The universally panned "Paul Blart: Mall Cop"
That makes me smile.
A Pajiba Prediction / Dustin Rowles
As we near the end of 2009 and approach 2010 with a sense of optimism -
after President Obama's successful first year in office and the speedy
recovery we've made from the deep recession of 2008 - let us take a look
back at the year in films. Thanks t to that recession, numbers overall were
down from a stellar 2008, when The Dark Knight went on to become the second
highest grossing film of all time. Pajiba - now the largest independently
ran pop-culture website on the Internet - gives you the top ten film of
2009:
The Ten Top Grossing Films of 2009
10. Angels and Demons ($142 million): It was worse than The Da Vinci Code,
and Ron Howard again tarnished his resurgent reputation (after the Oscar
nomination for 2008's Frost / Nixon), but the same mass-market paperback
crazies and older people flocked to it, nudging Angels and Demons slightly
ahead of the youth skewing Twilight sequel, New Moon, for the 10th spot.
Looks like Stephenie Meyer's Twilight franchise is already losing its legs.
9. Sherlock Holmes: ($151 million): There were a lot of reservations from a
lot of people about the box-office viability of Sherlock Holmes, especially
one as stylized as Guy Ritchie's. But, the hugely popular Robert Downey,
Jr., won over a lot of converts, while Rachel McAdams - coming off of two of
the more successful films in the early part of the year, The Time Traveler's
Wife and State of Play - brought in a nice chunk of the female demographic.
It was one of the few successes in 2009 that crossed over heavily into both
the adult and youth demographics .
8. Public Enemies ($159 million): . and Michael Mann's Public Enemies was
the other one. With Christian Bale and Johnny Depp leading the way, Mann
reinvigorated with crime drama with his take on the 1930s mafia.
7. X-Men Origins: Wolverine ($175 million): A critical failure and a
disappointment with most audiences, Wolverine nevertheless opened with huge
numbers ($85 million opening weekend) in May before limping to $175 million.
It nevertheless left a sour taste in most moviegoer's mouths, seriously
jeopardizing the X-Men franchise, as well as the potential Deadpool
spin-off, which is now DOA.
6. Watchmen ($185 million): After the biggest March opening of all time,
Zack Snyder's comic book film got a mixed reception from critics and
audience - the effects were eye-popping, but many of the Alan Moore purists
were pissed with Snyder's take on the classic comic book.
5. Star Trek ($192 million): J.J. Abrams Star Trek origins story brought in
millions of newcomers to the franchise without too terribly disturbing the
Trekkies. While it received a generally mixed reaction from critics - many
of whom were displeased with the casting of Chris Pine - audiences ate it up
and Abrams benefitted heavily from an otherwise lackluster May at the box
office.
4. Up ($221 million): Once again, the ever-consistent Pixar machine
delivered a huge box-office hit. Not as critically beloved as Wall-E, Up
nevertheless pleased both kids and adults alike, generating box-office
numbers on par with previous Pixar outings.
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($250 million): If you'd watched the
original Transformers and the sequel back-to-back, it'd have been difficult
to tell the difference between the two. The sequel scored $70 million less
than its predecessor, but Revenge of the Fallen nevertheless owned the box
office over the 4th of July, guaranteeing a 3rd film and further boosting
Shia Labeouf's box-office prowess.
2. Terminator Salvation ($290 million): The 4th movie in the franchise, a
reboot of sorts, decimated the box office; it was the number one film for
four consecutive weeks in late May and through June, delivering a $90
million opening and maintaining solid numbers for most of the summer. For
Christian Bale, it wasn't too much of a fall-off from his number one film in
2008, The Dark Knight, but unlike that film - which boasted the Oscar
nominated performance of Heath Ledger (robbed in the supporting actor
category) - Christian Bale owned Salvation, setting the franchise up for two
more movies in the planned reboot trilogy and, unfortunately, solidifying
McG as the next generation's Michael Bay.
1. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: ($294 million): In a year with no
Spider-man or Batman movies to steal its thunder, the sixth movie in the
Harry Potter franchise delivered numbers on par with its predecessor, Order
of the Phoenix. It wasn't the best film in the series, but did an excellent
job of setting up the last two films, Deathly Hallows parts I and II. To the
surprise of some, the box-office numbers were neither hurt nor hindered by
the paparazzo's obsession with Emma Watson, who had a bit of a sex scandal
herself in the early part of the year.
