Movie News & Miscellany

I don't think comics are ever going to see sales like that again. In addition to what you guys said said about pricing and audience, I'd argue that in particular, X-Men also had a huge amount of pre-teen and kid buyers because of the popularity of the cartoon. X-Men benefited from being on the tail-end of Saturdays morning having a captive audience before cable really sunk in and split the numbers. And in addition to pricing, comics were easier to find. You didn't need to find your local comic shop; I remember stacks of X-Men, as well as other titles, could be gotten at Toys'r'Us, local video stores, drug stores, and bulk stores like Price Club. It's hard to be a casual buyer of any age because most places don't carry comics anymore. You have to know where to hunt, which means kids aren't getting the exposure they used to and can't take a chance at buying a new book. (Also, cost, as we've discussed.)
 
All right, folks, I'm making something a new thing this year: from here on out, the Alien movies are considered Easter holiday movies. You got egg hunts. You got surprises in those eggs. And a miraculous recovery of John Hurt!

Though the Jesus metaphor doesn't quite work since I don't think a chest-burster popped out of Jesus. Still, we got eggs imagery! I'm counting it!
 
http://www.thewrap.com/new-oscars-rules-knock-multi-part-documentaries-like-oj-made-america/

Beginning this year, all members of the Academy will be invited to vote in the nominating round and will not have to attend special screenings. The move should substantially increase the number of voters in the category, and perhaps lessen the bias toward old-school animation.
Apparently the Oscars have changed their rules. One of the rules changes intends to fight against the traditional 2D animation bias in the best animated film category. You know, the one dominated by 2D animation.

2001: Shrek
2002: Spirited Away (THE ONLY 2D ANIMATED MOVIE SINCE THE INCEPTION OF THE CATEGORY)
2003: Finding Nemo
2004: The Incredibles
2005: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
2006: Happy Feet
2007: Ratatouille
2008: WALL-E
2009: Up
2010: Toy Story 3
2011: Rango
2012: Brave
2013: Frozen
2014: Big Hero 6
2015: Inside Out
2016: Zootopia
 
I would argue there IS a 2d bias, but in nomination: 2d animated films will almost always get nominated as a point because they are usually foreign films and the academy likes to pretend it's open minded about non-US films. That said, Your Name didn't get a nomination this year and THAT is a travesty.
 
I would argue there IS a 2d bias, but in nomination: 2d animated films will almost always get nominated as a point because they are usually foreign films and the academy likes to pretend it's open minded about non-US films. That said, Your Name didn't get a nomination this year and THAT is a travesty.
Maybe none of them knew about it? I sure didn't. I'm seeing ads that say "SEE YOUR NAME IN THEATERS" and I thought it was for a film school so you could someday see your name in movie credits or something.
 
A warning to anyone (else) hoping to catch Colossal in theaters. It's in a much more limited release than I had expected. The theater list can be found here.

I am even more intrigued by the movie after MovieBob started his most recent review by saying that this movie was wonderful and likely to be on his top ten list for 2017 and if you haven't seen the movie, you shouldn't listen to the rest of his review until you did. He gave it a full 4 stars out of 4.
 
A warning to anyone (else) hoping to catch Colossal in theaters. It's in a much more limited release than I had expected. The theater list can be found here.

I am even more intrigued by the movie after MovieBob started his most recent review by saying that this movie was wonderful and likely to be on his top ten list for 2017 and if you haven't seen the movie, you shouldn't listen to the rest of his review until you did. He gave it a full 4 stars out of 4.
I'd just assumed it would be a wide release.

Thanks for posting the list. Looks like it'll be at the theater five minutes from my apartment on the 28th, so I'll make sure to check it out that weekend. I'm lucky; really didn't feel like going down to the Alamo Drafthouse and probably would've skipped it in theaters then.
 
I'd just assumed it would be a wide release.

Thanks for posting the list. Looks like it'll be at the theater five minutes from my apartment on the 28th, so I'll make sure to check it out that weekend. I'm lucky; really didn't feel like going down to the Alamo Drafthouse and probably would've skipped it in theaters then.
It's initial opening was really favorable (Deadline), so I wonder if it's possible it can expand more than the current list. It would certainly help me -- right now the nearest showing is 35 miles away.
 
This is a brilliantly hilarious send-off to Hugh Jackman's Logan. Spoilers for Logan, of course. It's a bit long, but trust me, it's worth it. Though I had to turn on the closed captioning to understand the lyrics.

 
Confession: until this week, I had never seen Buckaroo Banzai all the way through.

And now that I have, I want to find Kevin Smith at a con panel and make him swear before the assembled witnesses, God, and the Universe, if he carries out his sequel plans, NO GRIMDARK.
 
Confession: until this week, I had never seen Buckaroo Banzai all the way through.

And now that I have, I want to find Kevin Smith at a con panel and make him swear before the assembled witnesses, God, and the Universe, if he carries out his sequel plans, NO GRIMDARK.
That might not be happening now. Apparently, there's some legal troubles between MGM and the original creators of Buckaroo Banzai, which have placed a halt on Smith's plans for a Buckaroo Banzai series.
 
Good. Kevin Smith's strengths as a filmmaker are basically going for funny but really vulgar jokes, and character monologues.

I honestly don't see how that would fit with the heroic wackiness of Buckaroo Banzai.
 
I don't know if I would consider BB "wacky" so much as "absurd."
It really does feel to me like someone laced a ZAZ picture with Monty Python but then decided to try and make it more serious and grandiose.

--Patrick
 
While this sucks and I hate to see more companies leaning this way (especially when you don't have to be doing anything shady to want to root your device) the good news is that most people who know how to root their phones will know how to get around this.

I mean, if they really want to avoid piracy, they'd disable use of netflix on PCs. That's where the real trouble happens.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
While this sucks and I hate to see more companies leaning this way (especially when you don't have to be doing anything shady to want to root your device) the good news is that most people who know how to root their phones will know how to get around this.

I mean, if they really want to avoid piracy, they'd disable use of netflix on PCs. That's where the real trouble happens.
People who employ DRM rarely understand the reality of how piracy works.
 
Pirates made 77 million, which is only a bit less than their low end projection for the movie. I don't know what they are complaining about; it's still going to make it's money back.

In Middle America it’s, ‘Oh, it’s a low Rotten Tomatoes score so I’m not going to go see it because it must suck.’ But that number is an aggregate and one that nobody can figure out exactly what it means, and it’s not always correct. I’ve seen some great movies with really abysmal Rotten Tomatoes scores.
This is really easy, Brent Ratner: if a movie is Certified Fresh, then it means more critics liked the movie than didn't like it. That's ALL it means. This isn't some great mystery or anything.
 
Top