Sal

Wait, are you trying to say that Southerners are not easily scared off by snow? I'm vividly remembering parts of Georgia in a state of emergency and shutting down roads with less than an inch of snow... and areas as far north as Kentucky wasting a month worth of 'snow days' cancelling school last January. (The kids loved it in Jan and hated it in June when classes ran two weeks longer to make up for them using extra snow days)

Did we really need 2 pages of discussion about Frozen? This poor movie can't even get a break on its own thread... Other things stealing its hype is absolutely a factor in how things turned out. Interstellar's headlines, etc.

Just got back from Into the Woods. Theatre was at about 95% full. We had to sit in the second row back from the front because it was the only space. available. Lots of reactions from the audience, especially to the princes' duet. There was applause at the end. As for the movie itself... I'd give it a B to B+. Casting and acting was good but there were several scenes cut out or cut down. Hoping for them to be restored in the DVD release.

Part of the trouble I'm finding from the merchandising aspect is that the stuff I really want to get is impossible to find. It's easy to get toys of Baymax in the armour, but the non-armoured Baymax is virtually impossible to find. I've been trying since the movie opened to find anywhere local that sells the big Baymax plushes but I've had no luck.

So your logic by your earlier statement... you stated that these movies share the fact that they involve good battling against evil. This is a formula exclusively used in superhero films? Right. That aside, they are also distinctly different in tone and setting. Not all of them even contain 'superheroes' in the sense that you seem to imply. Superheroes in the comic book sense generally implies: Super Powers, Secret Identities (which may include having to hide said secret identities), Costumes and Saving People. A lot of movies involve saving people without being superhero films, so that's not an absolute qualifier for being a superhero film though. I would hesitate to call any of the GOTG characters superheroes and it's really more of a space opera than a Superhero film anyway. They don't even have secret identities (Star Lord's so-called 'Code Name' is the closest they come) or costumes. They're just a bunch of scuzzy criminals battling even worse people. Batman and Superman are more like the classic superhero films, as is Spider Man, but Cap 1 mostly plays more like a vaguely superhero inspired War Film (no secret identiy, set in the military during a historical period) yeah there's fantastic elements, but there were fantasy elements in a lot of things set in that period, partially because the Nazis were kind of crazy about occult stuff anyway. Take away the Captain America title and the very end sequence and it's basically just a film about a particularly tough guy with a shield fighting crazy Nazis. I've not watched the most recent X-Men but the original comic and a lot of the older stuff is a lot closer to some of the YA novels and films I've seen than to a straight superhero movie either. I cannot give any sort of judgement or details on DOFP since I didn't bother watching it. And while we're pointing fingers, what's this about YA being so different? How many of the YA films in recent years have been Dystopian Future? Yes these tend to differ from each other... but not to such a degree that they don't clearly share a common genre. I would argue that The Giver, Maze Runner and Hunger Games are thematically and functionally more similar than Batman, GotG and X-men. And then there's the other biggie: YA Romance. Like most forms of Romance, most of these plots have been done to death. That's not to say they can't be good, but seriously, they're not that different from each other. Frankly, based on the current glut of supernatural romance/vampire romance/werewolf romance/any of those other X-fantasy-creature-romance themes plus a threesome plus first person female narrator picking between two guys, I'd say that they're not trying to be all that different because that's what sells. I love both comic book films (superhero or otherwise) and YA fiction, but to say that one is inherently more or less diverse than the other is kind of ridiculous. Frankly there's been a glut of both and they could probably both stand to diversify their offerings a bit more.

Penguins is coming down pretty hard.