Why?
Its just Kevin recycing his "King of Queens" role, which while funny it
never had me rolling
like "The Nanny"
Then again seeing the junk the pubic runs to see it make me sad.
I took a trip over to the Bond NG last night as it turns out while QOS was a
big hit BO wise
many of the posters found it to be a letdown.
Since "Diamonds Are Forever", I have seen each Bond film on opening
night. I absolute loved "Casino Royal" - I saw it five times, and
dragged everyone I could to it. The idea of the next film sounded
even better - M-5 learning of the existence of SPECTER.
Then I read a review of "Quantum of Sophist" in National Review. This
time, the bad guys were the United States - who's portrayed as an evil
terrorist nation. Reluctant, I decided that it was time Mr. Bond and
I parted company - After 45 years of following the franchise, QOS is
the first Bond film I've ever passed on.
That film did very well in Europe - no surprise there. It opened huge
in the US, and then quickly died. I haven't spoken to anyone who had
any use for the film.
What a waste.
> They really make it impossible NOT to be a snob.
And without your brand of arrogance, the Three Stooges would have no
snobs to throw pies at.
No the casting of CRAIG and the changes in the series were the worst things.
James Bond used to be fun now theres no humor, DC has as much charm as a wet
noodle
and hes too short and just plain ugly
I think Casino Royale was a great reboot of the franchise. Going back and
watching Brosnan Bond movies just seem hopelessly corny now.
I haven't seen QoS yet though - waiting for Blu-Ray.
I have no interest in the mall cop movie though.
To me and the Mrs it was a bore.
One other thing whats this nonsense with the gun logo at the end and not the
beginning
in QOS?
I so agree, but I think we are in the minority.
Sad to say we are............
He most definitely is NOT ugly.
--
JD
"...if you think the 'Star Wars' prequels are a disease, then
'Serenity' is the cure."
That all seems like a pretty plausible prediction.
--
____________________________________________________
Alric Knebel
What an idiot. You impress me with how low down the evolutionary scale
you go with each post. The United States was NOT the bad guy. You
really should get your nose out of the National Review.
--
____________________________________________________
Alric Knebel
The only way QOS works is by considering it as a direct sequel, and part
two of CASINO ROYALE. As a stand-alone feature, it doesn't work. It
was good, but not layered enough. The bad guy was very good, but there
was too much action. I'll buy the Blu-ray, no doubt, but I doubt I'll
watch it as many times as I've watched CR.
And I agree. Except for the very earliest Connery films, Bond is a
corny cartoon. Until Craig came along.
--
____________________________________________________
Alric Knebel
I was hoping they'd introduce it the way they did in CR, with a sudden
reference to it as the consequence of the shot fired in the story.
--
____________________________________________________
Alric Knebel
I think I read in interviews that both movies are to be watched
together, and that QoS is the first "direct" Bond sequel they have
made. I think it is following the tradtion of most sequels nowadays
where they expect that audiences have seen the prior film, so they can
save time by not having to re-build the characters history and
motivations again, this why watching the sequels alone, they seem
thinner and don't really stand by themselves (as someone stated
earlier). This being said, having the infamous "gunbarrel" sequence at
the end makes sense to these two movies, with it serving as a bookend
to the second movie. Then again, I haven't seen QoS yet (i'm waiting
for the blu-ray), so I don't know if my "bookend" theory works if the
story ends in a way that the story can continue in the next sequel.
Why? Because you like it?
Pramer
and the vast majority of those Peter Pans can't suspend disbelief to
sit through a musical - but clamor for more (hopelessly fake, physics-
defying) CGI.
You want indefensible suspension of disbelief - watch the dino
stampede in Jackson's KING KONG - Holy take me out of the picture,
Batman!
.
Musical comedy creators don't understand that when they express
contempt for their audience, they soon drive their audience away.
Consider - in 1965, "The Sound of Music" Masterworks recording sold 11
million copies - with an insanely long stay on the charts. A mere
seven years later, "Day By Day" from the original cast album of
"Godspell", reached #13 on the Billboard pop singles. I believe that
was the last time a track from an original cast album broke the chart.
