Wrath

I'm in. I peaked at about 5th in the Winter Games before settling in at like 197th or so. I'm going to shoot to come in somewhere between those marks.

Ok, this is a little off-topic, but Lady Gaga's medly of Sound of Music songs was amazing. I mean, seriously astounding.

Wow. Go, Kingsman, go. If I hadn't seen JA, I'd feel sad for it. But I have, and I think its performing about as I'd have guessed it would (badly). That having been said, now that its been a little while since I've seen it, I'm actually kinda mad at the Wachowskis (sic?). The JA universe is actually pretty cool. The world itself is huge, sprawling and complex, there are some intriguing minor characters, and there are lots of interesting dynamics at work. Plus, its got a really cool and distinct visual style. And they've completely wasted it by generating this turd of a movie. With their budget, they should have made it a trilogy, with the whole first movie dealing with the initial stuff in Chicago and the characters' relationships. Then at the end, the big reveal could have been them finally getting into space and the big awesome starship they would have spent the whole movie building up to. On the downside, that would have required an actually good script which I'm not sure they had.

Some of the visual effects, and really more than that, the visual design of JA was great. But the story itself... It felt like they spent the middle third of the movie building up a world for sequels that will never happen. And the parts where something actually happens werent that great either. I suggest seeing SB instead.

You mean, like the second half of 2014? Edit - Ah, late 2014. It was the anti- Lake Wobegone. Every child was below average.

Awesome game running, Chasmmi! Every update post was a joy to read. And Congrats to Grimm and the other winners, fantastic prognosticating!

Well, it wasn't so much a "like" as a "sympathy" vote. I mean, *liking* that wouldn't really be appropriate, because you don't want to like something that doesn't really go well. In that situation, encouragement is really more appropriate. So, I may have liked it, but really what I meant was: "Don't feel bad, Death. You'll get more chances at him down the road."

Me too, honestly. At first, I was like "Wait, the one with James Franco? Wasn't that the prior year?" and it was a minute or two before I remembered there was another one in 2014 as well.

Probably not. Its made $18M WW off a $70M budget, so it was bad but not studio-breaking bad and wasn't fronted by anyone considered a major bankable star. It'll be gone from mind shortly and really isn't any worse than Blackhat or innumerable other minor-league disasters. Pluto Nash's failure starts with its $7m WW take, continues with its $100M budget (bulked up by 13 years of inflation adjustment) and is crowned by being led by Eddie Murphy at the height of his box-office power. It *opened* in 10th place, sandwiched between The Master of Disguise (in its 3rd week) and Stuart Little 2 (in its 5th week). Truly, Pluto Nash stands as the dark prince of colossal failure.

I'm hoping to catch you!

Oh, now you tell me. Well, too late, I already eyeballed it and I think my final score came in somewhere around 4. Not 4th place, a total of 4. Hmm, that sounded funnier in my head.

Wild is *just* like Cake. Except that its good. Not great, perhaps, but good. Reese deserves the nomination but should be at best a dark horse to actually win it.

Wait, you're actually a country? I thought you were like Spain's purse or something.

I will be *very* curious to see how AS does overseas.

Darn it! Finally missed a week of questions and it was the final one. Drat.

Any bonus points for not merely getting all 5 right but also getting them in order? Its like the one thing I actually got right and after getting brutalized the last few weeks Im desperate.

What the hell just happened? Im speechless.

