Bond Bug

It seems that every weekend Jumanji and Showman beat most predictions. It seems they are heading for 400 million and 200 million, respectively. With so little new competition next weekend, they should have really strong holds.

Oh yes, but most of the audience don't play that scene over and over to see it. If a bullet passes straight through the head, survival is better than if it bounces around in the head.

I don't see any blood that wasn't already on him.

He wouldn't be the first person to survive being shot in the head. Also, we saw no blood. Suppose he had been shot with blanks.

I agree with what you say. In addition, the Black population is behind the curve in Hollywood, as it is in so many other areas, because Blacks were not given the opportunities in the past in a White-owned industry. There is still some catching up to do. Even when Black actors came to prominence in the 60s, they were playing Black stereotypes or showing what it was like to be Black in America, rather than being given roles based on talent, regardless of color, then we had the Blaxploitation era. Generally speaking, it has only been the last few decades that Blacks have been given roles that White actors might be given. With that level of unfairness, of course the academy and the industry is still a long way behind.

Ironic. I remember an interview with academy member Ian McKellen in which he said he didn't bother to watch all the movies he votes for.

Of course the academy is racist. It is racist as a group, by the nature of the proportion of older Whites in the academy being not reflective of the population, and by the fact that we know that in a large group of people, there will very likely be some who are racist. That is bound to affect the selection of nominees and the votes of those nominees. That is not to say that all, or the majority, of individual academy members are in any way racist. Do all the academy members see all the movies and the performances that they vote for? Of course not. They will vote for many reasons beyond the performance and they are influenced by many factors, whether it is down to how good the marketing is that is aimed at academy members, or if they know somebody involved in the movie, or if they have a positive impression based on reviews. There could be a hundred reasons, but in addition, I would hazard at a guess that older White academy members are more interested in and more informed about "White" movies than "Black."

I believe that Bradley Cooper is the only actor to have starred in a $100m hit released each year this decade up to 2014, so he needs this to do well to continue that record. In fact, his run started in 2009 with The Hangover.

If a review is about the quality of the filmmaking, then yes I agree. But in my book a review should be about more than quality. It should be about the experience.

The fact that the movie has certain Bond cliches might be an issue to them, but do these box office numbers look like the audience agree?

Those American reviewers are too pompous or delusional to understand that the new Bond movie does not have to be Skyfall 2.

Make that less than two weeks!

Yes, in three weeks.

By end of day, Sunday, Spectre should land about half way between the total grosses of Toy Story 3 and Titanic, placing it at number four on the all-time chart. Chart from Wikipedia 1 * Skyfall 102.9 2012 2 Avatar 94.0 2009 3 Titanic 80.1 1998 4 Toy Story 3 74.0 2010

A cheeky Roger Moore movie? Sounds perfect to me. I don't know what he has to complain about.

I can tell you a few things that didn't go wrong. $100m already in the UK, with a population that's a fifth of USA. The biggest ever Saturday in Germany. Mexico opening doubled Skyfall. Perhaps $800m worldwide. Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Over 6 in 10 critics gave it the thumbs up.

You mean a bankruptcy costing creditors $1.9 billion?

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration to say Spectre will be dead in the UK in three weeks.

Spectre is already well inside the UK top ten grossing movies, flying by the total runs of Quantum of Solace and Casino Royale. It should be the fourth highest grossing movie of all time in the UK by next weekend! Chart from Wikipedia 1 * Skyfall 102.9 2012 2 Avatar 94.0 2009 3 Titanic 80.1 1998 4 Toy Story 3 74.0 2010 5 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 73.1 2011 6 * Mamma Mia! 68.5 2008 7 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone 66.1 2001 8 Jurassic World 63.7[2] 2015 9 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 63.0 2001 10 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 61.1 2003 11 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 57.6 2002 12 Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 56.4 1999 13 * The Dark Knight Rises 56.3 2012 14 * Casino Royale 55.6 2006 15 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 54.8 2002 16 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest 52.5 2006 17 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 52.5 2010 18 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 52.3 2012 19 * The Full Monty 52.2 1997 20 Marvel Avengers Assemble 51.9 2012 21 * Quantum of Solace 51.2 2008

How would you know if a movie wasn't A+ or C, if CinemaScore is useless?

Are you saying the methodology used by CinemaScore to gauge audience reaction is flawed? Or are you saying audience reaction doesn't mean anything?

CinemaScore gave Spectre A-, showing the pompous USA critics failed to see the movie for the pure escapism that it is.

Yes, the American critics are out-of-touch with the audience.

The way it is falling on RT, it's going to be the worst Bond movie for 30 years. This will probably mean Craig is definitely back for the next one, because he won't want to leave after a critical failure, and all involved are going to have to up their game next time.

It's fresh! What are people complaining about?