Weekend Estimates by Immortal Klady
And the weekend got a little weirder.
Puss in Boots did it again, not winning the weekend, but holding so well as to “upset” a newcomer, Klady estimating it just over Jack & Jill for the weekend.
Immortals distributor Relativity is throwing a lot of numbers out there. Third biggest R-rated opening off the year and fifth biggest R-rated opening in November. Of course, #6 and #7 are from 1992 and 1999. And there are only 14 R-rated films in movie history to open to more than $15m in November.
That said, this stat inspired me to do a little research and it turns out that November is the month with the second most $30m+ R-rated openings of any month with 9. July is the most successful with 10. October is right behind with 8. May and August have 7 each. February has 6, June has 5, and March has 4. And April, December, and January has just 1 apiece. And there is not a single $30m R-rated opening in September, where Jackass: Number Two is the top R-opened with $29m.
So… did Relativity hamstring itself by making an R-rated Immortals instead of a PG-13, a la Clash of the Titans and 2012? And could one fairly make the argument that this is deja vu for Tarsem, whose The Cell was the #40 film of 2000 in spite of enormous interest in the then-very-fresh look of his work? That was a $61m domestic gross. Right now, #40 for the year is $64m. But by year’s end, #40 for 2011 will have grossed no less than $80m domestic, which could well be Immortals‘ fate. Hmmm…
And again… “the film’s production budget is $75mm, which includes government tax rebates for covering shooting/post production in Montreal” and “Relativity has significantly reduced risk to the company by recouping money from foreign pre-sales, which resulted in sizeable savings for the company.”
And on the Idiot Watch: “Pic eked out a $30+M weekend bow, which is a rarity these days.” Gee… it’s the third $30m opening in the last 4 weekends. Was any sane person expecting 4 for 4? There have been 27 $30m+ openings this year to date, which is 2 behind the number as of this time last year and the year before. SLUMP!
In each of those last two years, there were four more $30m openings between now and the end of the year. I count at least six such openings before the end of this year (Twilight, Happy Feet 2, Alvin 3, Sherlock 2, M:I4, Dragon Tattoo) making this year’s count identical to the last two years and that doesn’t count such possibles as Tintin, The Muppets, and others.
So will this get covered when 2011 exceeds the years before? Or will there be some other statistic used to claim, “SLUMP!”?
Sandler’s opening feels a little soft, even for his off-season. But do I need to point out… it’s still a $26m opening based on Adam’s big head x2? Maybe we’ll get an autopsy for a $26m opening. The only really interesting thing here is that it may not become his 11th straight (or 13th of 14) $100m domestic in-character grosser. Or it may. But God, am I sick to death of people burying others based on one film. Is someone out there making of list of Sandler’s good movies that were worthy of the box office success they had?
The J. Edgar opening is a mixed bag. On one side, who really wants to see this movie? On the other hand, some people went to see the movie. The opening was better than Flags of Our Fathers or Invictus… hard to tell if that is a Leo phenomenon or more interest in the subject. Either way, the improvement is incremental. And it’s worth noting, one of those films was nominated only for acting Oscars, the other only for sound.
Anonymous is dead. Sony just couldn’t figure out how to get anyone interested and nothing about its limited release will encourage another run at it. A real shame.
There’s a cluster of high-profile arthouse films now between $1.1m and $1.7m… The Skin I Live In, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Like Crazy.
Melancholia had a decent opening, likely pushing it over $1 million theatrical. Whether that’s a win is in the eye of the beholder. It will work for IFC, which looks to the VOD to be a multiple of that theatrical gross. But gosh, it hurts to see great, highly visual filmmaking have such a small theatrical audience.
Did anybody check out “London Blvd.” this weekend?
The cast is certainly impressive (Farrell, Knightley, Thewlis, Winstone), and the NY Times review that described it as a cross between “Performance” and “Sunset Blvd.” definitely has me psyched.
But I’m a tad reluctant to pay $9.99 to watch it on my laptop.
Well…this weekend pulled off a win! “Puss” looks like it should pass “Rio” to make it the number 3 animated film this year. “Immortals” should do great overseas and recoup, but does anyone believe “Jack and Jill” cost more to make than Immortals?!?!
Immortals made another 36 million overseas according to Box Office Mojo. So the opening week total is around 65 – 70 million.
Reported budget is 75 million, but even if it was 100 – 125 million it will still end up doing well enough to justify it’s existence.
TOWER HEIST is enjoyable, if terribly light and frothy and fluffy. The ensamble is fun (I would argue Ratner’s great strength is with actors), and it’s worth checking out to see Eddie, who is a blast and the funniest he’s been in a good while.
I hope people go see J. EDGAR, because it keeps rattling around in my head the way the (rare) truly great movies do.
ADDED: Why is no one mentioning the fact that IMMORTALS (which I’ll probably get around to next week) is rated R? That usually comes with lowered b.o. expectations, but over at Deadline she’s acting like it was a guaranteed 50 million opener, even though that would have made it one of the biggest smash openers with the rating ever.
True; but it is also 3D. If “300” (also rated R) had been in 3D, its opening would have been around $90 million. Also if “Bad Teacher” can open at $32 million with an R rating…
Yeah, that is true. But 300 was a massive smash hit that I don’t think anyone reasonably expected the much less hyped IMMORTALS to meet (Would anyone have been surprised if it would have had a mid to high teens opening?), and BAD TEACHER was a summer movie.
I agree somewhat. But 32 million isn’t uncommon at all for an R-rated film now; it’s a level the non-3D “Due Date” and “Book of Eli” hit last year, along with the crazy $50 million of Jackass 3D, and even the supposed flop “The Wolfman” hit 32 million. Hell non-3D “District 9” opened with 37 million and “Watchmen” rang up 55 million.
Movieman,
re: London Boulevard… Stay away. Stay very away and you will save your well earned $9.99.
i cant fathom anyone thinking Immortals would do 50 million opening weekend. I don’t care how much 300 made.
It does not have one name actor (other than Rourke who isn’t exactly box office gold these days). It’s a bunch of people no one has ever heard of in a giant visual action orgy. And yes, so was 300, but 300 had so many marketable moments and really did a great job selling THIS…. IS…. SPARTA…. For anyone to think that you could bottle that lightning twice is idiotic.
I thought it would tank hard. The fact that it hit 30 million dollars seems like a solid hit for a movie that has almost no hook whatsoever.
“Melancholia had a decent opening, likely pushing it over $1 million theatrical. Whether that’s a win is in the eye of the beholder. It will work for IFC, which looks to the VOD to be a multiple of that theatrical gross. But gosh, it hurts to see great, highly visual filmmaking have such a small theatrical audience.”
What are the actual number of multiples something like “Melancholia” can hope to get with VOD anyway? For all of the VOD discussions I’ve heard, I’ve never seen hard numbers for anything that’s gone that route.
That’s really disappointing, Pope.
But thanks for the consumer report.
I guess I’ll just wait for DVD (I think it’s coming out in February).
So will “Breaking Dawn I” have the first $100-million opening weekend since…”Deathly Hallows 2″?
And from this vantage point, it also looks as if it’ll probably be the last $100-million o/w-end of 2011. I don’t see any December release with that kind of pent-up interest or, in the case of the franchise movies, loyal fanbase.
“Margin Call” has done pretty well for a movie that was a VOD/theatrical day and date.
Have to say I dug Immortals. It is much more violent then I was expecting and I didn’t think Tarsem would go there but it was gorgeous. I’m going to have to see evey Tarsem movie in the theater just for his visuals. I ultimately want to see his Snow White movie just to see his vision meshed with a fairy tale story.
Btw….It’s been pointed out that Universal finally reached $1 billion in domestic grosses for the first time since 2008. They also don’t have another domestic release until 2012. November 4 is was their last domestic release of 2011.
Has a studio EVER basically foregone the last two months of the year??? Every other major had at least 3 releases left from this weekend till year’s end except Disney with 2.
I wanted to tag up on what Hallick sorta said too….I saw MELANCHOLIA over a month ago via my PS3 and it cost $10 to rent for a month. How does one see those numbers? It’s also now on-demand for $8 so those number must inflate it’s gross as well.
“It will work for IFC” – Magnolia is distributing Melancholia.
LA Times reviewed LONDON BLVD on Friday… even though it didn’t open in ANY Los Angeles movie theaters this weekend. The review claims it opened at the Sunset 5, which IT DID NOT. Did the LA release get pulled at the very last second after the Times had gone to print?
On a more pressing note, I saw LIKE CRAZY.