Abstain

1. Will American Sniper have crossed 40M total by the end of the weekend? Yes 2. Will Taken remain in the top 3 this weekend? 3000 No 3. How many films will gross more than 20M over the 3 days? 3 4. Will Blackhat gross more than 10M? Yes 5. Will the top 5 films' combined Friday gross exceed $45M? Yes 6. Will Imitation Game stay in the top 8? 3000 Yes 7. Will The Wedding Ringer have a higher opening Weekend than The Wedding Singer (18.86M)? Yes 8. Which of the 4 new releases (well 3 + one wide release) will have the highest PTA? American Sniper 9. Will Paddington INcrease on Saturday? Yes 10. Will any film in the top 20 increase from last week over the 3 day without having an increase in theaters? 3000 No 11. Will Hunger games become the number 1 movie of the year by the end of the weekend? No 12. Will Big Hero 6 drop more than 31% on Sunday? No 13. Will tak3n's total gross overtake Exodus' total gross by the end of the weekend? 3000 Yes 14. Will Unbroken's PTA stay above $1,500 this weekend? Yes 15. Will Spare parts open to more than 500k? No 16. Will Woman in Black fall more than 63%? 3000 Yes 17. Will Hunger Games stay ahead of Inherent Vice? No 18. Will Penguins stay above Interstellar? NO 19. Will into the Woods have a 5M+ weekend? Yes 20. Would this weekend be more fun if Paddington was playing the sniper role this weekend? Well, does it still count if he's driving the car instead of doing the shooting? (DC Sniper joke) Bonus points: 14/20 2000 15/20 3000 16/20 4000 17/20 6000 18/20 8000 19/20 10000 20/20 12000 Bonus questions: 1. What will be the combined gross of the 3 main NEW RELEASES (i.e not sniper) this weekend? 50M 2. What will American Sniper's Percentage change be from last weekend? 6700% 3. What will Imitation Game's total be by Sunday? 48.9M Placements: 2. Paddington 4. Taken 3 7. Into the Woods 9. Unbroken 14. Woman in Black 2 17. Big Hero 6

Sweet. I had more than 1/4 of all the red + strikethrough predicts of the entire competition (3 out of 11). Edit - I really wish I had the chance to retroactively go back and, not take advantage of knowing the numbers, apply what I learned about predictive strategy. Still wouldn't have been great, but would have been less painful.

YOU'RE A TROGLODYTE! A few quibbles: - I wish you'd stuck with hating Into Darkness instead of lumping the first one in as well, because the first one holds together a lot better - Also, my biggest disagreements on the list are actually with SIL and Batman Returns, not because I loved them, but because other than the unbelievable fluke of SIL's Oscar performance, I've never heard of anyone seriously talking about them as good movies. - Quibbling over the fight scenes in Kill Bill is kinda being picky. I mean, I don't like Star Wars less because everyone remains conscious while the Falcon does 12g turns and every action hero, ever, should have been dead by the 2nd or 3rd scene. Heck, we were watching Twister with the Wrathettes last night, and during the final bit (when they're strapped to the pipe and the eye of the tornado passes over them), Wrathette #2 (she's 8), looked at me and said "A normal person wouldn't actually survive that, would they?" "No, they probably should be dead right now." That having been said, I don't have an objection to Kill Bill being on the list. I think big chunks of it are actually kinda boring. I just object to that particular line of criticism. Otherwise, I'm generally cool with the list. Sure, there are some I like more or less, but they don't even rise to the level of quibbles. Edit - As a final note, I agree on Wall-E. Mrs Wrath had to keep poking me to keep me from falling asleep during it.

Really, Silence of the Lambs and GotG are the only ones I disagree with so far.

I actually really enjoyed The Artist. I can see people saying it shouldn't have won Best Picture, but as to whether its enjoyable or not, I can't see that. However, there are plenty of movies I didn't really like. I didn't get the huge enthusiasm for Batman Begins, for example. Sure, its serious and basically well done, in very stark contrast to virtually all of the prior Batman movies making it look like a work of genius by comparison. But in a vacuum, I thought it was only ok. And while I thought Citizen Kane was a masterpiece, especially today I can see it not being to every taste. I find 2001 interminable, and I recognize that others might feel the same way about Kane. So, yeah, I see this turning into a bloodbath because its so idiosyncratic.

SOTM 11 was really interesting in that people's predicts were all over the place.

1. Hobbit 3 - 265M - Abstain 2. NATM 3 - 110M - YES 3. Selma - 52.5M - Abstain 4. Big Hero 6 - 221M - YES 5. Mocking jay 337.5M - YES 6. Exodus 65.5M - Abstain