Weekend Predictions: 02-20-09

by Furious
February 20th, 2009

With the Academy Awards this Sunday, Hollywood is pulling out all the stops to use this weekend to showcase the best in movies. So it follows that they’ve given us not one, but TWO great new comedies to choose from. You have your choice of the ever popular dude-looks-like-a-lady comedy or the equally popular horny-ass teenager comedy. Life… is… good. At least that’s what my psychiatrist tells me to say when I become disillusioned by the state of cinema and start ogling the razor blades.

If you’re into cross-dressing, or even if you’re just into looking at cross-dressers, you lucked out this weekend. Tyler Perry is back, again, with more of his cross-dressing antics in Madea Goes to Jail. The only question is if he decides to eschew his normal formula and do something more along the lines of

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Popularity: 16% [?]

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Does “Best Picture” Really Mean Anything?

by Furious
January 26th, 2009

Now that the Academy Award nominations have been announced, there are five more movies that will go down in history as those identified by the most widely respected movie adjudication entity as the best made last year. The nominees for Best Picture are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire. None of them will appear on the list of the most successful movies of the year- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button currently sits at number 20 for movies released in 2008, but well short of the top 5 as of the announcement of the nominations. It follows that none of them will be near the top in attendance either, so there’s no argument that these could be the most popular movies of the year.

If we were going off of box office receipts, our five

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Popularity: 16% [?]

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Weekend Predictions: 01-23-09

by Furious
January 23rd, 2009

Not a great weekend for new movies, this. Only two new movies will appear in more than 81 theaters, and then less than 3,000. But if you like those movies that were nominated for Academy Awards, several are expanding to wider releases. Now’s the time for them to capitalize on all that award buzz.

Check out all my detailed calculations here.

The biggest new release is the much anticipated Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, in 2,942 theaters. The first Underworld was a pretty decent movie, but the second one started getting a little too concerned with the mythology, but heck, it did outgross the first one. Even though the third installment goes to new, nerdlier, non-Kate Beckinsale depths in the Underworld mythology, I think it’s going to continue the upward trend in box office returns. And the fact that this

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Popularity: 38% [?]

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Oscars Might Be Worth Watching

by Furious
December 12th, 2008

I used to watch the Academy Awards religiously. But I stopped watching them as of 2005. The predictability of the winners, celebrity idolization, and grating Tonight Show format created a perfect storm of disgust, so I just read about the winners the next day.

The rumor is that this year the producers are going to chose a non-comedian to host and dump the intro monologue/song-and-dance. This is great news! The format is tired and the jokes always either childish or ego-stroking. Other than to stretch the show out to sell more advertising, I never really saw the point of the big comedy segments. It almost got the feel of a variety show at times.

They needed to do something to liven things up- last year’s Oscars was the lowest rated since ratings for the show were tracked. Some point

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Popularity: 19% [?]

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Public Domain Movie Of The Week: My Man Godfrey

by Furious
December 9th, 2008

During the Great Depression, one of the most popular characters was the bum with a heart of gold. Nearly everyone could identify with a down on his luck, destitute guy that still held his head up high. The other sentiment that nearly everyone loved was that the rich were a bunch of self-concerned idiots. My Man Godfrey epitomizes both those ideals and connected with both audiences and critics. The story of a bum (formerly a member of a wealthy family) hired as the butler for a family of rich eccentrics and inadvertently gets the romantic attention of one of the daughters was able to capture the public’s imagination by using an anti-wealthy/pro-poor storyline.

My Man Godfrey was able to earn Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, but somehow failed to get a Best Picture nomination.

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Popularity: 16% [?]

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This Date In Movie History

by Furious
September 19th, 2008

September 19th isn’t a day too many people use to reflection on what was going on with movies in years past. It’s kind of in that dead area after Summer and before the ego-stroking award season.

Popularity: 13% [?]

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A New Hat For Bruce Willis

by Furious
September 17th, 2008

Bruce Willis will be finally be making his way behind the camera for Three Stories About Joan. A little blurb in the Shreveport Times spilled the beans, also stating the movie will star Willis, Owen Wilson and Kieran Culkin.

Popularity: 8% [?]

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