Avatar Might Break Titanic's Record
KalElFan
doing $75 million this weekend, hardly down at all from its
opening three days last weekend.
It'll be on track to $300M++ next weekend, possibly even
$350M+ by then or very soon thereafter. That'll put it the
second fastest to that level, behind only The Dark Knight
but gaining on it. It'll be way ahead of Titanic's pace at that
point, so it won't need to do quite as well as Titanic down
the first-half-of-the-year stretch to beat it.
Higher ticket prices, especially for the many 3-D showings,
will be cited as a factor, the same as people cite disparities
with old classics like Gone With The Wind, which sold more
tickets when you factor in inflation and blah blah blah. It
was a very different era though, pre-television and without
so many other competing entertainment options. So it'll be
quite an achievement if Cameron manages to break his own
box office record.
Captain Infinity
KalElFan wrote:
>I never would have thought it was possible, but ERC has it
>doing $75 million this weekend, hardly down at all from its
>opening three days last weekend.
>
>http://www.ercboxoffice.com/
>
>It'll be on track to $300M++ next weekend, possibly even
>$350M+ by then or very soon thereafter.
The really great thing about it is that a percentage of all those
profits are going to help indiginous peoples across the world who got
screwed over by The White Man. Finally some payback for all the horrors
they had to live through.
Wait, what's that you say? It's just lining *whose* pockets?
Well, damn. I guess capitalism *is* the promised land, after all!
**
Captain Infinity
Rich
@mid.individual.net:
Yes. Two pretty bad movies doing the biggest box-office numbers of all
time. What does that say about the audience?
Lord Vader III
> "KalElFan" <kalel...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote in news:7pn0ntF7hnU1
As much as I dislike Titanic, I really don't think anything is going
to break its record. Titanic was in theaters for 41 weeks and didn't
gross under $20 million until its 11th week of release. Nothing even
comes close to that anymore.
LVIII
KalElFan
news:t5kcj5ddkd3lbro11...@4ax.com...
I haven't seen Avatar yet (hope to see it this week), but the political
criticism is at best projection and at worst outright bogus. The idea
of a militarily superior society conquering or exploiting or just taking
from an inferior one (in terms of power) has many examples in human
history and The White Man isn't anywhere near always the aggressor.
Cameron could have had another alien race's military (or bad guys
within it) as the aggressors, but another alien race is not his audience
and isn't buying tickets. Or he could have postulated a worldwide
Muslim-dominated Earth circa 2150 and have them be the bad guys
to make a few wingnuts happy. But his main moviegoing audience
is the West and the U.S. military has been dominant for as long as
any of them have been around. Extend that to NATO and the West
generally, and he makes the aggressors Us, or a faction of Us, and
from what I've read the story premise even makes it somewhat gray
beyond that.
I'm looking forward to seeing it, and the numbers suggest massively
strong word of mouth and/or repeat business.
KalElFan
news:CvOdnVx1-phm_KvW...@giganews.com...
That they're a lot more discerning than you, for starters.
It's perhaps cosmically significant that both Titanic and Avatar
currently have identical 83% Fresh scores on Rotten Tomatoes.
The overwhelming consensus is that these are both very good
movies, but of course there are naysayers and there's some
backlash when movies are this successful. Both are also the
type of movie that plays much better in the theater, Titanic on
a first viewing and I suspect it'll be the same with Avatar.
KalElFan
news:8369ff34-c198-4f21...@j42g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
The numbers this weekend are why it's become possible. Some
people are still yapping about $300 million or $350 million and
they don't realize it'll be whizzing by that in the next week or two.
So it'll only need another $250 million or so to get to Titanic, and
there's nothing in the way. There are only two moderate-size
blockbusters in the next 18 weeks or so, Alice in Wonderland at
the beginning of March and Clash of the Titans at the end of
March. After that it's a couple of big movies in May.
Because it's had such a huge start over Titanic, it doesn't even
need to average $15 million *A WEEK* during the next four
months or so and it's there. It never needs to do $20 million
a weekend or even stay at #1 as Titanic did for so long, though
it probably will for a few weeks into January.
So it's quite plausible at this point that it could break Titanic's
record, at least domestically. The overseas numbers would
have to crack $1.2 billion and that may be too tall an order.
trotsky
Which are the really good movies, Rich?
Brian Thorn
<kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
>I never would have thought it was possible, but ERC has it
>doing $75 million this weekend, hardly down at all from its
>opening three days last weekend.
Last weekend was suppressed by the Northeast blizzard, so week 2 is
higher than would otherwise have been anticipated. Week 3's tally will
tell the tale.
Myself, I'll wait for it on Blu-Ray. My interest in this glorified
XBox game of a movie is modest at best.
Brian
RichA
> Rich wrote:
> > "KalElFan" <kalel...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote in news:7pn0ntF7hnU1
From Cameron? "True Lies" and "The Abyss."
Juan F. Lara
KalElFan <kale...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I never would have thought it was possible, but ERC has it
>doing $75 million this weekend, hardly down at all from its
>opening three days last weekend.
"The Squeakquel" and "Sherlock Holmes" are kicking its blue butt. No
way it reaches $600M.
- Juan F. Lara
cloud dreamer
Ummm...no. The Chipmunk movie only beat Avatar on its opening day on
Wed, and then only by a million and a half bucks. On Thursday, Avatar
beat the Chipmunks by 3 million and yesterday, it beat it by 9 million.
SH beat Avatar on its opening day yesterday, but only by a little more
than a million bucks. Todays numbers are not out.
So where are you getting your information????
It may not reach $600 (thanks to snowstorms) but its blue butt is not
being close to being kicked. The blue boys are kicking butt by keeping
neck and neck with new and highly anticipated holiday openings.
..
William George Ferguson
wrote:
>I never would have thought it was possible, but ERC has it
>doing $75 million this weekend, hardly down at all from its
>opening three days last weekend.
>
>http://www.ercboxoffice.com/
Avatar gets a tremendous boost because its second weekend is not only a
(traditionally strong movie-going) holiday weekend, but a a long holiday
weekend. Still, it is not only unlikely to catch Titanic domestically, it
is unlikely to catch Transformers 2 domestically, in fact it probably won't
catch the Half Blood Prince domestically (and certainly won't worldwide).
Through 8 days, it has done 160.8 million domestically, whicbh only rates
it 16th all-time, and 4th for 2009 for first 8 days. If it does what that
website forecasts, it will be 9th alltime for 10 days, and 3rd this year,
about 10 million ahead of Half Blood Prince which had no holidays and only
one weekend in its first 10 days.
A good comparison is Twilight: New Moon, which also benefited from a long
holiday weekend for its second weekend. Through the first 10 days it was
running well ahead of Half Blood Prince although still behind the
Transformers movie (and note that even with this forecast, Avatar is still
running behind both New Moon and Transformers 2). By its 3rd week it had
fallen behind HPB's pace, and now it appears it will not only not catch
HBP, it won't even catch Up (at 293 million). I think Avatar will do
approximately what that site forecasts this weekend, drop off that pace
somewhat in the week between Christmas and New Year's, and then crater in
the first week of 2010 (that's a very typical pattern for this time of
year).
Titanic's box office pattern was very anamolous. The only movie since then
that I can think of following that pattern (although at a lower level) was
My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Basically, it opened 'okay', slowly grew to
'good', then kept doing 'good' for an entire year.
At the moment, it's still too early to tell where Avatar will fall. Barring
a big slide earlier than that, the tell-tale will be how it does on January
4th.
--
I have a theory, it could be bunnies
trotsky
No, the really good top grossing movies. And then, when you've hurdled
that obstacle, explain to us why McDonald's isn't considered gourmet food.
Idiot.
Lord Vader III
> "Lord Vader III" <lord.vader....@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:8369ff34-c198-4f21...@j42g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
$15 million a week over the next 4 months? You've got to be on drugs
if you think it could come anywhere near that pace. I also don't see
how its going to "whiz by" $300-$350 million in the next week or two.
Through yesterday it was at $160 million. You think its going to do
$200 million in the next 2 weeks?
LVIII
RichA
Like I said, top grossing movies for the most part are put there by
audiences comprised mostly of buffoons and imbeciles. It's worse
today than ever because the average movie-goer is simply killing
time. I can't remember a time when I've seen so many loser cellphone
addicts who are so distracted they can't even watch a whole movie.
They text all during the movie, and they'll actually leave before it
ends.
Dan Dassow
wrote:
> Titanic's box office pattern was very anamolous. The only movie since then
> that I can think of following that pattern (although at a lower level) was
> My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Basically, it opened 'okay', slowly grew to
> 'good', then kept doing 'good' for an entire year.
>
> At the moment, it's still too early to tell where Avatar will fall. Barring
> a big slide earlier than that, the tell-tale will be how it does on January
> 4th.
According to
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/grossbydays.htm?days=8&p=.htm
Avatar ranks 16th for box office gross after eight days.
A crude estimate for Avatar's eventual total US gross is to look at
the percent of total gross for films that have completed their
theatrical run.
Min $160,768,053 / 64.7% = $248,482,307.57
Avg $160,768,053 / 49.2% = $326,981,839.92
Max $160,768,053 / 30.7% = $523,674,439.74
The box office profile for Titanic is indeed very anamolous and
unlikely to ever occur again.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=titanic.htm
Dan Dassow
moviePig
wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:50:08 -0500, "KalElFan" <kalel...@yanospamhoo.com>
In one direction or another, a comprehensive analysis ought to take
notice of AVATAR's "3d bottleneck". Most 3d venues, limited in
number, may remain essentially packed for weekends yet to come ...and
the Imax ones for a good while beyond that. Despite 3d's higher
ticket-prices, that backlog of viewers (i.e., who won't spend on 2d)
seems likely to delay normal box-office accumulations ...maybe
resulting in an historically unique profile.
--
- - - - - - - -
YOUR taste at work...
http://www.moviepig.com
KalElFan
> $15 million a week over the next 4 months? You've got to be
> on drugs if you think it could come anywhere near that pace.
