The Hot Blog Archive for July, 2006
Respond In Kind
TypePad is working again… my apologies to all of you who were enjoying the young, smooth gay boys, ringtones, and slot machines…
7 Comments »Shiver Me Tuesday
It’s getting a little boring, writing about all the P2 booty, but a record is a record is a record…
A reported $15.7 million Tuesday is, yes, another record.
Clearly, the only thing keeping Star Wars: Episode III ahead of P2 as the all-time 5-day opener was Fox
Feedback Problems
6:45p Update – Still trouble. Away from the computer until about 11pm… be careful with the spammers…
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3:30p UPDATE – Typepad seems to be having problems at other sites too…
I switched back to no avail… going to open up the comments wide again and just erase spam as I see it, but please be careful about what you click on, especially commenter names….
Thanks for your patience.
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11:26a
Something went terribly askew with Typepad this morning. Hopefully, they will figure it out.
In the meantime, I have thrown the gates of comment wide open until we can get the sign in system to work again.
I apologize ahead of time for the inevitable spam and mystery commenters that will turn up. Hopefully, things will be back to normal by nightfall.
The Final Exit Of Nikki Finke de la Loco
I was really hoping to let this whole Nikki Finke thing go away, but she is insisting – albeit unwilling to say a single word on the record or answer any direct questions – that I report the claims she has made about errors in my earlier story and/or Cathy Seipp’s story.
I am going to put the rest of the story after the jump so the vast majority of you who have no interest will not have to put up with it eating a lot of space on the front of the blog. God knows, it has bored the hell out of me. But I will do as Nikki asks this one last time…
The Best Horror One Sheet… Since Saw?
I came upon this one-sheet for The Descent at the corner of Fairfax and Beverly and stood there, staring at it like I was in a museum. It is rather shocking from a distance, but is also very complex and interesting close up. I know some people are mocking it, but I think it is the most brilliant one-sheet I have seen in a long time. It demands that the observer, no matter how casual, pay attention.
I walked away from the sign only as a Hassidic family approached, fearful that they would have me excommJewicated for paying so much attention to it.
I still find it fascinating
A Lawsuit About As Reliable As One Of Captain Jack's Promises
The lawsuit against Disney, et al, broken today by TMZ.com (even though it turns out to be old news), over the Pirates of the Caribbean movie is having a hard time pasing the smell test.
The claim, taking for granted all the stuff about what alleged matches there are between his work and the first Pirates film, is that between 1991 and 1995, he presented his materials and even pitched on the Disney lot. (TMZ has the filing here.)
The claim is a little blurred because he claims he presented his materials to
Plundering Monday
I was going to hold off on more Pirates 2 box office discussion for a while. The “final numbers’ bump yesterday was predicted here on the blog and by Klady on Sunday. No big surprise. But today… WOW!
Box Office Mojo just posted a Monday box office number of $18.1 million.
There are three higher numbers in history, but all of them are holiday Mondays (one on July 4 holiday, two on Memorial Day Monday). The next biggest number that is not on a holiday is Star Wars: Episode Three – Revenge of The Sith, on the Monday after its $108.4 3-day opening ($158m 4-day) the week before Memorial Day Weekend. $14.4 million.
Pirates beat it by $3.7 million
Miami Vice
“Miami Vice is that summer movie that a lot of people have been waiting for, something for the adults to see, something that demands that you pay attention, something that doesn’t pre-chew your experience for you and drop it into your beak like a mama bird, something with adults having relationships (with their clothes on and off) and dealing with some serious issues
46 Comments »What's Next?
So… now the pirates have sailed, the super man has flown the coop, and of course, the long wait for Waist Deep finally paid off.
What are you going to get excited about next?
Weekend Estimates by Klady
There is almost nothing left to be said about the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man
57 Comments »A Few Things…
I seem to be bursting with random ideas this weekend, so I will add them to this entry as we go…
1. For people who were interested, you should know that here in Los Angeles, A Scanner Darkly is in the Cinerama Dome and has 2 screens – like Superman Returns & Prada – at The Grove. (Meanwhile, POTC2 is on 4 screens and as of mid-afternoon, the only seats left were for 11:45p.) Warner Indie got a lot of space for that small film in a busy market, though it helps that in an act of true brutality, Arclight got aced out of both Superman and Pirates.
2. Ran past the Joe Dante section of Twilight Zone: The Movie this weekend, now 23 years old
Some Better Super News
I finally got onto Box Office Mojo and looked up some numbers… and the news is a bit better for Superman Returns today than it was a few days ago.
The 10 day comparison based on Superman Returns‘ 10-day $127.2 million estimate doesn
The Fog Of Bore
“This goes a long way of dispelling the notion that people don’t want to go to movies anymore,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-officer tracker Exhibitor Relations. “People aren’t waiting for the DVD on this one. They are going out to see it.”
Yeah…. the mythological notion that you have been part of selling for a year, Paul.
This weekend doesn’t prove anything any more than last weekend did… or the $100 million-plus start for X3… or $194 million for Ice Age: The Meltdown or $89 million for Failure to Launch or $209 milion for Wedding Crashers or $179 million for Hitch, et cetera, et cetera, ET FUCKING CETERA!
I am dead sick of people tap-dancing around Last Year’s Lie because they can’t simply admit that it was NEVER true.
The reality is, this year’s crop has been way too expensive and DVD is not as strong as it was, so even though people are STILL going to the movies in droves, profitability will be more difficult this summer than it was last year for all but a few studios. And profit is all that really matters in the box office derby. And Paulie D knows that. But reporters don’t want to quote that and their editors don’t want them to write that.
I don’t even need a mea culpa. Just stop spreading the shit. Pirates’ opening is a big event. But it is not the start or end of anything other than that movie’s earnings.
ARGH!
The Least Cynical Movie Ever?
People love movies, in part, because it takes them somewhere emotionally – even if that emotion is simple action breathlessness – that they don’t go every day.
I love Field of Dreams. It’s been 17 years and sometimes, it’s easy to forget. But it is on the cable channels this week and I have caught it in moments. And just now, the last part of the film caught me.
The movie dares to by oh so cheesy. And when James Earl Jones gets the rare chance to do a soliloquy in a movie
Friday F-ing Estimates by Klady
Big Number.
Two things to keep in mind. 1) X3 did $35 million on its opening Friday and won
