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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Friday Numbers by Klady & BO Hell

Wild Hoggies couldn’t drag me to it
Wild, wild hoggies, they went to that shit
What can you do? People still eat a lot of Big Macs, they want to read about Britney

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32 Responses to “Friday Numbers by Klady & BO Hell”

  1. EDouglas says:

    Surprised I was the highest on Wild Hogs and lowest on Black Snake Moan…but still wasn’t high or low enough compared to how much they’ll make. The fact that Zodiac didn’t do better is a huge shame. Also surprised by Black Snake Moan because the reaction at the preview screening I saw was insane and I would think that it would be one of those “you gotta see this!” type movies.

  2. jeffmcm says:

    I saw Bridge to Terabithia last night, and misleading marketing campaign aside, I thought it was really quite good. Anyone else?

  3. Lota says:

    Terebithia was good and i went at opening day, and was surprised that it made me cry, unexpectedly since i rarely cry in films. I had read the book so I should have been prepared, but was not.
    The 10 yr olds seemed to love it.
    It is a warm movie without being cheesy, I’m happy it’s doing well. The acting was excellent.

  4. Lota says:

    By the way..in a rare agreement with Jeff, the marketing campaign was highly misleading for Terebithia, especially from reading the book I wondered “what was the trailer all about?!”
    Josh Hutcherson will be a heartbreaker when he grows up–he’s a very good looking boy.

  5. jeffmcm says:

    Why is everyone so startled to be agreeing with me today? I’m really quite agreeable in non-internet life.

  6. Tofu says:

    As I’ve said before, Terabithia starts out terribly, begins to become watchable, then becomes fun, into touching, and lastly into important. I doubt I’ve ever seen a film switch gears to such a degree so successfully.
    Wild Hogs did indeed target families, who I suppose were willing to pass on Macy’s bits of humor (sex, black jokes, no pants). Tim Allen all but guaranteed this segment would come out for the flick.
    Zodiac’s opening isn’t too surprising, as normal moviegoers are still asking me who the hell David Fincher is (only twenty minutes after I just told them) and the subject matter has been done to death in the past two decades. The theater count wasn’t exactly impressive either.
    BTW, that column in the chart should read theaters, not screens.

  7. Chicago48 says:

    I had a choice – BSM or Zodiac, and I chose BSM – good southern trashy movie. It will disappoint and offend a lot of people. But Grindhouse to the hilt! I saw Zodiac’s running time – 3 hours and actually the subject just didn’t interest me. Seems I’ve seen that type of movie before. Anyway, that’s what I chose to do this weekend. Next weekend – 300!

  8. Nicol D says:

    As startled as I am to agree with JeffMCM :), Bridge is a wonderful film that respects its audience and actually teaches kids a lesson about life, that is very rare in adult films let alone children’s.
    Initially I dismised it as a Narnia rip off, then I saw the poster and it just sort of looked…special. Like something more was happening.
    I also saw The Number 23 today and…I liked it. I thought it was much better than I had read and was a nice twist on the film noir genre. It had much in common with both The Singing Detective and Lost Highway. I do think many critics are going too harsh on this for many reasons, not the least of which are the, Jim Carrey is on the ‘outs’ factor; that Joel Schumacher will never be forgiven for Batman & Robin; and even the moral choice Carrey makes at the end of the film which I thought was very intelligent yet some might find depressing or preachy.
    Well done, regardless of what the crix say.

  9. Nicol D says:

    As startled as I am to agree with JeffMCM :), Bridge is a wonderful film that respects its audience and actually teaches kids a lesson about life, that is very rare in adult films let alone children’s.
    Initially I dismised it as a Narnia rip off, then I saw the poster and it just sort of looked…special. Like something more was happening.
    I also saw The Number 23 today and…I liked it. I thought it was much better than I had read and was a nice twist on the film noir genre. It had much in common with both The Singing Detective and Lost Highway. I do think many critics are going too harsh on this for many reasons, not the least of which are the, Jim Carrey is on the ‘outs’ factor; that Joel Schumacher will never be forgiven for Batman & Robin; and even the moral choice Carrey makes at the end of the film which I thought was very intelligent yet some might find depressing or preachy.
    Well done, regardless of what the crix say.

  10. Blackcloud says:

    Question about Pan’s Labyrinth, which I finally saw today. The thing the heroine does where she creates a door using a piece of chalk felt very, very familiar. Someone I know said it’s in “Beetlejuice.” Any ideas where else it might come from?

  11. Lota says:

    chalking or painting a doorway to another world is a common theme in Asian(CHinese & Japanese at least) juvenile fiction, largely known by Ma Lien and the Magic Brush as the most recent translation of it.
    an actual “chalk” door I dont recall in a very recent movie.
    Mary Poppins used chalk drawings to “transition” to the fantasy world, Narnia had a drawing that swallowed up Eustace, and doorway of sticks, & The Forgotten Door was just that…
    was Beetlejuice actually chalk?

  12. I really want to see Black Snake Moan. Moreso than Zodiac. I’m not sure I’ll be able to convince friends to see Zodiac. It doesn’t look terribly exciting and it’s very long. I want to see it, but…
    BSM just looks so absolutely bonkers that I feel I’ve gotta see it. Plus, Christina Ricci back in the game!
    Ouch for Reno 911! Miami. 70%. I suppose it should have been expected, but still…
    Whenever I see the poster/standups for Terabithia (which hasn’t been released here) I think it’s an animated movie. The two kids on the boat in the moonlight. It just looks CGI for some reason.