Avatar made over $16 million in *ONE_DAY* last week, on
Monday. Then it did it again on Tuesday. And then again on
Wednesday.
This was actually the first clue that something was up. Avatar
came within a whisker of breaking I Am Legend's December
record last weekend. And yet Monday to Wednesday it was
doing well over double what I Am Legend did on those three
equivalent days. Overnight, it was already behaving like The
Dark Knight, #2 all time, instead of I Am Legend.
Then on Thursday (Christmas Eve), Avatar failed and only
made $11M+. "Lookee! It's dying," might cry Lord Vader.
Oops. It set the all-time record for Christmas Eve, which is
an historically lower day.
Now this weekend it's set to match or better its opening
weekend, and this time perhaps even break I Am Legend's
record for December. This is unheard of. Yes, Christmas
is a holiday weekend this year but it's never been this huge.
Sherlock Holmes will be coming in at $65-$66 million, a
number that will put it 5th among December weekends.
But it will be beaten by Avatar at $76-$80 million in its
second weekend!
The reason I Am Legend and Avatar and the Return of
the King trilogy opened a weekend or two before Christmas
is because they expected to open bigger that Friday to Sunday,
and then get the sustainably good holiday season money to
accumulate. But they didn't expect to make more money on
their second three-day weekend, and no one predicted this.
Warner Bros. held Sherlock Holmes until Christmas Day
because it was a Friday this year and they expected it was
more than strong enough to set a Christmas opening record
and win the weekend. They also knew they could never win
against Avatar on the 18th, so they had little choice but to
take the 25th.
Warners would have been right, except Avatar is breaking
The Dark Knight's record for the highest-grossing second
weekend of all time. Next weekend Avatar will almost
certainly break the Spider-Man record for the highest-
grossing third weekend of all-time. It can drop 40% and
still break it, and it's showing no sign at all that it's ready
to suddenly start dropping 40%. Many are off all this week
and will keep seeing the movie in droves into next weekend.
> I also don't see how its going to "whiz by" $300-$350
> million in the next week or two. Through yesterday it
> was at $160 million. You think its going to do $200
> million in the next 2 weeks?
It'll be at $215M+ by the end of today (Sunday). By
next Sunday it'll be over $300 million, probably $315M+
and possibly $325M+, then over $350M a week later.
This is not an issue. The issue is what happens after that.
Titanic sustained for seven weekends (its 4th to 10th
weekends) at $20-$30 million. Avatar won't need to
come anywhere close to that to surpass it, because
it'll have such a huge jump on it to start. Averaging
$15 million a week (not weekend, but Monday to
Sunday) for about four months is a very achievable
target. In the early weeks of next year it will be doing
better than that, so it allows for declines.
lorinc...@yahoo.com
This is the most logical post in this whole thread. This movie is all
about the 3D showtimes. Even in my locale, with two all-digital
cinemas (12-plex and 16-plex), there are only 4 auditoriums showing it
in 3D, with an additional 3 showing it in 2D. I still don't think it
will equal Titanic, BUT...there has been a lot of ticket inflation
since 1997 and the 3D premium will be a factor.
-beaumon
jojo
Blablabla what ? You never heard of inflation ? Nobody compares prices
of two different time periods, even two continuous years, without
taking inflation into account. Nobody but the cinema industry.
By the way, Avatar is such a bad movie - visually incredible but the
stupidest story I ever saw.
trotsky
No, what you said was "Two pretty bad movies doing the biggest
box-office numbers of all time." How did your pea brain get from that
to "Like I said, top grossing movies for the most part are put there by
audiences comprised mostly of buffoons and imbeciles"?
It's worse
> today than ever because the average movie-goer is simply killing
> time.
And the poll numbers to indicate this are where, exactly? Or did you
just decide to skip the middle part again?
I can't remember a time when I've seen so many loser cellphone
> addicts who are so distracted they can't even watch a whole movie.
I see your point--those cell phone users are "losers" but a guy hanging
out on Usenet espousing racism and neo-Nazism isn't. Lol.
> They text all during the movie, and they'll actually leave before it
> ends.
Yes, of course, I can see how this would equate to hundreds of millions
of dollars at the box office.
You may be one of the stupidest people I've encountered in my 47 years
on this planet. Kudos!
rochrist
Projection much?
Mbruno
> "Captain Infinity" <Infin...@captaininfinity.us> wrote in message
Cameron is hardly subtle in his references to the Bush era.
Expressions like "shock and awe", "fight terror with terror", and
"preemptive strike" are used explicitly in the movie.
>
KalElFan
news:bd443431-d505-45c8...@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
> On Dec 26, 7:50 pm, "KalElFan" <kalel...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I never would have thought it was possible, but ERC has it
>> doing $75 million this weekend, hardly down at all from its
>> opening three days last weekend.
>>
>> http://www.ercboxoffice.com/
>>
>> It'll be on track to $300M++ next weekend, possibly even
>> $350M+ by then or very soon thereafter. That'll put it the
>> second fastest to that level, behind only The Dark Knight
>> but gaining on it. It'll be way ahead of Titanic's pace at that
>> point, so it won't need to do quite as well as Titanic down
>> the first-half-of-the-year stretch to beat it.
>>
>> Higher ticket prices, especially for the many 3-D showings,
>> will be cited as a factor, the same as people cite disparities
>> with old classics like Gone With The Wind, which sold more
>> tickets when you factor in inflation and blah blah blah. It
>> was a very different era though, pre-television and without
>> so many other competing entertainment options. So it'll be
>> quite an achievement if Cameron manages to break his own
>> box office record.
>
> Blablabla what ?
Blah blah blah and yet more blah blah blah. I was just being
dismissive of all that stuff up front, like this:
> You never heard of inflation ? Nobody compares prices
> of two different time periods, even two continuous years, without
> taking inflation into account. Nobody but the cinema industry.
People use unadjusted dollar comparisons all the time. But
if we're going down this path, why should people paying to
see movies in the comfort of their own home, on theatrical-
quality entertainment systems no less, be excluded from the
comparisons? There are all kinds of adjustments one could
make for all kinds of factors. Meanwhile while you're doing
that and other people are selectively adjusting for whatever,
most will be talking about the breaking of the Titanic record
whenever that happens.
Records like this aren't broken often, especially not in recent
years. Titanic broke a 20-year record set by Star Wars and
it would be a 12-year record that Avatar breaks if it manages
that. The point of this thread was to make the case it's now
very possible the record will be broken, because of the box
office pattern we've seen extending back to Monday. None
of the posts have altered that.
> By the way, Avatar is such a bad movie - ...
Yeah, everybody's got an opinion and yours not only isn't the
clear consensus, it's very marginal. Nyah nyah.
> ... visually incredible...
Well that's hardly so bad then.
> ... but the stupidest story I ever saw.
At the core it's quite apparent that the story hits home, and the
fact some aspects of it are generating controversy and sticking
in a few craws suggests it's far from stupid. Mostly, some of
the people annoyed with it seem to be lashing out and trying to
label it that.
It'll be interesting to see what the Academy does. The reviews,
while quite good, are not as good in terms of consensus as a
dozen or more other movies this year. The Hurt Locker, Up
and Star Trek in that order had the best reviews, but District 9
and a bunch of others were also better. More than all the other
movies, though, ideology may have driven the Avatar score
down, and it's the kind of ideology the Academy will tend to
side with Avatar on. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see both
Avatar and Cameron get nominations for Best Picture and
Best Director respectively.
Mbruno
> "jojo" <jojl...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
>
> > ... but the stupidest story I ever saw.
>
> At the core it's quite apparent that the story hits home, and the
> fact some aspects of it are generating controversy and sticking
> in a few craws suggests it's far from stupid. Mostly, some of
> the people annoyed with it seem to be lashing out and trying to
> label it that.
>
The story is indeed quite simplistic. For starters, the so-called
"villains" in the movie are pretty shallow. They are either plainly
greedy or blood-thirsty, and there is little effort in the movie to
elaborate on their point of view. Furthermore, the plot is hardly
original. As pointed out N times in forums like this, it is pretty
much a rehashed version of "Dances with Wolves" or "The Last
Samurai".
Having said that, leaving its black-and-white politics aside, 'Avatar'
is interesting as a SciFi movie, implausible though some elements in
the movie may be (for example, four-limbed Na'vi in a world where all
other animals are six-limbed, or giant floating mountains). The idea
of an Earth-sized moon orbiting a giant gas planet in the habitable
zone of a binary system is particularly appealing to me considering
that at least two such exoplanets (though no corresponding moon yet)
have already been detected in real life.
Brian Thorn
<kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
>Records like this aren't broken often, especially not in recent
>years. Titanic broke a 20-year record set by Star Wars and
>it would be a 12-year record that Avatar breaks if it manages
>that.
Didn't "ET" break "Star Wars'" record in 1982-83 and "Star Wars"
retook the lead with the 1999 re-release?
Brian
Remysun
> Didn't "ET" break "Star Wars'" record in 1982-83 and "Star Wars"
> retook the lead with the 1999 re-release?
Not with 1999-- Titanic would have already had the record by then.
nick
Technically speaking, wouldn't the Star Wars re-release count as a
different film than the original?
erilar
<bd443431-d505-45c8...@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
jojo <joj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> By the way, Avatar is such a bad movie - visually incredible but the
> stupidest story I ever saw.
You wanted the nasty humans to wipe out the nice natives yet again, I
take it?
--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist
erilar
<17c953bf-b6c3-40aa...@n31g2000vbt.googlegroups.com>,
moviePig <pwal...@moviepig.com> wrote:
> In one direction or another, a comprehensive analysis ought to take
> notice of AVATAR's "3d bottleneck". Most 3d venues, limited in
> number, may remain essentially packed for weekends yet to come ...and
> the Imax ones for a good while beyond that. Despite 3d's higher
> ticket-prices, that backlog of viewers (i.e., who won't spend on 2d)
> seems likely to delay normal box-office accumulations ...maybe
> resulting in an historically unique profile.