> Consider - in 1965, "The Sound of Music" Masterworks recording sold 11
> million copies
Wrong, yet again. Masterworks was the Columbia sub-label. And while
Columbia put out the SoM OBC, you're clearly talking about the
soundtrack album, which was issued on RCA.
... and who said anything about *modern* musicals?
-------------------------------------------
Yep, I have the OBC with Martin and Bikel on my shelf of old vinyls and it
is Columbia Masterworks.
While browsing online, I found this (below). I always thought Plummer did
his own singing. Ditto Peggy Wood/Margery McKay on "Climb Ev'ry Mountain."
What you don't learn from the internet!
Review by William Ruhlmann
When the film version of the 1959 Broadway musical The Sound of
Music - the final collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Oscar
Hammerstein II - opened in March 1965, it became the highest grossing movie
in history up to that time, and went on to win the Academy Award for best
picture. The accompanying soundtrack did not do as well, probably because
many households already possessed copies of the massively successful
original Broadway cast album. But it did manage to hit number one and spend
four and a half years on the charts. (As of 2000, RCA was claiming North
American sales of 11 million copies, though the album had never been
certified beyond the gold level.) It was a very different recording from the
Broadway LP. The main difference, of course, was the substitution of Julie
Andrews for Mary Martin in the starring role of Maria, the postulant who
leaves an Austrian convent to marry a wealthy naval captain with seven
children. Martin, at whose behest the show was written, was a 45-year-old
Broadway veteran when she started to play Maria, a real person who had been
21 when the events depicted in the show began. Martin relied on her
considerable charm to mask the age difference. But she had displayed little
interest in film during her career, and could hardly have been cast in the
movie version after the age of 50, in any case. Andrews, though also a
Broadway veteran, having starred in My Fair Lady (and, ironically, been
passed over for the film version) among other shows, was only in her late
twenties. Fresh from her Academy Award-winning appearance in the title role
of Mary Poppins, she was well placed to play another children's nanny, and
proved to be superb in the film as well as on the soundtrack album (though
performances gauged for the screen sometimes came off as overly exuberant on
record, particularly "Do-Re-Mi"). That was one very big plus, but it was the
only one. Irwin Kostal's arrangements were much more ornate than those of
Robert Russell Bennett's for the Broadway show, and much less impressive.
On-stage, the show had been criticized for being too sentimental, but the
film version robbed it of whatever grit it had possessed, eliminating such
songs as "How Can Love Survive?" and "No Way to Stop It" that had been
performed by supporting characters. Worst of all, the appealing duet "An
Ordinary Couple" was gone, replaced by the slight "Something Good."
Hammerstein had died, and Rodgers supplied his own barely competent lyrics
to this new song, and to "I Have Confidence," which Andrews put across
winningly despite its inferiority to the rest of the score. Popular as the
film may have been, then, the soundtrack album was worth owning only because
of Julie Andrews, and the original Broadway cast album remained definitive.
[Since no edition of the album accurately credits the singers, it should be
noted that Bill Lee's singing voice has been dubbed in for Christopher
Plummer, who plays the romantic lead Captain von Trapp, and that it is
Margery McKay who is singing, not the screen actress Peggy Wood, as Mother
Abbess on "Climb Ev'ry Mountain."]
"A great many [writers] use [science fiction] for satire; nearly all the
most pungent American criticism of the American way of life takes this
form, and would at once be denounced as un-American if it ventured into
any other."
-- C. S. Lewis: "An Experiment in Criticism"
> Question: why are so many middle aged men still fascinated by action
> sci-fi? Talk about a Peter Pan syndrome.
> And the vast majority of those Peter Pans can't suspend disbelief to sit
> through a musical>>>
.
> bvallely: too many musicals these days have contempt for conservative
> heterosexual middle aged males.
.
> Which are those?
.
Ah, cheese and crackers, which ones aren't? Let's see - here's a few
off the top of my head.
" 9 to 5" - three secretaries kidnap their white, male boss, humiliate
him, time him up, and steal his company. The thieves are, of course,
considered adorable.
