TServo2049

AMC Bay Street 16’s Dolby Cinema was full at my 11:15 matinee. Also, unless they have no other choice (e.g., crowded OW), are people really going to see a movie late on a Sunday when they have school/work the next morning? I certainly don’t.

The Force Awakens has held all-time domestic gross for the past 3+ years, but otherwise you’re right.

I’m watching behind the scenes stuff right now. There really are plenty of “invisible” effects shots in that movie. You’d have no idea that the underwater shots of the wreck are only partially the famous footage they shot of the real ship, and the rest are miniatures, filmed dry with lots of smoke and filters, and intercut with the real stuff. For the most part, Titanic is one of those films like Blade Runner or ID4 (or Endgame, now that I think about it) that didn’t necessarily pioneer new VFX techniques, so much as take what was already available and use it really really well. We all marveled at stuff like the White House blowing up or the Titanic breaking in two, but those were just tried-and-true miniature shots executed flawlessly. I’d give some examples of “not innovative, just damn good” VFX from Endgame but they’d go into spoiler territory.

I remember that the sinking really looked like it was happening for real, at least for 1997. Again, I think it used lots of models and full-scale sets.

This quarter will bump the average up. The first quarter usually has the lowest average because fewer big films with pricier tickets do business.

Titanic’s effects were used to serve the story, like that famous George Lucas quote. Also, they are not meant to call intention to themselves as effects. Even Star Wars and Jurassic Park had scenes where the effects were clearly the “star” of the shot, but in Titanic it all blends in. You know that real X-wings and dinosaurs can’t be put in front of a camera, but everything in Titanic is meant to look like it’s filmed on location.

Hey, hey, don’t knock second unit directors. A lot of CBMs have used John Mahaffie, who directed a ton of action scenes for Lord of the Rings that Jackson couldn’t do because he had to film other stuff at the same time. All that Helm’s Deep battle stuff that the Internet (rightly) loves to gush over? Most of that was Mahaffie, not Jackson.

Whaaaaat? That’s not what happened. The Avengers wasn’t even out when Titanic re-released. It was for the 15th anniversary+Titanic centennial. At the time, nobody really thought The Avengers was going to hit $600 million, either. Making fun of Cameron is all well and good, but that’s just incorrect history.

Can we just agree that EG is the record for the sprint but Titanic and Avatar are still the marathon champions? I will always remember the sheer excitement in the theater seeing EG on the first Thursday. I will also always remember that everyone was talking about Titanic. Late night monologues, political cartoons, comic strips, cartoons, for weeks and months. Cultural penetration on a level not seen since the first Star Wars, and not matched by anything since. One does not negate the other for me.

I understood that Coming to America reference. Yeah, that scene is this thread right now.

I’m reading a book about the history of re-releases, so I’ll get back to you on that.

It didn’t, though. It did really well, but those estimated 200 million tickets sold added up over multiple re-releases. The 1967 re-release in particular doesn’t get enough credit - it outgrossed everything that year except The Graduate. (And that beautiful lush romance-novel poster everyone knows? That’s from 1967.)

Agreed. This is not Highlander. There can be more than one box office legend.

True, it felt like it was ghost-written by Scott Mendelson or something. Also, didn’t female-driven rom-coms have a string of flops around the same time of the Apatow brom-com ascendancy? Or am I misremembering?

I was just going to bring that up, too. I hope so. I’m not on the whole “Boo, all of the Disney/Pixar films are exactly the same and it’s all Lasseter’s fault because his undeniably reprehensible personal actions somehow also prove he was creatively bankrupt, because of what happened with Brave” train, but I grew up when Disney and Pixar were distinct and it’d be nice to see them reassert their unique identities again.

I’m old enough to remember when they weren’t actually part of Disney, so I guess I just still separate them in my brain.

I said Disney, not Pixar. Disney has only had three true made-for-theaters sequels: The Rescuers Down Under, Ralph Breaks the Internet, and this. (Four if you count Fantasia 2000.) Sure, saying it’s the best since Rescuers Down Under would be from a small pool, but that would also mean “better than Ralph Breaks the Internet” (which I did not hate, but again, middle of the road. And not enough Jack McBrayer and Jane Lynch.)

Frozen 2 has the potential to be the best Disney animated sequel since The Rescuers Down Under (though hopefully it’s much more successful). I only say this in theory, since I don’t want to look things up and get spoiled, I want to go in and be surprised. But seriously, I loved The Rescuers Down Under as a kid. The eagle flight scenes are up there with The Iron Giant and How to Train Your Dragon in terms of sheer awe. It just had the misfortune of being an outlier in the fairy tale musical Renaissance (and getting absolutely curb-stomped by Macaulay Culkin).

Anti-social media. I’ve always preferred message boards. At least in places like these, everyone gets to know each other and actually discusses.

Which I did not intend to do. I shouldn’t have used it at all, and I apologize for giving the wrong impression. I just meant “the things that pissed off the people who throw that term around all the time, didn’t piss me off, but at the same time I’m not a stan for the movie either.” I was trying to say I’ve been ignoring the whole political flame-fest over CM just like with TLJ, I certainly did not want to give the impression that I agreed with the CM bashers. (They would almost certainly consider me a “shill” for my own independently-formed opinion, based solely on watching the movie and ignoring pre-release caterwauling the same as I do with every other movie, that I do not hate Brie Larson and that there was nothing wrong with her performance, the same way they downvote me for being merely middle-of-the-road on TLJ.) My whole point is that I don’t fall on a side, but it seems like even when trying to communicate that I put my foot in it and say things that make me appear like I’m on the “other” side. Agreed on Aquaman. Wonder Woman vs. CM, I’d give WW the edge but probably because it reminded me a bit of The First Avenger and I love that one.

I put it in quotes for a reason, the point is that I meant the stuff alleged to be “SJW” by others. And really, I just thought the “there’s a reason why they call it the cockpit” line was kind of stupid and cartoonishly dickish. But I get what they were going for and it did not make me actually mad in any way. My biggest “issue” with CM was just that it felt middle-of-the-road, but I feel the same way about something like Doctor Strange (I can’t remember a single thing about that movie off the top of my head other than “Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain.”) I may have stated my feelings poorly. My point is that I am not pro- or anti-, it was just an OK movie to me and I just can’t bring myself to care about all the fuss on either side - just like with TLJ, or the DC films, or any of the other things which fuel the ongoing geek-blockbuster flame wars.

Yeah, I have no real ordering for my “bottom half of the MCU”, it’s just the movies not in my top half (which aren’t in a clear order either, I just know that I put GOTG1 and the not-Ultron Avengers movies at the top, I enjoy IM3 more than most, I consider CA:TFA underrated, I probably rank GOTG2 higher than most, and I don’t really hate any of them.)

If I try to say I found TLJ merely okay, that the stuff that bothered people only mildly annoyed me, that I basically enjoyed the movie on initial watch but still had no urge to watch it again, I get downvoted on Reddit as if I’m shilling for TLJ. Also, I’m an MCU fan but I’ve actually been more a fan of the DC characters over the years, I loved The Dark Knight, liked Wonder Woman/Aquaman/Shazam, didn’t care for Man of Steel/Batman v Superman/Suicide Squad/Justice League, but still see DC’s films in the theater. This also tends to get me downvoted, presumably for being an MCU shill (though it doesn’t get me downvoted as much as not fully coming down against TLJ). I’m afraid to admit there how I thought Captain Marvel was OK and enjoyed Shazam just a bit more, that the supposed “SJW” stuff in CM only slightly irritated me for feeling too “on the nose” but it didn’t anger me, I liked the Fury/Coulson stuff more than the main story (seriously, Marvel, a “Fury and Coulson, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” animated series on Disney+ with both Jackson and Gregg reprising the voices, make it happen) but that I thought Brie Larson did a perfectly fine job and in no way actually hate the movie even if I’m not itching to see it again. Both factions could come at me.

No, I just felt like that was begging for the Arrested Development narrator meme. As I said, in reality I have no expectations, good or bad. This one’s a giant question mark for me, which will only be answered once I actually see it.

Ron Howard: “It didn’t.” I love the original trilogy so I’m still going to see it, but I have zero expectations.