Box office roundup

[stray]

Boogie Nights is great. Even if it is kind of a ripoff of Goodfellas (pacing wise). If anything, for John C Reilly.

[Evildrider]

Boogie Nights is great. Even if it is kind of a ripoff of Goodfellas (pacing wise). If anything, for John C Reilly.

I agree, I love Boogie Nights. 

[Venkman]

"Why was this made again?"

To win Oscars!

Exactly. It's why I basically wait for iTunes rentals or in-flights to see anything released in the latter part of the year. These movies are made for the awards ceremonies, showing the same unfortunate foofy insularity from the "common man" on its path towards critical acclaim. Eventually you just end up alongside the tree in the woods: if there ain't nobody shelling out the zillions to see your flick, who gives a shit about how good it is?

Let's get back to making good movies for people who want to see them, mmkay?

[stray]

That's fucking retarded, I'm sorry.

[Venkman]

You strike me as a critic. We are therefore incapable of having dialog about movies 

[stray]

I am not a critic. What you said is offensive on a much deeper level than that. It sounds like you're equating artistic worth with monetary worth. And it's bad enough that you do that with games, but I'll have to get a little ugly in this case.

This in no way means that someone can't criticize PT Anderson. Frankly, I give a shit. I don't think he's that great either. I just think that if you don't like something, then just fucking say so and leave it at that. Don't go off on all this shit about money.

[Venkman]

No no no (3 times in a chant). I'm not saying movies shouldn't be made for artistic pursuit. I am saying that movies shouldn't be made for awards ceremonies. Lemme clarify:

What I find insulting from this current process is that it implies the average viewer isn't interested in good plot, writing, acting, or cinematography. So they throw these career-building awards movies at the end of the year when they think only the critics or committees are going to bother looking at them, thus perpetuating the unfortunate separation between mass market and critical.

That I think is wrong. I don't know how or why it happens. I don't know which comes first either. Was it that the big summer blockbusters could be made dumber and dumber while still collecting the same cash just because of the theme/license and timing? Or was it that they were trying to backload the end of the year with the stuff that would be competing for the attention of the award-reviewers?

On a separate note, I wonder viscerally why such movies as No Country for Old Men can be both good and pointless at the same time. Maybe I'm not smart enough to see the deeper truths or the esoteric references within. I'd be the first to admit that. But what I got was a bunch of great performances and interesting cinematography in a movie that otherwise didn't have a start, middle and end. I don't need a happy ending or a sad one. I would really just like a ending, something to wrap it up unless it's planned as part of a series.

Corollary to this would be Michael Clayton, another fine movie I rather enjoyed except it felt very, err, "flat" I guess would be the word. Clooney's got to manage three distinct lifestyles, none of which are anything I'd consider more than pedestrian. But he does it with good acting and that makes it a good movie? I saw more going on in his crappy movies, like that stupid The Peacemaker.

That's a personal peeve though, not an indictment of the industry. Same with games. I don't want mass market games and arthouse-fair to be separate. They are separate though because the processes by which each goes from idea to gamer are just that different. Committees don't do creativity, but they do get easier access to cash. There is something of a handoff that happens though, which I assume happens in movies too, where the artistic/creative experiences drive emulation later on. But I'd rather see them combined, because handoffs can be ignored due to the more artistic game getting ignored for it lacking financial success.

That was long. It's also not clear in my mind yet. I've never actually written it down before, as it's something that bothers me at an emotional rather than logical level. Maybe I'll figure it out someday.

Oh, and I actually have no opinion about PT Anderson. I haven't seen There Will be Blood yet. And I'm hoping I have another flight soon because I've only got 20 days left to activate the rental.*

* Separate topic: I don't like that you've got only 24 hours to watch a flick once you rent it on iPod. If I can hold onto it for 30 days, why not just let me watch it for 30 days? Or just a week? If I'm not flying nor in a theater, I'm not anywhere I can sit and watch a movie for two hours in one sitting.

[stray]

There Will Be Blood is long. Make sure the flight is long.

It might put you to sleep. It's like watching the quietest parts of 2001 for 3 hours -- with some explosive moments scattered about from Daniel Day Lewis.

Those explosive moments are amazing though.

The kid from Little Miss Sunshine is pretty good in it too. I haven't hated a character so much in quite some time.


I'm not sure if it's even necessary to specifically mention PT Anderson really. He doesn't have a consistent style that one can pinpoint to and like or dislike. Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk, and There Will Be Blood are all completely different movies, in content and atmosphere. The only consistent thing about them is that he keeps getting good casts for his films... And there's always some good lines in them at least, with someone extremely entertaining saying them. That's enough to keep me glued to the screen, despite whatever faults lie about. Ymmv.

As for the rest, I don't know if this was intended to be an Award contender or not. Most people make films not even knowing if it's going to be watchable in the final cut, let alone award worthy. It's not a very predictable process.

I do think DDL deserved the award though. Probably the most intense actor alive right now. And this was a good example of it.

[EDIT] Actually, it's pretty ironic that I got upset about the subject of money (though I get your point now). Considering the film that sparked the discussion....

[WindupAtheist]

While I'm not of the opinion that something has to be popular in order to be good, screaming how you hate money does seem a common excuse for making things no audience wants to partake of.

[Velorath]

On a separate note, I wonder viscerally why such movies as No Country for Old Men can be both good and pointless at the same time. Maybe I'm not smart enough to see the deeper truths or the esoteric references within. I'd be the first to admit that. But what I got was a bunch of great performances and interesting cinematography in a movie that otherwise didn't have a start, middle and end. I don't need a happy ending or a sad one. I would really just like a ending, something to wrap it up unless it's planned as part of a series.

There was an ending.  It might not have been one you liked, but it was there.

[stray]

While I'm not of the opinion that something has to be popular in order to be good, screaming how you hate money does seem a common excuse for making things no audience wants to partake of.

I think the type of people who are hiding behind excuses like that are the Troma type of crowd and the like. Who do, in fact, make seriously shitty stuff that few want to see -- and then excuse themselves under the guise of "indie cred", "art for art's sake", or what have you. The same excuses happen from their equivalents in music. Like from the most unintelligible hardcore or black metal bands....Who have no hope of ever making a dime, and have no reason to be defensive when they don't.

There's another group of not-so-successful filmmakers out there though that are really trying to be genuine and want to explore different ways to tell a story. And do hope for success, and do hope people come along for the ride. Sometimes the end product comes off like novelty or too detached from what audiences want, but it was never intentional. And instead of excuses or directing attacks toward the audience, these people usually just crack jokes at themselves if they fail. Hoping, that at the very least, it doesn't stop them from getting support for future projects.

In There Will Be Blood's case, I think Anderson really was trying to make some big sprawling American epic there. One part homage to Ford, one to Kubrick. One to the Upton Sinclair novel it was partly based on. Maybe he failed in his goal to tell a good story for some people, but at the very least, I don't he should be classified as some director who was fucking around, and that the movie should have never been made. Save that kind of criticism for the Uwe Bolls of the world.

[Venkman]

There Will Be Blood is long. Make sure the flight is long.

It might put you to sleep. It's like watching the quietest parts of 2001 for 3 hours -- with some explosive moments scattered about from Daniel Day Lewis.

Heh, good to know. I'll wait for the Chicago/SF leg then . I felt that No Country was similar in a way to that description. I never wanted to FF or turn it off though. And while I liked the performances here, I've been a fan of Daniel Day Lewis for while.

@Velorath: Well, yea, the credits were scrolling and everything!  I realized last night I should have used the word "resolution" instead of ending. I like tidy endings. The ending they had used seemed to want to point out that Tommy Lee was at the end of his career where in recent times he'd kept encountering things that weren't tidy and which he couldn't understand. So the way the movie ended with him having just stopped altogether made sense. But I'm the guy that wants to know if the assassin killed the wife, why that woody-wagon ran a red light, whether the assassin survived at all (probably did), that sorta thing. Of course, not having that cleanup was probably the point of the film too.

[murdoc]

My wife HATESHATESHATES it when a movie doesn't have a nice tidy resolution (good word imo, all movies have an ending, some have a resolution), and I like a more open ended ending that allows you to discuss what YOU thought happened. It absolutely ruins a movie for her when there's a not a clear, concise resolution to all the events.

My point is that I can see why a lot of people disliked how No Country for Old Men ended, but I disagree with that assessment and think that everything was wrapped up as best as it was gonna be.

[Venkman]

Cool. How would you explain it having resolved? I'd like to know if I've missed something there. Was it resolved because the assassin was no longer needed, having killed everyone he needed to in order to a) fulfill his promise; and, b) erase all traces? This would make Tommy Lee little more than a support role to add the tension of a "chase", but that would make sense in this context.

Sometime in my life, I went from wanting to discuss an ending to wanting to feel "complete" in having witnessed a resolution. Not sure when that happened. Maybe about the time I stopped focusing exclusively on MMOs, which are nothing if they're never complete

[HaemishM]

I thought No Country HAD a complete ending, it just had no exposition. It didn't feel the need to explain itself. The characters all acted as they should have, and this movie was just about the intersection of their lives. With the wife dead, there was no more reason for the characters to interact and they went their separate ways.

There Will Be Blood did not have a complete ending. It just ended. All along it seemed the director/screenwriter (who happened to be both be PT Anderson) wanted to make the preacher kid more important than he had any right to be. That character felt like PT Anderson's influence writ large on the thing, almost as if Tom Cruise's character from Magnolia had been transplanted to this setting. I never understood why this character was even included, or why he seemed to be the main antagonist to DDL's character. The preacher was in too much of the movie, but he never seemed to generate any real threat to DDL and thus wasn't in enough of the movie. He was kind of an in-between character, and so centering the climax on that final interaction between the two, especially so much later in the timeline, just left me perplexed.

[stray]

The preacher holds a threat to DDL because he's like the only character with just as big of an ego, someone who exercises control over others like he does. A challenger to Daniel's own sense of godhood.

Of course, I could be full of shit.  But I think the character was pretty damn integral to the whole religious theme of the film. The character is in the novel too, so it's not necessary to say it was Anderson's doing, no matter what opinion you hold. The only thing that was an afterthought about him was that Eli and Paul Sunday were twins... Apparently, they were intended to be just brothers, but Anderson just let the same dude play both parts.

[HaemishM]

The preacher holds a threat to DDL because he's like the only character with just as big of an ego, someone who exercises control over others like he does. A challenger to Daniel's own sense of godhood.

I got the ego part, I just never got the sense that the preacher really was any sort of adversary at all. He was beneath Daniel's notice the entire time. Maybe it was that the actor just didn't pull off a real sense of menace. I kept expecting him to piss his pants and run away every time Daniel looked at him.

[stray]

He did get the best of Daniel once though. He humiliated him and made him confess his sins, playing into his need to belong, to have family, to have his son healed, as well as cockblocking that one crucial piece of land, because the landowner was completely beholden to the preacher's church.

At the end though, he ostracized his son, tells him that he was just some adopted bastard, and sunk into full blown solitude. Didn't give a shit about family anymore. And as for land, the preacher still thought he had that one piece for a bargaining chip, but it turns out that Daniel just sucked the oil from under it. "I drink your milkshake!"

[HaemishM]

That reminds me of something else that bugged the shit out of me, the score. It irritated the piss out of me from the get go.

[climbjtree]

Speaking of scores, I recently saw Atonement and thoroughly enjoyed Briony's Typewriter Theme. I thought it was very creative and added to the atmosphere.

As a movie, I didn't really dig it, but I did enjoy the way it all ended up. I like fucked up shit.

[Velorath]

Cool. How would you explain it having resolved?

Moss and his wife are dead, Anton has gotten away with the money, and Tommy Lee Jones has retired, unable to cope with how times have changed (as he sees at least, despite his uncle's anecdote near the end illustrating that things have always been this fucked up).  To me, when Anton Chigurh gets into that car accident after he kills Moss's wife, it's to get the audiences' hopes up that some sort of divine justice is going to catch up with him (be it death or that it will delay him long enough for the police to get him).  He gets away like always though and that lack of justice the audience feels at that point sort of mirrors what Tommy Lee Jones' character is going through.

That to me is the resolution of the movie.  Sometimes the bad guy wins, and justice isn't done.

[stray]

Heh, I think people realize that, but just can't or don't want to accept it. Anton is the muthafuckin bad guy of bad guys. So it makes it all the more an injustice.

[DraconianOne]

To me, when Anton Chigurh gets into that car accident after he kills Moss's wife, it's to get the audiences' hopes up that some sort of divine justice is going to catch up with him (be it death or that it will delay him long enough for the police to get him).  He gets away like always though and that lack of justice the audience feels at that point sort of mirrors what Tommy Lee Jones' character is going through.

Very well put.

The car crash also highlights the theme of fate and circumstance in the film - Chigurh decides peoples fates on the toss of a coin but despite his meticulous nature and obssession with details, it's an accident which nearly scuppers his plans, showing that he himself is also subject to the whims of Fate.

It's a great fucking film.

[Abagadro]

Got around to watching Zodiac. Very well done flick and worth a rental.

I have a habit of imdbing flicks after I watch them and saw that David Fincher is directing Rendezvous With Rama.  I'm not quite sure what to think about that.

[stu]

That's one of those flicks that he's been trying to get made since Alien3 was released. His newest one is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and looks to be worth the price of admission.

[Engels]

Got around to watching Zodiac. Very well done flick and worth a rental.

I have a habit of imdbing flicks after I watch them and saw that David Fincher is directing Rendezvous With Rama.  I'm not quite sure what to think about that.

Ya, I dunno. I loved the series, but the whole series, not just the first book. I don't think it'd be possible to capture the wtfawsome of the series in a move made from the first book. Its not like its a stand-alone book like Ender's Game.

[Merusk]

Proving once again that I'm just plain too damn old to understand Mtv, my wife informs me that Transformers won best picture.

[stray]

I don't know about award winner material, but I thought it was entertaining.


Anyways, summer movie lineup. I don't think I've been this curious about as many movies in a while.

Starting with...

Iron Man
Indiana Jones (still haven't seen it, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt)
Wanted
Mongol
Hancock
Dark Knight
X-Files
The newer Hulk trailers sell it much better

3 good looking comedies
---
Don't Mess With the Zohan
Get Smart
Tropic Thunder

[Evil Elvis]

Wanted, Hancock, Hulk, and Zohan 

Where's WALL-E and Love Guru?!

[stray]

I like Mike Myers, but Love Guru looks seriously weak. Tropic Thunder will probably be the only comedy I'll go to the theater for though.

I haven't seen anything about Wall-E.. I know it's Pixar, so that may be good enough.

Hulk.. Yeah.. Just like everyone else, I did not like those first trailers, but the newer one makes me rethink. I already dig the shit out of the Hulk anyways though, so it doesn't take much.

Wanted comics suck, but it'd probably make a good movie. McAvoy's always cool too.

[Merusk]

Transformers was entertaining, yes, but I still wouldn't have slated it as "Best Picture" of last year.   Other nominees were Juno, Superbad, Pirates of the Caribbean, National Treasure and I am Legend.   I figured Superbad or Juno had a lock. Go figure 

I agree that Love Guru looks weak.  It looks beyond weak, really.  Meyers has one line of shtick, so we'll have plenty of nut-hits, midget tossing and sex jokes instead of poop jokes.  It'll be Austin Powers 4 with sex replacing poop.  It got tired after AP2, so no thanks.

[Ironwood]

Finally got around to watching 'Sunshine'.


It was shite.

[schild]

Finally got around to watching 'Sunshine'.


It was shite.

Felt like a poor man's Event Horizon.

It really, badly, did not need that bad guy bullshit.

How Boyle ever managed to make it like a shitty Event Horizons is beyond me - as EH is great as a sort of Cthulhu Mythos homage but total crap as a sci-fi movie (it's not bad if you think of it as pure horror and forget any sort of sci-fi bit). Boyle must've though EH+Solaris = Awesome. I blame drugs.

[Ironwood]

Event Horizon at least had a POINT and something to kinda 'glue it all together'.  If your mind rejected that, of course, you just viewed it as the Haunted House in Space that was Alien.  Sunshine wasn't fit to lick EH's arsehole.

It was totally fucking pointless.  Trying to bash various hamfisted points along the way from a ridiculous premise was totally overdone.  As for the Baddie, I don't get it.  I literally don't get it;  It would have made more sense for him to be an invading arsehole monster from the planet zog.

"Hai, Guyz, we're trying to save mankind.  Fancy a detour to the very place that the other ship, like, totally failed on ?"

Yeah.  That's sense.

It made even less sense when you realised that the '2 bombs are better than 1' argument was rendered null and void by the fact that the ship was GOING TO TURN AROUND ANYWAY.

If it didn't work the first time, go pick up the second bomb, you fucking stupid jacktards.

A wholly wasted opportunity to show 1;30 minutes of Aria Giovanni masturbating herself to a grim and cheerless climax in my opinion.

[Murgos]

A wholly wasted opportunity to show 1;30 minutes of Aria Giovanni masturbating herself

to a grim and cheerless climax in my opinion.