Wrath

Darkness Prediction: 3.6M +/- 1.7M (1 standard deviation) Actual: 5.0M (off by 1.4M, so 0.81 stndev) Eh, not terrible. Unfortunately, we were the second lowest predict and it actually beat expectations. Spaghetti was our best predict at 5.1M Money Monster Prediction: 9.5M +/- 2.68M (1 standard deviation) Actual: 14.8M (off by 5.3M, so 1.97 stndev) Ow. Just terrible, and our only solace is that everyone else was terrible, too, as we were roughly in the middle. MovieWeb's 21.8M predict looks a little less insane now, but they were still the worst of the lot. mahnamahna was our best predict at 13M.

I'm not really a fan of Last Crusade, to be honest. Its not bad, but it just doesn't resonate with me for some reason.

Yeah, I'd kinda hoped to be back in action by this point. At least I'm still getting decent earnings from Jungle Book.

Oh, sure. I'm really just arguing the .gif. Everyone says its perfect for that point, but I think its actually not because it has 70's era *disaster* themes. So, yes, one could argue that I'm being kinda specific in my objections.

There's a human bad guy in most of those movies. In Airport 77 the plane crashes (into the ocean and sinks) because its hijacked (incompetently) by art thieves, and the tension between the thieves and the passengers as they all try to survive is a significant plot-point. Towering Inferno happens because the building's electrical engineer massively cuts corners and he causes trouble all movie with his generally terrible character.

Yeah! Not only was it a great movie, it made $127M in 1977! That's insane. The problem, unfortunately, is that what really makes the movie tick is the massive charisma of Burt Reynolds. That's harder to replicate than excellent CGI effects. Also, the movie does a surprisingly good job of telling the stories of the characters. Like many well-written movies, the entire point of the escapade, while internally compelling, is really a side-show to the interplay between well-developed characters you've come to care about. Wouldn't it be great if other genres learned that lesson as well? Like a super hero movie that had some explosions, but was at its heart really about the relationships between the characters, rather than saving the world from the Villain-of-the-Week? That would be great.

True, but the downfall of that .gif is that it actually does harken back to '70s movies. Admittedly disaster movies rather than political thrillers, but still.

Yeah, but he never actually said that the vibe made it better, just that he liked that aspect. Also, you did remember that it was BKB you were arguing with, right?

Sure, but they were from the 70s.

The funny thing is that at first I was totally on-board with that. But weirdly enough, after thinking a bit, I no longer am. Because you know what the 70s were huge on? Classic disaster movies. Towering Inferno, Airport 77, Poseidon Adventure, etc. Watching the Helicarrier in flames crashing into the ground actually does kinda have that era's sensibilities written all over it.

Right. It just makes your earlier comment seem oddly specific.

Sure, but he wasn't wrong. You told BKB that CA:WS and Manchurian Candidate might have had some similar plotlines, but were tonally totally different. And I agree with you. But then Nosferatu then says that just because a movie isn't a slavishly faithful reproduction doesn't mean it wasn't influenced by another movie, and then he says you'd have to be dense to not see the political thriller themes in Winter Soldier. Are you saying that he's wrong? I don't think you're dense, so would you say there were zero political thriller influences or tones in CA:WS? Because if you think there were such influences, then he's right and you agree that he's right, so it'd be weird that you're attacking him for saying something you might not actually disagree with.

Sure, but a movie doesn't have to be either/or. If you *only* feel like watching a political thriller, then great, you can obviously do that. But just because a movie straddles genre lines in some fashion doesn't necessarily make it a worse movie overall. Just a less palatable option for the fairly specific movie-itch you're looking to scratch at that moment. Edit - Also, I think Baumer might be just a wee bit more combative than entirely required atm. Someone said there was influence and Baumer said the tones were different, and that somehow turned into a fight with Nosferatu. Both statements can certainly be true. Fist Full of Dollars was massively influenced by Yojimbo, but I'd argue the tones are different.

No joke. Anyone who doesn't see the difference in story telling between this and, say, Ultron either isn't paying attention or is too innately against the genre to care even if you explain it.

Civil War was fun, and then we had a nice palate-cleanser weekend, but now the summer begins in earnest. I trust your loins are girded. Please provide your 5/20-22 Opening Weekend predicts for, Angry Birds Neighbors 2 Nice Guys Deadline this week will be Thursday afternoon (US Eastern time), whenever I get to it.

I had Taxi Driver as well, though it might have been in my 51-100 range. Like Civil War. I know folks are just having fun, but I actually do think Civil War deserves a spot on this list. I fact, I think it was the only MCU movie I put on my list.

Dude, you need a little more awareness of what's going on in the world. XMRadio now has a Broadway tunes station which is basically all Hamilton songs, my 9 year old is singing a Hamilton song at her talent show next week, it just set the all-time record for Tony wins. Also, Jack Lew basically said the show is the reason Tubman is going on the $20 instead of the $10.

I wonder how the success of Hamilton will change this, possibly pulling down Jefferson slightly and moving Washington up.

Theres going to be so much pain on this SOTM. Nothing individually huge, but I bet collectively we'll end up with a negative total.

Alright, I've calculated out how we've done. We've predicted approximately 123 movies, and I've broken things into 4 categories: 1-10 predicts, 11-25 predicts, 26-75, and 75+ predicts. Also, I've tracked how we've done as a collective whole, as well as how other predictor sites have done. All scores are done in average standard deviations from actual OW BO per predict. Here's how it looked: 1-10 predicts (110 people in this category. Yes, really) The one-hit wonders. Surprisingly, Ruthie came in 3rd as 3 people have made a single predict and had that predict be the best predict for that movie. #1 Arlo245 0.03 #2 Halba 0.04 #3 Ruthie 0.08 11-25 Predicts (18 people in this category) #1 Krissykins 1.16 (2 best predicts in just 18 predicts) #2 Beejaygrad11 1.24 #3 DynamiX 1.24 26-75 Predicts (18 "people" in this category) #1 ShowBuzzDaily 1.09 (one of the predicting websites I use as a benchmark) #2 TalismanRing 1.15 #3 CoolEric258 1.28 76+ Predicts (15 "people" in this category) #1 BO.com 1.14 #2 Deadline 1.20 #3 Variety 1.23 #4 BOT predictors Median guess 1.27 #5 BOT predictors Mean guess 1.30 #6 Panamovie 1.36 Interesting and somewhat reassuring to see that our Median predict result was, on average, more accurate than any individual predictor who made more than 25 predicts, except TalismanRing (and CoolEric258 if we use Mean rather than Median). Maybe I should switch from using Mean as our benchmark to Median? At least they're pretty close to each other. Our single worst predictor was Gokira2012 who made a single predict (that F4 would open to $59M, making Gokira2012 kinda the mirror image of Arlo245) and has thus been off by an average of 4.95 standard deviations per pick. A straight, unweighted average of all our predictors' totals comes to 1.46, and our median is 1.40. Disappointing that we were below 4 of the 5 other predictor sites, but at least we beat MovieWeb.com (1.35). Who knew Deadline and Variety were actually good at this?

More consistent results this time. We're slightly pessimistic on both movies, coming in with the 2nd lowest predict on The Darkness and tied for 2nd lowest on Money Monster. But that does mean we're roughly in the same range as everyone else. Except, of course, MovieWeb's 21.8M predict for Money Monster. Yes, I've checked twice, that is indeed what they predicted. I'm guessing they're smoking pure, uncut optimism. Or crack. Hard to tell over the internet. MoviesRus managed to post their predict while I was putting together the numbers, but before I finished, so slipping an extra predict in wasn't a problem. As usual, I totaled all predicts (16 for Darkness, 18 for Money Monster) and here are the results: Darkness Mean: 3.6M Median: 3.5M StnDev: 1.70M Ratio (StnDev/Mean): 46.87% High: 7.4M Low: 1.7M BO.com 4.5M Deadline 4.5M MovieWeb 3.2M ShowBuzzDaily 4.5M Variety 4M Money Monster Mean: 9.5M Median: 9M StnDev: 2.68M Ratio (StnDev/Mean): 28.11% High: 17M Low: 5.7M BO.com 8.9M Deadline 11M MovieWeb 21.8M ShowBuzzDaily 9.5M Variety 10M

JUST sneaking in under the wire!

Money Monster 6.5M Darkness 3.8M

Yeah, The Birds is certainly considered a classic, but I really couldn't tell you why. I guess in terms of horror films of its period its better than The Blob was, but that's kinda damning with faint praise. If it came out before Psycho I could kinda understand it, since horror movies in those days weren't really very good and maybe everyone remembers it fondly because it did well against weak competition. But it didn't. It came out *after* Psycho. And not only is it not in the same ballpark as Psycho, its like a commuter train connection plus two bus rides away from being in the same ballpark as Psycho. I just don't get it.

I'd agree that Rose does sound terrible (better than he did when he tried that solo act a year or two ago, but still pretty bad), but I thought he was fine during the quieter songs on the reunion tour (like Patience). As long as he's able to talk people into giving him money to perform, why retire? I mean, he was effectively retired for like 20 years before popping back up. Plus, I love Brian Johnson too, but he's leaving because of medical trouble, not because they're kicking him out for Rose. And Johnson turns *69* this year so while Rose isn't as trim as he was in the 90's, if nothing else he's like 15 years younger than Johnson.