Dune, the Anti-Blockbuster & the Chosen One Myth

“Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it’s a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.” – Princess Irulan, “Muad’Dib: Family Commentaries”

“It’s one thing to think that you’re the center of the universe — it’s another thing entirely to have this confirmed by an ancient prophecy.” – Douglas Adams

“Well that’s just your opinion, man.” – Jeff Lebowski

What makes Dune an anti-blockbuster? Continue Reading …

WarnerMedia, HBO Max & The Future of Movie Theaters

“The future is there… looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become.” ― William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (2003)

“’All we are is dust in the wind,’ dude.” – Ted Theodore Logan

Make no mistake, when corporations do battle, we ultimately lose. Is that a little intense? Let’s back up a bit. Multinational telecom media giant AT&T Inc., which owns WarnerMedia, made a big decision to simultaneously release their 2021 movie slate both in theaters and on HBO Max, their supposedly “fledgling” subscription service, much to the chagrin of said theaters. Why does this make theaters mad?

Continue Reading at https://www.patreon.com/posts/warnermedia-hbo-44664710

Op-ed: The Five Best Years in Cinema

Well so far 2016 hasn’t much to write home about, if one was in the habit of writing what would presumably be emails or maybe hand written letters, does anyone do that anymore, and while the year is not over, it does not look like 2016 will really be one to remember.

While excellent movies do come out every year, there are some years here and there that feel kind of weak when you look back on them and see that there wasn’t many inspiring films released in that particular span of 12 months (read: 2016). But then there are some years when it feels like the cinematic stars have all aligned in the heavens in such a way that there is an embarrassment of riches in the theaters, more films of superior quality than you can shake a stick at.Continue Reading …

Op-Ed: Will ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ break box office records?

star_wars_episode_vii__the_force_awakens_ver3In case you have not heard, there is a movie called “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” coming out on December 18, 2015, and with a full two months to go before release, all sorts of people have worked themselves up into a lather in anticipation of this sure-to-be huge movie event. As a matter of fact, this particular film will be so huge that people are having fun speculating upon the size of the movie’s financial potential. So the question is, will “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” break box office records?

Yes.

And no.

To keep things in perspective, the monster opening weekend is a relatively recent phenomenon. Thirteen years ago, in the summer of 2002, “Spider-Man” shocked the world by being the first movie to ever have a three-day opening weekend of $100 million or more ($114m, to be precise). Since then, the $100 million opening weekend has become the new barometer for a successful launch, with 31 other movies opening to that amount at a minimum, with 21 of those movies making more than $114m in just three days. It has gotten to the point where “Godzilla” can open at $93 million and somehow still be considered a disappointment. So what of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens?” How much does it have to open to in order to be considered a success?Continue Reading …

Summer Movie Guide 2015

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With “Furious 7” set to come out and smash records this weekend, we the movie going public have witnessed over the years how the “Summer movie season” has steadily crept closer and closer to the beginning of the year, starting earlier each time out.

This will be no more apparent than when “Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice” (what a horrible title) opens in March of next year. But for now, we are sticking with the traditional definition of the Summer movies, which means the first big movie of the season will open, like they do every year, in the first weekend of May.

And that is where we will begin our preview.Continue Reading …

2014 Fall Movie Preview – 9 Movies to Watch

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The summer movie season for 2014 is officially over, ending with a commercial and critical bang with the unexpected powerhouse that is “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and now we are in that transition period from big expensive tentpole movies to the more serious minded, adult targeted, possibly award winning films typical of the end of the year. So what can we look forward to in 2014? Here is a list of nine movies that could potentially make a big impact this fall movie season. And let’s just start at the beginning, shall we?Continue Reading …

Op-ed: The Avengers Effect, the Franchise Film Arms Race and X-Men

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Looking back, it is kind of funny to remember doubting Marvel Studios and their ability to put together what they refer to as their “cinematic universe” akin to that of their comic book universe, in which characters appear in each other’s story lines all the time and epic mash ups of comic book characters and teams are done on the reg.

But comics books are cheaper to make than blockbuster movies, so their idea of making a string of movies that all fed into each other and would culminate with “The Avengers” seemed like a classic “more than they can chew” type of situation. Just because “Iron Man” was a surprise success doesn’t mean people would actually go see Thor movies. Really, some people were likely laughing to themselves, thinking there was no way this was going to work, creatively or financially.

Jump cut to May 7th, 2012, inside the offices of Marvel and Disney (who had since come on as a financial backer), look behind those closed doors, and you know what you would have seen? Employees all doing back flips and partying and getting down, as “Marvel’s The Avengers” (official title) had a record setting opening weekend of $207 million. That’s just three days of box office. In just one country. To say that Marvel’s plan worked is an understatement. The fans ate it up and came back for seconds. And thirds. And so on. And the critics didn’t hate it. Most of them didn’t anyway.Continue Reading …

Top five Super Bowl movie commercials

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So there was this little football game on the television last night, you may have seen it. If you did see it, chances are you saw some of the commercials for some of 2014’s biggest movies. This is not a complete list of the trailers that played but instead the five movie trailers that stood out the most, for various reasons (and presented in really no particular order).Continue Reading …

Op-ed: Why we should reserve judgement on Robocop 2014

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None of your favorite movies or genuine film classics are sacred, not enough for people to not try remaking them in some way, shape or form. We’re just going to move on to what really matters in this particular instance, savvy?

So the teaser trailer for the remake-reboot-whatever of the 1987 movie “Robocop” hit the interwebz recently with a resounding plop, as nerd-os and geeks ahoy decided to watch the trailer one time and promptly shit all over it (*ahem*).

Continue Reading …

‘Realism’ in movies – where is the suspension of disbelief?

Inception

It is incredible how often people decry implausibilities in movies, allowing themselves to be drawn out of a movie’s spell by questioning every little thing about a story and how it is presented, declaring a movie to be shit because they “didn’t buy it.” But why does this happen? When did “realism” become so important to movie going audiences? Did we decide that we were all going to stop believing? Who told us that Santa wasn’t real anymore? Why did our balloon pop and how did it happen? What the fuck happened to our childhood?Continue Reading …