Cuppacafe

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

Hey, this time I didn’t say that so much as I’m quoting another reviewer who said that. Yep, that’s right, Meyer is the subject of a quickie comicbook biography from Blue Waters Comics. Meyer’s bio appears as part of an ongoing series of celebrity female bios Female Force. Other featured women include Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, and Caroline Kennedy.

Well, according to the reviewer over at Comic Alliance, the Meyer bio is, well, nothing short of atrocious. Why, you may ask, well, according to the reviewer:

When you're doing a biography of Stephenie Meyer, you're going to run into a problem right off the bat, namely the fact that Stephanie Meyer is really f--king boring.

Yeah, this is apparently so true.

Really, we're not even trying to dis Meyer here, but the fact of the matter is that she just hasn't done a whole lot. She never sailed down the Mississippi like Mark Twain, she never married a complete lunatic like F. Scott Fitzgerald did, heck, she never even did a ton of coke and got run over by a van like Stephen King. We can sum up her entire life in twenty words. Watch:

"Stephenie Meyer grew up in the Southwest, got married, had kids, wrote some books about vampires and got rich. Batman."

We threw "Batman" in there to make it more exciting.

The review goes on, but, well, you can read it for yourself.

Me? I’m going to read anything else and hope that in her next film she doesn’t deconstruct Zombies as well.

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

True, some are simply more vulnerable than others, and well, Twilight’s New Moon, is just one of those that is easily parodied. Think not? Well, you just not trying as hard as the Marvel/DC parodists:

Have a look.

The bit with Spidey at the end is something of an on-going gag for these guys, so if you don’t track it, that’s OK. Still, it is pretty funny.

The Perfessor

According to E! Online While the opening for Twilight: New Moon was big (bigger than some expected), but it still wasn’t Spider-Man or Batman big:

It was big. It was bigger than expected. It was record-setting. But more on the new Sandra Bullock movie later. New Moon will close out its remarkable debut weekend with an estimated $140.7 million, its studio reported today. The towering take makes the Twilight sequel the third-biggest opener in Hollywood history. Or, to put it another way: Yes, The Dark Knight's opening-weekend mark is safe. And, yes, Spider-Man 3's second-place slot is secure. But, still, other records did fall to New Moon. Stay tuned for more factoids, and a look at Bullock's The Blind Side, which showed bite of its own with a $34.5

According to E!:

But, get over your spandex-supporting selves because New Moon sucked up its own share of records:

• Biggest November opening ever, flying past Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’s $102.7 million;
• Biggest opening two-day gross ever ($115.9 million Friday-Saturday), edging The Dark Knight’s $114.8 million start;
• And all the previously reported rest: Biggest opening day ever ($67.2 million); biggest single day ever (ditto); biggest midnight showing ever ($26.3 million).

About the only thing New Moon didn't do was, yes, claim the opening-weekend crown.

Too bad on that last one, eh? Guess there are more funnybook geeks than teenage girls.

The Perfessor