I didn't see the 3D version and can't see that the movie needs the
gimmick.
erilar
lj...@ces.clemson.edu (Juan F. Lara) wrote:
> "The Squeakquel" and "Sherlock Holmes" are kicking its blue butt. No
> way it reaches $600M.
Should I even ask what a Squeakquel might be?
The Sherlock Holmes movie was pretty neat; saw it yesterday.
erilar
Brian Thorn <btho...@suddenlink.net> wrote:
> Myself, I'll wait for it on Blu-Ray. My interest in this glorified
> XBox game of a movie is modest at best.
You have a big screen? I think it needs a big screen. I don't think it
needs 3D, but I don't go looking for the latter anyway. Yawn.
erilar
"KalElFan" <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
> I'm looking forward to seeing it, and the numbers suggest massively
> strong word of mouth and/or repeat business.
I can certainly see repeat business for this movie.
cloud dreamer
> In article
> <17c953bf-b6c3-40aa...@n31g2000vbt.googlegroups.com>,
> moviePig<pwal...@moviepig.com> wrote:
>
>> In one direction or another, a comprehensive analysis ought to take
>> notice of AVATAR's "3d bottleneck". Most 3d venues, limited in
>> number, may remain essentially packed for weekends yet to come ...and
>> the Imax ones for a good while beyond that. Despite 3d's higher
>> ticket-prices, that backlog of viewers (i.e., who won't spend on 2d)
>> seems likely to delay normal box-office accumulations ...maybe
>> resulting in an historically unique profile.
>
> I didn't see the 3D version and can't see that the movie needs the
> gimmick.
>
The 3D isn't a gimmick like the old days. It's amazing.
..
Patty Winter
In article <QLydnacP3aAQfarW...@supernews.com>,
Yeah, I saw something on TV about that the other day--how the
filmmakers are getting away from the "things flying toward you"
gimmicky 3D and instead using it to create a more subtle but
immersive experience. I haven't seen any of the recent batch
of 3D movies, but I'm glad to hear that.
Patty
Dan Dassow
> People use unadjusted dollar comparisons all the time. But
> if we're going down this path, why should people paying to
> see movies in the comfort of their own home, on theatrical-
> quality entertainment systems no less, be excluded from the
> comparisons? There are all kinds of adjustments one could
> make for all kinds of factors. Meanwhile while you're doing
> that and other people are selectively adjusting for whatever,
> most will be talking about the breaking of the Titanic record
> whenever that happens.
>
> Records like this aren't broken often, especially not in recent
> years. Titanic broke a 20-year record set by Star Wars and
> it would be a 12-year record that Avatar breaks if it manages
> that. The point of this thread was to make the case it's now
> very possible the record will be broken, because of the box
> office pattern we've seen extending back to Monday. None
> of the posts have altered that.
> fact some aspects of it are generating controversy and sticking
> in a few craws suggests it's far from stupid. Mostly, some of
> the people annoyed with it seem to be lashing out and trying to
> label it that.
It is extremely difficult to predict the overall gross for a film
after only ten days in release. According to Bert Livingston, Fox’s
senior vice -president for distribution:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/avatar-leads-christmas-weekend-box-office-to-record-high/
December 27, 2009, 3:39 pm
‘Avatar’ Leads Christmas Weekend Box Office to Record High
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
"Avatar" was being driven by what he called 'exceptional' word-of-
mouth recommendations.
“Do I have a number? No,” Mr. Livingston said of the ultimate box-
office prospects for the movie, which represents 15 years of work by
Mr. Cameron and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment by Fox.
But Mr. Livingston said he expects the film to pass the $300 million
mark at the domestic box office quickly, and perhaps to challenge the
$533 million in ticket sales for “The Dark Knight,” though probably
not the $600 million taken in by Mr. Cameron’s “Titanic” a decade
earlier."
A crude estimate for Avatar's final based on ten days of box office:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/grossbydays.htm?days=10&p=.htm
Min $212,268,053 / 74.8% = $283,780,820
Avg $212,268,053 / 58.3% = $364,190,438
Max $212,268,053 / 35.7% = $594,588,384
> It'll be interesting to see what the Academy does. The reviews,
> while quite good, are not as good in terms of consensus as a
> dozen or more other movies this year. The Hurt Locker, Up
> and Star Trek in that order had the best reviews, but District 9
> and a bunch of others were also better. More than all the other
> movies, though, ideology may have driven the Avatar score
> down, and it's the kind of ideology the Academy will tend to
> side with Avatar on. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see both
> Avatar and Cameron get nominations for Best Picture and
> Best Director respectively.
Up in the Air, The Hurt Locker, and Precious are almost certain to be
nominated for Best Picture Academy Awards. With ten Best Picture
nominations for 2009, there is a good chance that Avatar will make the
list. I also would not be surprised if Cameron receives a best
director nomination, but do not expect him to win. Avatar should be
nominated in technical catagories, such as best special effects. It is
likely to most of the technical categories.
The weeks ahead should provide a clearer picture on expected box
office and Academy Award nominations.
Dan Dassow
Anim8rFSK
erilar <dra...@chibardun.net.invalid> wrote:
> In article <hh65pi$f60$1...@hubcap.clemson.edu>,
> lj...@ces.clemson.edu (Juan F. Lara) wrote:
>
> > "The Squeakquel" and "Sherlock Holmes" are kicking its blue butt. No
> > way it reaches $600M.
>
> Should I even ask what a Squeakquel might be?
Another horrible Alvin film.
>
> The Sherlock Holmes movie was pretty neat; saw it yesterday.
Really? I was looking forward to it until the critics started comparing
it to WILD WILD WEST.
--
Tiger Woods has just been named "Athlete of the Decade"
His chosen event? The Broad Jump.
RVG
> "Captain Infinity" <Infi...@captaininfinity.us> wrote in message
> news:t5kcj5ddkd3lbro11...@4ax.com...
>
>> Once Upon A Time,
>>
>>> I never would have thought it was possible, but ERC has it
>>> doing $75 million this weekend, hardly down at all from its
>>> opening three days last weekend.
>>>
>>> http://www.ercboxoffice.com/
>>>
>>> It'll be on track to $300M++ next weekend, possibly even
>>> $350M+ by then or very soon thereafter.
>>
>> profits are going to help indiginous peoples across the world who got
>> screwed over by The White Man. Finally some payback for all the
>> horrors they had to live through.
>>
>> Wait, what's that you say? It's just lining *whose* pockets?
>>
>> Well, damn. I guess capitalism *is* the promised land, after all!
>
> I haven't seen Avatar yet (hope to see it this week), but the political
> criticism is at best projection and at worst outright bogus. The idea
> of a militarily superior society conquering or exploiting or just taking
> from an inferior one (in terms of power) has many examples in human
> history and The White Man isn't anywhere near always the aggressor.
>
Yup, plus in the case of Rome invasion and colonization resulted in a
vast improvement of the condition of the barbarians.
> Cameron could have had another alien race's military (or bad guys
> within it) as the aggressors, but another alien race is not his audience
> and isn't buying tickets. Or he could have postulated a worldwide
> Muslim-dominated Earth circa 2150 and have them be the bad guys
> to make a few wingnuts happy.
The Navis are a tribal society with a strong hierarchy. In the film we
only cope with the dominant elite, not with the average people whose
condition doesn't seem so bright.
--
New piano music:
Berceuse d'Hiver en R�:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/56233
Echo d'un murmure:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/56983
"La premi�re arme de la R�sistance c'est l'information." Lucie Aubrac
Extravagan
> In article <drache-D79058....@nothing.attdns.com>,
> erilar <dra...@chibardun.net.invalid> wrote:
>> The Sherlock Holmes movie was pretty neat; saw it yesterday.
>
> Really? I was looking forward to it until the critics started comparing
> it to WILD WILD WEST.
But Wild Wild West had Will Smith in it.
And FREDERIQUE VAN DER WAL.
TBerk
> Like I said, top grossing movies for the most part are put there by
> audiences comprised mostly of buffoons and imbeciles. It's worse
> today than ever because the average movie-goer is simply killing
> time. I can't remember a time when I've seen so many loser cellphone
> addicts who are so distracted they can't even watch a whole movie.
> They text all during the movie, and they'll actually leave before it
> ends.
I suggest some of those folks might well be killing time at the
multiplex by watch part of a given film before the 'main attraction'
in another nearby room is started.
( I'm going to go see 'Invictus' because the part I saw was really
well made. Theoretically speaking,)
Also, if you were in the theater with me this last week you might have
glimpsed _my_ cell as I turned it to quiet mode. If I didn't shield it
sufficiently, I apologize. That said, I have seen knuckleheads doing
just as you describe.
This brings to mind the idea I've had for a long time that modern film
audiences aren't sufficiently trained/educated.
berk
TBerk
> In article <7pn0ntF7h...@mid.individual.net>,
>
> KalElFan <kalel...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >I never would have thought it was possible, but ERC has it
> >doing $75 million this weekend, hardly down at all from its
> >opening three days last weekend.
>
> way it reaches $600M.
>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/27/AR2009122701569.html
'Avatar' is tops at the box office over Christmas weekend
Monday, December 28, 2009; C03
The 3-D extravaganza "Avatar" ruled the box office for a second
weekend, while the top 12 releases grossed $278 million, smashing the
record of $261 million set in July 2008 when "The Dark Knight" was the
top film.
Here are the top movie ticket sales Friday through Sunday, with
estimated weekend receipts, and total receipts since the movie opened.
The number of weeks opened is in parentheses.
