The Cap'n is, unavoidably, a geek. While I don't always identify as such, it's hard to write on a blog where you adopt the moniker of a demon from The Exorcist and plaster artwork of Dr. Re-Animator and The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman on the page. I try to mix up the content, but let's be honest here: after devoting a weekend to a "virtual" version of a horror film festival I usually host in person, I bounced back with a documentary about what Conan O'Brien did after NBC dropped him for Jay Leno. While I haven't read many comic books in the last year, I still watch movies about them, and am looking forward to Joss Whedon's The Avengers.
However, I don't always understand my geek brethren; there are things about the internet in particular - the nesting place of the "geek" - that seem counter-intuitive to what people claim they want. Today I'll take a look at two things that don't really make sense to me, especially in a time when "geek" culture seems to be getting everything they want from major studios and television networks. I'd normally do four, but the first two were so long that I thought I'd cut it in half.
1. "We want to see it, but we're not going to go see it!" - I call this the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World effect, although you could just as easily replace that with Kick-Ass, Serenity, Your Highness, or a dozen or so other movies designed specifically for a geeky demographic. You can't throw a rock without hitting someone complaining about how Hollywood is constantly recycling, remaking, or re-imagining something from the 1980s. Now, it is true that this happens with increasing regularity, in part because people go see these remakes. I mean, why not? They already know the title, vaguely remember the story, and it beats going to see something else.
The chatter is loud and not necessarily without cause, but then when a project that comes out that ISN'T a remake, re-adaptation, retooling of something we've already seen, or even just not another "reboot" of a series we're invested in, the same geeks crying out suddenly get very quiet about putting their money where their mouths are. I was very, VERY hard on Scott Pilgrim fans in particular because instead of going to see the movie they constantly hyped as "finally, something that isn't like everything else," they instead stayed home and complained about how stupid it was that people went to see The Expendables instead. It's not Sylvester Stallone's fault that you didn't go see you new favorite movie, nor is it Julia Robert's fault with Eat, Pray, Love. I have tried to move away from using Box Office figures as a barometer for anything, but if you read "geek" coverage of Scott Pilgrim vs the World after the first two weeks, you'd think that it was hovering right below the aforementioned films. Nope. Scott Pilgrim vs the World came in behind The Expendables, Eat, Pray, Love, The Other Guys, and Inception. Inception is, by the way, an exception to the rule, although the "it was overrated" chants are getting louder every week.
Mind you, it's not just Scott Pilgrim: Sucker Punch, a film that caters to geek fetishes, was also widely ignored by its target audience. Serenity, a film based on Joss Whedon's short-lived Firefly, apparently had a legion of fans called "Browncoats" who went to the free screenings the summer before the film came out, and then were so enthusiastic that they didn't go see it again. Or tell their friends to see it. Or tell anyone to see it, even though you'll be hard pressed to find a Firefly fan who won't talk about Serenity until they're blue in the face. So if you're this enthusiastic about a film, this excited for an alternative to the "same old thing," something directed to the very vocal internet, why is it you're happy to let the film die a lonely death in theatres, complain about the films people went to see while you stayed home, and then wait for the Blu-Ray? Eventually they'll stop listening to your pleas, stop catering to your whims, and then you're left with the same old thing.
Don't believe me? Look at Universal: they're smarting from the Scott Pilgrim debacle, coupled with big losses for Your Highness and modest returns for Paul. Now that Comcast bought the company, they've already put Guillermo Del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness on indefinite hold, and have delayed further development of Ron Howard's adaptation of The Dark Tower series. These are two highly sought-after geek adaptations, and considering how much muscle they have behind them, the reason they've been put into development hell has a lot to do with the "We want to see it, but we're not going to see it" precedent.
