Cuppacafe

Anyone who has either seen the 1977 version of (what was once) Star Wars (and is now Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope), or has seen any of the subsequent DVDs of this classic bit of Sci-Fi space opera will appreciate this bit of silliness.

True, it is a tad long (clocking in at nearly 20 minutes), but it is really well worth it for the true Star Wars Geek.

I urge you t not only watch it all, but, well, sit through the end credits for the cut tag-out at the end.

Yes, this (especially) means you, Walt.

The Perfessor

Recently James Cameron indicated that he was going to write a book based on his blockbuster 3D flick, well, we have happened across the possible film sequel to the CGI-laden event.

Avatar... with Babies from The Midnight Show

Yeah, it starts out slow and a tad predictable, then turns disturbingly funny, so you know we totally liked it ourselves.

The Perfessor

Mark Twain once remarked that there were three kinds of lies, 1) Lies, 2) Damned Lies, and 3) Statistics. So whenever I hear someone (even myself) using numbers to prove their point I shudder a little. Case in point; the other day we pointed out that Avatar had passed Titanic as the biggest blockbuster of all times.

Only not so much.

Boxoffice is arguably more straightforward to report than TV ratings. You have this weekly Top 10 list of returns, you compare each movie to the other movies. TV ratings are a murky swamp where one network's hit is another network's flop and context is not just a factor, but often the entire story.

Yet one respect in which boxoffice reporting is pretty odd -- emphasizing ticket grosses yet rarely mentioning ticket sales. That would be like always reporting how many ad dollars sold off "Lost" and not mentioning the number of viewers that actually watched the show. With everybody reporting how "Avatar" is The Biggest Movie of All Time based on grosses ($1.859 billion and counting), it's important to remember how rising ticket prices skew the returns.

So, if we were to use actual tickets sold, it turns out that Avatar drops to #26. not bad, but still a ways off from the top slot.

The Perfessor

Well folks, last night it became official, Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all time, eclipsing the previous title-holder, Titanic, by a cool $15.4 million (worldwide; Titanic is still up by $45.8 domestically — but Avatar could potentially do that this weekend.

You can check out the rest of those numbers over at Box Office Mojo, but know this, that in adjusted dollars, the all-time champ is still Gone with the Wind.

The Perfessor

While I’m sure that many of you have already seen this trailer, I couldn’t resist posting it here:

Which, as it turns out, is much better than the trailers I made with my Iron Monger and Hulk Burger King toys...

(scroll down towards the bottom of the post and you see the three or four vids I did.)

The Perfessor

OK, I saw The Book of Eli last week,and well, I loved it, but, as with all films, apparently not everyone shares my opinion. Case in point is this review that compares the plot of Eli with that of Zardoz. The 1970s classic sci-fi film which starred Sean Connery fresh from his role as James Bond.

Well, according to this reviewer, the two films share the same plot:

This is the same basic plot in Book of Eli, with some startling changes that I'll go into below. With Eli, we've got our contemporary high-wattage action star (Denzel Washington) moving through a world whose rules make as much sense as an LSD trip. He's been given a message from God that he must protect a precious book, and he's on a quest to deliver the book to a mysterious land.

Personally, I don’t see it, but I am willing to allow for this (ludicrous) suggestion, but only because I so dearly loved Zardoz, and well, as you can see from my review, I also enjoyed the Book of Eli as well.

My suggestion, See Eli, then rent Zardoz and make your own comparison.

Me, I’ve still got an unfinished bottle of Jack around here.

The Perfessor

OK, I just happened across this, and well, I normally don't advocate buying bootlegs, but in this case I'm going to have to make an exception.

Seriously, sign me up!

The Perfessor

So, well, all of the early reports are in, and while everyone is totally on board with how fabulous the films looks, they are saying that the story leaves something to be desired.

Still, then there is this, from The Legal Profession Blog...