Weekend Total
(in millions of dollars)
1. Avatar (2) 75.0 212.3
2. Sherlock Holmes (1) 65.4 65.4
3. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (1) 50.2 77.1
4. It's Complicated (1) 22.1 22.1
5. Up in the Air (4) 11.8 24.5
6. The Blind Side (6) 11.7 184.4
7. The Princess and the Frog (5) 8.7 63.4
8. Nine (2) 5.5 5.9
9. Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2) 5.0 15.6
10. Invictus (3) 4.4 23.4
SOURCE: WWW.BOXOFFICEMOJO.COM
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/
(Well, the formatting is all shot to hell, just follow the links...)
berk
erilar
Anim8rFSK <ANIM...@cox.net> wrote:
> In article <drache-D79058....@nothing.attdns.com>,
> erilar <dra...@chibardun.net.invalid> wrote:
>
> > In article <hh65pi$f60$1...@hubcap.clemson.edu>,
> > lj...@ces.clemson.edu (Juan F. Lara) wrote:
> >
> > > "The Squeakquel" and "Sherlock Holmes" are kicking its blue butt.
> > > No
> > > way it reaches $600M.
> >
> > Should I even ask what a Squeakquel might be?
>
> Another horrible Alvin film.
> >
> > The Sherlock Holmes movie was pretty neat; saw it yesterday.
>
> Really? I was looking forward to it until the critics started comparing
> it to WILD WILD WEST.
????????????????? I can't see a similarity.
jojo
> "jojo" <jojl...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Not if you want to do a serious comparison.
That's also why, in most of the world, they don't count how much money
the movie is making but how many *people* went to see it. It's a much
more interesting way to evaluate and compare movies success.
But
> if we're going down this path, why should people paying to
> see movies in the comfort of their own home, on theatrical-
> quality entertainment systems no less, be excluded from the
> comparisons?
Exactly, another reason why these comparisons are meaningless unless
taking into account all the revenues.
There are all kinds of adjustments one could
> make for all kinds of factors. Meanwhile while you're doing
> that and other people are selectively adjusting for whatever,
> most will be talking about the breaking of the Titanic record
> whenever that happens.
>
Who cares about the "record" but stupid geeks and lobotomized no-life
media obsessive people ?
> Records like this aren't broken often, especially not in recent
> years. Titanic broke a 20-year record set by Star Wars and
> it would be a 12-year record that Avatar breaks if it manages
> that. The point of this thread was to make the case it's now
> very possible the record will be broken, because of the box
> office pattern we've seen extending back to Monday. None
> of the posts have altered that.
>
1. Nobody cares about the record. This is not an olympic competition.
2. When going to the movie cost 5$ and some years later it cost 10$,
you understand that you have to take that into account or your
"record" is meaningless.
> > By the way, Avatar is such a bad movie - ...
>
> Yeah, everybody's got an opinion and yours not only isn't the
> clear consensus, it's very marginal. Nyah nyah.
>
No. This represents 100% of the people who saw it and that I spoke
with. And most of the critics in the media - incredibly impressive
movie with a very silly plot that we have seen 10000 times before.
> > ... visually incredible...
>
> Well that's hardly so bad then.
>
Yes it is. I am more interested in stories and I don't pay a movie
ticket to watch a video game.
> > ... but the stupidest story I ever saw.
>
> At the core it's quite apparent that the story hits home, and the
> fact some aspects of it are generating controversy and sticking
> in a few craws suggests it's far from stupid. Mostly, some of
> the people annoyed with it seem to be lashing out and trying to
> label it that.
>
Yes... You are pathetic.
> It'll be interesting to see what the Academy does.
Who cares ? Do you leave on Earth ?
KalElFan
news:lqifj5l2j7frpqddq...@4ax.com...
The 1997 re-release, and then Titanic was released at the end of
1997.
I was basing it on the current all-time list, so retrospectively going
down that we have Titanic (1997), Star Wars (1977), Jaws (1975),
The Exorcist (1973), and Gone With The Wind (1939). There are
a few others before that, but yes you could insert E.T. (1982) and it
was #1 for 15 years before Star Wars regained it for about a year.
KalElFan
> You are pathetic.
But charmingly so!
KalElFan
news:f341921b-c4e5-49e5...@a6g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
> It is extremely difficult to predict the overall gross for a film
> after only ten days in release.
Obviously difficult to be precise, but quite easy to draw reasonable
conclusions about the ranges that are possible.
> According to Bert Livingston, Fox�s senior vice -president for
> distribution: ...
>
> �Do I have a number? No,� Mr. Livingston said of the ultimate box-
> office prospects for the movie...
>
> But Mr. Livingston said he expects the film to pass the $300 million
> mark at the domestic box office quickly, and perhaps to challenge the
> $533 million in ticket sales for �The Dark Knight,� though probably
> not the $600 million taken in by Mr. Cameron�s �Titanic� a decade
> earlier."
It's telling he's predicting $300 million quickly and that it'll perhaps
challenge The Dark Knight. Official spokespersons never want to
go out on a limb. It's the same with the estimate this weekend of
$75 million, just below The Dark Knight's all-time second weekend
record. They didn't want to say they'd be breaking the record based
on an estimate, so they waited until the final number today, which is
$75.6 million and does make it the biggest second weekend of all
time. (Next weekend it will probably have an easier time of breaking
the third weekend record held by Spider-Man.)
> A crude estimate for Avatar's final based on ten days of box office:
> http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/grossbydays.htm?days=10&p=.htm
>
> Min $212,268,053 / 74.8% = $283,780,820
Outdated, I'm guessing and assuming whoever did it has a clue. I
don't know where the estimate is coming from -- who's making
it and when they made it and with what information and so on. But
$283M is impossible, literally, barring some apocalypse that closes
down the theaters or some such. It's at least $200 million too low
at this point.
> Avg $212,268,053 / 58.3% = $364,190,438
Also impossible, it will far exceed that, guaranteed. A week ago
this was plausible as an estimate. It isn't now, and that's why you
have even the spokesperson talking about possibly challenging
The Dark Knight which is up at $500++ million.
> Max $212,268,053 / 35.7% = $594,588,384
That's plausible but far from max. If Avatar holds as well, in
percentage decline terms, as Titanic did from here on in it'll
actually do over a billion dollars domestic. That'd be a very
tall order and no one expects it. But it demonstrates the big
upside here, and why Titanic's record is definitely in jeopardy.
The quick surge to $350+ million, the bigger start and now
breaking the second weekend record, probably the third
weekend record next week and then the fourth the following
week, sets it up that Avatar will have to then start relatively
collapsing for some reason to NOT challenge Titanic.
KalElFan
news:hh9a3c$m2b$1...@bluebubbleconspiracy.motzarella.org...
And I doubt any of them advocate throwing acid in little girls' faces, or
blowing up planes or trains or skyscrapers or markets full of innocent
people. I think some on both the left and right are just seeing what they
want to see in the movie, rather than what's actually there. You can
see this in some of the debate about the movie, and it suggests it's not
as simplistic as some would like to dismiss it as. Even if it goes well
beyond the "this is a line that shouldn't be crossed," in terms of some
of the characters or their actions, drawing clear-cut villains and heroes/
protagonists, doesn't necessarily make it simplistic. It may make it a
better movie, parable and so on.
Merrick Baldelli
Casper please... There are some of us that know just how
bloody kooky you are.
--
-=-=-/ )=*=-='=-.-'-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
_( (_ , '_ * . Merrick Baldelli
(((\ \> /_1 `
(\\\\ \_/ /
-=-\ /-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
\ _/ Who are these folks and why have they
/ / stopped taking their medication?
- Captain Infinity
KalElFan
<mbal...@yahoo.com> lost control of his bowels and spewed in
message news:r2qlj51fjtp0srh78...@4ax.com...
> ... There are some of us that know just how bloody kooky you
> are.
Lashing out rather than putting your cluelessness on display. Good
call, and Happy New Year!
KalElFan
"erilar" <dra...@chibardun.net.invalid> wrote in message
news:drache-7A6ED7....@nothing.attdns.com...
> In article <7pnehv...@mid.individual.net>,
> "KalElFan" <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm looking forward to seeing it, and the numbers suggest
>> massively strong word of mouth and/or repeat business.
>
> I can certainly see repeat business for this movie.
I saw it yesterday. The Imax 3-D showings in the Toronto
area are apparently sold out two days ahead and I figured
the other 3-D ones would be packed. I've never cared to
see any movie in 3-D so I saw a regular showing. I almost
wish I'd seen it in 3-D instead. It's still visually impressive
but you can tell it'd be even more stunning in 3-D.
The political criticism is off base. The context is far future
and the bad guys aren't U.S. government per se, they're
basically mercenaries working for a corporation. Earth has
had serious problems based on some dialogue at the end.
Yes, there's a Shock & Awe reference as the Evil Colonel
is crossing the line and ordering the strike in the third act,
but really this is generic not partisan stuff.
It's a fairly simple and straightforward story, but so are
many if not most iconic ones, especially SF. I'm not sure
how or why it should be different than what Cameron
did here, in any way that would have made it better.
As others have said, applying state of the art CGI to
10-foot-tall blue humanoids seems to have virtually
eliminated the "uncanny valley" effect and allowed the
performance capture to really shine. The characters
become real quickly, much as Jake's Avatar does to
him.
The movie sets it up very well for sequels and prequels,
or heck a triple trilogy. :-) The Avatar universe could
go to other moons as Cameron has been quoted on, but
I also think Earth itself and whatever's happened, may be
happening or will happen there.
A box office update...
It passed $250M domestic today, after $19.4 million on
Monday and $18.3 million Tuesday. It'll be at $350M+
sometime next week, probably breaking Spider-Man's
third weekend record along the way.
Greg Goss
>So it's quite plausible at this point that it could break Titanic's
>record, at least domestically. The overseas numbers would
>have to crack $1.2 billion and that may be too tall an order.
Has anyone done the "inflation adjusted" numbers for it compared to
Titanic?
We spent $17.50 each for tickets to see it in Imax. I probably spent
$7 to see Titanic.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
Greg Goss
>2. When going to the movie cost 5$ and some years later it cost 10$,
>you understand that you have to take that into account or your
>"record" is meaningless.
