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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Box Office Hell – Half-Blood Harry & The Potted Prince

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Keep in mind the $80 million that Potter already has in its coffers after 2 days. An $80m 3-day, which is what I think the max is, is still $20 million more in the first 5 days than any Potter yet and the #6 5-day gross of all time.

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22 Responses to “Box Office Hell – Half-Blood Harry & The Potted Prince”

  1. LexG says:

    I have a sudden and inexplicable urge to see MY SISTER’S KEEPER, not just because I like Jason Patric, Cameron Diaz and Alec Baldwin, but because I am utterly FASCINATED by Nick Cassavettes.
    Didn’t he used to direct and star in late-night Showtime softcores like SINS OF THE NIGHT? Dude was like the middle ground between Andrew Stevens and Marc Singer… now he’s this schmaltz-type director who shoots domestic dramas in this CinemaScope that looks so ’70s anamorphic it’s practically 6.40:1.
    Anyway, bummer it lasted 11 days and is now playing at The Beverly Center and that mini-plex inside the Burbank Mall that charges 12.50 even though it’s basically a second-run.
    I needed to see the GIANT CASSAVETTES COMPOSITIONS on a proper screen.

  2. bulldog68 says:

    Totally unrelated to Box office but I need a little advice from movie fans. Do Premiere Magazines carry any resale value? I will be emigrating to Vancouver from Trinidad in about a month and wondering what to do what my stash. Have about thirteen years worth up until their final issue. Any suggestions?

  3. Geoff says:

    Hey, LexG – last week, I was babysitting and watched Face/Off on DVD, had not seen it in years. Nick Casavettes has a pretty bad-ass role as a drug dealer compadre of Nick Cage’s terrorist. If you haven’t seen it, you would dig the movie – I would easily say one of the best action films of the ’90’s.
    And speaking of cool movies, wife is away and kids are sleep. Winding down on couch and just a great variety of movies on cable, right now, all in HD: Swingers, Pineapples Express, To Live and Die in LA (remember when William Peterson was cool?), Scarface, and There Will be Blood. Which one would YOU watch? And LexG, I know this would be a tough choice for you.
    And it is just me or do you think There Will Be Blood and Scarface make a great double feature? Seriously, Tony Montana and Daniel Plainview could be in a great buddy movie, together.

  4. Wrecktum says:

    I would watch There Will be Blood. Swingers is dated and the rest is trash.

  5. Geoff says:

    Wait a second – how is Swingers “dated?” It’s a movie about a particular time and place and IMHO does a very effective job of potraying people within that setting, while being extremely entertaining.
    The best movies are supposed to transport you – is it a detriment when you’re just being transported back 15 years ago to a booming subculture within LA??? I mean, the characters and themes are still pretty universal – we’ve all known people like Trent and Mikey.
    In that vein, wouldn’t you then call There Will Be Blood dated? I mean, you could call half of the best films of ’60’s, ’70’s, and ’80’s dated too, because they are so particular of their time.

  6. LexG says:

    Scarface, There Will Be Blood and To Live and Die in LA are three of the best movies ever made, but much as I tend to fast-forward to the “downfall” second half of “Boogie Nights” (Baker Hall and Todd Parker arriving, Johnny Doe as Rock Harders getting a BJ while pointing a gun at the chick’s head, Graham stomping the dude in the limo, the donut robbery, and of course the Night Ranger/Molina segment), I tend to only need to watch the last hour of TWBB, once Plainview goes all AWESOME and starts drinking and making fun of religion (both GOOD IDEAS) and making fun of his DOUCHE SON before pummeling that fake-ass fraud Eli with a bowling pin (I’m usually pumping my fists at that point.)
    Scarface, on the other hand, is entertaining all the way through, because every scene is some coked-up, SHE’S ON FIRE/TURN OUT THE LIGHT-scored synthed paean to excess, overkill, and COMMANDING THE WORLD.
    The greatest screen characters ever WHO I CONSIDER PERSONAL IDOLS are Tony Montana, Dirk Diggler, Daniel Plainview, Tyler Durden, and Travis Bickle.
    And, yes, FACE/OFF is awesome (Thomas Jane’s in there too being awesome pre-Todd Parker), and don’t forget DOMINIQUE SWAIN as the jailbait daughter who Travolta-as-Cage leches over. Brilliant scene.

  7. LexG says:

    Oh, and I don’t agree with Wrecktum’s apparent terrible taste in movies above, but I will say that SWING REVIVAL of the mid-90s was THE STUPIDEST SHIT EVER.
    All these white hipster transplant toolbags driving around in ZOOT SUITS and listening to ZOOT SUIT RIOT.
    I used to hate when KROQ would have to kill the Gravity Kills/Stabbing Westward/NIN/Metallica HERO OF THE DAY mood by cutting in with the fucking SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS.
    Stupidest shit ever, all these actor kids taking a break from cold-reading for Elimidate to go make like it was U.S.O. Night circa 1944.

  8. martin says:

    Bulldog, you might get a few bucks at a recycling center. Vancouver is pretty good about $$ for green initiatives.

  9. Lota says:

    Those are your personal heroes Lex?! Sheesh. No wonder you are napalm tot he ladies Dude. get some new heroes.
    I wanted to watch a new gangster movie but I have seen just about everything in any language going back to the 1920s…then I remembered ah yes…I never got around to seeing the Kasabian video where they rob the bank with guitars that shoot bullets.
    In these tough times anyone who could successfully rob a bank sans bullets would be MY personal hero (as long as the bank is FDIC insured and not any payroll).
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQClR22WV0Y

  10. Geoff says:

    I was never into the swing craze and L.A. is probably one of my least favorite cities, but Swingers is still one of my favorite movies – did you have to be into the faux swing craze to really enjoy that movie? That’s like saying you couldn’t enjoy Saturday Night Fever without liking disco.