Cameron and Merchant-Ivory to Remake Remains

Stung by criticism that Avatar is "all effects" with pedestrian plot and dialogue, James Cameron announced today that he is joining forces with the Merchant-Ivory team on a 3-D remake of The Remains of the Day. In the new version, with a script to be written by Cameron and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Stevens, the repressed butler of the original, will become an android in service to Darth Darlington on a space station near Alpha Centauri, and like the original, struggling with an emerging consciousness. Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, will play a computer generated Stevens, with a voice-over to be provided by Anthony Hopkins. Helena Bonham Carter will reprise her Planet of the Apes tour de force, taking over the Emma Thompson role as Miss Kenton, a primate hired as housekeeper for Darth Darlington, to be played by Ian McKellen.

The film will culminate in a typically Cameron-esque action sequence, with Stevens being subjected to the Turing test by the Klingons, Romulans, and Federation representatives who have gathered at Darlington Station to discuss the impending galactic war between the forces of foundationalism and those of post-modern indeterminacy. Daniel Dennett, Roger Penrose, and Stanley Fish have been retained as script advisors.

Sets are currently being constructed in New Zealand, with the opening anticipated for summer, 2011.

[This parody was brought to you by Jeff Lipshaw, and has nothing to do with law, except that it represents one form of procrastination from grading, and reflects one habitual over-thinker's reaction to some of the over-thinking that has gone on with respect to a sci-fi movie, which the over-thinker happened to love.]

Don’t you just love it when lawyers have a sense of humor?

The Perfessor

No, that will come later (I saw it opening weekend, and yes I totally loved it. Yes it is a simple story (Pocahontas gone Dances with Wolves, meets Star Wars, only with a better story and way-better CGI; but I’ll talk more about this later, in another post). Now I want to talk about how well received the film was on opening weekend.

Avatar takes $242m globally in first weekend

Hollywood’s heavy investment in 3D has passed its biggest test yet, analysts and cinema executives said on Monday, as they tallied the takings from Avatar, James Cameron’s 3D epic.

Imax and RealD, two companies behind rival projection technologies, said they accounted for a disproportionate share of Avatar’s $242m of opening weekend sales.

Fox, the News Corp-owned studio, raised its early box office estimates, showing that Avatar beat records for either a “non-sequel” or an adaptation [of a book], with US box office sales of $77m even as northeastern states were battered by heavy snow.

Strong international sales lifted the global total to $242m, $10m more than originally estimated.

(New Moon only took in 140.7 million on it’s opening weekend), so I'm guessing there are more overweight, bearded, balding geeks than there are teenage girls. Either that or it was simply a better film.

The Perfessor

OK, now that may sound a tad harsh, but this was my reaction when I learned that a producer from Uruguay who created and then uploaded a short film of his to YouTube in November of 2009 was offered a $30m (£18.6m) contract to make a Hollywood film.

Fede Alvarez's short film "Ataque de Panico!" (Panic Attack!) featured giant robots invading and destroying Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.

At first I was “wicked cool” but then I watch the five minute clip clip, and thought, “Wow! Have I already seen this film!” Well, you watch it, and then I’ll continue:

So, here’s what I got out of this. A film producer from Uruguay rips off the plot from War of the Worlds, changes the slow-moving tripods to slow-moving robots, throws in the fighting airships from Independence Day, spices it a bit with a Spielbergain opening (with the little kid), gives it a downbeat, bummer ending, like the Dawn of the Dead films, and winds up with a $30 million contract?

While I’m happy for the guy and all, something clearly just isn't right about all this, as it so clearly ripped off from several high-profile films.

The Perfessor

The problem is, I have seen the film and well it is easily one of the worse films I have ever seen, and no, it is not because I’m a guy and this is a “chick flick” (I saw Julie and Julia and thought it was great). This film blows chunks because it is badly written, badly acted, lays down bad role models for teen girls, and well, completely screws with the historical legends of both werewolves and vampires, but I’ll get to all of that in a minute.

First up, the good news, a Judge dismissed the lawsuit against Stephenie Meyer (New Moon’s author, but you all knew that part). According to a report by TMZ. the lawsuit against Stephenie Meyer was officially dismissed by judge.

A judge told vampire book author, Jordan Scott, her allegations about Meyer taking her ideas from her book were deceptive and “completely unfounded.”

The Twilight author was accused on August of having stolen the idea for the last book Breaking Dawn from Scott’s The Nocturne, which was allegedly published in 2006.