"You'll laugh; you'll cry; you'll kiss two bucks goodbye."
And I was already an adult when I saw that parody.
rochrist
> Rich wrote:
>> "KalElFan" <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote in news:7pn0ntF7hnU1
>> @mid.individual.net:
>>
>>> I never would have thought it was possible, but ERC has it
>>> doing $75 million this weekend, hardly down at all from its
>>> opening three days last weekend.
>>>
>>> http://www.ercboxoffice.com/
>>>
>>> It'll be on track to $300M++ next weekend, possibly even
>>> second fastest to that level, behind only The Dark Knight
>>> but gaining on it. It'll be way ahead of Titanic's pace at that
>>> point, so it won't need to do quite as well as Titanic down
>>> the first-half-of-the-year stretch to beat it.
>>>
>>> Higher ticket prices, especially for the many 3-D showings,
>>> will be cited as a factor, the same as people cite disparities
>>> with old classics like Gone With The Wind, which sold more
>>> tickets when you factor in inflation and blah blah blah. It
>>> was a very different era though, pre-television and without
>>> so many other competing entertainment options. So it'll be
>>> quite an achievement if Cameron manages to break his own
>>> box office record.
>>
>> all time. What does that say about the audience?
>
>
> Which are the really good movies, Rich?
Red Dawn!!!!
KalElFan
news:7q3sh7...@mid.individual.net...
> "KalElFan" <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
>
>> So it's quite plausible at this point that it could break Titanic's
>> record, at least domestically. The overseas numbers would
>> have to crack $1.2 billion and that may be too tall an order.
>
> Has anyone done the "inflation adjusted" numbers for it
> compared to Titanic?
>
> We spent $17.50 each for tickets to see it in Imax. I
> probably spent $7 to see Titanic.
Very little of that difference is inflation, it's value-added on
the theatrical experience. The U.S. CPI increase since 1997
has only been 35%. Average ticket prices, which is what
boxofficemojo.com uses for its inflation-adjusted list, have
gone up 56%. That partly reflects some moviegoers like
you choosing value-added experiences, but your personal
estimate involves a premium price that's 250% (or more
than seven times) the rate of inflation.
There's another sub-thread on this where the poster I was
responding to conceded my point about DVDs and the like
meriting an adjustment too. Why arbitrarily limit it to the
theatrical experience, especially when home systems these
days can be theatrical quality and DVDs or PPV can be
less than four months after theatrical release?
He/she apparently missed my main point though, which is
that the adjustment would go massively the other way and
illustrates why the whole "adjustment" exercise not only isn't
worth the effort, it's outright misleading. Almost always, the
cry for inflation adjustment comes from people nitpicking or
getting ticked off when the latest record gets broken every
12 or 15 or 20 years. So they dis the record breaking and
try to be dismissive of Avatar's achievement in this case,
compared to Titanic or Star Wars or Gone With The Wind.
They arbitrarily stop after the inflation adjustment or protest
home viewing on paid-for DVD and so on shouldn't count.
Or then they'll go on about tickets sold, i.e., numbers who
actually pay to see it. Well great, let's bring in a multiple
of the numbers watching on each DVD or other purchase
and so on. Even free viewing isn't really free, it takes time
and you're watching advertising, and if we're measuring
people who've seen it why not count that too?
Then they want to look at population data to make the
old movies look better as a percentage of that. Fine,
I say dead people shouldn't count and most of those
who saw Gone With The Wind in the theater are dead.
Who cares how many dead people have seen it?
So then some of them switch back to money. If that's
what we're mainly interested in measuring, then let's add
in Avatar's video game and toy revenue and on and on.
It has a good chance of eventually becoming the most
lucrative creative franchise in history.
This is why most people just accept the unadjusted gross.
If and when Avatar breaks Titanic's record it will be
very widely reported just like the weekend box office is
very widely reported these days. It'll be a record that's
stood for 12 years, and 15-20 years before that back to
E.T. and Star Wars. Avatar's record will then be the new
focus, not Gone With The Wind or whatever else. Star
Wars might even try to regain the title with its own 3-D
upgrade and re-release. :-) I read today that Lucas was
actually considering doing a 3-D version.
erilar
Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
> Has anyone done the "inflation adjusted" numbers for it compared to
> Titanic?
>
> We spent $17.50 each for tickets to see it in Imax. I probably spent
> $7 to see Titanic.
I spent $5.75 to see it normally. I never spent a penny on Titanic.
Patty Winter
>Titanic?
I don't know whether you're talking about pure economic inflation
or ticket price "inflation," but of course Box Office Mojo has a
chart of the latter, top 100 of all time:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm
"Avatar" isn't on it yet, though.
Patty
erilar
Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
> jojo <joj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >2. When going to the movie cost 5$ and some years later it cost 10$,
> >you understand that you have to take that into account or your
> >"record" is meaningless.
>
> "You'll laugh; you'll cry; you'll kiss two bucks goodbye."
> And I was already an adult when I saw that parody.
Infants! I paid $.35 when I was a teenager.
Greg Goss
>
>In article <7q3sh7...@mid.individual.net>,
>Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>
>>Has anyone done the "inflation adjusted" numbers for it compared to
>>Titanic?
>
>I don't know whether you're talking about pure economic inflation
>or ticket price "inflation," but ...
I was talking about both. Someone else calculated that I paid 250%
more for value and 35% more for inflation. I felt I was buying double
the value, so now I feel ripped off for that 50% ($1.50 per ticket or
so)
I still remember the line from "Hardware Wars", a Star Wars "coming
attractions" parody from 1980 or so with "You'll laugh. You'll cry.
You'll kiss two bucks goodbye." That wasn't so long ago.
When was the Harry Potter movie where they broke into the ministry? I
saw that in 3D Imax for C$13.50, only a buck over "regular". Now,
what feels like about a year later, 3D Imax was $17.50. Do these
prices adjust downwards as the crowds clear out? The Imax is still
selling out two days before the showing. (There was a group seeing it
on Tuesday night; my GF and I saw it Wednesday afternoon. There was a
sign before we got on the escalator saying that all showings of Avatar
were sold out that day (Wednesday) (presuming also the 3D "regular"
showings) and to go to the ticket office or the website to buy tickets
for some other day. I bought the Wednesday ticket Sunday early
evening when Tuesday was full.
Greg Goss
That list seems to just include domestic theatre showings, ignoring
foreign theatre showings and DVD or videotape sales. (To my mind, toy
sales should be separate.)
I seem to recall hearing that Titanic was the first ever "billion
dollar movie", but it's on that list at $600M
KalElFan
> ... Someone else calculated that I paid 250% more
> for value and 35% more for inflation.
My bad and I plead guilty. :-) You paid 250% of the
1997 price, so that means the increase was 150%, of
which 35% is CPI inflation. But here...
> I felt I was buying double the value...
Well then you think you should have paid $14 in 1992
dollars, which actually equals about $18.90 ($14 + 35%)
in 2009 dollars. So you actually got a good deal! :-)
> When was the Harry Potter movie where they broke into
> the ministry? I saw that in 3D Imax for C$13.50, only a
> buck over "regular". Now, what feels like about a year
> later, 3D Imax was $17.50.
I paid $12.50 for a regular showing of Avatar, so it sounds
like it's just the IMAX price that's been jacked up. Supply
and demand I guess.
KalElFan
> That list seems to just include domestic theatre showings, ignoring
> foreign theatre showings and DVD or videotape sales.
It'd be an enormous task to adjust for inflation in dozens of
countries with varying rates of inflation. As for DVD sales
and the like, there are no authoritative sources of that just
estimates and whatever numbers the studios/sellers decide
to release. Since the studio is selling wholesale and there are
many more retailers than there are theater chains, that also
becomes an enormous task.
moviePig
> Patty Winter <pat...@wintertime.com> wrote:
>
HARRY POTTER's few scenes were *post-processed* 3D. AVATAR is an
entire feature *shot* in 3D. Production costs are much higher. The
correspondingly pricier Imax ticket has been in effect from the
beginning, POLAR EXPRESS.
--
- - - - - - - -
YOUR taste at work...
http://www.moviepig.com
Patty Winter
In article <7q4odf...@mid.individual.net>,
Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>Patty Winter <pat...@wintertime.com> wrote:
[extraneous quotage removed]
>>I don't know whether you're talking about pure economic inflation
>>or ticket price "inflation," but of course Box Office Mojo has a
>>chart of the latter, top 100 of all time:
>>
>>http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm
>
>That list seems to just include domestic theatre showings, ignoring
>foreign theatre showings and DVD or videotape sales. (To my mind, toy
>sales should be separate.)
Yes, as it says, it's domestic.
>I seem to recall hearing that Titanic was the first ever "billion
>dollar movie", but it's on that list at $600M
That's because you were looking at the domestic list. You want
to look at the worldwide box office figures:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/
Patty
Merrick Baldelli
Cupcake -- this isn't lashing -- this is reminding you that
some of us have long memories and remember your hair-brained wackiness
about trying to control what messages were posting where, and your
mandatory (and arbitrary) requirements in the subject line.
Or let's not forget the way you kook the hell out any time any
one has a negative criticism about anything you like.
But do go on and provide proof on how over-sensitive you are
about things Casper... I'll re-adjust the drama meter so your
zaniness doesn't break it every time someone makes a comment about you
in any of the groups you're trolling through.
KalElFan
news:4b3da164$0$1632$742e...@news.sonic.net...
Right, but the key point Greg in effect raised is that there is no
inflation-adjusted version of that worldwide list, and I explained
why. You'd have to get hold of the CPI index and/or movie
ticket prices in, say, a few dozen major markets going back
70+ years. The task would be enormous, and inevitably it'd
be incomplete anyway.
If anyone could make such a list, it'd be the boxofficemojo
site because it's owned by IMDb now, which is in turn owned
by Amazon. Not sure when the mojo buyout happened, but
IMDB/Amazon would have the resources to fund such a big
project. I suspect they won't, because in the end the adjusted
number's still not worth much. Whatever "benefit" it bestows
on golden oldies, making those movies look better, wonders
of the modern home video aftermarket would taketh away.
Notionally, it's a tradeoff that cancels out and so it's even
easier to ignore what we have to ignore because we don't
have enough good information anyway. And so...
The tried-and-true unadjusted gross figures will remain what
the mass media reports and most follow.
KalElFan
news:8d6b9a25-bf73-47af...@m11g2000vbo.googlegroups.com...
[moviePig was responding to Greg Goss]
> HARRY POTTER's few scenes were *post-processed* 3D. AVATAR
> is an entire feature *shot* in 3D. Production costs are much higher.
> The correspondingly pricier Imax ticket has been in effect from the
> beginning, POLAR EXPRESS.
So not only did Greg get a good deal, you're saying the price
hasn't even gone up for true IMAX 3-D.
Here's a Wiki on the whole 3-D film issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-D_film
It seems the key to it is having very high digital HD quality to start.
Conceptually, if a film can be converted to that, and if there's a
good enough processing algorithm to apply 3-D to that upgraded
source material, older movies could be re-produced as 3-D.
Getting back to the Harry Potter example, I suspect that the $3.00
IMAX ticket price differential has more to do with Avatar and the
prior films (not just Polar Express, but others listed in that Wiki that
Cameron did) being 100% tailored-to-IMAX versions. So if
Potter or Star Wars or the like were 100% post-processed into
IMAX 3-D level quality, presumably the price Greg paid would
have been the $17.50 Canadian.
Likewise the Real 3D (I think they call it) that Avatar used for
non-IMAX 3-D. If that or similar quality can be achieved through
conversion to high quality digital and then post-processing into 3-D,
we might see non-IMAX 3-D versions of Star Wars or E.T. or any
other movies that might have a market for it. They could dress it
up with a few extra scenes or other bells and whistles to make it
more marketable.
KalElFan
news:fe0sj5hqbcektugq5...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:34:01 -0500, "KalElFan"
> <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Vicariously reliving painful Usenet experiences, "Merrick Baldelli"
>> <mbal...@yahoo.com> lost control of his bowels and spewed in
>> message news:r2qlj51fjtp0srh78...@4ax.com...
>>
>>> ... There are some of us that know just how bloody kooky
>>> you are.
>>
>> Lashing out rather than putting your cluelessness on display.
>> Good call, and Happy New Year!
>
> Cupcake -- this isn't lashing -- this is reminding you that
> some of us have long memories...
It's lashing out, pissing in a thread, and lying through your
teeth, because you still can't get the fuck over prior threads
years ago. You're like PV was for years, part of my
entourage as I used to call it, occasionally popping in
because he could never move on. Along would come
another thread and a vicarious trigger, and in would come
the PV dump every six months or so. PV eventually got
over it and we then had some on-topic exchanges.
> ... and remember your hair-brained wackiness about trying to
> control what messages were posting where, and your mandatory
> (and arbitrary) requirements in the subject line.
You're referring to and lying about Optional Moderation, an
idiot-obvious concept that any moron who understands the
word "Optional" would know is not mandatory or required,
therefore does not control.
> Or let's not forget the way you kook the hell out any time
> any one has a negative criticism about anything you like.
I always respond proportionately, as I am now after three
rounds of your lying bullshit.
What triggered you here was this subthread, and my
responses upthread to a poster I never recall noticing.
You got into worse trouble than he/she did on a ratings
discussion involving Trek years ago. You also were flat
out wrong and proven so on a few other things, a quote
from official sources in one case, which you conceded
at the time, and a litany of evidence in another discussion.
So after he/she came back with a post that speaks for
itself if anyone wants to look back at it, I decided to just
deflect and move on from it. It reminded you of the kind
of thing that had happened to you way back when, and
triggered your bowel movement.
> ... any of the groups you're trolling through.
This has nothing to do with trolling, except to the extent
three rounds of yours has been a minor diversion from
an otherwise fairly interesting thread. Feel free to get
back to your pointlessness.
Extravagan
> "Merrick Baldelli" <mbal...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:fe0sj5hqbcektugq5...@4ax.com...
>> any one has a negative criticism about anything you like.
> itself if anyone wants to look back at it, I decided to just
> deflect and move on from it. It reminded you of the kind
> of thing that had happened to you way back when, and
> triggered your bowel movement.
A bowel movement no doubt aided by all the damage that has been done to
his anal sphincter over the years from taking it up the poop chute.
Patty Winter
In article <7q76uo...@mid.individual.net>,
KalElFan <kale...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>"Patty Winter" <pat...@wintertime.com> wrote in message
>news:4b3da164$0$1632$742e...@news.sonic.net...
[extraneous quotage removed]
>> In article <7q4odf...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I seem to recall hearing that Titanic was the first ever "billion
>>> dollar movie", but it's on that list at $600M
>>
>> That's because you were looking at the domestic list. You want
>> to look at the worldwide box office figures:
>>
>> http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/
>
>Right, but the key point Greg in effect raised is that there is no
>inflation-adjusted version of that worldwide list, and I explained
>why.
I was only addressing his question about the billion-dollar
revenues of "Titanic." It was separte from his other question,
not lesser than. I didn't feel any need to answer that one,
because I thought the explanation was obvious.
Patty
Greg Goss
I was happy with the answer. For the other, I'd be happy enough to
see the inflation rendered in American. I'm not American, but my
country's inflation matches the American experience pretty closely.
Merrick Baldelli
<kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
>It's lashing out, pissing in a thread, and lying through your
>teeth, because you still can't get the fuck over prior threads
>years ago.
Casper, Casper, Casper... You think that time is going to
allow you to revise your netkookery and that the ghosts of your past
aren't going to come back to occasionally haunt you?
Cupcake, a leopard doesn't change his spots, nor do adult homo
sapiens change their personalities and traits. Do spew on about it
though. You are providing adequate proof of your simmering
netkookery, and entertaining some of the old denizens who are placing
bets on how long it's going to take before you implode like in the
older days.
[spew snipped]
KalElFan
Based on a $24-$25 million Friday (a New Year's Day
record), Avatar is headed for about a $58M-$62M third
weekend. That will shatter Spider-Man's $45M third
weekend record from 2002. Last weekend Avatar set
the second weekend record, but not by much over The
Dark Knight's record set last year.
Next weekend Avatar will almost certainly break the fourth
weekend record of $28.7M held by Titanic since 1998.
Avatar would have to drop more than 50% not to break
that record, and it shows no sign of being ready to do that.
Projecting out, Avatar will be at $350M+ on Monday or
Tuesday and $400M+ within a week later. How quickly
it can get to $400M will have a big impact on how likely it
is it can break Titanic's record. For example, if it can do
$9 million a day from Monday to Thursday this week, and
then $40 million next weekend, that'll be $76 million for the
week and will put it at $410M+. Maintaining week-over-
week drops of 25% would actually break Titanic's record
fairly quickly, before the end of February. A 25% drop is
not unreasonable for a movie that's only down 20% this
weekend off some very high numbers last weekend.
So I think it's better than 50-50 right now that the Titanic
record is going to be broken by Avatar. For it not to be,
Avatar needs to weaken substantially this coming week,
as in more than 50% on the weekdays and then more
than 40% next weekend.
KalElFan
> I was only addressing [Greg's] question about the billion-
> dollar revenues of "Titanic." It was separate from [inflation
> adjustment] ... I didn't feel any need to answer that one,
> because I thought the explanation was obvious.
I thought it was obvious too, but Greg is now proposing the
use of the U.S. CPI for the entire conversion, and as I started
thinking about that I realized what a can of worms it opened
up. Greg's apparently Canadian, like me and about 34 million
others. But he may not know that the "domestic" box office
for the movie industry already includes both the U.S. and
Canada. Not Mexico or any other part of North America,
just the U.S. and Canada.
So the total domestic box office any given week, for any
specific movie as well as for all the yearly and all-time totals
and so on, have about 10% Canadian content expressed in
U.S. dollars. Now consider the worldwide list:
http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide
Also in U.S. dollars, suggesting currencies were converted to
U.S. AT_THE_TIME the movie played. Conceptually, it's
the same as the 10% of the domestic total that's actually
Canadian content. In the case of Titanic's box office for
example, its $1.835 billion content has about 67% non-US
and Canada content, but it's foreign content expressed in
U.S. dollars.
So why not use the U.S. CPI index or ticket price index on
all of it?
Well, they could but it'd make it an even more meaningless,
made-up number. As it is, the worldwide gross doesn't all
get converted to U.S. dollars, percentages of it go to local
distributors and so on. So it's already notional in a sense,
but at least it reflects the actual era the money was made.
When you take a CPI index that doesn't apply to that era
but one, say, 70 years later, and you factor in exchange
rate changes as well as differences in CPI, I think you're
just making the whole thing even more notional to the point
it's complete nonsense.
Tickets sold, if that were reliably available worldwide (which
it isn't) might make more sense. But then you get the issue
of home viewing, especially paid-for home viewing, which
broadly defined includes even "free" viewing on cable that
people are paying for.
Anim8rFSK
"KalElFan" <kale...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
and this has what to do with rec.arts.tv?
--
Tiger Woods has just been named "Athlete of the Decade"
His chosen event? The Broad Jump.
KalElFan
To wannabe netcops everywhere
Sprinkled like stardust
Through an evening of Hockey Night in Canada. :-) ...
"Anim8rFSK" <ANIM...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:ANIM8Rfsk-90C53...@news.dc1.easynews.com...
Anim8r, you're Ubiquitous! The best answer to your "question"
is that it has at least as much to do with television discussion as
threads that people start with titles like "IT'S MILEY!" and "HEY
IAN" and "Happy Birthday, Frank Maloney" and "Heard From
Brandy A. Today". Those were all started by you by the way,
just in the last few months because they're still stored in my news
reader. So it doesn't count threads you've responded to but did
not start, where there are probably more examples.