More like LIKE BULLSHIT. Ugh, other than enjoying Felicity Jones’ constant showing of feet, and charting Elijah Wood’s hair loss for 91 minutes, what a pair of boring motherfuckers on about NOTHING… You know a romantic drama’s in trouble when you’re pulling for the #2 options for each person– Jennifer Lawrence wipes the floor with Felicity and didn’t seem like a giant pain in the ass, and Felicity gets this British GQ model who seems like a great guy… but nope, these dullards keep pining for each other across time and space all over a romance we never really “felt” other than a few cutesy montages and some sweet-natured piano music.
Honestly the movie lost me 2 minutes in when Felicity Jones ACTIVELY ASKS OUT Yelchin, which never happens to ANY GUY, let alone Billy Crystal From Soap Yelchin…
And the couple lost me for good with their shared love of PAUL SIMON, which no 22-year-olds in the world would be into.
Like Crazy is the worst well-reviewed movie of the year. Those two losers deserve each other.
Couple of romantics up there. Sheesh.
I liked ONE DAY. In fact, there is ZERO earthly reason why LIKE CRAZY is some PHENOM, when ONE DAY, which features two likable leads and comes from an established director, was one of the worst-reviewed major releases of the summer. At the very least, anyone who panned that one has no business giving this trifle a rave.
There isn’t much that’s “romantic” about LIKE CRAZY, because both characters are selfish, uninteresting ciphers who apparently manage to have these sweet careers despite being all of 22 and spending zero effort at anything but MOPING over each other for the longest 90 minutes of 2011.
All this movie’ll do is make liberals vote Republican, because a nice Perry-Buchanan ticket might keep two idiots like Jones and Yelchin’s characters apart forever. As it should be.
TEAM LAWRENCE.
Drive is a romantic movie. Skarsgard buying Dunst an orchard in Melancholia is romantic (then devastating once he realizes she doesn’t give a shit). Steve Carell’s phone call w/Julianne Moore when she doesn’t realize he’s outside her house = romantic.
Like Crazy is two whiny idiots who reject hotter, less annoying people to be with each other. Also, it’s a 90-minute movie that somehow feels longer than J. Edgar’s 137 minutes.
Wait. Elijah Wood was in “Like Crazy” when you saw it, Lex?
This is actually the first bad response I’ve heard to LIKE CRAZY. I’m curious…what did you guys think of NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS and BLUE VALENTINE, because they seem to cover somewhat similar ground. I found the former formally interesting but it didn’t do anything for me emotionally and I had similar issues that you seem to be having with LC, while the latter destroyed me and I thought it was just beautifully made and performed.
Perry-Buchanan? Wow, in what world would those two ever be elected for anything outside of class president? Perry has basically let the rest of Texas know he’s an idiot. How that doesn’t effect his future is beyond me. Nevertheless, One Day is shit, and Like Crazy is quality. HOW DARE YOU TWO DISMISS… TEH LUV XD!
Didn’t see Nights and Weekends, loved Blue Valentine. In fact, Like Crazy just underlined how great BV and Weekend (the gay one) are. Those movies have stakes. LC just goes in circles.
Like Crazy should never be spoken of in relation to Blue Valentine… It’s not even the same ballpark.
We had this discussion here two weeks ago and I didn’t chime in, but I’m not entirely on board as DRIVE being any great romantic movie. To me, it seems like a ROMANTIC movie for nihilistic film geeks, when it’s quite possibly about a delusional creepy/sociopath who’s obsessed with a woman above his station, who may be somewhat partly idealized in his mind.
I know Gosling, Refn and Mulligan have all made allusions to John Hughes and Pretty in Pink, and the synth songs give it that moony love letter to the ’80s romantic feel, but if you listen to the LYRICS to all the songs, they’re about unhealthy obsession and read more stalkery like #1 CRUSH than some great romance; I think nihilistic movie geeks perceive this kind of thing as ROMANTIC, but Gosling’s character is kind of a freakshow, and if anyone in the movie is romantic toward Mulligan, it’s Standard.
It reminded me a little of SIN CITY (a movie I don’t really like much, as opposed to DRIVE) where in each story I think GEEKS like this savior narrative of this bruised bad-ass (Rourke, Owen, Willis) coming to the aid of some damsel in distress and read that as ROMANTIC… but you can also read those guys as being TOTAL LOSERS and disgusting creeps with unhealthy obsessions over laughably idealized women way out of their league. To its credit– and I love the movie– DRIVE seems to acknowledge this possibility, and is somewhat ambivalent even when cheering on Gosling’s total ownage destructive tendencies… With SIN CITY, I just think Miller and Rodriguez thought those guys were COOL! and BADASS!, when actually the women in the movie should’ve just gotten a restraining order.
It’s times like these I wish I had a blog.
I felt similarly about Blue Valentine AND Like Crazy: you see a lot about a relationship facing challenges and falling apart. Nicely acted. Nicely shot. And I never ever want to see either of them again and would struggle to tell you what the point of either is besides “love fades” and/or “people make stupid decisions” and/or “long-distance thing is hard.”
I was with Like Crazy for the first half or so, even thinking, “wow, all of that stuff I read about how these characters are dumb and self-centered doesn’t feel true to me so far”… but the second half of the movie is pretty punishing in its repetition. As was Blue Valentine.
Then again, I find it pretty laughable that SO MANY people (both critics and people I saw the movie with) were like, man, why would he even care about this British girl when Jennifer Lawrence seemed SOOOO much cooler. Really?! I like Jennifer Lawrence a lot and her character seemed like a nice person, but what exactly did she do that made her seem so fucking cool? Be his employee? Take him back at least once after he fucked up? WOW! Amazing. Can anyone tell me anything about what her character actually feels/does/likes/whatever? I mean, I can barely do that with the leads, but at least they have screen time and chemistry. I think people are just projecting because they like Lawrence in so much other stuff. But Yelchin wasn’t ACTUALLY dating the girl from Winter’s Bone, or even Mystique from X-Men. Just someone played by Jennifer Lawrence with little to no personality.
I’d now put $ down on JS having actually not seen Like Crazy– or One Day. I would all but guarantee he hasn’t.
‘Cause actually to somewhat defend LIKE CRAZY, it’s not entirely a “romantic” movie… It does have a certain ambiguity about the romance even when shoving these two ciphers down our throats. I don’t want to SPOIL the ending, but JS is making it sound like he came away dancing on clouds from it, when in fact he’s lying and didn’t see it (isn’t it only playing in a couple cities?)
OWNED.
That’s not Lawrence’s fault, it’s the movie’s– we’re to take it on pure faith (and some wacky montages) that every single second of Jones/Yelchin’s great love was this beautiful, aching moment where every second was precious. Then outta nowhere, Lawrence just kind of drops into Yelchin’s lap as Girl #2. She’s given no arc, she seems to be just a girlfriend of convenience, but as we all know now from the last 6 years of movies, it’s always RAINING PUSSY in Anton Yelchin’s world, so, hey, she’s hot, tall and blonde and doesn’t seem to be a GIANT PAIN IN THE ASS. Plus she makes him bacon and likes dope-ass DJ music instead of fucking PAUL FUCKING SIMON, so TEAM J-LAW.
>>their shared love of PAUL SIMON, which no 22-year-olds in the world would be into
Simon has been sucking up hipster love in the wake of Vampire Weekend. Just did a series of small club dates for teh kids. Everything inoffensive is acceptable, again.
Immortals fucked my eye-balls real good. LOVED IT.
Lex, it’s not J-Law’s fault, no, but I do think it’s weird that people JUMP at the chance to say she seems so much cooler based on this one time she and the Yelchin character went to a club? Has to be some projecting there — just assuming she’s cool because she’s Jennifer Lawrence and she’s not such a hassle, man, whatever. Probably speaks to a failing in the movie on some level.
I honestly didn’t know other critics were saying that so pervasively– I haven’t read many reviews of it at length; I always root for the chick I find personally to be the hottest, though.
Jones is charming and in some shots she’s super fetching… and in other’s she’s like a British version of Lacey Chabert. She and Lawrence both, however, have the prominent chipmunk cheek thing. What they also have in common is they’re NOWHERE NEAR as hot as Kristen Stewart, the goddess of all women. They should put her in every romantic movie, because then every dumb-ass thing the male lead does would be understandable, because you’d do anything for K-Stew. Felicity Jones is just yeah, whatever.
Am I the only person whose mind was blown that a new Darren Lynn Bousman film dropped this weekend (11.11.11), especially since his take on MOTHER’S DAY hasn’t even been released yet?
Dude, if you don’t know what the XD means, then you owned yourself. Seriously, blonde, blue-eyed girlfriend there buddy. FACED XD!
I had zero desire to see One Day but I did watch Love and Other Drugs recently, and that movie is fanfuckingtastic.
Is Puss-n-Boots any good? I thought he was one of the best parts of the last Shrek movie.
I generally don’t go for romance movies. Like Crazy looked particularly insufferable. I thought it would be overly melodramatic with theirs being a love beyond all other loves in the history of the universe, kind of thing, (barf), not so much those two as individuals being the last ones you’d ever want seated next to you on a transcontinental flight but I guess it doesn’t surprise me. Liking Paul Simon does seem particularly douchey. Was it a tween girl fantasy type movie? It sure looked to play older but as I think about it, it seems like that might’ve been its function.
Before it came out, I thought Anonymous would do better. From the trailers I got the sense it’d be sort of a big, sweeping movie. Although upon seeing it, there was so much that sorta weighted it down. Too much of having characters talk about other characters. I was never lost but I think there were times I got certain ones momentarily mixed up. The last part wasn’t too bad but there was too much murky stuff in the middle that really stood out as unnecessary after the fact.
I didn’t realize Margin Call is available VOD. Did you guys know that if you donate blood at certain places, like Cedars Sinai, they’ll give you a free movie pass? I was going to cash one in for Margin Call but I think having a buddy come over and give me a few bucks might be the way to go. I saw In The Loop on VOD and I don’t think I really lost anything. Save my pass for something I’m really amped to see, not just something I kinda want to check out.
Yeah, nothing’s more douchey than liking Paul Simon! I would never see a movie where two characters both like an internationally beloved-for-generations music icon! Clearly trying too hard!
Yes, Puss in Boots was good (3 stars). Couple parts reminded me more of Rango than Shrek.
i watched Midnight in Paris 2011 ..didn’t care about the historical figures in the film .. the ending was average.
why is this up for any awards ?
that Woody Allen just copied Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure 1989 – they had more
interesting historical figures ..and people i could care about.
minor spoiler for midnight in paris – Owen says hes from the future and nobody freaks out but Bill and Ted bring
their crazy people to the future and they do freak out.
so Keanu Reeves is better then Owen Wilson ..acting wise.
the fact that sanj’s last post gave me considerable pause is a little disturbing…. but i’d love to sit down and watch ‘bill & ted’s excellent adventure’ with woody allen…..
I’m glad I am not the only one to think Like Crazy is overrated and not very good. All my feelings about it have been more than adequately conveyed above. I have to add that even though she is a slight character, I was also pulling for Lawrence. Great performers have a way of making you care more about their characters than you should. Maybe it was just because I found Jones so insufferably irritating and didn’t buy for a second that she and Yelchin are passionately in love.
And I’m glad it’s being mentioned alongside One Day. Didn’t want to see that one at all but my mom was dying to see it and I got free passes so we went and saw it. My expectations were very low, and I can’t believe how much I enjoyed it. It’s not perfect and it’s not going to make my top 10 for the year, but Sturgess is outstanding and the central couple is believable and sympathetic. It’s much better than the reviews suggest, the opposite of Like Crazy. Can’t really fathom why the former was dumped on while the latter praised to the heavens.
Yeah, I’d also say I enjoyed One Day more than Like Crazy, although I did have some problems with it… if you guys liked it, I’d sorta-recommend the book, qualified not because the book isn’t good (it’s a tiny bit cheesy, but a fun, involving read) but because a lot of it is covered in the movie. But there is a lot of condensing so if you want a more detailed version of that story, you can probably read the novel in a week or so.
I’d argue that one of the reasons One Day got critically creamed while Like Crazy is getting a pass (big disclaimer, I have seen neither films) is merely the fact that one is an independent film and the other is a major studio production with a media-friendly movie star at the center. Critics generally bend over backwards to tolerate and/or enjoy the lower-profile fare, and often the fact that it isn’t opening on 3,000 screens gives it an alleged automatic superiority to the mainstream stuff. Conversely, mainstream films are held to a different standard, with any number of critics expecting to hate all of them on principle (“Oh, Hollywood can’t do ANYTHING right!”) and often view the films through that prism. I know this is going to sound like a broken record, but I have little doubt that if Sucker Punch were an arthouse release and/or in French that the reviews would have been kinder and/or the subtext would have been acknowledged and embraced accordingly. Conversely, I guarantee that Sleeping Beauty, which deals in similar themes but is a pure arthouse film, will surely get better reviews and an acknowledgement of its angrily feminist text (I have seen both of those films, and they are both worth seeing and discussing).
The other reason I’d argue for the One Day vs Like Crazy situation is merely the fact that Like Crazy was generally star-less (and, even better, had a new ‘delightful/charming’ girl for critics to ‘discover’), while One Day committed the sin of having a major movie star in the lead role. Personal preferences aside, let’s not pretend that Thor and Green Lantern weren’t about the same level of quality (B-/C+). The former had an unknown actor who could be ‘discovered’ (and a more prestigious director) while the latter had Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, so the press stormed the castle to bring down the two more famous actors for the hideous crime of uh… not quite living up to their arbitrary anointment as the next big movie stars.
I also agree 100% with Lex’s essay about how critics react to male-driven ‘romance’ (that a psychopath happens to have romantic or protective feelings for a random pretty girl does not make him ‘deep’, it makes him horny like the rest of us), and I’d add that the male-focused approach often earns films a critical pass (Aside from the 20 minutes spent in Paris, Midnight In Paris is basically a standard Heigl romcom with a male lead), while female-driven romantic dramas are often picked to death with wild accusations about the character’s morality (Something Borrowed, I Don’t Know How She Does It, etc).
Scott, although I do agree with some of your points, and do think that Thor was pretty solidly overpraised, I don’t know, I went into both hoping to like them, and Thor was surprisingly enjoyable (if, yes, overpraised for being an entertaining geeky B-movie), and Green Lantern… was not. GL fails all over the place, from how to use Ryan Reynolds to how to use its central concept in a fun way to how to give its characters backstory that mean anything.
I do agree with you about rom-coms… with the caveat that most of them are still not good, though that tends to have more to do with the filmmaking than some of the reasons some critics cite. I didn’t much like Something Borrowed, but I would say that at least it has an interesting, genuine dilemma as its core, rather than more Heigl-ish BS about hating a piggish guy at first BUT THEN it turns out he’s sensitive and there’s some misunderstandings and blah blah blah, it turns out I didn’t really want to marry Ed Burns after all!
But yeah, Something Borrowed really got pilloried by critics for being unlikable or immoral or whatever, but I actually liked that it was about someone who doesn’t have their shit together. I felt similarly about What’s Your Number; I didn’t really think that movie was slut-shaming or backwards so much as looking at a character who is flailing a bit (and still not a great movie, or even a very good one, but whatever, better than a lot of movies like that).
I don’t know many people that liked. The reactions I’m hearing are
“Hey, Jennifer Lawrence is here. Problem solved; move on.”
“I was rooting for them to stay apart.”
Those are good points Scott. It reminds me of how I felt 10 years ago or so when I saw Bridget Jones’s Diary and Someone Like You close together. The former received mostly favorable reviews (if I remember correctly) while the latter was mercilessly trashed by critics. I was puzzled because I felt like they were really quite similar, outside of the settings. I didn’t find one all that much better or worse than the other. At the time I figured the London setting and mostly British cast made all the difference, making it seem like Jones wasn’t the pretty generic rom com it is. Of course, I haven’t seen either in years, so maybe my feelings would be different now.
Personally I think there is a giant chasm of quality between Jones and Someone Like You. Jones is by no measure a masterpiece and generic at times but is generally nimble and sweet with a fantastic Hugh Grant performance. They even put out a deplorable sequal just to show you what a great job they did on the first one.
As for Someone Like You, I just thought there was nothing interesting about it at all, it just lurched about halfheartedly. Jones wasn’t fantastic but it didn’t drive its plot on the sitcomy women forced to live and fall in love with her polar opposite. And it had the added distraction of having Barkin and Tomei in the supporting cast leading my bored mind to imagine how better the story would have been if made in the eighties with a tough as nails Barkin, the nineties with a plucky sarcastic Tomei, instead of the 2000s with the absolute doormat Judd.
It’s not that I think Someone Like You is a good movie deserving of reconsideration. I just don’t think it’s that much worse or different from Jones, which has a better cast but isn’t really that great a movie. Seeing them close together back in 2001 or 2002, Jones just didn’t strike me as being significantly better than SLY and deserving of far, far better reviews.
Sanj, you really should get that tumour checked out.
Paul: The dialogue, man. Any five minutes of dialogue in Bridget Jones’ Diary is smarter and wittier than all of Someone Like You. Any three minutes that Hugh Grant is on screen is smarter and wittier than all of Someone Like You. Seriously.
I really like BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY; haven’t seen SOMEONE LIKE YOU. BRIDGET is my gf’s favorite movie, so I’ve seen it in full 3 or 4 times, and parts of it just about every time she needs a fix (she uses that movie like some women use ice cream or chocolate). Grant is indeed awesome in it, and he’s just as great in the meh sequel.
OK, I’m not trying to be cute here when I say: I really am not referring to this blog. And I’m not absolutely certain, but I don’t think I’m referring to anyone here. But: Do you ever find yourself reading the comments on the thread of some other movie blog, and find yourself almost cringing as you encounter post after post brimming with the most toxic kind of bile? Seriously: Do you ever get the feeling that there are a lot of envious under-achievers with serious anger issues out there? And that most of these people spend every day of their lives actively hating everyone and anyone who’s ever achieved any sort of success at any level in the film industry?
This is a brutal business, Joe. Not only for people who seek to be actors, directors, screenwriters, etc, but for journalists who also feel they are underappreciated and not cared for in the world they reflect professionally.
I actually things are relatively civil in here… obviously crossing into the dark now and again. But the longer I do this, the less sympathy I have for the anger and frustration of others. The only thing that we really get to keep is the warmth from the love of the work we do. And if that’s not enough, find something that is enough.
Funny… had this conversation with George Miller today… about krill… but about all of us. It’ll be up later this week.
David: No joke, I am not referring to this blog at all. The eruptions of vitriol in here actually are exceptions to the general rule. And maybe I am mistaken: Maybe some of the hateful stuff I read elsewhere isn’t posted by people who are angry because they’re professionally frustrated — maybe it’s posted by people who are angry, full stop, end of sentence. Time and again, though, I get the genuinely scary feeling that some posters are literally spitting rage at their computer screens while they type the most vicious and obscenity strewn tirades, all the while thinking: “Why is that son of a bitch enjoying success, and I’m not?” I mean, Jesus, I’d like to be film critic for The New York Times, but I don’t feel any need to hate on A.O. Scott.
Joe… absolutely.
I know for a fact a lot of people (somewhat here, moreso on a couple other blogs, Twitter) would point to me as someone very bitter who lowers the discourse and takes out my anger and envy from behind a front of relative anonymity on people who are doing better than me. I have no problem admitting that’s somewhat true, but what I find is, in terms of bile and hate and sheer unpleasantness, when it comes to movie blogs, you really can’t up the ante on craziness, there’s no glass ceiling. Even if “LexG” is a crazy man ranting about boners and I WISH I WERE FAMOUS and I HATE THIS DOUCHE ACTOR? Christ, there’s at least some humility and shame and longing and self-awareness behind it… meanwhile at any given time there’s a dozen guys on Wells’ blog that seem legitimately real-world hostile bordering on violent. You can’t tell me guys that are HAPPY with their lot in life are on movie blogs threatening people and calling everyone “dumb fucks” while bragging about their alleged accomplishments. I’m pretty sure SUCCESSFUL writers, directors and producers aren’t on the fucking Internet making fun of people’s appearances and bragging about how great they are.
It is stunning– and again, people would say I’m the last person who should opine this– how UGLY and NEGATIVE and joyless and sour and SCARY people are, about MOVIES and showbiz, of all things. I think part of it is, MOVIES is somehow this thing everyone thinks they are entitled to have an opinion on, everyone thinks they could do it. You never see thousands of people driving en masse to Texas or Western PA at age 23 thinking they’re going to break into FOOTBALL without having played before or knowing anything about the sport… But everyone thinks they can write a screenplay, or “act,” or be famous; When that doesn’t happen, they take on that Coastal Disillusioned White Guy Rage, that burned-out, “I hate everything now” cynical snark that really festers out of control on the Internet. Where does it end? Sad answer, again, is it really doesn’t. Each guy is more hateful than the last.
Bill and Ted callback for the win. You are a jewel sanj! A veritable jewel.
Of course, Lex, we could be wrong: There actually could be a few very successful folks — people whose names we would recognize — who sign on to blogs under aliases and angrily trash real or perceived rivals. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if, say, Terrence Malick uses an assumed name to post obscenity-stuffed attacks on Steven Spielberg?
Also, Joe, taking it more generally:
Especially as “film criticism” has become Web-centric, the market more competitive, and the writers, frankly, less “trained” in journalism or even basic writing skills, it’s become less about conveying a passion for film via the traditional combo of sociopolitical factors and personal style, and more about who can hate shit the most, and the loudest. It’s pretty much just an Asshole Competition to see who can be the snarkiest (snarky detachment truly being the lowest form of writing, and the worst offshoot of ’90s irony culture)… He who writes the most out-there dickhead review or outre comment gets the most page hits; It’s why I always complain there’s this herd mentality in terms of going after easy potshot targets (Bay! Ratner! Twilight!)– because it’s easier to hate something stupidly than it is to like something passionately, and not lose your hipster ironist arch-asshole cred.
Lex: It sounds like you’re talking more about the actual bloggers than the posters. I’m not saying I disagree but… Well, as they say, the fish stinks from the head. (And again: No, David, I’m not attempting some sort of cowardly end run, I’m not referring to this blog.)
Speaking of Wells, I rarely skim by there, but the few times I have, there is always a super racist post/thread. Dozens and dozens of commenters pop up to contribute some endless stream of out and out racism. It’s a really eye-popping experience. It’s not even poor attempts at provocative humor, which I could sort of understand. No, it’s straight up serious racism. Maybe I have really unfortunate timing for my rare visits, but I always seem to stumble across those posts there. I believe the last such post was on how “Blacks and Wetbacks Have Crap Taste In Movies” or some such thing. Very enlightening.
For some reason, I always get the titles of Someone Like You mixed up with You Can Count on Me that had Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo. I kept reading this thread thinking, “holy crap, that was a GREAT movie! How could you not find quality in there?!” But, turns out, I was thinking of something totally different.
Sometimes, I get the anger. Not meaning me personally blow a gasket and start flame posting but I understand how people get angry sometimes. SOMETIMES. The Web in general just seems like a breeding ground for anger and resentment. The ghetto or small town mentality runs rampant. Anything new or seeking to climb above is so assailed. It’s like I wonder how many potentially talented people develop a fear of success by constantly reading those things.
Anger, in small doses, is one thing, the out and out hatred is another. It’s hard to read the comments on large sites like Yahoo or ESPN. So much hatred and bigotry. I would hate to think how much of the general population holds those same views. The lack of self control is astonishing. Sure, I get how people say things behind a wall of anonymity, though they’ll often claim that they’d say it in front of members of the groups they’re offending but isn’t there a point you’d think it wise to hold in some thoughts w/out blurting them out as if anything you’ve said or written can be regarded as so absurd that you’d lose all credibility?
They’ll go on ad nauseam about how entitled all these various groups are, yet seem to think they have an inalienable right to be the sole group occupying the land.
Too much blaming the victim or rationalizing bad behavior. Snark doesn’t bother me, if it’s not some self absorbed person who over estimates how funny s/he is. I used to love reading Defamer but there’s too much hatred and not enough cleaver it seems.
Anyone ever been BANNED FROM SEX?
I am 39 YEARS OLD and have been BANNED FROM SEX thanks to both my ugliness and my PERSONAL MARTYRDOM as a TOTAL LOSER I AM SO FUCKING HORNY, ANYONE KNOW A HOOKER who can KEEP IT DOWN if I bang her while AUNT ZELDA FROM PET SEMETARY is on the couch of my ONE BEDROOM telling me that SEX IS A SIN?
THANKS.
Boringest blog ever… ever since POLAND became MR MOM, this place is deader’n Elvis 20 hours a day.
HEY POLAND PUT ME IN CHARGE OF YOUR BLOG AND PAY ME 100K A YEAR.
For a while I was reading Nick Hornby’s book column in some British magazine (Defender?), which had the policy of only talking about books he could write positive things about. It made for a very enjoyable read and made me excited to pick up the books he talked about. I always wondered what a movie column/blog that took a similar approach would look like.
Did he generate a lot of nasty comments from jealous would-be authors?
Did it have a sidebar listing book titles turned down?
As for a movie column/blog that’s only positive, isn’t that what Earl Dittman’s for?
I never read it online, so I was spared from comments. It had a sidebar listing books he bought and books he read (the read list was a lot shorter – but after a few months, you’d see the books go from the bought list to the read list – until football season started and he stopped reading).
The thing that stood it apart from a Dittman is that he wasn’t mindless enthusiastic for everything, he was selective and thoughtful. His praise seemed earned. I read Gilead after his glowing review and it was an amazing book.
It was a column I always looked forward to, even if I never had time to read all the books he recommended. It just felt nice to spend time with someone who clearly loved the written word and could speak positively about it.
For Mike
http://www.believermag.com/issues/201101/?read=column_hornby
“Do you ever get the feeling that there are a lot of envious under-achievers with serious anger issues out there? And that most of these people spend every day of their lives actively hating everyone and anyone who’s ever achieved any sort of success at any level in the film industry?”
The worst, most angry stuff Ive seen on this particular blog come from, arguably, the most successful poster here. At least as far as those who post under their own names go.
Not that you are wrong in your observation. I, for one, am a bitter underacheiver. Im just cheery about it.