We’ve already discussed the film’s opening weekend earnings, and that it did great guns and all, still, I believe that just helps me make my case. You see, first let’s talk about the story itself.

My nearly 15-year-old daughter (her 15th birthday is at the end of this month) who hasn’t read the books, and didn’t see the first film, but saw this film twice — both times with friends, told me that she agreed with me about the bad message of the film. According to her, she believes that it will teach girls to look for that perfect boy (Edward) and no one in real life could possibly measure up to his level of “perfection” and “dedication”. Hence they will spend their whole lives looking for someone they cannot possibly find.

I agree, except I go further, and say that it teaches a worse lesson. Consider this, both Edward and Jacob “love” Bella, but can’t be with her because she might “accidentally” get them “worked up” and they would then “accidentally” hurt her. Needless to say, when this does happen Bella not only apologies to them both, but informs them that it is OK, and she “deserved it.”

WTF??

This is the really lesson we want to be teaching our young daughters? The film He’s Just Not that into You starts off with Drew Barrymore’s character stating that little boys and girls get along fine, then as they start to develop a boy will decide that he likes a girl and will hit her. Surprised the girl will go to her mom who will explain that boys do that because they like the girl, but don't know how to deal with their emotions. Needless to say, this incident forever retards the emotional growth of girls and they grow into adulthood thinking that whenever a guy hurts her it is because he likes her.

Funny theory, but as Col. Sherman Potter would say “Road apples!”

That’s really not the life lesson that I’ve personally taught my daughter. I taught her that if you act stupid to attract boys, you will attract stupid boys, and if a boy hits you it is his fault, not yours. And you call the cops the first time it happens. That’s just for starters. Sorry kids, but I don’t care how hard the bodies of the male vampires are in this film or how dreamy their eyes are, they are screamingly effeminately gay, while the werewolves all come off as rough boy butch gay.

The liberties that Meyer’s has taken with their respective legends (vampires walking in daylight, flying over open water; werewolves that change on command, and not under a full moon), I could go on, but it makes me ill just to think about it. Between the liberties taken with the legends of these mythical creatures and the horrendously bad message targeted at teenage girls this would make the film bad enough, but seriously, is Bella the only one who doesn’t realize that this tribe of Native Americans are werewolves? I knew that the last film. (Hey, she’s already dating a vampire, why is the existence of werewolves such a far stretch?)

And then there is such a misty, gooey-eyed approach to the acting that that it makes you want to gag (if Bella bit her nails or brushed her hair back over her ear one more time I was going to toss my popcorn at the screen as well as my cookies). Seriously, even the goofy afternoon made-for-TV Disney and Nickelodeon specials my daughter watches have better (more believable) acting than this crap. I have to say that the only other place I’ve seen writing this bad has been for the past year-and-a-half on all the post Brand-New-Day Amazing Spider-Man comics (and hey, I love Spidey!)

I honestly don’t understand the appeal of this drivel, Sure, sure, I see that vampires and werewolves are sexy, and I don’t mind having fun with both groups, but really, this stuff is just crap, but hey, if you want, head down to Burger King and snap up a large New Moon drink cup. I already got mine.

The Perfessor

I’m a huge movie fan, been attending them regularly in support of a string of movie columns for the better part of 25 or 30 years. As a matter of fact, I think I've averaged close to a movie a week for that time. So, when I read a list like this, I’ve seen many (if not all ) of the films on the list.

Top 10 Movie Flops of the Decade

Apparently Reuters came up with their top 10 movie flops of the decade. this list was determined after they took into consideration how much a movie has lost, how much it was expected to make and how big stars aren’t always going to pull in the viewers. For the full list you can go here. Briefly,

10. THE SPIRIT
* Release date: December 25, 2008
* Estimated cost: $60 million
* Domestic gross: $19.8 million

9. GRINDHOUSE
* Release date: April 6, 2007
* Estimated cost: $67 million
* Domestic gross: $25 million

8. ROLLERBALL
* Release date: February 8, 2002
* Estimated cost: $70 million
* Domestic gross: $19 million

7. THE INVASION
* Release date: August 17, 2007
* Estimated cost: $80 million
* Domestic gross: $15.1 million

6. CATWOMAN
* Release date: July 23, 2004
* Estimated cost: $100 million
* Domestic gross: $40 million

5. TOWN & COUNTRY
* Release date: April 27, 2001
* Estimated cost: $90 million
* Domestic gross: $6.7 million

4. GIGLI
* Release date: August 1, 2003
* Estimated cost: $54 million
* Domestic gross: $6.1 million

3. LAND OF THE LOST
* Release date: June 5, 2009
* Estimated cost: $100 million
* Domestic gross: $65 million

2. BATTLEFIELD EARTH
* Estimated cost: $75 million
* Domestic gross: $21 million

1. THE ADVENTURES OF PLUTO NASH
* Release date: August 6, 2002
* Estimated cost: $100 million
* Domestic gross: $4.4 million

Interestingly enough, I didn’t see most of the films on this list, and those that I did see Catwoman was atrocious, Rollerball — while not nearly as good as the original — wasn’t as bad as this list would have you believe, and I really did like The Adventures of Pluto Nash (my kids liked it as well).

Still, while this is going to be the subject of another post, (and I know that I’m going to hear plenty about it) I think that any future list of ghod-awful films will have to include Twilight: New Moon.

More later

This just in, the director who brought us Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli) is set up to next deliver his next film, Area 51, which is exactly what you think it is — another Blair Witch-style film.

According to The Hollywood Reporter

The "Paranormal Activity" writer-director's follow-up, "Area 51," has been picked up for distribution in the U.S. by Paramount Pictures, which also distributed his mega-successful debut.

"Activity," produced for just $11,000, has grossed $106 million dollars in the U.S. in the last three months. It has just begun its release overseas, grossing $7 million over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Well, personally, I hope that this film is handled better than his first foray into “Faux-docudrama” filming, as I really thought that his first outing, well, was a slow starter, not really very scary, and almost a snore-fest. Now I’m not totally opposed to this style of filming (Cloverfield was rather good, as was District 9), I did think that The Blair Witch Project was 76 minutes of bad filming and swearing and five minutes of scary.

Another really good example of how horrible this genre can go wrong was the recently-released The Fourth Kind, which purportedly (re)told the “true” story of an Alaskan psychologist who was studying people who had supposedly been abducted by aliens in Nome Alaska. Quite frankly, I simply didn’t buy the “factualness” of the film. No, I don’t necessarily think that we here on Earth are the only inhabitants of the universe, but I really want to know why folks who see aliens are always in some out-back, rural hard to reach place. Why is it that in all the years of UFOs has one never been spotted over New York City, or Tokyo, or London? And why would a (supposedly) more advanced live form travel billions of miles through space only to kidnap some redneck just to “prob” them (if you know what I mean).

Anyway, the premise of Peli’s new flick is essentially the same, someone “stumbles into” Area 51 and film and/or video is left behind and discovered. Again the premise is that this is “true” film, which of course begs the question of how someone randomly “stumbles” across some of the most protected and secretive Real Estate in the country. Anyway. I’ll probably see that film as well, but only because I expect it will suck, and I do so enjoy trashing bad films.

The Perfessor

While we’re on the subject of upcoming films, I thought that I’d add this new clip of James Cameron’s upcoming sci-fi videogame ah, movie, Avatar.

Avatar Video

Sure, sure it looks all mad-cool and like that, but if our films become more like videogames and our videogames become more like our films, will we ever be able to tell the diofference (and will we care)?

I remember an item from some years back of how George Lucas was trying to get the digital rights to various classic Hollywood actors so that he could completely re-make Star Wars: A New Hope with his dream cast (something like fantasy football, but with CGI actors).

Other than getting Sean Connery to be able to play James Bond to Infinity and beyond, I’m not really sure this is a good thing.

The Perfessor

Total Film has made an impressive list of 49 films that will help shape the 2010 movie-going experience. These films include the sci-fi vampire flick Daybreakers (January 8).

The Book Of Eli (January 15)

Mel Gibson’s Edge Of Darkness (January 29)

The Wolfman (February 12)

...and, well, a buncha other wicked-cool flicks that we are chomping at the bit to see. You betcha that next year is going to mad-fun to sit in the dark.

The Perfessor