Nor does it count your wannabe netcop diversion here. Nor
the post where you roasted a local Arizona consumer reporter
who gave a scathing review of some product that no one on
the group had ever heard of. Nor the one-off titled Pigeon:
Impossible.
But a better response is to use yours to illustrate the concept
of on topic versus off topic, and how some things can be on
topic in more than one group, and how a post might have a
few asides or commentary that might stray but still flow from
the on-topic discussion. Slap a META tag on it as I have and
anyone can feel free to respond substantively on the issues, or
as a wannabe netcop. Wannabe as in just for fun and one
hopes not take themselves too seriously, since these groups
are unmoderated and all wannabe netcops can just be told
to shove a hockey stick up their wazoo. :-)
As I type this early part of the post I'm watching or at least
listening to Don Cherry's Coach's Corner, during the first
period intermission of the Toronto Maples Leafs at Calgary
Flames NHL game on Hockey Night in Canada. So I'm
pausing to finish watching that segment.
I'm back. After his hockey-related commentary, Cherry
finished off as he often does with a tribute to Canadian
soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan the last week.
Actually he started with a Canadian journalist, Michelle
Lang, who was killed in the same attack, and then the
four or five soldiers. Also an Ottawa police officer who
was killed, Cherry noting that he put them in the same
category as the soldiers and firefighters who died in the
line of duty. At one point he lamented "the police are
always wrong" [to certain types] but that the "left wing
kooks" still go to them when they need them.
For those in the U.S. interested but unfamiliar with Cherry
here's his Wiki (scroll up a bit to get to the top of it):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Cherry_(ice_hockey)#Biography
He often wears loud colours on Coach's Corner but had
black (or close) on tonight, perhaps because of the
Afghanistan losses.
Speaking of the war on terror I just noticed this Rasmussen
poll the other day. It was actually posted New Year's Eve
but I hadn't read the site for a few days.
"Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters say waterboarding
and other aggressive interrogation techniques should be used
to gain information from the terrorist who attempted to bomb
an airliner on Christmas Day."
Only 30% oppose and another 12% aren't sure, so it's 2 to 1
in favor. I suspect some opposed interpreted the question as
getting right to aggressive. I can see that. If bringing in a Holy
Man to talk to the guy and convince him Allah spared his life
so he could cough up all information he had, then fine no need
to get aggressive. Some of the reports suggest he was singing
anyway, whether proud of the attempt or for whatever reason.
The guy neutered himself, literally based on the press reports,
and needed medical treatment at first. They should have given
him that as they did, burn treatments and bandages and so on.
But if, say, they'd told him no pain killers until he immediately
helped with vital information, would that have been justified?
There could well have been multiple attacks in progress or
imminent, and this guy had just tried to kill almost 300 people.
It was a perfect example of a case where waterboarding or
similar aggressive techniques should be applied, if they're
ever going to be applied, and don't waste time transporting
him to Guantanamo first. I thought this last week before I
saw the 2-1 poll, but it didn't surprise me when I saw the
results on the site. Instead the guy's all lawyered up and
Mirandized, and one report says his maximum sentence
would be 20 years. Welcome to the era of hope and
change and huggy kissy gag me with a spoon.
A Fox News reporter, can't remember his name off-hand,
had himself waterboarded as part of a story last year or it
may have been 2008. I suspect some left wing kooks
might approve of that as an exception. :-/
As for the Leafs, they're winning 1-0 after the first period and
it's still the first half of the second now. They've spent most of
the year in either 29th or 30th spot in a 30-team league though,
and haven't won the Stanley Cup in more than 40 years. After
a horrid start in October they haven't been that bad the last
couple of months though. I think their biggest mistake this
season has been not having their 19-year-old first round draft
pick, Nazem Kadri, up here with the team instead of playing
with the London (Ontario) Knights in the Ontario Hockey
League. Actually he's on loan the last few weeks to the World
Junior championships' Canadian team. Scored a few in the early
games there and then a beautiful one in the shootout against the
American team on New Year's Eve.
Some on the sparsely-frequented Leafs group (now there's a
surprise! :-)), which I'm crossposting to because this part of
the discussion has been on-topic there and that concept may
prove educational for you Anim8r, and perhaps others, will
disagree with me on Kadri. They'll say he's too young and
needs more seasoning and blah blah blah. If we were, like,
the Montreal Canadiens of the 70s, the New York Islanders
of the 80s, the Edmonton Oilers of the late 80s and into the
90s or the like, I'd agree. But when your mired in 29th or
30th in a 30-team league, bring the kid up. I don't think we
have another Leaf, not even Kessel, who could score a goal
like he did in that shootout. He'd probably have had a few
more during the game if a few other players hadn't been so
busy hogging the puck.
Methinks I just heard a quick 15-second Avatar spot on
the hockey game by the way. Quick because as soon as
I heard the voiceover and turned it was gone. But we'll
return to Avatar later, Anim8r. Back to the Leafs for now.
Flames just tied the game 1-1 by the way, a goal by Iginla,
who'll be playing for Canada in the Olympics. Just before
that the announcers were waxing praise for Leafs' goalie
Gustavsson, and then boom the goal. It's always the way.
Jinxes! :-) Then the Leafs got a penalty at the other end
for goalie interference, and just now Calgary got a goal
on the power play and it's 2-1 Flames.
I guess I could have left this Leafs part of the post to my
first contribution to Johnston's "What Did You Watch?"
thread later tonight. But I'd rather do it live here as I watch
it on television, rather than retrospectively when I might not
remember it as well, or might start having false memories
like Baldelli.
Just watching an ad during the game for Book of Eli right
now. I think it's pretty effective, but I don't think the movie
has huge upside. It might very well unseat Avatar its opening
weekend though, January 15 to 17. HSX.com currently has
it opening with $30+ million, and I think Avatar will be below
that by then.
Back to Kadri. The only reason I can see for holding him
back is some off-ice preparation, not on-ice seasoning or
the like. He's one of the few and certainly the first potential
hockey superstar who's a Muslim. If and when he comes
up to the NHL, and especially if he plays like he's obviously
capable, the media will be all over him not just in Toronto
as they always are with the Leafs, but across Canada and
the U.S. will probably cover his story too.
There'll be a lot of role-model type pressure on the kid,
and we know where these role model stories often go (hi
Tiger!). With Kadri it's not going to just be his celebrity
though. We had the Toronto 18 I think they called them,
some young Muslim wannabe terrorists who fortunately
got caught before carrying out their plan to use Oklahoma-
style bombs to blow stuff up. They wanted to behead the
Prime Minister too. We need more young Canadian Muslim
kids who want to become hockey superstars instead. Lo
and behold we got one and maybe young Muslim kids can
start paying more attention to his story than bin Laden's.
Had to step away for a few minutes and ended up missing
After 40 Minutes. It's the between-periods segment of
Hockey Night In Canada after the second period. I only
caught the very end of it. Now the Scotiabank ad with
Iginla in it. Grrr. :-)
In between there, a Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
ad, but for the DVD because that was in theaters a few
months back.
Anyone else who caught that Winter Classic game at
Fenway Park yesterday may have noticed that the movie
The Tooth Fairy, starring The Rock (Dwayne Johnson,
the ex-wrestler turned actor), was sponsoring it in the
opening credits. It wasn't the only sponsor, there were
three of four others including McDonalds. But I couldn't
figure out why The Tooth Fairy would have a primary
sponsor campaign in the Winter Classic. Until I saw
the ad, and found out The Rock's character is a tough
hockey player before he gets drafted as the Tooth Fairy.
Smart marketing there by Fox. The Tooth Fairy opens
on January 22. HSX had it at only a $12-$13M opening
several months back but there's been a surge in the last
few months, accelerating in the last few days and it's
already up to $20M+ for its opening weekend.
Sherlock Holmes ad during the game just now. Haven't
seen it yet and may leave it to DVD or PPV or even the
movie channels. Or wait for even more "free" TV. I saw
Knowing on one of the movie channels the other night.
SPOILER space for Knowing...
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
P
A
C
E
Everybody dies, as in the whole planet Earth gets thoroughly
torched. Only the two kids and a fleet of alien ships holding
anonymous kids we never saw during the story survive. I
knew this was the ending -- read about it back when it was
in first run. But I thought I'd check it out. It was late, I
joined it about 1 a.m.on January 1. It started at 12:35 a.m.
It was on The Movie Network. On television. I hope it's
okay to mention it in my post here.
Flames are still winning by the way, 2-1 late in the third
period now. I've been away from the keyboard a lot the
last hour. Anyway, the end is indeed near. For the Leafs.
Less than 5 minutes to go now.
Actually 2:33 left now. I'd been watching this last part of
the game, not paying attention to my post here. :-)
Calgary just scored in the empty net. Leafs had a chance
just before that but Mayers couldn't score from right in
front of the net. He kinda fanned on it. Yeah, like we
couldn't use Kadri. He should play with Kessel, who's
suffering from lack-of-linemate-supportitis and trying too
hard to do it all himself.
Oh well, the Leafs begin 2010 in their normal last-40-
plus-years mode. Nothing on television has ever stunk
for as long as the Leafs have. Prove me wrong but I can't
think of anything. Smallville might do it, if they extend it
for three more 10-year terms and Tom Willing is playing
a 60-year-old retired Clark Kent on pension. But I
digress. Apologies to the denizens of a.s.h.n.tor-m, all
half dozen of you. It is on-topic in at least two of the
other groups and I wanted to throw them a bone amidst
the hockey talk. Let's mix it up here...
That Winter Classic on New Year's Day, it'll be interesting
to see what the ratings were on that one. They should keep
it to U.S. teams I think, and have a Canadian version on
that Hockey Day in Canada that the CBC has in February
(is it?) every year. NBC could pick it up if they like, on that
Saturday afternoon. But the showcase game on New Year's
will draw better if they keep it to U.S. teams, usually from the
big markets only though a few others might work (Colorado,
Minnesota).
Now yet another hockey/tv crossover issue. HNIC is a double-
bill every Saturday the last several years, and a triple-bill on
that Hockey Day in Canada and perhaps a few other days.
So they have multiple crews and one of them is an ex-female
hockey player named Cassie Campbell. She played with the
Canadian Olympic team in 2002 and again in 2006 (when she
was captain) and won two gold medals those years.
For the past few years she's been a rinkside reporter for
Hockey Night in Canada. She's also in one of the Scotiabank
commercials with Iginla. He's there and then she comes
flying in from off-screen right to bodycheck him out of the
shot. It's funny.
Anyway, she's the only example I can think of where a female
reporter (she even did the color commentary one night), on a
network's coverage of a major professional male team sport, is
so accomplished in that sport. NFL, no obviously. MLB, no
because there's never been a professional League of Their Own
and women's amateur baseball (except softball) I've never seen
on TV. It may have happened that a WNBA player or female
coach has had an NBA TV-coverage-related gig but I'm not
aware of any. In hockey I think Cassie's the only one. Soccer's
not network-level yet in North America, that I'm aware of, nor
any other team sports I can think of.
I haven't been talking much about the second game on the
HNIC double bill, Edmonton at San Jose. San Jose's winning
4-1 late in the third. They're probably the favorite to win the
Cup this year.
Now back to Avatar and the case for why the discussion of
whether it will break Titanic's box office record is on-topic
in both the two movie groups and two television groups.
It's been alluded to above and all the way upthread Fred, :-),
all the tv-related connections. Movies quickly move to TV
these days. Some in a matter of weeks are on PPV at the
same time they go to DVD.
With this record-breaking issue, I knew the "adjustment"
point would come up and mentioned it in the original post.
"Pay" TV -- a wide range of home viewing options, broadly
defined -- is relevant to that.
The ads and trailers and publicity and so on, for any movie,
are all over TV.
In Avatar's case, it's also instantly a franchise that cuts across
many media and platforms, and it'll be even more so in the
future. By nature, and by convention in these groups, many
multi-media franchises like Star Trek and Superman are
discussed in multiple groups.
The Avatar-related 3-D issue is also interesting and applies
to both movies and potentially big screen TV. Anim8r might
even be able to weigh in on this (though I think his field is old
school animation -- maybe he resents Avatar. :-)).
If any reading have been interested in some or all of this post or
this new subthread, fine. If not, I don't care! :-) Feel free to
respond, or not! My recommendation to wannabe netcops
is that they try to substantively engage in whatever discussions
they care to, and failing that they can shove a hockey stick up
their wazoo. :-)
Hey, a Book of Eli ad again, with 3 minutes and a bit left,
before the San Jose win over Edmonton is official. Lady
Gaga's Let's Dance is playing in the arena as they get back
from the commercial. Anyway, I see Book of Eli has not
just Denzel as what looks like the protagonist, but Gary
Oldman as the evil villain type. Another selling point.
A fight almost broke out near the end of the game here
but it decayed into a grappling and a 2 minute roughing
penalty. Just over a minute left. Then it'll be the post-
games After Hours show, and then a two hour replay
recap if you missed the games. That's nine continuous
hours of CBC hockey programming, every Saturday
night from October to May or so.
Merrick Baldelli
wrote:
Anim... This is Kooky Casper.. Queen of her own moderating
world. You of all people know what he is and isn't capable of. Just
smile and nod, or remind him that we remember....
...it'll work him up for sure.
KalElFan
[snip plea for attention]
I already gave you the false memory plug in my Ode and Opus,
Baldelli. That's about one quarter of 1% of the post, and yet 4
minutes later you're whining and speaking in a deranged royal
we tone again.
You're too high maintenance for my entourage. If any of your
kooky clique from the Enterprise Off-Topic Chat Group are
still alive and posting, bring 'em on in for an audition.
Greg Goss
>There could well have been multiple attacks in progress or
>imminent, and this guy had just tried to kill almost 300 people.
>It was a perfect example of a case where waterboarding or
>similar aggressive techniques should be applied, if they're
>ever going to be applied, and don't waste time transporting
>him to Guantanamo first. I thought this last week before I
>saw the 2-1 poll, but it didn't surprise me when I saw the
>results on the site. Instead the guy's all lawyered up and
>Mirandized, and one report says his maximum sentence
>would be 20 years. Welcome to the era of hope and
>change and huggy kissy gag me with a spoon.
You think that they tell some frontline pawn what other attacks will
be in play? He's a living missile. Do you tell each missile what
else you might be firing at that day? Any such gang knows to keep
valuable information away from the guy who's gonna be captured.
Besides, torture just plain doesn't work. People make up information
to get it to stop. The Japanese surrendered after Nagasaki because
the guy that they were torturing about the nukes said that the
Americans had five of 'em. He didn't know, but "I don't know" wasn't
an acceptable answer. As it turned out, the correct answer had been
"zero more till a month or two from now". Torture gives BAD
information.
The guy wouldn't have any information useful about parallel attacks,
but would have made some up if necessary. Is that helpful?
>A Fox News reporter, can't remember his name off-hand,
>had himself waterboarded as part of a story last year or it
>may have been 2008. I suspect some left wing kooks
>might approve of that as an exception. :-/
Wasn't a Fox guy. It was a right-wing morning talk radio host. He
changed his mind to "That's definately torture" after the experiment.
The Fox guy chickened out after Olbermann took him up on the bet.
Edward McArdle
--
Edward McArdle
Anim8rFSK
Merrick Baldelli <mbal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
It was actually a reasonable post for once, if he'd just exercise
restraint in where he posted it.
Merrick Baldelli
wrote:
>> >and this has what to do with rec.arts.tv?
>>
>> Anim... This is Kooky Casper.. Queen of her own moderating
>> world. You of all people know what he is and isn't capable of. Just
>> smile and nod, or remind him that we remember....
>>
>> ...it'll work him up for sure.
>
>It was actually a reasonable post for once, if he'd just exercise
>restraint in where he posted it.
Yes, well. You know as well as I do how "reasonable" he can
be. Which is why he's now flooding more avatar into r.a.s.t. than
before.
Invid Fan
Baldelli <mbal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 09:50:01 -0700, Anim8rFSK <ANIM...@cox.net>
> wrote:
>
> >> >and this has what to do with rec.arts.tv?
> >>
> >> Anim... This is Kooky Casper.. Queen of her own moderating
> >> world. You of all people know what he is and isn't capable of. Just
> >> smile and nod, or remind him that we remember....
> >>
> >> ...it'll work him up for sure.
> >
> >It was actually a reasonable post for once, if he'd just exercise
> >restraint in where he posted it.
>
> Yes, well. You know as well as I do how "reasonable" he can
> be. Which is why he's now flooding more avatar into r.a.s.t. than
> before.
Off topic political posts are down, so something must fill the void.
--
Chris Mack "If we show any weakness, the monsters will get cocky!"
'Invid Fan' - 'Yokai Monsters Along With Ghosts'
Podkayne Fries
>
> and this has what to do with rec.arts.tv?
Given that the post came from KalElFan, my guess is that it was
crossposted to rec.arts.sf.tv because Cameron's movies have been on TV,
this one is SF and will be on TV one day, and KalElFan is an asshat.
--
Regards, Podkayne Fries
Necrophilia means never having to say you're sorry.
Merrick Baldelli
wrote:
>Off topic political posts are down, so something must fill the void.
Hush now... Obama's been a bit busy for the holiday, the
egg-timer's going right now on that.
David E. Powell
> Patty Winter <pat...@wintertime.com> wrote:
>
> >In article <7q3sh7F2d...@mid.individual.net>,
> >Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>
> >>Has anyone done the "inflation adjusted" numbers for it compared to
> >>Titanic?
>
> >or ticket price "inflation," but of course Box Office Mojo has a
> >chart of the latter, top 100 of all time:
>
> >http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm
>
>
> That list seems to just include domestic theatre showings, ignoring
> foreign theatre showings and DVD or videotape sales. (To my mind, toy
> sales should be separate.)
>
> dollar movie", but it's on that list at $600M
They count "World profits" which is why so many big ticket movies are
sort of bland-ized these days.
I wonder if video sales are counted? If only box office, there is a US
and then a World total.
Avoid normal situations.
> "Greg Goss" <go...@gossg.org> wrote in message
[..]
> Why arbitrarily limit it to the
> theatrical experience, especially when home systems these
> days can be theatrical quality
Really?
--
alt.flame Special Forces
"If you make people think they're thinking they'll love you: but if you really
make them think, they'll hate you." -- Don Marquis
Avoid normal situations.
> news:ANIM8Rfsk-90C53...@news.dc1.easynews.com...
[..]
> But a better response is to use yours to illustrate the concept
> of on topic versus off topic, and how some things can be on
> topic in more than one group, and how a post might have a
> few asides or commentary that might stray but still flow from
> the on-topic discussion. Slap a META tag on it as I have and
> anyone can feel free to respond substantively on the issues, or
> as a wannabe netcop. Wannabe as in just for fun and one
> hopes not take themselves too seriously, since these groups
> are unmoderated and all wannabe netcops can just be told
> to shove a hockey stick up their wazoo. :-)
This sort of "netcop netcop netcop, nyaah nyaah nyaah" post carried a
*little* weight back in 1990. Nowadays, many of the plank contributors to
my favorite newsgroups have fled to the blogosphere because they're tired
of wading through large pools of crap. Many groups are pathetic shadows of
their former selves, and some groups, which were once thriving and
fascinating, are completely dead. Alt.cult-movies, f'r instance, is now
a ghost town.
In concept at least, Usenet is still *way* better than the stagnancy,
hivemindery, and criminal graphics-abuse that is Webland. Please don't
be a part of the problem.
Avoid normal situations.
> On Dec 27, 9:27??pm, "KalElFan" <kalel...@yanospamhoo.com> wrote:
[..]
> Who cares ?
Jorn does.