  13. MattM says:

    Black Snake Moan would have been a far more entertaining movie if it had wholly embraced its trashiness rather than trying to “make a statement” in some way.

  14. Tofu says:

    The odd part about Terabithia and its poster? No actual night scenes of any significance in the actual movie, let alone one reflecting the “exploration” shot going on the one-sheet.

  15. Rob says:

    Why does everyone keep saying Zodiac is 3 hours long? It’s just a hair over 2 1/2.

  16. jeffmcm says:

    Beetlejuice does indeed have a door drawn in chalk.
    KCamel, there is no scene in the movie where the kids are in a boat, much less a boat in moonlight. Disney marketing in Australia is even more misleading than it is here.

  17. EDouglas says:

    del Toro has said that he was heavily influenced by fables and fairy tales of other cultures while writing/making Pan’s Labyrinth, so I’d go with the Asian folklore over Beeteljuice.

  18. T.Holly says:

    Uma Thurman drew a rectangle in Pulp Fiction, does that count?
    Can anyone around here post an advanced review of Fox Searchlight’s “The Namesake,” please?

  19. Blackcloud says:

    Maybe the chalk thing felt so familiar because it came from no specific place; it came from everywhere. One particular story I was reminded of was Saint-Exupery’s Petit Prince.

  20. Chicago48 says:

    Matt – I totally agree w/ you about BSM. I kept asking myself, ‘what’s the point’ ‘ what’s this mean’? It was super-trashy and should have just admitted that, instead of trying to convey a ‘message’ which I still didn’t get…it reminded me of a Tennessee Williams play-trashy hot women and men trying to tame them…and it would make a good Broadway play.

  21. Chucky in Jersey says:

    Zodiac’s opening isn’t too surprising, as normal moviegoers are still asking me who the hell David Fincher is (only twenty minutes after I just told them) …
    All a normal moviegoer had to do was look at the poster or the ads. “From the director of Se7en and Panic Room“.
    That old Hollywood reliable called Name-Checking paves the way for another Box Office Flop.

  22. Cadavra says:

    Lessee: a dark, depressing 160″ movie about a real-life serial killer who escapes justice, directed by a critics’ darling with more flops than hits under his belt…yeah, sure spells blockbuster to me!

  23. Chicago48 says:

    To Cadavra: Funny.
    The reason I didn’t want to see it is the time – almost 3 hours long – who wants to watch a movie with a serial killer subj. for 3 hours??

  24. Chicago48 says:

    Wasn’t Seven supposed to be based on the zodiac killer?

  25. jeffmcm says:

    Chucky in Jersey, please get over it. WHY do you hate this one practice so much? Nobody has a problem with it except you.

  26. martin says:

    Cadavra, that’s a little unfair to the execs. Seven, Game, and Panic Room were major box office hits. Fight Club was a disappointment, but Alien 3 is the only “flop” on his resume.

  27. Tofu says:

    I ask myself the same question every few weeks when the latest slasher junk hauls around into the multiplexes, except those are shorter by an hour on average. In Zodiac’s defense, 145 minutes of the 158 minute runtime (2 hr, 38 min) is spent on the very cool investigation, not the killer. It rarely drags, but it does repeat itself from time to time.
    The Good Shepherd was ten minutes longer, yet I don’t quite remember there being an outcry as loud as this one.
    Fincher’s track history at isn’t as bad as one might think…
    Alien 3 (May 22, 1992)
    Production Budget: $50 million
    Worldwide Gross: $159,773,545
    Seven (September 22, 1995)
    Production Budget: $33 million
    Worldwide Gross: $327,311,859
    The Game (September 12, 1997)
    Production Budget: $50 million
    Worldwide Gross: $109,423,648
    Fight Club (October 15, 1999)
    Production Budget: $63 million
    Worldwide Gross: $100,853,753
    Panic Room (March 29, 2002)
    Production Budget: $48 million
    Worldwide Gross: $196,397,415
    Zodiac (March 2, 2007)
    Production Budget: $85 million
    Opening Weekend: $13,100,000
    Seven & Fight Club of course did gangbusters on video, and Zodiac while being his most expensive still has a full run ahead of itself. Outside of Alien 3, all of these have had downright terrible release dates. His shortest film was Panic Room, at 1 hour, 52 minutes.

  28. Wrecktum says:

    Disney’s ad campaign for Terabithia was brilliant. Sure it was misleading, but it brought people into the theater the opening weekend and strong word of mouth has carried the movie the last three weeks.
    Because of their campaign, this film will finish well north of $70 million. Without it, it would have been another My Dog Skip or Because of Winn Dixie.

  29. Jeff, I was wrong. I had an image of a boat in my mind, when really it was a log. The poster is below. Still. It is moonlight-ed (?) and looks very animated.
    http://www.impawards.com/2007/bridge_to_terabithia.html

  30. Cadavra says:

    Well, depending on how it did on video, THE GAME might have broken even, but based on Tofu’s numbers, it was clearly no hit, and Foster’s piece of the gross on PANIC ROOM no doubt took a chunk out of the bottom line. And even Fincher’s one certifiable smash was 12 years ago. Is it possible that ZODIAC smells too much like SE7EN PART 2WO and audiences simply thought, aah, been-there-done-that?

  31. Or it could just be that they prefer their serial killers to be hunted by a big famous celebrity. …maybe.

  32. jeffmcm says:

    If anything, Zodiac was a victim of Fincher’s own success, in that the serial-killer genre is on its last legs (e.g. Hannibal Rising).

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon