cost, but it's safe to say they won't be making it back anytime soon.

------

#4 - The Covenant, Week 2
Weekend gross:  $4.7m (-46%)
Total gross:  $15.8m
Theater count:  2681  (+0)
Budget:  $20m

Given the marketing and general vibe of this movie, I initially thought it was some sort of Underworld spinoff.  Instead it's The Craft, but with boys.  Nevertheless, like the Underworld flicks, this movie benefits from a very modest production budget.  It's not doing boffo business, but it'll end up in the books as a profitable venture.

------

#5 - The Last Kiss, Week 1
Weekend gross:  $4.6m
Theater count:  1357
Budget:  $20m

Some generic shitty drama about... people... who are confused... about their lives... or something.  Date movie fodder, I guess.  Anyway, twenty million isn't a huge budget, but opening fifth on a soft weekend like this (and being edged out by the second weekend of The Craft With Boys) is pretty miserable.

------

And the rest of the Top Ten:

Rank - Title - Weekend/Total/Budget - (Comment)

#6 - Invincible - 4.1/51/? - (Marky Mark football movie, has actually made money.)
#7 - The Illusionist - 3.6/23/16.5 - (Who doesn't like Edward Norton?)
#8 - Little Miss Sunshine - 3.3/46/8 - (Small budget for the win!)
#9 - Hollywoodland - 2.7/10.5/? - (Who doesn't like Ben Affleck?  Oh yeah, everyone.)
#10 - Crank - 2.6/24.3/12 - (Small budget for a somewhat lesser win!)

The "Rock", I mean, Dwayne Johnson (I saw a recent ad with him advertised as that), was actually funny in Be Cool (note: I did not like Be Cool itself).

Arnold needs to retire from politics asap and do one last Conan flick (without Dwayne Johnson in it). Conan the King. Preferably grey and bearded (the way he looked before the closing credits of Conan the Barbarian).

I'm interested in the Affleck movie actually. As I've mentioned before, I'm a sucker for "lonely guy" movies, and George Reeves led an extremely sad life. Sounds perfect.

The Covenant has 2% on Rotten Tomatoes.

From EW.com's Greg Kirschling:


Lawl.

The Covenant has been ripped to shreds by any competant movie reviewer. On top of that, the other 95% of reviewers also think it's complete shit.

This is a good thing, IMO. The Rock was always too smart to be the big dumb action guy.  Something about his intelligence always came through.   If there were more movies with characters like the one he played in "The Rundown" then he'd be set.  Unfortunatly, there aren't.. and when there are the whole isn't as good as the parts.


You had to check the IMDB to see what a movie about the most famous Hollywood murder was about?  Then again, your complaint about the lack of publicity already told me you and I have vastly different viewing realities.  I couldn't escape the fucking Black Dhalia ads from the last few weeks. They must've blown the whole budget on the Learning channel/ History Channel ads. (Then again, did I actually see it on History Channel? I forget now.)

The movie looked crappy anyway.


Really?  The first time the wife and I saw an ad she said "So, it's 'The Craft', but with boys?"  It looked like it was trying REALLY HARD to not be completly horrible.  Which of course means it's got to suck more ass than a desparate camwhore.


It occours to me I haven't seen an ad for or heard of any of the other movies  aside from Invincible.  Wow, late summer sucks.  Hm... amend that.. this whole year has sucked.

Heh, it definitely takes a genius to come up something like the "People's Elbow" as his finishing move.

Seriously. That's some funny shit.

I saw a poster for The Covenant when I was in NY 6 weeks ago or so and the first thing I said was "is that a WB show?"

Just wanted to throwing in here that I really liked 'Crank' (currently numero 10 at the box office). Silly premise, but insanely fun movie and well worth seeing on the big screen imo

I'm currently working at a movie theater, and part of my job is to watch the movies after I've built them up to make sure nothing got spliced together wrong and nothing got scratched.  Anyhow, I checked out the Covenant and what is more or less an average movie degenerates into a complete pile of shit during the last fight scene where two characters proceed to throw Hadokens at each other for probably around 10 minutes.  The shit looked more like Street Fighter II than the fucking Street Fighter movie.

Just took my dad today to see Crank.  If you expect to see logic or believeable characters in movies, this isn't for you.  The fact that police can't catch a guy after he's driven his car through a mall and crashed it, or how little the main character's girlfriend seems to be bothered when she finds out he kills people for a living (and some other scenes between them I won't ruin for anyone that hasn't seen it), might drive some viewers nuts if they try to take the movie too seriously.  It has some pretty fucking funny moments though and worth seeing if you just want to enjoy some over-the-top shit.

I'd prefer if Jason Statham just went away. He's phony even by an actor's standards.

Do not talk bad about Turkish, bitch.

Crank is like the Transporter movies. Do NOT take it as high art, but as fun bubblegum. I want to see it because I like Statham, despite the shitty shit shit shit agent who keeps casting him in movies that really are beneath him.

It also has Amy Smart.

A Dungeon Siege Tale ?

What.  The.  Fuck.

Exactly. Statham should be beating his agent about the head with a large black rubber dildo. It's like his agent is that cunt agent from Extras.

Tell me, are they going to distribute mice to the audience to really simulate the real feel of Dungeon Seige ?  In order to progress the film you have to click the mouse again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and

I loved Crank, will be buying it when it hits DVD.  It's a fantastic action film.

For anyone who likes dark comedies, Little Miss Sunshine is required viewing.  Really damn good.   

Ok, I will ask the burning question that is on everyone's mind- how close to naked does Scarlett Johansson get in The Black Dahlia? I need to know whether to fast forward through it when it hits cable or not.

I can't help feeling that Rock hasn't really been put to proper use yet.  He has charisma, physical presence, and apparently even some ability to act.  He ought to be huge.  He just hasn't had the right part yet.


Dude, the most famous murder to ever take place in forties Hollywood doesn't even come close to registering on my "give a shit" scale.


I don't exactly do painstaking marketing research for these little writeups.  I don't even watch that much TV.  But if 8 out of 10 movies have managed to reach me in some way, I conclude that the remaining 2 whose names I've never heard before must be underpromoted.


I'll admit, my impression of this movie came from a couple of really vague television ads that I wasn't paying the utmost attention to.  Couldn't really tell what it was about, the look of it just gave me an Underworld vibe.  Looking at IMDB as I type this though, Covenant and Underworld DO share the same production company and a couple of producers.  Go me.

I agree.  Rock looks it, in a way that 'Ahnuld' doesn't even though I don't think he's an idiot either.  Either way, it will turn out better for him if he tries to break away from the action hero stereotype (and not by doing Kindergarden Cop 2).  It doesn't look like any upcomming movies of his will do that for him though, so I think he's going to continue to be used below his real ability.  Didn't the other Rock (Chris) just do a movie about this, but with more laughs?  Eh.


Yes.  I'm really, really, really tired of that commercial.  For that many slots, they could've at least put together more versions of it, or spread it across other channels.  Or quit showing it. 


Yes again.  The effects look way, WAY overdone.  Blatantly obvious they're going for the teen market.

Overall, your reality makes more sense than WUAs.

Dude, it's the most famous Hollywood murder probably ever. I mean, the girl was cut in half for Christ's sake. I've known about it for over a decade and I'm not much into reading about true crimes and such.

But what about Johansson?

THANK YOU.

Jesus you people can get off track in a hurry.

I think we'll see Rock in better movies, in roles better suited to his actual abilities, when they start giving him credit using his real name; he needs to leave the whole "Rock" persona behind if he wants to grow as an actual actor.

I think he's known well enough now that they should start doing the whole 'Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson' when they credit him, so more people know his actual name. Then, he can eventually just drop the "Rock" part and most people will still recognize him.

Yeah, at least he has that option. Dwayne Johnson isn't too bad.

"Terry G Bollea"? Not so much. Best leave it the way it is.

The Rundown was decent.

Yeah, I caught that one day. It wasn't bad. Even Stifler didn't ruin it.

Rosario Dawson was hot as always.

It also had a pretty cool fight scene in it.

I think that and Be Cool are all I've seen of him so far. A friend told me that the Doom movie really wasn't that bad....But I doubt I'll get around to it anytime soon.

I fully admit here that I watch wrestling...

Funny thing about the Rock, is that he hasn't seemed to be able to capture on film what he did so well in front of a live audience. When they gave the guy a live mike he just rolled naturally - he hasn't quite captured that in his movies. The Rundown really was a very good action/buddy movie, but I have no urge to go to a theater to watch a highschool football movie.

As for the Black Dahlia - I've known that name forever, but honestly I had to look it up when the ads started to find out what exactly it was about. I'd watch it, but seeing my lovely Exotica beauty chopped in half would be too traumatic for me.

I'm sad I missed Crank when my buddies saw it, was out of town. Will be a deffinite DVD pickup. Stathem could be doing much higher quality stuff, but right now he's the king of popcorn action and I like that from time to time.

I just don't see what you guys see in him. Why would he do higher quality stuff exactly? Where is all this faith coming from? From the very beginning, he was hired right off the street by Guy Ritchie. He's a model (in the purest sense of the word), not an actor with "promise". Much like Vinnie Jones or Ice-T is (except those two probably have more applicability).

In the end, it's his own lack of theatrical and artistic sensibility that's making these stupid movie choices. Not his agent. More power to him though, I guess. He's cashing in.

She might be pulling a Lohan.


(http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20060919/capt.914b77f9a6fd4b1a8fd75c2aeb2da2e8.people_scarlett_johansson__nyol964.jpg)  (http://news.yahoo.com/photo/060919/480/914b77f9a6fd4b1a8fd75c2aeb2da2e8&g=events/en/102103johansson)    (http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/fwd/20060911/capt.fwd121_scarlett_johansson.jpg) (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060911/photos_fashionwire/ebec7f30c01a329a65b586e1ff4f4016)
January 2006                                                                     September 2006

(I don't actually think so, it's just a bad picture.)

No, she's not. That picture on the right is just goddamn awkward. I'm not sure why. Her other spreads have her looking nearly the same.

I like Stratham, he's usually the best thing in the movies he is in. He even made Ghosts of Mars watchable. I don't think he would kick ass in something that required a lot of acting chops but he could at least find some better scripts.

She has lost some weight. She was definitely "rounder" when she was shooting Scoop, for example. However she's certainly not wasting away like a Kate Bosworth or Nicole Richie.

Pics from Venice Film Festival:
(http://f13.net/media/6/scarlett_johansson_venice_01_300.jpg) (http://f13.net/media/6/scarlett_johansson_venice_02_300.jpg)
(http://f13.net/media/6/scarlett_johansson_venice_04_300.jpg) (http://f13.net/media/6/scarlett_johansson_venice_05_288.jpg)

Christina Ricci reckons that her vast whale-like body mass has hindered her acting career in the past. And other stories. (http://www.thecelebritycondition.com/eating_disorders/index.html)

From that Site :

Model dies on the runway
22-year-old Luisel Ramos collapsed and died of heart failure while participating in a fashion show in Montevideo last week. While unexpected heart failure is known to cause sudden death in young women, Vivrlatino reports that her father told officials that the model hadn't eaten for several days, presumably in preparation for performing during fashion week. This could clearly have contributed to her death, if her electrolytes were out of wack.


For Fuck's Sake.  Come to Scotland.  Have some Chips.

First shoes, now celebrity actress tracking?! What the hell are you people, a bunch of bored house wives at the salon? What's going on here?!

I just wanted some Johansson pictures.  Mission accomplished.

She's definitely getting smaller, which is irritating.  I don't care for the heroin-addict look, and might be one of the few men that admit they like curves rather than pointy joints.  Women should be soft, not jabby.

It is not her whale-like body. It is her seven-head.

(most foreheads are 4 fingers high. Her is more like seven.)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2349467,00.html (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2349467,00.html)

Recent story I was reading - apparently organizers of Fashion week in Madrid are prohibiting runway models below a BMI of 18. Models who are 5'9 would have to weight a minimum of 56kg (124 lbs).

I fully admit I like thin girls, but I do think this is a step in the right direction.

*Hmm, just thought about it - in grade ten I was 5'8 and 129 lbs. I coulda been a model! (were I not a guy, and not overly sexy)

The picture down the front of Kate Bosworth's dress was literally nauseating. Count me in the 'curves not bones' category. Women shouldn't look like coatracks.

Don't waste your time on Black Dhalia.  I went to a matinee and still want my money back.  You see no tits btw.

Sweet, thanks Hat.  This should not have taken twenty-two posts to get to.

I'm a skinny toothpick, and I'd rather have a woman with some damn meat on her bones. It's the meaty bits I like, after all.

I saw Little Miss Sunshine last night and thought it was really good.  I wouldn't call it a dark comedy like Fargo because nothing violent or really awful happens in it but it's also not a standard quirky comedy either.  It's been a long time since I came out of a movie theater without regretting my decision to go in.

Look at her legs in the picture below that. They look like they could just snap at any moment.

I like women who are slim because they are athletic, not because they are starving.

It took me back to 1985. I kept expecting the music to load and the web browser start playing "We Are The World".

We saw The Illusionist (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443543/), and it was pretty good. That other magic-ish show looks good too, The Prestige (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/) - whenever that comes out.

Next up for us: Jet Li's Fearless (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446059/) and Flyboys (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454824/)

I didn't like the movie either, but there were tits.

Just not Johanson's.  Big surprise.

I'm also in the "curves please" department, and I really do think that the VAST majority of men are as well.  You don't hear many "Fuck that Lindsey Lohan is hot"s anymore.  People are disgusted with Nicole Ritchie.  The names synonymous with beauty these days are ones like Johanson and Jolie.  But, of course, there is a line.

Britney, I'm looking at you.

I saw Jackass 2. It was awesome if you are a Jackass fan, which I am. I havent laughed that hard in a movie for a long time. Really funny.

I saw little miss sunshine a couple of weeks ago.  It was excellent.

Anyone else get around to seeing The Prestige? That was a great movie. Do not confuse it with "The Illusionist." Two totally different movies. It's really worth it to go see this movie.

I don't know if I will get to it in theaters, but I do want to see it.

Great.. eh.. no.  Entertaining? Yes.

Both movies were worth seeing in the theatre.

Just came from Flags of Our Fathers.  Wasn't as good as the book, for those of you who have read it, but was still a good movie. I'd give it a 4/5. What I appreciated most was that I think it demonstrated to civilians what combat veterans are really like at heart. I'm not a real sensitive guy, but I must admit the movie nearly got the best of my emotions during the narrator's final comments and during the closing scenes. I'm also an active duty Marine, so I might be biased being that it's a story about one of the proudest moments in the Corps' history.

You can really tell that the movie was directed by Clint Eastwood and produced by Steve Spielberg, though I think having the two of them onboard really added to the production value. There's also a smattering of known actors throughout the show.

To sum it up: The best aspect of the movie is that it really helps the average person better understand the mindset of the combat veteran. 4/5 only because after seeing Band of Brothers, Enemy at the Gates, and Saving Private Ryan, the 'realistic' WWII movie is no longer novel.

I loved Band of Brothers. How does it compare to that series, if you can compare it? Also, what do you have to say about Enemy at the Gates? I've not heard much about it.

Enemy at the Gates is great, and I'm not even big on the WW2 flick thing.

Not really a typical WW2 flick though, since 1) it's a portrait from the Russian/German side of the war and 2) it's about snipers (if that sounds boring, it's not. It's probably the best sniper movie ever made, next to Shot Through the Heart).

Don't expect Normandy. It's far more cerebral and subdued than that.

Ed Harris is the German officer. He's awesome (I think Ed Harris is awesome in just about anything he does though). Jude Law is the Russian.

The most bizarre thing about "Enemy at the Gates" is that they changed the ending. What happened in real life was far more Hollywood. After stalking each other for hours, the Russian made the shot snipers dream of - he put a bullet down the German's scope and through his eye.

The Departed was a great movie if anyone hasn't seen it yet (see it before it's gone!).

Ah, Band of Brothers.

I loved the series. Mainly because it's a true story and it didn't need beefing up in order to make it amazing. If you liked the series, read the book.

Differences between the two:

1. Flags is about Marines in the Pacific.
2. About half the movie is devoted to what happened to three of the second-flag-raisers after their removal from the theater, and is done in a flash-forward kind of thing.

Similarities:

1. Both depict combat in a non-glamourous way.
2. Both are historically accurate.
3. Both are had Steve Speilberg's involvement.

Or you could just go rent Infernal Affairs. :P

Just caught it tonight. I agree it was very good.

Scorsese + Crime is always a good thing.

Not as great as anything else he's done in that genre though....Which really isn't saying much, I guess. Still kicks ass.

Dicaprio is working on yet another Scorsese flick (as the young Teddy Roosevelt). That'll be 4 films. Needs 3 more to top De Niro (who hasn't been in a Scorsese film for 10 years).

Same.  Even better I was just in Boston this last week so it was fun picking out all the landmarks and locations.

I looked at some apartments in the neighborhood near the dome where Matt Daimons character had his place.   How did they not know that guy was on the take?  That's a $40K a year apartment he was in.

Music was good too. I'm going to pick up some Dropkick Murphy tomorrow.


EDIT:


Just read on IMDB that that was Tom Brady's old apartment.

One of my old jam buddies married his way into that band.

Speaking of Boston, Red Auerbach died today.

The Prestige was definitely worth seeing.  Wanna see some tricky shit?  Watch two magicians try to fuck each other over.

I looked at some places on the less trendy north side of Beacon hill (200 yards away and the prices are 1/2ed) and an average unrenovated 1200 sq ft condo there was ~600k.  If that was Tom Brady's place I expect I way underestimated the cost, 6 - 8 thousand dollar a month apartments are not uncommon in that area.

Heh.  Worse then Casino, Goodfellas or Mean Streets?

I'd actually rate it higher then Casino,  but I hated the Sharon Stone character.

Scorsese does local color better then anyone.  His characters feel like they grew up outside NYC,  or in a bad section of Boston.  And they tend to carry around those stereotypical personality tics we associate with certain ethnic-geographic groups. (Irish temper for instance,  or that stubborn pride).

Every character in this was at least intriguing,  and most were damn entertaining.

I like Casino just as much as Goodfellas (and Sharon Stone is the best part of Casino imo....And I'm not even a big fan of her otherwise). Mean Streets owns them all.

The Departed as just as good as Gangs of New York, I guess. Or Cape Fear, if that can be counted as a crime flick...

=============================

Way off topic, but this is an important question:

"I'd actually rate it higher then Casino."

Is it "higher then" or "higher than"? My instinct is to write "higher than", but I see people type "then" a lot. What's the right way? Anyone?

I'm not trying to be a grammar Nazi or anything like that. I really need an answer.

Than is for comparisons and then is temporal.

I did this and then I did that.

She was better than him.

Thank you Murgos, you got it before I went on a rant.

Anyway, I really want to see Flags. That's the kind of stuff that can get to me because, you know, it actually happened.

Greatest Generation, indeed.

I can only hope the Grammar Snake is not venomous,  otherwise I'll be in a world of hurt.

I don't think it's deadly...just paralyzes the "stupid" part of the brain perhaps?  :wink:

I liked The Departed a lot, despite apparent gaps in the plot.  I'd have to see it again to remember them.  I remember thinking a few times "What is important about that scene?  Why was that in there?", but I am out of practice with movie-watching.

I am makings with report on the moneys of the moviefilms. All numbers are from the Box Office of Mojo Dotcoms as usuals.

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#1 - Borat, Week 1

Weekend gross: $26.3m
Theater count: 837
Budget: $18m

It's per-screen average was five times that of the runner-up, and it's already covered production costs plus forty percent.  Releasing it on such a limited number of screens turned out to be a poor decision after all.  That will doubtless be remedied in time for next weekend, but the distributor can still safely feel like a pack of assholes. 

------

#2 - The Santa Clause 3, Week 1

Weekend gross: $20m
Theater count: 3458
Budget: Unknown

Tim Allen is like Steve Guttenberg.  He's an actor with a lengthy and reasonably successful career in features, despite never having made a movie that anyone actually liked.  Anyway, TSC2 opened at $29m on an estimated budget of $60m, but went on to make almost $140m domestically over the course of the holiday season.  This one opened rather a bit lower, but it's also way early for a Christmas movie.  By January of next year this one could easily be sitting on a pile of money.

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#3 - Flushed Away, Week 1

Weekend gross: $19.1m
Theater count: 3707
Budget: Unknown

I'm having a really hard time telling these talking-animal CGI kiddie flicks apart anymore.  I think this is the one where Jean Reno plays an evil frog, but I'm not 100% certain.  In any event, a third-place opening of less than $20m isn't much to sing about, given the incredibly high theater count.

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#4 - Saw III, Week 2

Weekend gross: $15.5m (-53.9%)
Total gross: $60m
Theater count: 3167 (+0)
Budget: 10m

Dropoff?  Who gives a shit about the dropoff?  This thing could have left theaters after the first weekend and still been well into the black.  And while I wouldn't ever bother going to see crap like this, at least it stomped the shit out of that last "little pale asian kid with wet hair" bullshit PG-13 "horror" movie.  Seriously, I've cut loose with farts scarier than any of that remade Japanese crap.

------


#5 - The Departed, Week 5

Weekend gross: $8m (-18.8%)
Total gross: $102.2m
Theater count: 2785 (-166)
Budget: 90m

Leonardo DiCaprio has definitely gotten better with age.  He doesn't look 14 years old anymore, and he takes on worthwhile roles.  This movie looked really soft compared to it's budget, what with it's initial $29m opening, but it's shown solid legs down the stretch.  I have to remember that this isn't summer blockbuster season, and everyone isn't neccessarily looking to make a big splash on release and then fade away quickly.

------

And the rest...

rank - title - weekend/total/budget - (comment)

#6 - The Prestige - 8/39/40 - (Another one with a low dropoff, but without as much initial audience to hold onto.)
#7 - Flags of our Fathers - 5/26/90 - (Clint's WW2 drama takes it in the ass.  Who needed another sappy war movie?)
#8 - Man of the Year - 4/34/? - (What if a comedian became President?  What if nobody gave a shit?)
#9 - Open Season - 3/81/85 - (Another indistinguishable talking-animal CGI movie.  Disappointing performer.)
#10 - The Queen - 3/10/? - (If I wanna see Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth, it'll be the first one.  More decapitations.)

Tim Allen is not Steve Gutenberg. Gutenberg, for some odd reason, was HUGE in the 80's. Then he fell from grace, and had nothing but minor roles....And then nothing at all.

Tim Allen is steady, and not at all plain in that Gutenbergian kind of way. He has some eccentricities at least.

I loved one movie he made though: Galaxy Quest.

Like I've said elsewhere, the best kind of sci-fi is comedy.

Scary co-incidence.  Was watching Galaxy Quest again on Friday when I was snuffly.

It's a great film.  And it reminds you that Ms Weaver is hawt.

No. The studios only get a portion of the box office gross receipts. The rough rule of thumb is to divide the gross in half for the portion going to the studio. They get their biggest cut during the first week where it can reach 70% or so going to the studio but by the 4th or 5th week (assuming the movie lasts that long) they are getting less than half. So it may have just made back it's production costs, depending on the deal the studio made. However the production costs don't include marketing costs which can be quite large, though for this film probably not so much.

Tim Allen has made some decent movies. Galaxy Quest was funny as hell, and I actually liked the first Santa Clause movie. But there really was no reason to make a sequel, let alone a second sequel.

But yeah, he's reaching Guttenbergian status for me now.

There's a "LOL MARKETING COSTS" post on every second page of this thread.  Either do these yourself or quit fucking bothering me everytime I proclaim successful a movie where gross exceeds budget without posting a detailed accounting of net profit.

Gutenberg was in some funny movies but isn't really funny after minute five.  Allen is at least funny, and hasn't gone so far overboard as Will Farrell.  Farrell is the new Jim Carrey or Adam Sandler, take your pick.

Are all three of them going to pay off their initial investment and then some?  Sounds like a good enough reason to keep making sequels to me.

You don't have kids, so that's not a surprise.  It was a mistake for them to open alongside TSC3, adults don't feel as silly going to a live-action kids movie (which being a squel they also know what quantity of fart & snot jokes to expect.) as they do going to a CGI-Clamation movie staring a bunch of limey fops. ( I called Hugh Jackman a limey fop, lolz.)

   That said, we saw it this past weekend and I haven't enjoyed a Kid's movie that much in a long time.  Shame it's not doing as good as it should because of Tim Allen.  (Yes, Reno plays a frog, but the main frog is Ian McKellen)

Most adults I know actually prefer the CGI kids movies to the live action ones, but then most adults I know, even the ones with kids, would feel silly going to see a Christmas movie in the first week of November also.  Flushed Away just wasn't very good from what I've seen of it.

I believe McKellen's character is actually a toad. The frogs are great for a number of reasons I won't spoil.

Flushed Away has some really funny stuff that most adults wouldn't get, let alone kids. I dig any movie with a throwaway Kafka joke.

My 2-year old sat through the whole thing too (its a brisk 86 minutes) so it was double-plus good.

Speaking of sequels, just to make Haem stabby Uwe Boll is signed on to do a sequel to Bloodrayne (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/30624?hey_lets_make_a_isequeli_to_an_artistic__commercial_failure__a_bolloriffic_bloodrayne_2_is_coming).

Wow, neck sucking and unwieldy blades in the Old West!!! At least he's getting closer to the setting of the original.

God, what a fucking hack.

We saw Stranger Than Fiction (http://) tonight. I don't normally like Will Ferrell (stupid humor annoys me) but he was very good in this movie. Maggie Gyllenhaal is hawt. Very good movie, but I would have wanted a non-Americanized ending.

Picked up Night Watch the other day.  Fucking crazy movie, loved every minute of it.  I'm on the hunt for the sequel now (day watch).  Plan to see Borat after work tonight so hope it lives up to the enormous hype.

A little late this week, but at least I've done two in a row again.  Numbers from Mojo as always.

------

#1 - Borat, Week 2

Weekend gross: $28.3m (+6.9%)
Total gross: $67.1m
Theater count: 2566 (+1729)
Budget: $18m

A massive widening of release has managed to give this one a little bit of a bump upwards in it's second weekend.  It's per-screen average is still in the $11k range, compared to not quite $5k for the #2 flick.  Here (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=415871&in_page_id=1770) is an article about Cohen being sued by a bunch of poor put-upon villagers in Romania who didn't know Borat was going to make them look stupid.  Take it with a grain of salt, given the source.  (Not me, I'm impeccable.  I mean the Daily Mail.)

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#2 - The Santa Clause 3, Week 2

Weekend gross: $16.9m (-13.2%)
Total gross: $41m
Theater count: 3458
Budget: Unknown

The small dropoff in the second weekend was expected and bodes well.  It'll probably stick around all throughout the holiday season, making decent money and defying me to think of things to write about it every week.  It's sporting a miserable 2.8 average user rating on IMDB and 13% at Rottentomatoes, but this is the sort of movie that's immune to things like sucking.

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#3 - Flushed Away, Week 2

Weekend gross: $16.6m (-11.7%)
Total gross: $39.8m
Theater count: 3707
Budget: Unknown

The opening was weak, but this one looks like it might also show some strong legs down the Christmas stretch.  The end of which, I might add, I'm dreading.  After the holiday season comes the New Year dumping ground period, where studios toss out all their unwanted films to die ignominously.  Tristan & Isolde, anyone?  Anyway, I guess I can root for Flushed since Jean Reno is involved.

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#4 - Stranger than Fiction, Week 1

Weekend gross: $13.4
Theater count: 2264
Budget: $30m

So Will Ferrel is a guy whose life suddenly acquired a narrator that only he can hear, or so my two seconds of research tell me.  The opening is nothing to scream about, but at least the budget is nice and reasonable.  Still, this will need to show a little staying power to be regarded as something other than disappointing.  Reviews and whatnot seem positive, so that's entirely possible.

------


#5 - Saw III, Week 3

Weekend gross: $6.9m (-52.8%)
Total gross: $70.2
Theater count: 3013 (-154)
Budget: $10m

For a disposable Halloween cheapie like this, still being in the top five after three weeks isn't bad.  It's doing a lowly 29% at Rottentomatoes, but an acceptable 6.6 average user rating at IMDB.  Not really surprising for a movie like this.

------

And the rest.  I only do the bottom five in detail if there's something interesting going on, and that's not really the case here.

rank - title - weekend/total/budget - (comment)

#6 - Babel - 5.5/7.4/? - (Pretentious Oscar bait, probably sucks.)
#7 - The Departed - 5.1/109.7/90 - (Gross isn't bad.  They overbudgeted, in my opinion.)
#8 - The Prestige - 4.7/46.1/40 - (Could have done a little better.  Disappointing.)
#9 - The Return - 4.4/4.4/? - (Opening weekend, 2k screens.  Dead on arrival.  Wonder what they spent.)
#10 - A Good Year - 3.7/3.7/35 - (See above.  Opening at #9 or 10 is always a flop unless you're some limited-release indie.)

"What's a good time to release our ghost movie?  Hm.  It should be around a holiday.  Those always help.  C'mon guys, this is what we do for a living, we're pros.  Pick a holiday.  OH!  I'VE GOT IT!  THANKSGIVING!  NO HOLIDAY SAYS 'ZOMGHOST MOVIES' LIKE THANKSGIVING!"

We have Christmas starting in October now.  The poor marketing people have difficulty because the holidays are all mixed up.  (We'll kindly ignore whom it was that caused this...)

I suggested to a friend that we go see The Prestige today based purely on this post.

/bravo.

We both enjoyed it a lot, and want to see it again to pick up on some things.  Great movie all around.  I'm thinking it'll make the DVD collection eventually.

Prestige and The Departed are both a-must-see, I enjoyed both. Casino Royale is next on my watch list, should be good.

I saw the Prestige last night. I have to say I was a bit disapointed. I figured out all the twists and stuff about half way through, and when I turned out to be right, it was kind of a let down. I thought it would have had a bit better twist.

Just got back from Casino Royale. Its not perfect, but its the best fucking Bond movie in 20 years+, and this is coming from a guy who's seen every one, with all of the older ones at least six times each.

If you really enjoyed the last Brosnan Bond movie, stay away from this one. Instead, go beat your head against a wall you Halle Berry worshipping twits.

Casino Royal goes back to what Bond was about. Its a spy movie and a damn good one. Its kind of what Bourne Identity could have been were it not for "Shakey-Cam!".

Don't get me wrong, there are some amazing action sequences. Who knew the next incarnation of Jackie Chan would be some African guy? I've dubbed this guy monkey-man, and that is in no way intended to suggest anything racial. You have to see this guy in action to understand.

The precredit sequence was amazing, it totally set the mood for the film. The film has a little bit of everything - hold your breath action sequences, numerous twists and turns to the plot, character building designed to really set up Bond's personality, and one scene that, well, made me clench. Numerous times.

There's a few twists in here to update Bond to today's world. We get Texas holdem instead of Bacarat for example (could have done without the exposition on tells though). If you hadn't heard, the plot is basically rewriting Bond history and starting fresh. This is his first mission as a 00. Daniel Craig - fucking owned it. Thank all of the god's they didn't try giving the role to Colin Farrel or Orlangolas.

Enough rambling. Go see this movie, make sure it out grosses Brosnan's travesties so that they make a lot more of these.

I approve. Been planning to see it.

Still wish it was Clive Owen.

Yah, Casino Royal was awesome.  I love how they played to Craig's strengths.  You'll see ample evidence of this during the chase scene with the African Jackie Chan.

The ending was a little too much like LOTR:ROTK for me.  You felt like the movie should have ended sooner, but that's not to suggest the ending was bad. It wasn't.  You end up seeing a lot of why Bond and how he'll be played from now on is shaped. Craig's just perfect in this role.  He's got the charisma and makes a believable bad ass.

And I'm glad they kind of went away from the gadgetry.  This was a much grittier James Bond than we've ever seen and it would have seemed out of place for him to have a laser watch or rocket pen.

Like Bunk said, nything Bronson did seems pretty damn crappy compared to this offering.

I just rented Why We Fight, while it was just a nice summary for me it could be an eye-opener to some. A must see for any voter that cares about USA politics.

You're from America? I could have sworn someone said you were from Bosnia or something awhile back.

WUA insists sinij spontaneously emerged from a Beijing sewer, but I assumed he was just joking.

I enjoyed Casino Royale.  That said, I loved Goldeneye too, which was also directed by Martin Campbell.  It's not too hard to do a good Bond movie, the trick seems to be doing it consistently.  The guys that wrote the screenplay for Casino Royale are the same guys that wrote the screenplays for The World is not Enough, and Die Another Day, and they're also writing the next Bond movie.  So I'm optimistic about the future of the series, especially if they get Campbell to direct again, but I'm not going to get my hopes up too much.

I didn't much care for Casino Royal.  It started well and I like the direction they seem to want to take the Bond character but they could have easily chopped a half hour out of the movie by cutting down on both the poker playing and that painful romance section.

I liked that is wasn't about another super weapon controlled by an evil genius who intends on destroying the world though.

That's a fair criticism, as the movie did drag a little at the end. Over all though, I thought it was important to re-setup Bond's character and outlook on life.

Interesting that it was the same director as Goldeneye - that was the only Brosnan Bond that I enjoyed.

Anyone else brave The Fountain?  The ads and reviews had me thinking that it was complete gibberish.  Luckily it wasn't, made sense to me.  Seemed very Buddhist.  It one of those movies that tries to convey an idea more than a story.  It's the same guy who did Pi.  The closest thing I can compare it to Eye of the Beholder. Also might but worth look for people who like surreal visual effects.

Yep, I heard it was very good, I need to catch it but I suspect it'll be on DVD.

Saw Casino Royal last night.  It was excellent.  Not just a good Bond flick but a good spy-action-thriller all around.  I am very happy they went with a less gadget and gimmick laden Bond.  I still think Goldfinger or From Russia With Love or even Thunderball are better movies but I will have no problem picking this one up on DVD, something I haven't done for any of the recent Bonds.

I hope they stick with this grittier, darker image for Bond for a while.

Casino Royale was Fleming's first Bond book.  Over the years I'd seen many Bond 'snobs' get pissy about the gadgety techno-geekery direction because it wasn't 'true' to the original books.

 I've never read them myself, but my understanding is CR(the movie) pretty closely follows the book.  So this "new direction" is actually the original direction of Bond.

I admit CR was good, but did anyone else roll their eyes at their dramatic discussion of "THE TELL"? I mean, come on. That's basic cards, right?

Yeah, 'The Tell' was a bit heavy handed but if that's the biggest complaint with the movie that's not too bad.  I can see that they felt they needed to explain it [the concept] to a population that doesn't neccessarily follow cards.

I've read most of the original Ian Flemming Bond stories, but not Casino Royal, and I agree that this movie was much closer in spirit to the original intent.  Ian Flemmings Bond was a WWII SAS/SBS veteran in the middle of the cold war.

Saw it ysterday, found one thing a little irritating though:
3 items is early on displayed in the car. A silenced gun, an antidote and a defibrillator. Then just by chance it turns out that those items just happens to find it uses.

Saw it.  Enjoyed it.

However.

Darren Aronofsky (or however it's spelled) has this awful habit of holding a shot with no real noise or anything much happening for a good 20 minutes (exaggeration).  See this movie wide awake.  If you're a little drowsy, don't try it because you WILL start fading at some parts.  About 6 times I almost fell asleep.  That's partially the movie's fault, but it's still a good film.  If you're into this sort of thing, it's worth seeing.  If you're looking for a popcorn flick, keep the fuck away.

I recently read an article about Aronofsky that said he got the idea to make Pi while watching Tokyo Fist at Sundance. I realized I was at that screening with about 12 other people.  I have no real point to that story.

Flemming was a card nut and half of CR was about cards in detail. So it's probably something they used to tie in to that..

Never read CR myself, though, I'm just going off what I've heard.

Just saw Clerks II tonight and felt I got my moneys worth.  Yeah I am behind the times, but damn that was a decent chuckle flick.  Assuming you like that kind of base humor.

I've gotta hop on the bandwagon. I enjoyed the hell out of Casino Royale. I wonder if they'll truly reboot the franchise and start redoing all the Fleming books. I'd say it's risky because they'll be directly putting Daniel Craig up against Sean Connery for some of these.

Edit: Though if they really want to screw with people, they need to talk ole Sean Connery into coming on board one of the movies. As a villain, preferably in one of the Ex-OO turns traitor types of plotlines they like to do.

Regarding Casino Royale...

Daniel Craig : Fine performance as Bond

The script : shittier than shitty shit shit. Seriously, this pally pally stuff with M has got to stop.

The first third : Damn good despite the script, worth the admission fee alone.

The Casino bit : Passable bond fare with clumsy angst added in.

Everything after the Casino : Worst third of a Bond film since all three thirds of License to Kill.

The ending: Made no sense whatsoever.


My advice would be to go see it, but walk out after the Aston Martin crashes and just tell yourself Bond saved the day.

What about the ending made no sense to you?

Avoiding spoilers, all of the possible explanations of Fit Bird Number Two's actions are fucking stupid.

And I mean, fucking stupid even for a person in a James Bond film.


The venice action scene would actually have been very cool if all momentum hadn't already been lost to 15 minute pause where they basically said 'oh, sorry, we forgot, James and Fit Bird Number Two have to be seen falling in love, hang on a moment while we let that happen in a tired and clunky manner that is in no way integrated with the rest of the film'.

What made it even worse was that the rest of the film (the excellent first third espeicially) carefully avoided the 'As you know, your father, the king...' style of plot exposition. Which drew even more attention to the the godawful dialogue from the Casino through to the end of the film.




This explains everything.

The early part of the film is all about the director; the later part has dialogue and plot, and that dialogue and plot is exactly as bad as the last two films. The torture scene was just as stupid as the torture scene in tWinE, the relationship scenes between Bond and M were as forced and as trite as in tWinE, and the dialogue was as predictable and leaden as DAD. The poor script has exactly one thing going on at any one time (angst scene, action scene, explanatory dialogue scene, never shall two of these meet) resulting in an overlong film that had to be heavily edited down and felt rushed, and we end up with horrible sequences like the one at the hospital where one plotline has to 'catch up' with the others through 15 minutes of perfunctory and predictable conversation.

Part of why the action sequences, Judi Dench, and Daniel Craig himself were so good, was precisely because they shone through all of the dross around them. It's like watching Ewan MacGregor slumming it in Star Wars.

And before anyone says 'it's an action movie, not Shakespeare'...

1) Shakespeare did action plays.
2) I mean bad dialogue even for an action movie, and so bad that it actually interferes with suspension of disbelief.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

[edit]

But to stay on topic: Eva Green has the best nipples in films today. Haven't seen Bond yet though. What should I expect?

No nipples.

I don't agree with eldeac on the film as a whole, but I will agree that some of the last third was a bit clunky. I didn't think it was anywhere near say the Halle Berry clunkiness level, but it was clunky.

I didn't mind the last third, because as I said it was important to establishing the Bond character. It could have been presented a bit better, but hey, it'd didn't ruin the movie for me.

I thought it was a great film.

I caught Apocalypto last weekend.  Thought it was a great movie,  and just gorgeously shot. 

The image of what remains of Mayan civilization,  declining and decayed,  and gripped in ruthless, absurd superstition was very potent.

Very interesting ending.

Saw Apocalypto this evening.

Excellent flick… …I don't know what's up with Mel and the liberal helpins of gratuitous violence (I believe it was even bloodier and gorier than PotC), but it's a first rate adventure flick set in the swirls of a larger tapestry of civilization ebbing. from start to finish. I don't want to give too much away, but there are great fight scenes and it's most refreshing to see a historical setting rendered in truly believable fashion, without all the glitzy CGI that's supplanted set creation.

Though I didn't see any trailers in the closing credits claiming "No Jews were harmed in the filming of this movie…"

But good for Gibson as the film has been successful thus far, despite some deliberate panning by establishment press (see NY Times review). I really like that Mel makes his movies, obliviious to the the typical Hollywood formula fare. It is definitely an anti-civilization rant IMV…

If you're squeamish about seeing human heads and hearts torn asunder, this flick is not for you. Though Mrs. Naum, who abhors such violent fare, truly enjoyed the movie, though I think she closed her eyes during some scenes…

I think ending was appropriate, trust no one was the concept movie established since the beginning.

About the only problem I had with Casino is Ford product placement. No self-respecting Bond would drive one.

Hmm....Well, Aston Martin is owned by Ford (the original Bond car).

Does he actually drive a "Ford" Ford though?


...Either way, he should be driving a McLaren.

Thankfully only briefly, but enough that it made me feel like I took a facial from Ford Marketing exec. It was money shot intended to show-off the car. Fucking whores.

What was it, a GT?

You have seen a recent Bond film, yes?  Product placement that would make Mike Myers feel uncomfortable.

I should probably mention my recent films here?
V for Vendetta.  Liked it a great deal, not having read the source material probably contributed to that.
Silent Hill was enjoyable.  I need to finish that damn game.
Old Boy.  I just can't describe this movie properly.  It's very good, but the whole movie is just horribly wrong.  Everyone loses, and loses badly.  There are funny parts.
Talladega Nights.  It had a few funny parts but the best thing was that it was in 1080i, which was awesome even though Will Ferrel looked like he was sweating profusely for half the movie and covered in pancake for the other half.

I also watched Old Boy recently.  Everyone should watch it.  It's fan-fucking-tastic.

Did you know it was based on a grapic novel?

http://www.amazon.com/Old-Boy-1/dp/1593075685/sr=8-5/qid=1166259864/ref=pd_bbs_5/104-1580232-6156739?ie=UTF8&s=books

Unfortunately, Oldboy is planned for a US Remake. Yay.


Too bad there aren't many other Korean flicks being made though. That's a good one...Although you can get a lot of the same from Japan. Gore, revenge, and extremity is practically in renaissance mode over there.

I randomly ended up watching a movie tonight that I really enjoyed.

If you are a Werner Herzog fan (and if you aren't, why aren't you?), you will likely enjoy Incident at Loch Ness. Describing it would spoil it, but if you want a fun flick that is very Herzogian, I would recommend it.  Even if you aren't it's a fun flick.

I've never taken the time to see his films. What else would you recommend? The only ones I've seen are that Nosferatu remake (which I didn't care for) and Grizzly Man (which I only cared about because of the Richard Thompson score).

Fitzcaraldo and Aguirre: The Wrath of God are considered to be two of his best. He is an aquired taste I will agree, but I think he is great.

He has a more mainstream film coming out shortly (don't know how wide of a release) with Christian Bale about a pilot downed in Loas. Getting good buzz but who knows. It is a fictionalization of a subject he made a documentary about 20 years ago. It's called Rescue Dawn.

It's going to suck without that hallway fight scene.  No American director would try to film that with no cuts.

There are a few who are masterly with single cut action, but none of them would think of directing this.

I don't understand why they're remaking it?  I can't think of anything I would want done differently.

I hate to say it, but....


White people.

[EDIT]

And illiterates.

God I hate white people.  They ruin everything. 

I can't help but feel certain details of the plot get changed as well.  I can just imagine the uproar that people could possibly stir up over it.  Again, Hollywood will ruin something perfectly fine with their shitty remakes and focus groups. 

Children of Men was great. 

I've never seen special effects as realistic looking as in this movie, and the story's pretty good to boot.

Anyone see The Good Shepherd yet? I have high hopes for it, and may actually drag my lazy ass to a theatre to see it.

I've been avoiding watching it at work since I've got friends that want to go see it.  I  have seen Night at the Museum, which I didn't really find all that funny.  It does have the trailer for Fantastic Four:  Rise of the Silver Surfer attached though for those interested, and some prints have a new Transformers trailer attached as well.

I watched Rocky Balboa shortly before Christmas? Am I the only one? It was actually not bad. It felt alot like the first movie and by the end it didn't really matter to me if he won or lost because the movie wasn't about that.

I was pleasantly surprised and feel like it effectively killed the bad movies of Rocky V for me.

Enjoyed Balboa - good flick.

Saw The Good Shepherd on NYD. Well acted for the most part, but too long and really hard to follow. Hint- if you are going to bounce around several timelines, please cast supporting actors that look significantly different enough for the audience to know where the hell the action is taking place. Or use nametags.

I was also a bit disappointed that it was more of a story about Matt Damon's character than about the spy business overall. There was some spy stuff, but not as much as I would have hoped. I would give it a C+, with a chance for improvement if/when I see it again on DVD and can follow it better.

I think Master and Commander suffered from the "needs nametags" thing as well. More movie directors should probably pick up on this fatal flaw in the experience.

Who just died? What did he do? I thought that was the other guy? Huh? Repeat.

I saw Eragon with my wife. Did anyone else see this? While I enjoyed the movie (though would have been better as rated R) I swear they copied all the scenes from Star Wars (the classics). Someone tell me I'm not wrong! Just think of Star Wars while watching it ...

I read all those books, I had no problem following who was who even if they did mix and match story elements from several books.

I guess they could do something like "Midway" where every time they jumped to a different location the stuck a little note at the bottom with who we were looking at and what the hell the point of them being in the movie was.

Yes well in books they are named, so it's fairly easy. They have long descriptions and identifying characteristics that may not show up on a purely visual basis. Movies have two hours, and when you have 20 some odd characters in uniforms, you have to identify them obviously or they fall into the morass of "that guy."

Unless, you know, you're paying attention.

 :|

My point was that when watching the movie I had no trouble following who was who but that that may have been because I was familiar with all the characters already (even though the movie cherry picked from several books for characters and plot elements).

I was agreeing with you, mostly.

Incidentally, this was the motive for removing many characters from the LotR movies (like Glorfindel, Tom Bombadil, etc).  They decided that someone who had not read the books would have a hard time following who everyone was.

I think that if you have to study for a movie, it's not a good movie.  It's a good movie/book combination.

That's the novel too. The "genius" child prodigy who wrote it took Tolkien and Star Wars, put them into a blender and called it his own. Hell, Eragon=Aragorn mixed with Luke Skywalker, Arya=Arwen,Brom=Obi Wan Kenobi, down to being an exiled knight in hiding, etc.

I got Pan's Labyrinth in at my theater last Friday.  It's some crazy shit, but definitely worth going to see for those who live near a theater playing it.  Hell, even if you have to drive a bit to get to a theater that's showing it, go anyway.

This seems as good a place as any to mention that Yahoo has a trailer up for Hot Fuzz (http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/hotfuzz.html).  For those who don't know, this April release comes from the makers of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead.

I finally saw it this last week. Awesome movie though not at all what I thought it would be. And some of the violence and repercussions from it surprised me. The villain has a scene that makes Rambo stitching the wound in his arm look wussy.

ETA: Coherence, I must've been smoking something when I first posted this.

Some other trailers have just been released for a couple movies I'm keeping an eye on.  The first is Sunshine (http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/sunshine/).  Ok, yeah the something about the trailer reminded me of the painful experience of watching The Core, only in this case they're trying to reignite the Sun instead of jump starting the Earth's core.  So why am I interested in this one?  Because it's being directed by Danny Boyle, best known for directing Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and my personal favorite movie of his, Shallow Grave.

The other movie is 1408 (http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/1408.html) which is based on a Stephen King story.  Of course so was Dreamcatcher, but Dreamcatcher didn't have John Cusack starring in it.

Reignite the sun?  Unless it's the journey of a bunch of confused Scottish stoners stuck in the endless night of a polar winter I'm going to pass.  My brain isn't going to be able to cope with people traveling 90 million miles in two hours with the serious intention of starting a fusion reaction on a ball of fire thats been burning for BILLIONS OF YEARS and is ~300,000 times more massive than the earth.

What are they going to use as kindling?  Venus?

Nukes of course! Nukes are the cure for anything that ails a celestial body.

Spitting into the ocean would be an apt analogy, I think.

Just saw Smokin' Aces. It was ok. The best parts of the movie for me personally were Ryan Reynolds and Alicia Keyes. Saw that sunshine trailer and wasn't impressed. Saw another 300 trailer and it still looks overdone to me. Saw the Ghost Rider trailer again and I think I'm going to see it. I don't expect much but it looks fun.

One of the more gory movies I have seen in a while.  It impressed me that the violence was as over the top as it was.  Some editing issues that I felt were a little distracting along with a handful of really unbelievable scenes, but nothing that made me upset that I spent money to see it.  Totally set up for a sequel should they choose to go that way.

Just watched The Island.  zomg lolz!  But Scarlett was HOT.

That movie sucked so bad after the first half, and even worse when I found out Scarlett wanted to show her hooters and Bay wouldn't let her because he wanted a PG-13 rating. Fuckhead. He'll probably show Transformer hooters though.

Since you responded... did you wonder why there was a shipment of train wheels being delivered when it seemed that even AmTrak has converted to magnetic rails?  I also thought that the whole problem could have been avoided if Sean Bean had just used a regular prison rather than a poorly-guarded missile silo.  Why didn't the clone that escaped surgery bleed all over the floor?  Shouldn't Sean Bean have put one of those chips in the clones' ears like what we do with dogs now?  Did Digimon go pick up his check before he helped blow up his client's facility?  Why are paid mercenaries such bad shots?  Shouldn't they have used a tranq gun and finished the movie in twenty minutes?  Why would Xbox sponsor a competition for an audience of people who are going to be chopped up for parts?  Didn't any of those clones wonder what the hell an Xbox was?