Normally, when Guillermo Del Toro wants to adapt H.P. Lovecraft in a big budget, R rated horror film in 3D with the backing of James Cameron and star Tom Cruise, a studio isn't going to say "no" to that. Del Toro is the only "x" factor there, with his critically popular but financially modest films, including Universal's disappointing Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The argument was that Universal was concerned about the "R" rating, but it's not as though high profile projects with an "R" rating haven't performed well for them. The concern seems to be that the geeks clamoring for this film might not bother showing up (again), so why invest that kind of money when the precedent says there's no good reason to?
The Dark Tower series is even more ambitious: Howard wants to adapt the entire series, split up between films and a running TV series that would bridge the movies. Javier Bardem is virtually a lock for Roland, and yet Universal is hedging about "the budget." Why? Again, because even with someone as reliable as Ron Howard and his long time producer Brian Glazer, there's concern that the people who claim to want to see this (the geeks) might be so fickle that they just won't show up. It's killed potential series before: just look at The Golden Compass, or Push, or Jumper, or I Am Number Four. Relative quality aside, those were designed to be "first chapters" in longer narratives, and they probably will never be. Even the geekiest of all geek properties, Tron Legacy, was met with derision by geeks and Disney is debating how much of a budget cut a third Tron will get, if they make it at all.
It turns out that "if they build it," geeks won't come. Even if they love it. That boggles my mind. The negativity surrounding "bad" films is understandable to a point, but if you're just going to blow off genuine olive branches from people who speak your language, what exactly do you expect to be on the big screen next time?
2. TV Wasteland...? - We live in a time where television is littered with "geek" friendly shows: zombies, alien invasions, dinosaurs, time travel, super heroes, galactic battlestars, and even a "monster of the week show" that's really just about monsters. Oh yeah, and Doctor Who is back. So is Futurama. And yet, week after week, I come away enthusiastic from another episode of a show I enjoyed only to find the internet is littered with nit-pickers complaining about how that great episode was actually "underwhelming" or "lame." I was just looking to see if I missed some small detail, but instead have to wallow through criticism of the "revelation" that ended season six of Doctor Who (okay, the first half). How The Walking Dead is "boring" or "not what we wanted," etc.There was a television show about THE TERMINATOR, and all people did was complain about it.
I'll freely admit that the ending of The X-Files and Lost disappointed me, and I've made it clear why, but one of the reasons I try really hard not to critique individual episodes before the show is over is because I like to give the creators the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they are making it up as they go along, maybe not. Thanks to the internet, I now know that by the time I get to the end of Battlestar Galactica, more likely than not I'll feel cheated. I didn't want to know that, but shy of never visiting any "geek" site and totally avoiding my friends, it's almost impossible not to be inundated with negativity during a period where networks are actually catering to the audience that shouts the loudest. It's no surprise that shows don't last long when the feedback they see is negative. I'm already worried about Torchwood: Miracle Day, the return of a series I thought was really finding its footing, because the buzz around the first few episodes is not good. Ugh.
This is hard for me, because I realize that I am essentially complaining about complaining. I'm throwing my two cents into a bottomless pit of negativity, but I just don't understand what's going on here. This is as good of a time to be a geek as humanly possible, and instead of celebrating it, there's a ceaseless echo chamber of backhanded compliments and outright hostility directed at people like us, who grew up watching the same movies we did, and are now trying to represent that point of view for the rest of the world. Now we're at a point where Patton Oswalt (perhaps with tongue in cheek) is suggesting that geek culture "needs" to die so that we can learn to appreciate our roots. The relative quality of films and shows are no longer important, because they all "suck" to people who can shout the loudest. When asked for an alternative, they ask for something and then blithely ignore the result.
I don't understand you, geeks. I am trying. I thought I was one of you, and I tried to make my own rules clear: there are movies I am interested in and ones I'm not. I'll try to branch out every now and then, and whenever possible not look at gift horse in the mouth. I know that movies like Machete and Black Dynamite and Hobo with a Shotgun were catered to my demographic, and while I maybe didn't love everything about all of them, I try to be clearer than "it just sucks and you suck if you like it." I genuinely wanted to understand what it was about the Saw films that people gravitated towards - it didn't work for me, but obviously they have a strong following. I will ceaselessly sound the horn for films that I think people would really like; films you might not see or know about otherwise. I didn't ask for Scott Pilgrim, so I didn't see it, but I sure as hell was enthusiastic about Tron Legacy and I sure as hell saw it in 3D on an IMAX screen. I backed that geekdom up, and I need to do the same for The Tree of Life soon.
To close, I don't want to criticize the internet critics, the home of geekdom in its many forms. I just want to understand what's going on here: it's an almost unprecedented time to enjoy having geeky interests, so why is the target audience ignoring it in droves, flooding message boards, and unleashing on people for not doing it for them?
Showing posts with label Box Office Madness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Box Office Madness. Show all posts
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Monday, November 8, 2010
News and Notes
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I really do have to stress that this fall / winter has and will be a very good season for Blu-Ray adopters. It's been a nice combination of new titles and studios dipping into their back-catalogs for some really impressive releases. Yes, every now and then you'll hit a hot mess like Fox's Predator double-dip (so digitally mucked with that most of the actors look like wax dolls), or a mixed bag like The Man with No Name Trilogy, but more often than not, we've been seeing some quality product since September. For example:
Forbidden Planet, Seven, The Twilight Zone, King Kong, The Exorcist, The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Alien Anthology, The Sound of Music, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Back to the Future, Three Kings, Psycho, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Metropolis, Apocalypse Now, Hamlet, The Evil Dead, The Mutiny on the Bounty, Spirits of the Dead, Delicatessen, and some bare-bones but worth checking out Troll 2, Return of the Living Dead, and Escape from New York.
Criterion started their Blu Rays strong, and have been getting better and better this year with titles like The Thin Red Line, Seven Samurai, House, The Darjeeling Limited, Breathless, Magician, Paths of Glory, Charade, 8 1/2, Black Orpheus, Crumb, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, Vivre Sa Vie, and the forthcoming Modern Times and The Night of the Hunter. Oh, and every film they've announced for January is simultaneously being released on DVD and Blu-Ray.
I haven't seen all of the BD's listed above, but I have sampled Apocalypse Now, Rocky Horror, Back to the Future, The Evil Dead, House, The Thin Red Line, and the massive Alien Anthology. The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Goonies, The Sound of Music, and a lot of Criterion titles are in the "to watch" pile, and I have to say that so far I've been very pleased with what I've seen. Blu-Ray has (fortunately) been embraced by many studios as more than a way to sell brand new releases (which also look very good, by the way), and the older titles have looked as good or better than some of the newer ones.
While it's important to note that nobody is paying me to say this, as the prices on HDTV's are dropping and Blu-Rays are getting cheaper (seriously, some of the TV series cost less than their DVD equivalents), I really do recommend making the move. While some bristle at the "perfect picture / perfect sound," it really is a huge difference when the disc is treated correctly by the studio.
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Finally, I have a general question to ask you, the readers: I've made it fairly clear that I have no interest in seeing Avatar (which is getting a - shocker - extended edition on DVD and Blu-Ray next week), but should I see it?
I don't mean should I see it on some kind of "is it worth seeing basis" - most of you that have seen it made it clear that Avatar is at least worth seeing in 3-D - but as the #1 Box Office ranked film of all time, do I have some obligation to watch Avatar if I want to seriously consider film criticism, study, or history? To qualify this, I refer you to the All Time Box Office numbers, world-wide, from IMDB (Please take a look and then join up in the next paragraph).
It's not a matter of the old "Box Office" validation that the Cap'n has joked about in the past, but more the fact that I've seen most of the movies in any of the "all time" box office lists. In fact, of the top 25, there are only 5 I haven't seen - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Shrek 2, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and the number two and number one entries: Titanic and Avatar*.
Again, I must stress that I don't want to watch Avatar (or Titanic), and I probably won't; I've never been interested in either film, which several attribute to a personal dislike of James Cameron's body of work. On the other hand, as someone who has worked their way through many of the AFI lists, the Criterion Collection, seen most of the highest regarded films of all time - and has most certainly seen the other "juggernauts" of American cinema (not limited to The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Ben-Hur, and Casablanca) and tried to hit the "must see"'s of World Cinema, leaving out two of the most watched films of all time seems... strange.
So what do you think? In a theoretical sense, do I "owe" it to myself to see two films that clearly had a massive cultural impact, both in the U.S. and world-wide, particularly when I've seen most of the others, or is it much ado about nothing? Don't let your personal opinion of either film influence the answer too much (if possible), because I'm not looking for a "merit" based argument on the films themselves. This is purely an academic argument about the field I would like to enter.
* If you push it to the top 50, the number jumps to 13, and top 100 to 26.
Forbidden Planet, Seven, The Twilight Zone, King Kong, The Exorcist, The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Alien Anthology, The Sound of Music, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Back to the Future, Three Kings, Psycho, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Metropolis, Apocalypse Now, Hamlet, The Evil Dead, The Mutiny on the Bounty, Spirits of the Dead, Delicatessen, and some bare-bones but worth checking out Troll 2, Return of the Living Dead, and Escape from New York.
Criterion started their Blu Rays strong, and have been getting better and better this year with titles like The Thin Red Line, Seven Samurai, House, The Darjeeling Limited, Breathless, Magician, Paths of Glory, Charade, 8 1/2, Black Orpheus, Crumb, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, Vivre Sa Vie, and the forthcoming Modern Times and The Night of the Hunter. Oh, and every film they've announced for January is simultaneously being released on DVD and Blu-Ray.
I haven't seen all of the BD's listed above, but I have sampled Apocalypse Now, Rocky Horror, Back to the Future, The Evil Dead, House, The Thin Red Line, and the massive Alien Anthology. The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Goonies, The Sound of Music, and a lot of Criterion titles are in the "to watch" pile, and I have to say that so far I've been very pleased with what I've seen. Blu-Ray has (fortunately) been embraced by many studios as more than a way to sell brand new releases (which also look very good, by the way), and the older titles have looked as good or better than some of the newer ones.
While it's important to note that nobody is paying me to say this, as the prices on HDTV's are dropping and Blu-Rays are getting cheaper (seriously, some of the TV series cost less than their DVD equivalents), I really do recommend making the move. While some bristle at the "perfect picture / perfect sound," it really is a huge difference when the disc is treated correctly by the studio.
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Finally, I have a general question to ask you, the readers: I've made it fairly clear that I have no interest in seeing Avatar (which is getting a - shocker - extended edition on DVD and Blu-Ray next week), but should I see it?
I don't mean should I see it on some kind of "is it worth seeing basis" - most of you that have seen it made it clear that Avatar is at least worth seeing in 3-D - but as the #1 Box Office ranked film of all time, do I have some obligation to watch Avatar if I want to seriously consider film criticism, study, or history? To qualify this, I refer you to the All Time Box Office numbers, world-wide, from IMDB (Please take a look and then join up in the next paragraph).
It's not a matter of the old "Box Office" validation that the Cap'n has joked about in the past, but more the fact that I've seen most of the movies in any of the "all time" box office lists. In fact, of the top 25, there are only 5 I haven't seen - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Shrek 2, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and the number two and number one entries: Titanic and Avatar*.
Again, I must stress that I don't want to watch Avatar (or Titanic), and I probably won't; I've never been interested in either film, which several attribute to a personal dislike of James Cameron's body of work. On the other hand, as someone who has worked their way through many of the AFI lists, the Criterion Collection, seen most of the highest regarded films of all time - and has most certainly seen the other "juggernauts" of American cinema (not limited to The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Ben-Hur, and Casablanca) and tried to hit the "must see"'s of World Cinema, leaving out two of the most watched films of all time seems... strange.
So what do you think? In a theoretical sense, do I "owe" it to myself to see two films that clearly had a massive cultural impact, both in the U.S. and world-wide, particularly when I've seen most of the others, or is it much ado about nothing? Don't let your personal opinion of either film influence the answer too much (if possible), because I'm not looking for a "merit" based argument on the films themselves. This is purely an academic argument about the field I would like to enter.
* If you push it to the top 50, the number jumps to 13, and top 100 to 26.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Scott Pilgrim Snark
The Cap'n is going to keep this very brief because a) I haven't seen Scott Pilgrim vs. The World*, and b) I've already spent the better part of Thursday reading blogs, Facebook posts, internet analysts, and reviewers get into why it doesn't matter that Scott Pilgrim made 10.5 million dollars in its opening weekend, because The Expendables will be forgotten and isn't any good blah blah blah.
Everybody who reads this already knows how I feel about The Expendables (in short: it's a good but not great movie that was entertaining and mostly achieved what it set out to do), and you've already seen how I reacted to the dismissive or quasi-disappointed reviews. You also know that I frequently make jokes about the way that Box Office performance equates to the quality of a film, and on occasion have stuck up for movies that I didn't feel like got a fair shake**. So I get where people are coming from.
That being said, there is a very simple reason that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World came in fifth last weekend (not third, which is how some people are framing it, as though The Expendables and Eat, Pray, Love were the only movies Pilgrim came in behind. The Other Guys and Inception were third and fourth, respectively): the vocal contingent online didn't go see the movie. It's that simple. That could always change in the coming weeks (I mean, Avatar didn't light the world up in its first weekend), but people didn't turn out to see the greatest movie this year (etc). Period.
And to be clear about something, this is not a movie where exposure was strictly online; until last Friday, TV viewers were bombarded with ads for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. At least three times during practically every show I watched last week (and that includes Futurama, Louie, Sportscenter, That Metal Show, and Man vs. Food, so it's not strictly "geek"-centric) there was an ad for Scott Pilgrim. There was an 8-foot standee at the Regal 14 in Santa Fe, and posters everywhere. It's not like folks didn't know this movie was coming out August 13th. They simply chose not to see it.
Frankly, the Cap'n was surprised: I fully expected that when we went to see The Expendables on Friday night that we'd be in the less crowded theatre. It sure seemed like every other person we saw in line was going to see Scott Pilgrim, but I guess that wasn't the case.
I'm fine with people speaking out on Scott Pilgrim's behalf. What I don't really like is people shitting all over the competition (not necessarily the article in question, but the comments to be sure) because the movie "underperformed" - and believe me, the studio is looking at it that way, even if the fans aren't. I've lamented many a film in the past that "underperformed" - Grindhouse, MacGruber, Crank: High Voltage, and Serenity, but I try not to blame it the other movies (the glaring example is in the footnotes). I have, in the past, ribbed fans of Watchmen and Kick-Ass or lamented the (to me) inexplicable popularity of Transformers and Friday the 13th, but there's a simple rule that wins the day: if people don't go to see a movie, however good or "groundbreaking" it is, and it was marketed out the wazoo, people are going to ask "Why?"
Instead of being unhappy that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World didn't "perform" as well as four other movies last weekend and accordingly bad-mouthing the other films (especially The Expendables, which is its own punching bag for other reasons), do something about it. Go see the movie this weekend. Tell all of your friends and take them to see it. Look, the Cap'n HATED Kick-Ass, and I may have relished a bit too much that nobody went to see it, but I openly admit that it has a devoted fan base of people who are buying it on DVD and Blu Ray, and I myself saw the light about Drag Me to Hell and couldn't be happier that it found its audience on home video.
In short, it's time for some tough love: stop your whining and do something about it. If you think Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the best thing since sliced bread, mobilize your readers and excite your friends about the movie. Fans of Avatar did it, so surely you can too. Just don't ask the Cap'n to join, because I think I'll be watching Piranha 3-D this weekend, and I'm really not in the mood to hear about how that movie is "inferior" to Scott Pilgrim if you don't get off of your asses and put your enthusiasm to good use.
p.s. Just so the Cap'n is not accused of simply "making this up," I refer you to a handful of post-mortems or reviews, including a discussion thread from referring to MTV's article, a much more reasonably disappointed reaction from someone who watched both films, the DVD release list page from Ain't It Cool News where Harry bemoans the success of Miley Cyrus' The Last Song compared to Scott Pilgrim, C.H.U.D.'s review and box-office take on Scott Pilgrim, and Vern's review of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which directly addresses Hitfix, Ain't It Cool News, and C.H.U.D. I also recommend you check out comments, forums, and talkback areas, including the Hitfix one listed above to see what the general fan reaction is.
* I like Edgar Wright. I like everything I've seen Edgar Wright make, including Shaun of the Dead, Spaced, Hot Fuzz, "Don't", and the student film he made that's an extra on Hot Fuzz. Nothing about Scott Pilgrim makes me want to see the movie, despite the above sentence.
** For example, I gave the Zac Efron vehicle 17 Again some guff for beating out Crank: High Voltage, even though there's honestly no reason to be surprised that happened.
Everybody who reads this already knows how I feel about The Expendables (in short: it's a good but not great movie that was entertaining and mostly achieved what it set out to do), and you've already seen how I reacted to the dismissive or quasi-disappointed reviews. You also know that I frequently make jokes about the way that Box Office performance equates to the quality of a film, and on occasion have stuck up for movies that I didn't feel like got a fair shake**. So I get where people are coming from.
That being said, there is a very simple reason that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World came in fifth last weekend (not third, which is how some people are framing it, as though The Expendables and Eat, Pray, Love were the only movies Pilgrim came in behind. The Other Guys and Inception were third and fourth, respectively): the vocal contingent online didn't go see the movie. It's that simple. That could always change in the coming weeks (I mean, Avatar didn't light the world up in its first weekend), but people didn't turn out to see the greatest movie this year (etc). Period.
And to be clear about something, this is not a movie where exposure was strictly online; until last Friday, TV viewers were bombarded with ads for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. At least three times during practically every show I watched last week (and that includes Futurama, Louie, Sportscenter, That Metal Show, and Man vs. Food, so it's not strictly "geek"-centric) there was an ad for Scott Pilgrim. There was an 8-foot standee at the Regal 14 in Santa Fe, and posters everywhere. It's not like folks didn't know this movie was coming out August 13th. They simply chose not to see it.
Frankly, the Cap'n was surprised: I fully expected that when we went to see The Expendables on Friday night that we'd be in the less crowded theatre. It sure seemed like every other person we saw in line was going to see Scott Pilgrim, but I guess that wasn't the case.
I'm fine with people speaking out on Scott Pilgrim's behalf. What I don't really like is people shitting all over the competition (not necessarily the article in question, but the comments to be sure) because the movie "underperformed" - and believe me, the studio is looking at it that way, even if the fans aren't. I've lamented many a film in the past that "underperformed" - Grindhouse, MacGruber, Crank: High Voltage, and Serenity, but I try not to blame it the other movies (the glaring example is in the footnotes). I have, in the past, ribbed fans of Watchmen and Kick-Ass or lamented the (to me) inexplicable popularity of Transformers and Friday the 13th, but there's a simple rule that wins the day: if people don't go to see a movie, however good or "groundbreaking" it is, and it was marketed out the wazoo, people are going to ask "Why?"
Instead of being unhappy that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World didn't "perform" as well as four other movies last weekend and accordingly bad-mouthing the other films (especially The Expendables, which is its own punching bag for other reasons), do something about it. Go see the movie this weekend. Tell all of your friends and take them to see it. Look, the Cap'n HATED Kick-Ass, and I may have relished a bit too much that nobody went to see it, but I openly admit that it has a devoted fan base of people who are buying it on DVD and Blu Ray, and I myself saw the light about Drag Me to Hell and couldn't be happier that it found its audience on home video.
In short, it's time for some tough love: stop your whining and do something about it. If you think Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the best thing since sliced bread, mobilize your readers and excite your friends about the movie. Fans of Avatar did it, so surely you can too. Just don't ask the Cap'n to join, because I think I'll be watching Piranha 3-D this weekend, and I'm really not in the mood to hear about how that movie is "inferior" to Scott Pilgrim if you don't get off of your asses and put your enthusiasm to good use.
p.s. Just so the Cap'n is not accused of simply "making this up," I refer you to a handful of post-mortems or reviews, including a discussion thread from referring to MTV's article, a much more reasonably disappointed reaction from someone who watched both films, the DVD release list page from Ain't It Cool News where Harry bemoans the success of Miley Cyrus' The Last Song compared to Scott Pilgrim, C.H.U.D.'s review and box-office take on Scott Pilgrim, and Vern's review of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which directly addresses Hitfix, Ain't It Cool News, and C.H.U.D. I also recommend you check out comments, forums, and talkback areas, including the Hitfix one listed above to see what the general fan reaction is.
* I like Edgar Wright. I like everything I've seen Edgar Wright make, including Shaun of the Dead, Spaced, Hot Fuzz, "Don't", and the student film he made that's an extra on Hot Fuzz. Nothing about Scott Pilgrim makes me want to see the movie, despite the above sentence.
** For example, I gave the Zac Efron vehicle 17 Again some guff for beating out Crank: High Voltage, even though there's honestly no reason to be surprised that happened.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
I Sure Hope We Watch Blood Simple Tomorrow...
Ack! Double plus ungood correction time from the Cap'n: Okay, so previously reported on the Blogorium - The Simpsons Season 20 featured the switch to HD and was in widescreen. Subsequently followed up by a correction (based on watching disc 1) that the episodes were NOT in fact widescreen, with an assertion I must have mistaken season Twenty for Twenty One.
Final Correction, based on all the available evidence: About ten episodes into season Twenty, The Simpsons switches from good ol' 1.33:1 to 1.78:1, complete with the new HD opening (one of several variations). The episode, in case historians lose track of every other record in the Universe save for the Blogorium, is "Take My Life, Please", in which Homer discovers that he actually DID win his Senior Class election. I am not going back to double check disc one, because every site but IMDB officially recognizes this to be the shift in screen size. If I'm wrong again, then you can blame it on bad internet writing. There will be no third correction!!!!
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I have a theme. Three films, each related in one way or the other to the phrase "one bourbon, one scotch, one beer". Saturday the 30th sounds like a good day to me; how about you?
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The following observation is not intended to critique the quality of Avatar as a film or my own disinterest in seeing James Cameron's new blockbuster. What I'm curious about is whether the continued success of the film (it was once again number one, and the drop off in ticket sales is really negligible from week to week) is the result of new audience members going in to see it for the first time based on word of mouth, or just the collective work of nerds angry that Titanic, Cameron's "chick flick" is the number one movie of all time in making megabucks. Just something I was thinking about...
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Finally:
MacGruber!!!!!!
Final Correction, based on all the available evidence: About ten episodes into season Twenty, The Simpsons switches from good ol' 1.33:1 to 1.78:1, complete with the new HD opening (one of several variations). The episode, in case historians lose track of every other record in the Universe save for the Blogorium, is "Take My Life, Please", in which Homer discovers that he actually DID win his Senior Class election. I am not going back to double check disc one, because every site but IMDB officially recognizes this to be the shift in screen size. If I'm wrong again, then you can blame it on bad internet writing. There will be no third correction!!!!
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I have a theme. Three films, each related in one way or the other to the phrase "one bourbon, one scotch, one beer". Saturday the 30th sounds like a good day to me; how about you?
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The following observation is not intended to critique the quality of Avatar as a film or my own disinterest in seeing James Cameron's new blockbuster. What I'm curious about is whether the continued success of the film (it was once again number one, and the drop off in ticket sales is really negligible from week to week) is the result of new audience members going in to see it for the first time based on word of mouth, or just the collective work of nerds angry that Titanic, Cameron's "chick flick" is the number one movie of all time in making megabucks. Just something I was thinking about...
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Finally:
MacGruber!!!!!!
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