  11. LexG says:

    First off, L.A. is THE GREATEST CITY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD IN ALL OF HISTORY.
    But, yeah, I was dissing the scene but not the movie, which I love. I haven’t seen it in a while, but it was pretty big to me because it came out just as I was moving to L.A. for good, and trying to be a standup, at that. Extremely relatable, and in those days I even sociable to boot.
    And I did get dragged to the Derby on at least one occasion, but if I recall, they didn’t even let you on the floor unless you’d TAKEN THE CLASS prior, or something stupid. Either that or you wouldn’t WANT to get on the floor, because all these pros who HAD taken the class were out there jitterbugging like extras from “1941,” and you couldn’t just go out there doing The Running Man without getting some chick’s heel in your eye socket from The Rocketeer throwing her around and shit.
    It amazes me that it’s still there (or at least was very recently), because I didn’t know ANYBODY still worked that scene.

  12. a_loco says:

    Speaking of Thomas Jane, has anyone been watching Hung? His new series on HBO? The first episode was directed by Alexander Payne and it’s pretty funny so far. Between that and The Mist, Jane is pretty badass these days.

  13. christian says:

    SWINGERS has a sweet heart, so the hipster dance scene is thankfully not the focus. Watching the movie always takes me back to a memorable period of my life. So there.

  14. LexG says:

    A_loco, just saw an episode of “Hung” (’cause Jane rules), and it was pretty good. Not perfect, but good acting (always thought Anne Heche was a really good actress who’d be considered world-class if her chops hadn’t been so overshadowed by her personal life back in the day.)
    Anyway, did you see the one where Jane bangs that SMOKING HOT personal shopper chick at the end who’s all barking orders at the end? HOLY SHIT that was awesome when he WAS FUCKING HER.
    GOOD IDEA. Maybe I should become a MALE ESCORT.
    Ladies, the QUEUE starts here.

  15. Lota says:

    imagine Lex as a male courtesan.
    I paid a male courtesan in Amsterdam and he was hotter than any moviestar.
    I think you have to get *considerably* more fit Lex, and learn to Not speak your mind as it may frighten the clientele.

  16. yancyskancy says:

    Lex: A more practical idea might be to try to get the rights to a great Saturday Night Live character that never got a shot at the movies: Aykroyd’s “Fred Garvin: Male Prostitute.” I guess Deuce Bigalow stole its thunder, but I’d still pay to see it (you star, let Aykroyd produce). Heck, I’d even help you write it.

  17. LexG says:

    Yancy always rules:
    Damn, just dialed that up on Hulu… Aykroyd was god back then. Replace Margot Kidder with Kristen Stewart, and I’m down.
    But, seriously, I’m just old enough to have grown up on the original-cast SNL thanks to reruns and maybe the last season or two of the vintage Not Ready cast (and their formative movies of that era), even if the Murphy/Piscopo/Shearer/Belushi years were more my adolescence, and the Myers/Schneider/Farley/Rock stuff repped my adolescence and early college times.
    Kind of a bummer that other than Blues Brothers, I can’t REALLY think of a movie — not even Ghostbusters, though Neighbors and Doctor Detroit in spots come closer — that wholly captured the strange, otherworldly comic energy of classic Aykroyd. Murray is a beloved legend by now, Belushi is immortal, and Chevy in Clark Griswold and Fletch found two PERFECT conduits for his flustered/deadpan comic persona.
    But Aykroyd might’ve been the best all-around actor, the most off-kilter and rounded; Even today I think that guy should be NAILING even more character parts than he does. He worked a LOT through the ’80s heyday when they all had seemingly a new movie dropping each week… but too few, if any, of them really captured Aykroyd at his surreal best.

  18. yancyskancy says:

    Yeah, Aykroyd was the first SNL vet to land an Oscar nod (Driving Miss Daisy) and he was in The House of Mirth. Has he had a decent part since Grosse Pointe Blank?

  19. Geoff says:

    Ackroyd WAS great in Grosse Pointe Blank – menacing, but very funny. I think he would have been great in more of those types of parts.
    I think his best role was in Trading Places – one of the best comedies of the ’80’s, it really holds up. Probably my favorite Eddie Murphy comedy, too.
    Actually, wasn’t Ackroyd in Pearl Harbor? Lousy movie obviously, but I remember him being solid in it.

  20. Cadavra says:

    I get the feeling that Aykroyd–note correct spelling–works only when he wants to (not unlike Murray). That said, he was excellent as a faux Cheney in WAR, INC., and of course he revived Elwood Blues in the vastly underrated BLUES BROTHERS 2000.

  21. christian says:

    And Ackroyd was genuinely perfect as Joe Friday on the otherwise awful DRAGNET film. And let’s not forget Ackroyd in one of his most underrated roles and films – NEIGHBORS.
    John Belushi’s last film. Still unavailable on DVD.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3P0sx7foX4&feature=related

  22. Joe Leydon says:

    What’s this? No love for Aykroyd’s Soul Man sitcom? How about his wines (which are, no kidding, quite good)?
    http://www.danaykroydwines.com/Home#
    I’d rather he remain in the vineyard than do small parts in bad movies. This one went direct to video in the US under the title White Coats. I caught it playing on a single screen in Toronto while I was there for the 1994 festival. There were three other people in the theater when I attended. Sad.
    http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117925554.html?categoryid=31&cs=1&p=0

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