I like bad movies at times.

Unfortunately, the Island has just enough good movie (as in premise) to not be a bad movie you can enjoy for being bad. It was just bad. It was pretty, bombastic and silly. I couldn't analyze it logically because of all the explosions.

Fixed that for you :0

Saw Breach over the week-end. Good movie, especially if you like real-life spy stuff.

Saw The Prestige.  Awesome.  Scarlett is too hot.  Bowie was awesome.  Story was awesome.  Thirteen thumbs up.

Did ya buy it on Blu-Ray? Hehe.

Seriously though, the PQ is great. My favorite disc so far.

There's a 5-minute video of 300 up at mtv.com

http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?name=movies&id=1553704&vid=136403

You know, I was disappointed in the Prestige. Especially the parts with Hugh Jackman.The big revelation at the end was science fiction and the rest of the movie (except some of the scenes with Tesla) wasn't. It just didn't work for me. And Christian Bale's character made no sense with the constant switching of lives all the time.

When was that released to DVD? I was scouring Costco for it this weekend and couldn't find it.

Came out on the 24th or something, last month.

It is a "short wait" at Netflix still.

Not sure, my mother-in-law bought it from somewhere and we nabbed it.  She would never get it.  I know why the Rolling Stone quote said that you want to watch it again as soon as it finishes.

The movie went somewhere that I did not expect, which is nice.  Also, Bowie and Scarlett.  It's not like a Shamaylan (sp?) twist, really, and my wife saw some things coming from way off, but I still found it enjoyable.  I might have thought that all of the, uh, well not to spoil it... let's just say that if it was about anything other than magicians then it probably would have been mystifying in a bad way rather than a good way.

I probably didn't enjoy The Prestige as much as I should have due to watching the Illusionist previously.  This is a bit like watching Deep Impact after Armageddon, but with good movies.

Abagadro is correct in that Breach is very much worth seeing. Chris Cooper is a bad ass.

Zodiac was pretty interesting. Kind of a bit long and incredibly anti-climatic.  It's kind of wierd going to a "based on real life" movie, where you know the end is going to disappoint you based on what really happened with the story.  Still, it was well put together, well acted and moved at a decent pace despite the length.  And it got MAULED by that stupid Tim Allen buddy movie, Jeebus save us.

Red Hawt Arcee for teh win.

I thought the Illusionist was a much better, if more predictable, movie.

The Illusionist was OK. It was entertaining, but that part where scarlet gets stabbed but they only show it in the shadow was so fucking cheesy, and gave away the fact some thing wasnt right. Very predictible.

The prestige was a better movie, but I guessed the plot twist about a quarter of the way in, and also the secondary plot twist. So when it turned out that I was right, it was a bit of a let down.

Yes, see, that is why I turn my brain off to watch movies.  My wife, she figured out what was going on, but I was playing the dufus and clapped like a retard whenever I was surprised by something.  Did I mention Scarett Johansson was in it?

You should start a blog.


Edit: I just commanded google to search for "box office roundup". Looking at the sites there... I would like to restate the above, but with a more serious, almost stern look.

Your competition is the suck.

Hmm.  What's a good site to get a free blog at?

I like WordPress (http://wordpress.com/)

But I haven't checked out Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/) since it updated.

I like Blogger for ease of use.

/subscribe

If you aren't comfortable with HTML, Blogger requires less of it. Unless it has changed, you have to edit your template in order to add links and such to your sidebar. And every time you change templates, copy that stuff over or lose it. The comment system is a bit of a bother, more for your readers than you, though.

With wordpress, the comment system is nicer, and links are saved separately from templates, so changing templates doesn't require mucking around in the HTML.

But then every wordpress template has some little glitch (or a big one), so you have to muck around in cascading style sheets and sometimes php to fix the damned things.

Copying links over to a new template is much easier (if you even still have to do that).

Nevermind, just checked... Blogger is wicked slick now.

I've done nothing with the formatting as of yet, and it's under my goofy-ass WoW name just because I've posted roundups under a couple different names on different forums and I couldn't settle on one, but here it is:

http://grimsteak.blogspot.com/

The first entry is up covering this weekend's business.  I'll be cleaning it up and making the whole thing presentable in the near future.

That's what we need. More bookmarks.

Edit: Seriously though, this thread has become a catchall for movie numbers. Either crosspost it or don't post. But don't link it. That's not how we roll here. And you know better. And Dundee, shame on you. The last thing the world needs is more blogs.

Another slick thing about using Blogger is being able to use them as a cheap hosting provider with your own domain name (instead of xxxx.blogspot.com). No, I don't mean FTP'ing to your own server… …I mean adding a CNAME record (or pointing your domain directly at…) to point your domain to ghs.google.com. Then, inside your blogger control panel (still at xxxx.blogspot.com), there is an option to change that to your own domain name.

WordPress is popular and all, but the blogger template style IMV is much preferred over the PHP code splattered amongst template code. In Blogger, modifying templates isn't a big deal if you can grasp what the variable and block-variable identifiers mean… …and WordPress comment spam plugins are clunky (i.e., don't notify user) or rely on external server apps (Askimet(sp?)) that eat comments without notification too… …granted CAPTCHAs can suck, but the ones at Blogger are decently legible, unlike others I've seen, and unfortunately Spammers have successfully flooded just about any semi-popular CMS/Blog platform registration and comment submissions…

…Spammers must die. Death penalty for spammers, please…, for gunking up my intraweb…

WUA isn't exactly my favorite poster on f13 but we have other members with blog links in their sigs and who have on occasion referenced their blogs in posts. -f13 poster's name used as an example removed by request-

ETA: I feel I need to clarify. The post isn't meant as an attack or anything. It is really more of a question "Don't we have some precedent for people posting stuff from their blogs as long as they don't abuse it?"

I hope that's alot clearer and less muddy/confrontational sounding.

Don't mention my name, people get all sandy vagina on me when I mention my fucking blog.

*/ This post brought to you by Massengail Douche, Beach Scent.

Done.

I was aiming for teh funney. I missed apparently.

Also, good on you, WindupNutsack. I've bookmarked the blog and added it to my blog's links. The world needs more funny blogs.

"Here is some stuff about movies."
"Hey, you should make a blog out of it."
"Hmm, how do I make a blog?"
"Here, use this site."
"Okay, I did it.  See, here is a blog."

To some, a straightforward conversation resulting in one more frivolous little blog clogging up the internet.  To others (Schild), some sort of faux pas.  Alas.

Well, when running a website you'd rather drive people to check it more than link them away from it.  Having others come on your site and say "Hay gusy! Look at my site!" is a bit of a faux pas.  You are, however, being more subtle about it than that.

Saw 300 on the weekend. Personally, I loved it. Its a movie entirely about style over substance, but in this case i think it worked beautifully.

Fucking-A yeah.

However, it is not Gates of Fire so if you read that, don't expect it. If the Greeks broke phalanx as much as the Spartans did in this movie, "phalanx" wouldn't have survived as a military term.

I have to second everybody's raves about 300. If you want eye-candy this has more than five or six big summer blockbusters... and the plot will follow close enough to Herodotus to never completely upset your suspension of disbelief. Leave the cerebral cortex at home and find a nice seat for the lizard brain. Buy it some popcorn, too.

I was deeply satisfied with Zodiac, too. This film takes place in the Bay Area of the 1970's. It was filmed there. David Fincher has invented a time machine and brought along his tight and occasionally ostentatious visual style. As has been mentioned, the ending sucks... but we know the ending sucks: it's a docu-drama examination of an unsolved case. The genius of this film, and one I'd like more historical pieces try, is its absolute adoration of detail. It cares as much about portraying each aspect of the killer's many crimes as it cared to construct a time machine to film in San Francisco in 1972. You'd be hard pressed to wring a clearer portrayal from the case files themselves.

If the cerebral cortex is tired of being left at home, Zodiac is a movie it'll love.

Has anyone here seen The Host (http://www.hostmovie.com/) yet?

Dude here is raving about it… (http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2007/03/host.html)

Going to watch it tonight or tomorrow (The Host that is).

Damn you all and your love of 300.  Now I have to find a babysitter.



Fuckers.

Yeah, so... did anyone else see the previews for Grindhouse?

[this is where the picture of Rose McGowan with an machine-gun leg would be]
http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/gallery/images/809/15.jpg

The fuck?

I get it in on Friday, so I'll probably check it out at some point.

So you were watching The Riches as well?

Yeah it looks fairly slick.  Insert the hatred for Tarintino being associated <here>.

Hey guys, I just found out about this really cool site, come check it out! (http://www.f13.net)

EDIT

This made more sense when I thought the last post was regarding WUA linking his blog.


Anyways.

I'll see Grindhouse.  I expect to be disappointed, and that it'll be Rodriguez and Tarantino masturbating over old crappy 70s B movies,  but Rodriguez has more than earned my loyalty and him doing zombies just isn't something I'm willing to miss.

Rodriguez does better 70's B movie masturbation than Tarrantino. Contrast Kill Bill with anything Rodriguez has done.

I guess I'm a bit too young. I just don't "get it". 70's double feature? Who cares? Cinema artists and people remembering the "good times," I guess? Pass.

Since this has sort of become the defacto movie thread, I give you... black sheep:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/blacksheep/trailer/?baah

(http://img.search.com/thumb/7/7c/Farley.jpg/300px-Farley.jpg)

Man-eating sheep were always Mr. Farley's greatest fear.

I saw Shooter last night with Mark Wahlberg. I enjoyed it purely from a mindless action movie standpoint. One thing though: The politics aren't at all subtle in this movie. If you vote Republican it will probably piss you off since some of the dialogue could have been written by Haemish.

I hope that I'd be able to write a more subtle movie than Shooter. Fuck, the trailer alone told me the entire plot, including the likely villain.

Well the movie is basically "The government is evil and not to be trusted!" It mentions Abu Ghraib, Iraq and the WMD argument in dialogue. I happen to agree to an extent but I'm not used to movies being so blunt in their politics.

Anyone see TMNT?

I hear it was awful.

All the reviews seem to center around "Looks cool, but the storyline and dialogue are so horrific you stop caring."

The revews are not so far from the truth.

My favourite band did the closing music for Sunshine and have their own little-seen trailer for the movie ... I think it works better with their music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP5QoM2wK9U

The bizarre thing about Sunshine is the release dates (http://imdb.com/title/tt0448134/releaseinfo) - it's like Children of Men all over again - they're releasing it this month EVERYWHERE in the world except the USA, which has to wait until September!

It's getting good reviews anyway.

I expect the psuedo-science is going to prevent that movie from being watchable for me, no matter how good the rest of it is.

Grindhouse absolutely, positively fucking ruled.  I have to say that I've found no movie more enjoyable over this last year; there have been better movies but not movies that were more fun to watch.  Neither Rodriguez nor Tarantino nor the actors took themselves seriously at all; the annoying pretentiousness of some Tarantino films is nowhere to be seen in this one.  The film quality was crap, the special effects were clearly fake, the writing was shallow and cliched, all of it was on purpose and all of it worked great together.

The only catch is you have to be fond of (or at least tolerant of) kitsch.  If you can't watch a bad horror movie and at least chuckle at the badness, you probably don't have the mindset that would enjoy Grindhouse.

TMNT was amazingly bleh.

I like what I'm hearing.  Won't get to see it in theaters though.  (sadface)


TMNT being "blah" isn't surprising.  The original movies haven't held-up and watching them with my kids (who enjoy them) I realized I only liked them because I was such a huge geek at the time.  They're really awful movies.

If there was a movie designed for a shared theater experience I would say it was grindhouse.  The audience reaction and commentary was as much fun as the movie, once everyone realized what kind of movie it was going to be it got pretty relaxed.

It was very good in that, like most Tarantino sutff, it was different enough to feel new and give you that,'WTF?' thought.  I really doubt it will stand up to any test of time though and I felt that the whole thing was just too long.

Kurt Russel is still da man though.

I didn't like Planet Terror that much, to be honest.  There's been too many fairly well done zombie movies that incorporate humor, campyness, gore, etc.  that have been released lately. 

Always nice to see Michael Biehn working, though.  How the fuck was that guy never a huge action star?? 