Yes. All comic book movies are the same. Just like all comic books are the same. In our field we're contractually obligated to just write Batman over and over again. That's why you could never see a comic book about.. say... Death doing his job (Sandman), a teenage girl time travelling to the American Revolution in her sleep (The Dreamer), sentient sex robots (Sky Doll), Kids getting sucked into a different world to save their mom (Amulet), or Fairy Tale characters trapped in modern society (Fable). It's not like that's the tip of the iceberg and there's a ton of other comics that are nothing like Batman. It's not like some of the movies that came out over the past few years are based on comic books that are nothing like the standard superhero fare: Cowboys Vs Aliens, The Crow, Heavy Metal, Josie and the Pussycats, The Mask, Men in Black, Red, Richie Rich, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Tales from the Crypt, Weird Science. Thanks for pointing out to me how all these listed films are exactly the same because they're comic book movies. Somehow I was dense enough to think they were completely different.

That's because it's basically smut, but that they can read in public. Honestly though, if they want smut fanfiction, they can find better stuff for free on the internet.

Try Delhi Safari. It's one of the worst things I've seen. Also "Airplane Vs Volcano" is pretty special too.

I would actually consider PAYING my friends to not go see this movie. That's how bad the book is.

I watched TNG with more regularity, but I was first introduced through TOS back when I was just a kid.

There has been talk on and off about them wanting to do a TV Series based on Worf. While I get that Klingons are popular, I admit that he's probably the TNG character I'd least like to see a spin-off about. Edit: with the obvious exception of Wesley.

Well, the big difference here is that the Muppets were a commercial success with 88m since the movie's budget was only 45m. (WW it virtually quadrupled its budget box-office wise). Muppets making 88m on a 45m budget is a very different beast than PoM possibly making 88m on a 132m budget.

So, they're estimating an overall DOM total for Penguins at around 88m. That would be very bad news for Dreamworks...

True, but before we start comparing to the previous IT movie, I do have to point out that it wasn't a TV movie, it was a TV Miniseries. The run-time was like 6 hours.

Gone Girl has also been out way longer.

I guess I'm just used to the cheap tuesday bumps.

That seems a bit low of a tuesday gross for BH6. Didn't it have over 2m on Monday?

Source?

This deserves to be reposted. Because you pretty much explained every issue I had with The Incredibles. I dislike that 'yank the chain' turn in the movie. It makes such a big deal about how important it is to be special, but then immediately slaps limits on what 'special' actually is. Just being incredibly smart or dedicated to a field isn't enough to make someone 'special'. You either are or you aren't. There are elements of the film that smack of that old 'haves' and 'have-nots' thing and that rubs me wrong. To make it worse is the fact that they're basically feeding the message 'If you're not born special, you should just accept your shitty lot in life and not even try'. At no point do they ever acknowledge ordinary people as though they're even potentially capable of being equal (with the possible exception of Edna?). I mean with the way Mr. Incredible talks at a couple of points in the movie, you'd almost think they'd just decide "let's get rid of all the talentless peons" since they're useless for everything except having to save. TL;DR: The movie's basically saying "You're born special or you're a useless pimple on society who should never try to be special." That's far from the uplifting message about how to embrace your unique talents that some people seem to want to tote it as.

The trouble with the Animation Oscar is that it's just too broad a category. What are they judging on? The quality of the animation? The overall visual look? Is that better or more important than the story. Should a solid story that plays it safe have the advantage over something a bit more out there or should it be penalized? Is being innovative and groundbreaking supposed to give points? Should something win based on the merit of its comedic elements... or is it comedy=bad? Who judges the comedy in an animated film anyway. And in what universe is pitting an animated Japanese drama against a lively upbeat adventure for kids fair? The fact of the matter is that there shouldn't be ONE Oscar for animation and that they should probably qualify in other categories. Unfortunately having that catch-all Animation category means they never have to worry about animated films being measured against their precious live-action Oscar-bait films.

Dude. The Incredibles was an okay film but it was far from Brad Bird's best effort. And it was just Fantastic Four lite anyway. I never understood the hype for that movie, especially since all of the characters were so damn unlikable. I was almost cheering for the villain to win except that he was a jerk too.

You say that, but the folks I lived with were huge HTTYD fans and quit watching the TV show four episodes in. They even gave away (or threw away) the dvds. And surprise! They elected to wait on seeing HTTYD2 until they could watch it for free so they didn't "waste more money".

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