"Rent" is two hours of twits with an iron clad sense of entitlement
who are outraged that somebody doesn't pay their rent, nor notice that
their hedonistic ways are destroying their lives, or the lives of
everyone around them. The play demands that we admire these fools.
"Legally Blonde" - the bad guy is an evil white male corporate lawyer
who sexually attacks the heroine.
"Wicked" has for it's villain a middle aged white male American who
knocks up the heroine's mother, manages to paint his daughter green,
creates a form of genocide by destroying the sentience of animals.
Charmingly, the evil White Male sends another white American
assassinate (Dorothy) to murder his own daughter.
"Bat Boy" - attack after attack against Christians. "Reefer Madness",
"Miss Saigon" "You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W.
Bush"
Again, that's just off the top of my head - I could easily come up
with lots more.. Consider the fathers who were dragged to these shows
by their wives and daughters. How many of them spent two hours
thinking "I spent $600.00 to be insulted?" Are you really surprised
that they're reluctant to return?
It's gotten to the point that it's not even a matter of being
insulting - it's worse. It's boring. You know who's going to be the
villain - the white guy.
Good to know.........
I'd have to second that. And some of them are even good (but even the
bad ones can be fun).
--
JD
"...if you think the 'Star Wars' prequels are a disease, then
'Serenity' is the cure."
IIRC, more sweetened than dubbed. The biy's high note in "So Long,
Farewell" and I think there were about 10 kids singing in total to
give the seven a fuller sound.
> One thing I could never understand about the SOM soundtrack album is why
> were the songs out of order?
Variety, mostly - why have both versions of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" so
close together when you can put the first version as the last cut on
side one to give a sense of a finale.
The really weird one is the Theatre de Lys THEEPENNY album - which of
course had to find a way to get three acts on two sides.
> > Wrong, yet again. Masterworks was the Columbia sub-label. And while
> > Columbia put out the SoM OBC, you're clearly talking about the
> > soundtrack album, which was issued on RCA.
>
> .
> If you say so. Not the first time I've ever been wrong.
In the words of the grerat Ed Wood, "That is the understatement of the
year."
Best Feature
Ballast
Lance Hammer, Nina Parikh
Frozen River
Chip Hourihan, Heather Rae
Rachel Getting Married
Neda Armian, Jonathan Demme, Marc Platt
Wendy and Lucy
Larry Fessenden, Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani
The Wrestler
Darren Aronofsky, Scott Franklin
-----------------------------
Best Director
Ramin Bahrani
Chop Shop
Jonathan Demme
Rachel Getting Married
Lance Hammer
Ballast
Courtney Hunt
Frozen River
Tom McCarthy
The Visitor
---------------------------
Best Screenplay
Woody Allen
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck
Sugar
Charlie Kaufman
Synecdoche, New York
Howard A. Rodman
Savage Grace
Christopher Zalla
Sangre De Mi Sangre
------------------------
Best First Screenplay
Dustin Lance Black
Milk
Lance Hammer
Ballast
Courtney Hunt
Frozen River
Jonathan Levine
The Wackness
Jenny Lumet
Rachel Getting Married
------------------------
Best Female Lead
Summer Bishil
Towelhead
Anne Hathaway
Rachel Getting Married
Melissa Leo
Frozen River
Tarra Riggs
Ballast
Michelle Williams
Wendy and Lucy
-----------------------
Best Male Lead
Javier Bardem
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Richard Jenkins
The Visitor
Sean Penn
Milk
Jeremy Renner
The Hurt Locker
Mickey Rourke
The Wrestler
-------------------------
Best Supporting Female
Penelope Cruz
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Rosemarie DeWitt
Rachel Getting Married
Rosie Perez
The Take
Misty Upham
Frozen River
Debra Winger
Rachel Getting Married
---------------------------
Best Supporting Male
James Franco
Milk
Anthony Mackie
The Hurt Locker
Charlie McDermott
Frozen River
JimMyron Ross
Ballast
Haaz Sleiman
The Visitor
Best Director
Tom McCarthy
The Visitor
---------------------------
Best Male Lead
Richard Jenkins
The Visitor
-------------------------
Best Supporting Male
Haaz Sleiman
The Visitor
====================
The Vistor is currently available on Starz on Demand.