Really liked the fake trailers.  Machete (before movies) was great and funny,  always nice to see Danny Trejo.  The three trailers between movies were alot of fun.  "Don't" (Shaun of the Dead director) is funny shit.  "Thanksgiving" (Eli Roth from Hostel) managed to be great satire of the old 70s/80s slasher films,  while still creeping you the hell out.  The Rob Zombie one for "Blonde Werewolves of the SS" was a little bizarre.  Greatest Guest Actor evar, though.

Really, really liked Deathproof.  Kurt Russell is the man.  Great setup for the action bits.  The car chase and stunts were amazing.  Zoe Bell does some amazing shit,  and is stunningly attractive in a very genuine way.

Can't really talk too much about why I liked Deathproof without getting into spoilers....

I heard an interview with Rosario Dawson, and she specifically mentioned the car chase.  Said something along the lines of Tarrintino sat down and watched all of the 'greatest car chase scenes' over and over to find what made them so good and incorporate them into the Deathproof one.   Damn you all for making me consider finding a babysitter for the kids.   That shit's expensive, and I don't trust teenagers.   :-D

Rumor has it that Machete is actually going to be made as a direct-to-DVD movie.

Ok, now for a quick question:

You mention Machete as the "before the movies" trailer.  I havent managed to watch both prints we got at my theatre yet, but the one print we have had "Hobo With A Shotgun" as the before the movie trailers, and I cant recall even seeing a trailer for Machete.  Makes me wonder if different prints got different trailer sets.

Interesting.  Was definitely the Machete trailer.... Came on right before Planet Terror.  Never saw anything for "Hobo with a Shotgun" (which sounds funny as shit).

I don't want to say too much, again, because some of it is very funny for shock value.  Couple of bits in the Machete trailer were hilarious.

We had Machete in our theater I saw it in Florida.  Didn't see anything about Hobo with a Shotgun.

I wondered what Zoe Bell was doing in the movie as 'Herself', right up until the car chase and then I figured it out.

Hobo with a Shotgun is only on some Canadian prints of Grindhouse (the trailer was the winner of some sort of contest).

There was maybe 10 people in the theatre when I went.  And everyone kept picking different parts of the movie and laughing the references that were inserted or utilized.  Honestly, I can't say I've ever been more happy to spend $8 on a movie in YEARS.  The other half had a hard time watching Planet Terror due to raging hormones (she said it was much easier to tolerate back at Comicon last year than today) but she loved watching fast cars get beat the fuck up in Deathproof.  The trailers were great on their own.  I was only slightly miffed at the "missing reels" sections (I know why it was done), but to be honest, if they didn't do that the movie probably would have gone on 4 or more hours, and 3 hours 20 minutes is a LONG time to sit in a theatre without getting up and going to the bathroom.

Saw Hot Fuzz yesterday. One of the funniest movies I've seen in a very long time. If you like budd/action/cop films you absolutely have to see this.

It's a great movie. I even loved the revelation of who is killing people and why. One of the few movies in a long time I've actually laughed out loud at. (It's the rare comedy that gets me to do more than smirk.)

HOT FUZZ!!!

I was rolling through most of the movie.  Fucking brilliant.  Go see it.  Now, goddamn you.

Saw it tonite - was excellent. I loved Sean of the Dead alot so I expected to enjoy this but it was really very funny. Will be buying on DVD.

I already gave my views (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9482.msg283898#msg283898).  I like it when we get films and games first.  It's rare, but has happened twice in recent memory.

Yeah.  Go See It.  It's some funny shit.

I actually liked Hot Fuzz more than Shaun of the Dead, so yeah, it's going in my DvD collection right next to Shaun.

Hot Fuzz was absolutely amazing.

Seeing Spiderman 3 the night before possibly even  made it better.

Yarp.

Went and saw Spiderman 3 last night... Had to wait 2 hours because there were so many people, IMO it wasn't worth it. The flag scene made the entire theater laugh/boo. Same with the lame-ass hair in face emo scenes (god I hope that was supposed to be a joke).

Saw Hot Fuzz last week, actually. If you haven't, and you have a funny bone of any size to tickle, go now.

Go.

Yarp.

Saw Spiderman.  As with the previous films, I wish MJ and any plot revolving around her weren't in it.

Maybe someone can do an edit of the series like they did with Jar-Jar & TPM.  That'd certainly help, but you wouldn't be left with more than 40 minutes of film for #3.

Saw Hot Fuzz last night instead of Spiderman and I don't regret it.  Damn funny movie, and who doesn't love point break :p

Was nice going right into a near empty theater instead of waiting in a long ass line for spiderman also.  This was one of the few times I went to see a night showing of a movie and I have to say never again.... my god I lost count of how many commercials I watched, I think the movie started around 30 minutes after the listed time. 

Really?  I thought Hot Fuzz was too long.  They could have cut 30 minutes out of it and not lost any plot or humor.  Fuzz had some nice money shots, but I prefer Shaun.

That, and i can't abide any movie that glorifies Bad Boys.

Went and saw it tonight at the IMAX. SOLD OUT. This thing must be bringing in unbelievable money. I think I liked this one the best out of the three. My only problem with it was the whole Venom thing seemed to happen waaaay to quickly. I think there must have been a lot cut out due to time constraints. As always, Bruce Campbell never fails to disappoint. And Stan's obligatory cameo was nice. Maybe a bit maudlin, but I liked it. And as for the emo doo, all I could think of was Peter Petrelli. It was for comedy sake. The whole theatre was laughing it's collective ass off during those bits, especially his little '70's strut sequence.

As an aside, it struck me watching the movie that if anyone could ever successfully reprise/recreate the role of Basil Faulty, it would be Bruce Campbell. It would be different, but I think he could pull it off.

IIRC, the previews were amazing.  Glad to see my beloved Undeclared/Freaks&Geeks crew get more movies/shows.

So anyone see Shrek III this weekend?  The wife and I decided to pass on it until it hits the cheap theater.  The extended family decided that Friday night was the best time to watch Pirates III so $42 just for tickets kind of blew the summer movie budget.   Combined with the "it's just not as good as the last 2" review my sister gave, it seems the prudent choice.


Also, anyone else have the funky musical preview at the start of Spidey 3?   I've forgotten the name already and wanted to look it up.   (And as I said to the wife, It's like 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Chicago' started a musical revival.")

You mean that Beatles thing? It's called Across the Universe. Seems like they're trying to make a picture revolving around the entire corpus of Beatles lyrics or something.

That's the one. Thanks.  I wanted to look it up because I couldn't remember what the songs were but you covered that, too.   It's probably a movie best watched high, so I wouldn't get into it.  :-P

I Am Legend trailer (http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/iamlegend/) now up.  I've read the book a few times, but somehow I must have forgotten the part with the jets firing missles at a bridge  :roll:  It could end up being a good movie, but so far it doesn't look to be much more faithful to the book than The Omega Man was.

Knocked up was fucking hilarious.

Amen. I really enjoyed it, and am looking forward to the DVD for more beard jokes. That was just cracking me up for some reason. Also, Katherine Heigl makes me feel all tingly.

I liked Knocked Up. Far preferred 40 yr old Virgin though.

I did too, but it was close for me. Also, Katherine Heigl >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Catherine Keener. And Leslie Mann was awesome in both of them.

My describes Heigl as Third Reich Nazi hot.

Uhm.....?

What, like :nda: in the oven hot?

I would wreck Katherine Heigl if she was missing her front teeth. She is, as they say, DO WANT.

It's a Will Smith blockbuster.  It'll suck.

This looks interesting: http://imdb.com/title/tt0448134/trailers-screenplay-E31240-10-2

THAT'S GOING TO BE HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT AS SHIT (I am Legend).

So will Sunshine. But that's a pun, so I'm not going there.

For some reason Keener really does something for me. Ever since Being John Malkovich.  She is both hot and cool, whereas Heigl seems very hot but not particularly interesting.

Oh, and if you like spy stuff, Breach just came out on video. I saw it in the theater and liked it a lot. It isn't whiz bang, more of a quiet psychological thriller but they did a good job.

It was all right.  I didn't feel cheated by spending the $ for the theatre, but I could have waited until video and not cared much.  It was nice to see them not really hold back on the jokes or try to be too politically correct, but I just wasn't dying of laughter.  The other half is knocked up though so it probably was a bit more than I needed at this time.

Good luck with all that. I thought that this movie would make my wife want to hold off a bit.  But the power of that bio clock is strong. :(

If you're in a city that has a theater playing Once, you should go see it right now. I saw it two weeks ago during a trip to LA and it was wonderful.

Doubly so if you're into music.

Anyone see Ocean's 13 yet? I have seen feedback all over the map for it.

Finally saw Pirates III.....  good,  not on the same level as the first.  It really hurts the overall film that the first 10 minutes set pieces is so fucking good (gallows and whatnot).  Makes the rest of the movie a bit of a let down.

Also saw Hostel II.  Interesting plot,  good minor twists and resolution.  There was a bit too much pointless gore in it.

Too much pointless gore in hostel? I can't imagine.

It had a point in the first one:  illustrating how monstrous normal people can be.  Especially people who have been shown to have emotional/empathic sides.  It's hard to reconcile the middle-aged Euro who had the heartfelt talk with the college kid about homosexuality and the joy of raising his daughter with the madman when they meet again.

Too much of this gore is just retreading a theme from the first, and in a half-assed fashion for spectacle value without the related buildup.  That being said,  the story was interesting.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0385752/trailers-screenplay-1-10-2 (http://imdb.com/title/tt0385752/trailers-screenplay-1-10-2)

Sweet.  I really like the first book.  The other 2 not as much.

Why? For fuck's sake, WHY?


I thought that was the only reason people watched Hostel.

Hostel is one of those things people watch to remind themselves they are desensitized.

It's still part of a culture I can never understand.

I watch it to remind myself that I'm NOT desensitized.

So you walk away offended and happy? Why even bother? You knew it going in.

If I know something going in, I can't get offended.

Edit: For example, I was offended by Spiderman 3. I was not offended by Pirates 3.

Well, then again who wasn't offended by Spiderman 3? Plebians, no doubt.

America.

People who thought the first two movies were enjoyable but flawed as well?

There is no excuse for Disco Peter. None.

For reasons I won't go into here, the theater I work at only gets half the new releases (the other half going to the old theater in my town which hasn't been closed down for, again, reasons I won't go into).  So it was, that rather than watching Fantasic Four, I was stuck with the choice of test running Nancy Drew, or Dead or Alive.  Putting aside my inner desire to watch a 16 year old girl solve crimes, I decided to go with DOA.  Mind you it wasn't until I found out that I would be getting DOA this week that I even realized it was being released.  I watched a horrible trailer for it close to a year ago, back before it went through several delays and never saw any advertisments for it since.

The acting... was pretty fucking bad.  Pretty much expected.  The special effects in most of the fight scenes weren't any better.  "DOA" is plastered across the screen in some form or another every 5 minutes or so.  But people aren't going to see it for the the acting or even the fighting, they're going to see it for the women, and I'll admit, it was almost worth watching just for Devon Aoki in a bikini playing volleyball, and keep in mind I'm not even a Japanophile like many here.  She just looks that fucking good in this movie.  The problem with centering a movie around T&A in this day and age though is that you're competing with the Internet, and I can't for the life of me come up with a compelling reason for guys to go out and spend money to watch this movie when they could be looking at free Internet porn.  There's sort off a goofy bit of fun to this movie and a couple of the action scenes are actually ok, but movie prices being what they are I can only recommend renting it when it comes out on DVD or watching it on Cable, and only then if you're just looking for some cheesy entertainment for a good laugh.

I'm more interested in hearing the story of the two theaters, really.

Me too.  I had a similar situation in the town I grew up in with the ancient theatres as well.

And I can't believe they made a Dead or Alive movie.  What were they thinking? 

the movie is so blatantly going for hormonal teenage boys. And older perverts like me.

So, besides art faggy stuff, what is everyone looking forward to for the next few months?

My list:

Guilty Pleasures:
Transformers (my girlfriend geeked out because they kept the same sound effect during the transformation.)
Die Hard 4. Believe it or not I'm basing it solo on Bruce Willis' press for the movie. He's been really cool, even going to some message boards and having a second life chat to promote it. And I probably won't see it in the theaters unless my friends want to make it a group trip.
Evan Almighty- This looks better than the first one.
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Jessica Biel wet and in bra and panties is enough for me. I've also read advance reviews that say it is not really homophobic but more a satire of homophobia.

Somewhat more "arty" movies:
Stardust- Neil Gaiman wrote the book, Claire Danes as a fallen star??, Michelle Pheiffer as an evil witch?, DeNiro as a gay pirate? I'm there.
Fido- suburban 1950's America post Zombie Holocaust with Zombies as pets that sometimes eat the neighbors? Creepy old guy with Teenage Zombie mistress? Sounds good to me!

Harry Potter will be the last movie I pay for at a theater this year.  I'm willing to wait for the DVD, but the wife insists we see it at the theater.   If it weren't for that, I'd already be done.

I just can't justify $30 in movie tickets plus $20 in snacks for one movie vs $10 for netflix and $5 for some popping corn to drop in the popper on a regular basis.  :|

It's getting better reviews than Fantastic Four.  Yikes.

 :-o

Basically:

One theater (12 screens) is pretty old and on the outskirts of the city, near the marshlands.  The city decided it wanted to revitalize the downtown area a few years back, so they agreed to let a 20 screen theater be built, (with restaurants all around it) in the middle of the downtown area.  So about a year ago, the buildings are finished and the new theater gets opened, with plans to shut down the old theater in December.

Now the company that owns the two theaters, also owns the land the old theater is on.  When they tear down the old theater, they want to put up apartments.  The city is telling them, they can't do that, they don't want residential over there, and that they should put up car dealerships (which the city would make a lot of money off of due to sales tax).  So the old theater stays open.  Half the new movies go over to the old theather (the got Pirates 3, and are getting Fantastic Four, Transformers, Harry Potter, and the Simpsons among other things). 

Less people come to the new theater than what was expected when it was assumed that the old theater would close down.  The restaurant owners pretty much get the shaft because they were expecting a lot more people to be coming through, so (as the theater owners were hoping) they've been putting pressure on the city to cave into the theaters demands of putting up apartments on the land the old theater is on.  There are articles in the local paper on an almost weekly basis talking about what a fucked up situation this is (customers hate going to the old theater too because it's pretty rundown at this point.  The damn sound cut out for several minutes in all the auditoriums when I went there to see Pirates 3).

So, there you go.






One of the nearby theaters got Daywatch in, so I want to go see that at some point.
1408 (next week)
Death at a Funeral
Maybe Black Sheep if it plays anywhere near me.
Joshua looks like some crazy Omen-style shit from the trailer I saw.
Rescue Dawn (maybe)
Sunshine
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Simpsons
The Signal (my boss saw it at Sho West and said it was great)
War

All those are released between now and the end of August.

I totally forgot Harry Potter. Not that I have a choice. Out of all the HP movies this would be the one I'd skip simply because in the book I detested Dolores whatshername and had to struggle through any part of the book she was in. Which was alot unfortunately. I don't know why I reviled her so much. It wasn't even my dislike of villains it was more gut level than that. Like she was a bureucrat at the DMV telling me to get into the 5 hour line instead of her line because Item 1 on my form didn't have 2 capital letters in it.

I just watched Fantastic Four with my brother since we didn't have anything to do this afternoon.

I wanted to make myself throw up the last hour and a half of memories.  Sweet Mother of Christ DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE.


I REPEAT:

DO NOT WATCH FANTASTIC FOUR FOR FEAR OF THE AFOREMENTIONED SEA OF BILE



edit:  That said, the preview for Harry Potter actually made me want to watch it. Also, The Golden Compass (http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/thegoldencompass.html) looked fantastic.

I hate that most modern "horror" movies are just gore-fests. I don't mind gore but I don't like it when the whole point of a movie is kewl death scenes.

Hertzog + Bale =  :heart:

Also just heard about The Dark Is Rising (http://imdb.com/title/tt0484562/).  Can't say I've ever read the book, nor are there any trailers available yet, but it has Ian McShane and Christopher Eccleston in it, so it's got my attention so far.

Day Watch was AMAZING.

AMAZING.

And I didn't even really like Night Watch.

I am most definitely looking forward to Rescue Dawn. The early reviews are extremely positive. Plus it's Christian Bale, who up until Batman came out, kept flying under the radar. I've yet to see a movie he was in that he wasn't great in.

Where did you catch that? Its not in theaters here in Seattle (yet?).

Could have been a good movie.  The characters have pretty good backstories from what I know about them, but there's not a lot of details and a movie - or in my opinion, more ideally, a CGI or anime movie - would be a great place to go further on that.  Unfortunately as far as I can tell, the writers and director aren't all that good, and it came out pretty poor.

And as far as tits...shit, if that's the point of the movie, I'd rather play the games for it.

Without even reading a review I could tell this is exactly how it was going to wind up.  Shit writing, shit acting, shit directing, and b00bz.

I have never understood the logic of just making movies where b00bs jiggle.  I mean shit they have fucking pr0n for that!  I'm not going to go to some theatre in town and get all excited over watching some chicks dance around in a fucking bikini or beat each other up.  That's just sad.

One art house theater in Phoenix Arizona was playing it. They're also going to get Paprika on July 13th ^_^.

Paprika looks so amazing.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=NclRSeV4pBA (http://youtube.com/watch?v=NclRSeV4pBA)

Ah PAPRIKA.  I saw a whole giant stack of DVD's of this when I was in Yodobashi Umeda a few weeks ago, and they were playing a trailer for it on a nearby TV.  It looked really amazing, but they spelled the title in Katakana.  I spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out what fucking word they were trying to say (you write in Katakana in Japanese if the word is a non Japanese word, for those of you who dont know).  Paprika is just such an odd name I guess I never thought of that when trying to decipher it, heh.  Need to watch that.

Something about the old guy character in that trailer bothers me.  I've seen similar character designs in that anime that had "Lil' slugger" and it bothered me too.  I just can't quite place my finger on what, because it's only the old men.   Something about the cheeks and line work use to convey old age/ older people I think.

The overall design and style looked fantastic, though.  The Times quote gave me a chuckle, because it's been true for so long.

I don't get it. More japanime with opened mouthed gasping girls/women with tentacle crap chasing after them. Don't get me wrong; I think there are some superlative japanime movies out there, from Sprited Away to Ghost in the Shell, but the above trailer seems pretty commonplace.

It looks really imaginative and had great artwork.  It actually reminded me alot of Spirited Away, though more adultish perhaps.
I mean, if thats how you describe what you saw in that trailer, then you could easily use that exact same line to describe Spirited Away....

If it makes you feel better, no tentacles penetrate any actresses during the movie.

Guess I'll wait until it's on video then.

There aren't words for how excited I am about Paprika.

Relax, I said no tentacles, it is still good.

You're probabaly right. The thing is, what made Spirited Away a fantastic movie was the story. The 'art', to me, was pretty standard fare, and a trailer for it would probably not have impressed me anymore than this trailer for Paprika. Aside from the 'art', can someone provide some other compelling reason why Paprika is teh new cool?

Ghost in the Shell too, was fab, but due to the actual story telling. The graphics were good but so were Akira's, and lord knows that story blew chunks. I'm not trolling. I know there are people who have very fond memories from childhood about Akira and all that, but really, step back for a moment and consider the narrative differences between Ghost in the Shell and Akira, and you'll see what I mean.

What? I'm one of those people who enjoyed Akira as a child and I knew the story blew chunks then. And you know what, so did Ghost in the Shell's story. Both were shit. Both were INCREDIBLY beautiful. But both were shit for stories.

When you don't watch much anime, Akira and Ghost in the shell are inevitably brought up. I wish those movies had never happened. They're... just bad. Appleseed too.

Meh, I'll have to agree with him on that.  I loved the story in Ghost in the Shell a hell of alot better than Akira.  But you know I like GiTS, and I know you hate it, so we should probably stop the meaningless argument right here ;).

He keeps saying that about the story for GiTS.  And it's just wrong.  It's the same story as Blade Runner, Neuromancer and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

When are our creations their own entity and what rights will then devolve onto them and what is the morally, ethically and legally correct way to deal with the situation?

The story isn't shit.  It's one of the greatest themes in modern Sci-Fi and in GiTS it's well told and coherent.  Get a grip.

Past weekend I ended up watching more movies, mostly against my will.  Again I saw The Prestige, this time in Bluray.  Also watched American Psycho in DirecTV-TiVo form.  Christian Bale is super.

Prior to that, the first movie of the weekend was Ghost Rider.  I can't say it was Daredevil bad, but it was not good.  Also, we were watching a crappy low-res torrented version from Killjoy's Zune attached to my 360, so at least I didn't pay for it.  Still, I would recommend anyone see this crap movie based solely on Eva Mendes.

The funniest part of watching a torrented movie is that Killjoy's girlfriend works at Carmike Cinema with the "what movie goes to what theater" job.

I like the basic Ghost in the Shell story and characters, but the dialogue just runs on for too long for me. Not that I don't understand it -- but I think it's a little too wordy for it's own good. Same with the series. Too much subtext and philosophy worded out, too many monologues. To each his own though. It's just my opinion. I mean, I can appreciate that kind of thing, but as far as movies go for me, actions speak louder than words. If there's a way to show the same point, rather than tell it, then I want that as much as possible.


I recently watched that HBO original movie about Sitting Bull and Wounded Knee (My Heart at Wounded Knee). It was really good. If you have HBO, check it out.

Just got through watching the Fantastic Four.  Can't say I felt any sort of sea of bile.  Worse than that, the movie didn't elicit any sort of reaction out of me, good or bad.  Then again, I've always found the Fantastic Four to be the vanilla of comic books anyway.  They're bland.  I guess maybe kids like this stuff.

Teenagers who live in households where they are unable to access the real internets go to see Fantastic Four movies because Jessica Alba is in a tight body suit.

That is my hypothesis.

While she is by no means unattractive, I just don't see what all the hype about her is. Of course, I don't see what the hype about a lot of the 'hot chicks' is all about. I guess I am an old fart.

While I absolutely agree with you, you have to realise he's talking about the original movie. Standing alone, the movie's story was an absurdly abridged version of the manga's main plot, and it really didn't come off well at all. Akira had the same problem except that movie abridged the plot from 2.5 books of the 6-volume series.

Of course I'm talking about the original movie. I wasn't aware this thread was about TV show spinoffs ;)

Don't turn a perfectly good thread about real movies into a discussion of anime.  I like it better when that stuff is contained in its own thread so I can ignore it.  :cry:

(Paprika is an exception.  Even my theater is showing trailers for it.)

Whether you like it or not, there is a such thing as a movie that happens to be anime. Including Paprika!

Paprika will always just remain a spice to me.

I miss doing roundups.  I did one in blog form, but then I spent ten times as much time trying to get the format right and going "What the hell is an RSS feed?" because I don't really do the blog thing or know anything about it.  I think I'll give it another go once I get my new PC.

Yeah, nobody cares.  But here's my one-movie micro-roundup anyway:  Hostel 2 had like an eight million dollar opening weekend and is at something like fourteen million now.  Yes it only cost ten, and everything is profitable on DVD, but at least this one really is having to squeak by based on it's cheap budget.  Previously the Saw movies were making this torture-porn shit look like free money, costing four or five million to make and grossing nine or ten times that.  Maybe they'll quit making so many of these movies now.

By the way, exactly who goes to see shit like this?  I'm envisioning some bloated shaggy pimply albino in a ratty Cannibal Corpse t-shirt and baggy shorts, with fat hamhock calves and soulless dead-fish eyes, a grease-stained copy of one of those dumbass dimestore "Necronomicons" clutched in his dirty-nailed hands.  The sort of guy who kills himself after being thrown in prison for raping a three year old.

But there can't possibly be enough of those guys to explain the success of these movies, so what gives?

And here I was just looking at Saw and Hostel as next-gen slasher flicks. That's what they feel like to me at least. Which is to say, no, they'll never stop making them.

My wife watches every single slasher flick she can get in our Netflix queue.  She's no Goth or anything either just your average suburban housewife.  She may be a man though since her favorite movie is Aliens.  I can't stand the slasher-type horror shit and won't watch them with her.  Give me Lovecraftian stuff like Carpenter's The Thing please.

Slasher flicks are sort of an out-there fantastic though. It's usually monsters who can't die and run amok in a morality play. These Hostel kind of torture flicks are too close to home to be anything more than an exercise in depravity for me.

I am a bit disturbed when someone says "she may be a man though" when talking about his own wife.

