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What were Oscar voters thinking?
The Oscars have come and gone, and the big winner at this year’s Oscars was the Iraq war movie, The Hurt Locker. It won Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Directing. The big loser in this year’s Oscars was Avatar. Even though it now holds the record for the highest grossing movie of all time, it won very few Oscars. It took home Oscars for Art Direction, Cinematography, and Visual Effects.
In my opinion, Avatar only deserved one of those Oscars if it deserved any Oscars at all.
The fact that it could even be nominated for Cinematography and Visual Effects, let alone win those categories, is a complete farce. How can a movie that is mostly computer generated win in cinematography? It wasn’t so much shot through a lens as it was programed on a computer. The same applies to visual effects. The visual effects were animated with a computer. The visual effects in Avatar did not take place in the real world. They instead only existed inside a computer.
Instead of nominating Avatar for Cinematography and Visual Effects, it should have been nominated as best Animated Feature Film with all the other animated movies.
The Regal Valley Mall 16 is quickly turning into a real dump
Sheri and I went to the Regal Valley Mall 16 last night to see The Crazies (loved it) and I was surprised to see what a dump the theater has become. This 16-screen theater opened in the Valley Mall not too long ago. I don’t remember the exact date, but it looks much older than it has any business looking.
The place is a dump.
As the photo shows, most if not all of the seats are ripped, exposing large sections of dirty, ratty looking foam.
If Regal’s not going to replace damaged seating, they ought to at least invest in some duct tape. Since it now comes in different colors, they could even get some that matches the color of the seat.
It’s pretty obvious they just don’t care.
Paranormal Activity is the dumbest movie I’ve seen all year
I finally got around to seeing the movie Paranormal Activity and I’ve got to say that I wasn’t impressed. I heard so much hype about this movie and I was left feeling extremely underwhelmed and disappointed after watching it.
How can anyone get scared watching this movie? I don’t get it.
The premise of the movie is that a couple “engaged to be engaged” is being harassed at night while they sleep by a demon. She’s a professional student. He’s a day-trader. In other words, just the type of people you would want a demon to inflict havoc upon.
The demon has been harassing the woman her entire life. She can remember as a young girl seeing it standing at the foot of her bed in the middle of the night. If you would think that she developed a tolerance to the sound of doors closing or footsteps in the middle of the night, you would be wrong. She freaks out like it’s the first time she’s been exposed to it each and every time it happens.
The movie steals a lot from The Blair Witch Project, except that movie was good and original. This one, not so much. Paranormal Activity uses the same choppy, low-tech camera work that was in The Blair Witch Project.
The Blair Witch Project took place in the Maryland woods. Paranormal Activity takes place in a San Diego stucco subdivision home. While the woods at night can scare almost anyone, especially if someone is not used to them, I fail to see what’s so scary about a modern home in the San Diego burbs.
If it wasn’t for the hype surrounding this movie, I doubt it would have generated the money that it was able to. In the end, that is the only thing that is scary about this movie: that a movie that cost only eleven grand to make could earn $107 million at the box office.
The world loves G.I. Joe
Paramount’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra opened this weekend and raked in $100.5 million worldwide making it the largest grossing movie based on an action figure.
This movie wasn’t even reviewed by critics because the studio wouldn’t allow them to see it. If a reviewer wanted to see G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, he or she was going have to wait till Friday and pay their ten bucks like everyone else.
I’ve never quite understood this tactic. Normally the studios do this when they know the movie sucks and the critics are going to destroy it with their negative words. This makes no sense to me because people don’t care what critics say.
People don’t care what critics have to say about a movie, whether it’s negative or positive. The 2005 Joss Whedon movie Serenity, based on the short lived but totally excellent science fiction TV show Firefly was reviewed very positively by movie critics. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 81%. Anything above 50% is considered good. Even though the critics loved Serenity, it grossed only a little over $39K worldwide it’s entire theatrical run.
Critics just do not matter.
‘Terminator: Salvation’ comes in short at the box office
The long Memorial Day weekend is not even offer yet, but it looks as though Terminator: Salvation will be coming up short at the box office. Most movie experts thought it would be the number one movie this weekend. It was not. Ben Stiller’s Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, made the most money, $53.5 million from Friday-Sunday compared to $43 million made by Terminator: Salvation.
What I find interesting about this is that both movies were panned by the critics. I think what this shows is that people are more willing to go see a negatively reviewed movie if they are confident they will still gets some laughs. If you’ve seen any of the commercials for Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, you know that it has at the very least a few funny parts. What does Terminator: Salvation have other than Christian Bale blowing stuff up?
Not that a movie needs anything more than that.
There’s also the fact that people will kids can take them to go see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian no matter their age. Even though Terminator: Salvation is rated PG-13 and not R, I don’t think it’s the type of movie most people will want to take their young children to go see. The fact is, people with young children can take their kids with them to go see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. If they want to go see Terminator: Salvation, they would have to find someone to watch their kids while they go watch Christian Bale kill robots.
Seeing Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is just easier.
‘Watchmen’ has a disappointing second week
From Box Office Mojo:
Watchmen disintegrated 67 percent to an estimated $18.1 million for $86 million in ten days, trailing all previous superhero movies that debuted in the $50 million range through the same point. For perspective, 300, which Watchmen was oft compared to, fell 54 percent to $32.9 million in its second weekend (for a $129.2 million total), and, among major comic book movies, only Hellboy II: The Golden Army and Hulk had steeper drop-offs.
I figured (more or less ) that this would happen when I watched it last week. People that wanted to see Watchmen went the first week. Those who liked the movie and wanted to see it again know that it will likely see a DVD release sooner rather than later. When a substantial amount of money is spent promoting a movie for theatrical release and the movie fails to break even at the box office, studios generally tend to release movies on DVD fairly quickly. The longer they wait, the more money they have to spend promoting the movie all over again.
Personally, I cannot wait for Watchmen to be released on Blu-ray. I agree with fellow Hagerstown-area blogger Steve Shives in that I think it’s the finest superhero movie ever made.
I guess this means Watchmen will be the first and last nearly three-hour, R-rated superhero movie and maybe that’s not such a terrible thing. What other superhero story could be turned into an R-rated movie, The Boys? Please.
How exactly is that Sci-Fi?
Sheri and I were out and about today doing some Christmas shopping and we stopped by her mother’s house for a visit. My mother-in-law was watching a movie on the Sci-Fi Channel. I knew this because the Sci-Fi Channel logo was proudly displayed in the bottom right of the TV screen.
If it wasn”t for that logo, I never would have known I was watching the Sci-Fi Channel.
The scene on the screen featured a young woman being accosted by two men who proceeded to wrap her legs in duct tape. They then placed a metal pipe under her feet. Then one of them took a hand axe and cut off her feet. At least that’s what I thought was done to the poor woman. The camera cut to her face and from the look she was giving the camera, she looked to be in severe pain. As though she just has her feet chopped off.
Why exactly was this movie on the Sci-Fi Channel at 3:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday?
Who doesn’t like a Nazi zombie movie?
Dead Snow, a Norwegian movie about Nazi zombies, makes it’s American premiere at next month’s Sundance Film Festival. I didn’t know family movies got much attention at Sundance.
I’ve got to admit that this seems like a winner of a concept. Nazis are creepy. Zombies are creepy. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?
Looks like I’ll have to come up with a different personal motto. The phrase, “The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi” just doesn’t seem to quite cut it anymore.
[io9]
Trailer for ‘Star Trek: 90210′ now online
The official trailer for the new Star Trek movie is now up on the Apple website and it looks like this will not be a movie for me. Not only does Captain Kirk look to be younger than just about everyone in his crew, it looks like they are building the Enterprise not in an orbiting ship yard in space, but somewhere on the ground here on Earth.
Stop supporting bad movies
The superhero movie Hancock staring Will Smith, Jason Bateman, and Charlize Theron made over $107 million this holiday weekend. The movie had been panned by critics.
The movie website Rotten Tomatoes have it a 37% on their “tomatometer”. That’s where they take published movie reviews and separate the positive reviews from the negative reviews. Out of the 167 reviews for Hancock, 106 of them were negative.
So why did so many people go see Hancock?
The movie studios wont stop making sucky movies if so many of the viewing public continue to go to the theater to watch them. Going to the theater to see Hancock is rewarding bad behavior. It tells the movie studios that they can make bad movies and people will go and watch. Even if the critics let them know before hand, they will still go and watch.
Knock it off. Do not go watch bad movies.
Now I know what it feels like to be offended
The new Get Smart movie offends me. It really, truly offends me. It bothers me that anyone would take a true masterpiece of comedy goodness from the 60’s and rehash it into a movie for theater goers in 2008. If there was ever an old TV show that should have been exempt from a do over it’s Get Smart.
I understand that Hollywood is filed to the brim with uncreative hacks that must constantly tap into the creations of yesteryear to make a living. When they remade The Beverly Hillbillies, Dukes of Hazzard, Bewitched, or even McHale’s Navy, I of course didn’t watch these movies, but it didn’t bother me that they had been made.
Get Smart should have been off-limits.
I guess the writers strike is over
The rank and file members of the Writers Guild of America still have to vote, but it appears the 14 week writers strike is almost over. From the Washington Post article:
The most immediate beneficiaries of a settlement could be the thousands of production workers — grips, caterers, camera operators, makeup artists — who were thrown out of work when the writers struck. Although movie production mostly continued during the strike, TV shows on both coasts quickly came to a halt when the strike began Nov. 5.
This has been precisely my contention from the very beginning; This strike was highly damaging to a vast amount of people that work behind the scenes on TV shows. People that never stood to gain a single penny from Internet residuals.
Also from the Washington Post article:
On the key issue of compensation for work streamed over the Internet, both sides gave a little. The studios and their network allies originally asked the guild for time to study the issue and declined to offer any residuals for digital media when talks broke off in early December. The guild, in turn, held fast, arguing that writers had to share in the profits of what may become the preeminent way to view filmed entertainment.
But the writers never wanted to share in the profits. The writers have always insisted that they be paid whether their work generates a profit or not. Their cut has always come from the gross, not the net.
WGA writers get shafted out of residuals from iTunes?
Recently actors from the hit NBC television show Heroes picketed outside Universal Studios. Not the part that is a cheesy amusement park with the fake looking giant shark, but the part that is the actual movie studio. Someone from Comic Book Resources was on hand and was able to write about it.
Greg Grunberg, the actor that plays Parkman on Heroes said something interesting. This from the CBR article:
Grunberg characterized the AMPTP’s position on the issues “ridiculous.” “When a musician puts out a record that becomes a CD and then becomes an online digital download, they still make the same amount of money,” Grunberg said. “Why isn’t the same true for a writer?”
This is something I’ve heard said before. B.J. Novak, actor and writer for The Office said something quite similar in the YouTube video I linked to earlier.
It’s not true. The writers have been getting residuals on iTunes downloads all along. When the consumer pays for a download, the writers get their residual just like they would if the consumer paid for a DVD instead of a download.
I’m not sure if this misinformation is perpetrated on purpose or if it’s simply a case of the people involved not understanding the specifics. Most people that read about the strike or watch YouTube videos about the strike know about iTunes. Most of them have probably purchased media from iTunes. I’m sure it resonates with these people when they hear that writers don’t get paid from iTunes downloads they have paid for.
That doesn’t make it true.
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