 :-o

I've never really liked slasher flicks, but give me a good (good is not a requirement either) monster or zombie movie and it's all  :heart: :heart: :heart:

If they were just slasher flicks, they might be tolerable. I don't put Saw and Hostel in the same boat. Saw at least had a somewhat interesting plot and some bit of style. Hostel was just disgusting. It was how badly can we torture people and show it on screen while still getting an R-Rating. It was a fucking snuff film. I have no idea who pays money to see this shit. I watched Hostel on a pirated DVD that someone gave me because it disgusted even him.

It's like that video from the Ring, only instead of killing you, it makes you want to kill Quentin Taratino.

Totally agree. Slasher flicks just make me feel sick. Give me Laviathan, Aliens, Event Horizon, or some thing like that. The horror movies of the late 80s early 90s are much more my thing.

Damn, I should go buy Event Horizon and Mouth of Madness again.  Lost them to some dickwad in college.

Event Horizon is sooooo good.

...up until the last fifteen minutes. :-D

I watched 1408 this weekend. I was very unimpressed. Aside from some some jump style scares that scare the majority of the crowd, the movie just wasn't that great. This may or may not be tainted by the fact that the audience was the worst I'd seen in a long time. One group actually brought Denny's to-go into the theater.

I saw it at about 10:30 and I struggled not to fall asleep.

Agreed. Event Horizon had alot of potential but it felt like they didn't know how to end the movie properly.

Watched Dungeons and Dragons 2 last night.

I came for the suck and I was dissappointed.

D&D2 came across to me as a movie made by a guy who wanted to do a D&D movie justice, but only had a half million dollar budget. The acting was iffy and the effects were weak, but it was a decent effort for the budget involved.

Infinitely better than the first one.

Watched Live Free or Die Hard at work last night.  I think the last time I watched a Die Hard movie was when I saw the last one in the theater.  Never been a huge fan of the series, and as such, I can't really recall the other movies well enough to make any sort of comparison.  To say that some of the action sequences are over-the-top would be an understatement.  Most notable in that respect would be one of the scenes near the end that involves Bruce Willis in a big-rig being attacked by an F-35.  John McClane's ability to bounce back from what would cause a normal person serious injury rivals that of Looney Toons characters or Tom & Jerry.  In other words if you're looking for anything remotely believable, this movie isn't for you.  Also just have to mention that the main bad guy in this movie is a complete bitch.  On the plus side, there's some amusing dialogue here and there, and the action sequences look good, even while shattering your suspension of disbelief.

For similar amusement, watch the John Rambo trailer (http://www.ifilm.com/video/2856280) for a few laughs.

As long as Willis kicks the shit out of a few bad guys and makes a few wisecracks I will be sufficiently entertained. I am certainly not expecting anything more than that, although some gratuitous female nudity (not more than 25-30 minutes) would be a plus.

I liked Event Horizon, good actors and basically a haunted-house movie in space. I too prefer my horror a little more horrific rather than just bloody.

Yeah, but the last fifteen minutes turned it into fun-house.

Honestly I'd say it was probably the last 5 minutes for me.  I didn't mind how it was going even up until things are explained more in detail, but in the scene right before the closing credits I just wanted to scream and yell at them for cheaping out a good ending.

How dare you say that about Sheriff Bullock.

He's also playing Agent 47 in the Hitman movie (the trailer for which, my theater had attached to the prints of Die Hard).  That didn't stop him from being a complete bitch in this movie.

Edit: Hitman trailer availble here btw. (http://uk.media.movies.ign.com/media/499/499143/vids_1.html)

Die Hard 4 fucking delivered, as far as I'm concerned.  I came in not expecting much, and walked away as satisfied as I was after seeing 300.

/agree

It was fucking great.  But I love all the Die Hard movies.  Over the top is the way it's written.  Big recommendation.

Edit: I should note that there is some obvious dubbing in places to bring it down to PG13 level I believe.  Also, no titties.  If this was R it would have been 1.5x better.

PG-13? Serious? So they can't even say Yippe-kai-ya-motherfucker?

Correct.

Boo.

John Maclean not being able to swear is almost as sad as John Maclean not being able to reduce a bad-guys knee caps to a bloody mess, or stabbing them in the face with an icicle.

Ya, the dubbing makes me excited for the DVD.

I thought he did say the whole thing at the end. Maybe I just filled in the bad part.

I loved the movie. He's definitely showing his age, but that was offset by Tim Olyphant (the sidekick, the Mac from the Mac/PC commercials, probably been mentioned) and the chief bad guy. I kept cracking up at his interactions with the team, like at the end when McClane's daughter shoots the henchman in the foot.

"Jesus Christ!"
"You got it?"
"Are you sure?"

Just a funny flat delivery. Somebody told me he's the sherriff in Deadwood too. Never saw that series so have no idea.

Also, what was that jet? Is that a VTOL like the Harrier or just something that can hover after take off? Awesome thing.

Oh, and explosions, bridges, theft, all good.

I hope they don't make a sixth though. Considering it went from a single building to a small town (including airport) to all of Manhatten to the whole country, the next one has to be global and the last something featuring him in a spacesuit or sommat.

Haven't seen the movie, but the one in the trailer it looks an awful lot like the F-35 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter).

When he says it, the fucker part gets somewhat covered up by the sound of a gunshot.

The guy that played the sidekick was Justin Long, he was also in that movie Dodgeball or something.  Timothy Olyphant was the bad guy, and yeah he was in Deadwood.  Haven't seen the movie, but didn't recognize him in the previews without facial hair.  Deadwood was a pretty good show I thought.

It was called "Armageddon"

Die Hard 4 without the R is Terminator 3 without the R.  Muddling the franchise for fucking marketing and money.  Terminator 3 was extremely guilty of this.

Why does every thread on this forum have to shift in to a discussion of SWG?

I guess I am a jaded old fart, but watching the trailers for Die Hard whatever the fuck number this is gives me the feeling that this is a one man League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Something in which suspending disbelief requires a lot of concious effort.

It really is sad, Die Hard was such an awesome movie. Even the second one was really good. But the action movie genre just really has not done much in the way of anything good in the last 15 years it seems.

I blame CGI fighter jets.

15 years? Nah. The action genre just hasn't recovered from The Rock.

Which was almost 15 years ago. Sure, 11 is closer to 10, but it sure FEELS like 15 years ago to me.

Michael Bay killed the genre. True story.

Y'know I've never seen The Rock. Was it really that awful? (It was only 11 years ago, btw. 1996)

Michael Bay... let's see.  The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys, The Lionel Ritche video collection.  Yeah I can see that.

IMDB also lists him as doing Prince of Persia.  Ick.. and Transformers2 (in talks). Putting the cart before the horse there, aren't they? 

OK, I saw two sneak previews this week. Die Hard 4 and the Transformers. (Just got back from the last one.)

Die Hard 4 was good. It wasn't as good as the first one but it was better than the last two. The DvD had better be the Yippee Ki Yay Mother Fucker edition. I'll leave it at that. Still, there was alot of swearing and violence. Some of the main bad guys henchmen were doing that monkey, jump around fighting from France which I found kind of annoying and distracting but fun at the same time.

Ok...Transformers. To give this review some background, I don't hate Michael Bay. I hated Pearl Harbor, loved the Rock, sometimes enjoy Armageddon even if it's not in any way subtle, and liked Bad Boys 1 and can't stand Bad Boys 2.

Ok...I loved the Transformers. The audience I saw it with clapped and cheered after it was over. The guy next to me was one of those annoying talking assholes when the movie first started and was dead silent and literally on the edge of his seat during the major action finale. There were some parts I didn't like. The humor was too over the top and one man who is basically a Man in Black was corny when he should have been menacing. His lines were cheesy and over the top and didn't fit the rest of the movie. There were a few scenes that were played for a bit too much humor in other parts as well. Also the macguffin of the movie was...weird in how it worked.

But, Optimus Prime and Megatron throwing down over the fate of humanity was awesome.

Some minor comments, no spoilers:

- Sometimes it was hard to tell the various Transformers apart with the exception of Bumble Bee and Optimus Prime. You always knew who they were. I think the colors on the others were sometimes too subdued.
- A few of the personalities were "off" from my memories. But it's been 20 years so who knows.
- I liked how Sam and Bumblebee met. I also liked Bumble Bee`in general. He was spot on, as was Optimus and Megatron.
- Megan Fox is fucking hot. There was also a British sounding blonde chick who was just as hot even if I have alot of mixed feelings about her character.
- The movie was sooo not politically correct. There were various jokes that played on racial stereotypes which honestly surprised me. It seemed like a ballsy move to make in this day and age.
- This movie is more like the 1985 movie than the old TV series, and probably more like the comic book than the 1985 movie.

There were alot of plot holes in this movie. But don't go to it for the plot. Go to it for robots fighting robots done right. Go to it for the hot chicks. Go to it because it is just a fun fucking movie. It's my favorite movie this far though honestly, that's not saying alot, even 300 doesn't hold up well with repeat viewings.

 :-D

Hmm, well, I will say that The Rock was my favorite of Micheal Bay's movies. In comparrison, I rank Bad Boys 2 up there with the best of the Uwe Boll collection.

The Rock is great if you watch it for Sean Connery and realize that he is playing a James Bond who spent 30 years in an American prison.  Try to ignore Nick Cage's over-dramatic flailing and you should come through it ok.

What the hell are you talking about. Nick Cage is great in the Rock. You don't ignore his overdramatic flailing. It's What Nick Does. You embrace it.

The Rock was poo.

Then again, there's really only one Nic Cage film I can even stomach.

He overacts most of the time, if he just dialed it down a couple notches he'd be great.

I watch Cage for his overacting.

It's better than the Al Pacino impersonation that Al Pacino has been pushing for the last 15 years or so.

I'd say Nic Cage is the best thing about the Rock. Sean Connery acts like he just wanted the paycheck in that movie and is slightly embarassed to be there. Nic Cage is enjoying himself and it shows.

Then again, Sean Connery usually acts like he's just there for the paycheck in most films he has been in from the '90s on.

I liked the Rock, but I wouldn't want to watch it again. Hell, I liked Independence Day when I saw it in the theaters, but it was shitty shit shit shit that I refuse to watch now other than for something to laugh at. The Rock was ok, but it was the purest example of a Michael Bay movie ever. Pretentious, I'm rubbing my balls in your face machismo, combined with pointless action scenes and long, slow-motion scenes for dramatic effect. The ending scene with the fighter jet was badly shot, badly edited and just bad.

But it was a fun boom boom BLEARGG!!! movie. And at least Cage didn't say "Put the bunny down." in the worst Alabama accent I've ever heard.

Also, Nic Cage infuriates me. He'll have a decent movie like The Weather Man and then he'll put out super-dooper shitty shit like Ghost Rider. He needs some qualudes.

I don't remember how I feel about the whole movie but I always found the scene where Will Smith was scaring Martin Lawrence's daughter's date on his doorstep was comedy gold.

"Have you ever made love to a man?"
"No sir!"
"Do you want to?"

Also I just came back from Die Hard.  If this movie had a PG-13 rating I didn't notice.  Good amount of swearing, the Yippie-Ki-Yay didn't lose any impact just because the Fucker was muffled by the gunshot.  I really enjoyed the movie.  McClaine's attitude made me realize I missed John McClaine.  It followed some formula elements of the first (The whole Ginero / McClaine thing).  But the way McClaine's like "Fuck this shit, I'm going to kill you Mr. Helicopter with a car." was great.

The Rock was awful, but when you consider the body of Michael Bay's work, The Rock was probably his greatest work.

So still a flaming pile of shit.

The Rock was godawful, Nic Cage is a fucking joke, and Michael Bay couldn't direct his way out of a wet paper bag. He should be directing traffic safety videos or something. The fact that he is in charge of the Transformers is cause for grave concerns.

See, Will Smith is funny.

As I continue to be the one who interrupts ongoing conversations by referring to posts several days old, I just want to say that I saw Die Hard and came of it thinking "this is why people still go to the movies." Yes, one could brainiac it to death, but it was well done. I even liked the fact that the ending was somewhat anti-climactic.

Transformers was a good movie, I give it 8/10. Michael Bay was the right man to direct it.

I second and third the good things people have said about Die Hard.  It was not intellectual by any stretch, but it was a damn fine action movie.

I'd like to posit the theory that one going to see a film called Die Hard for intellectual jollies is perhaps not the cleverest of chaps in the first place.

 :wink: