Jake Gittes

Just watched the first two episodes. I wouldn't say it's as insanely sharp and hilarious as The Thick of It, but what show could be? I'm happy that so far it's very consistently funny (many lines are absolutely golden) and especially that the characters aren't simply the American versions of Malcolm, Ollie, Glen and others, but their own entities. Louis-Dreyfus nails it and everyone else is excellent.

I thought that, in the most realistically optimistic (lol) scenario, Ted would perform just like or a bit better than Horrible Bosses. I never considered anything above 125m for it.

Absolutely no one called MM. BTW, has something that ever happened before? I know 3 people picked Bridesmaids last year and someone ought to have picked ROTPOTA. What about Despicable Me and The Other Guys in 2010, The Hangover and The Proposal in 2009, and Mamma Mia in 2008? At least someone should have got them, but who knows.

Roman Polanski is great in his own The Tenant and in Tornatore's A Pure Formality, but he definitely falls more into "occasional actor" then into "director-turned-actor". I'm looking forward to Werner Herzog's performance as the main villain in Jack Reacher.

1) Will The Expendables 2 open to more than 42 mill? 3000 No 2) Will The Expendables 2 make more than 15.5 mill on Friday? 3000 Yes 3) Will The Expendables 2 drop more than 15% on Saturday? 3000 Yes 4) If you add the %drops for TE2 for Saturday and Sunday, will it total up to more than 35%? Yes 5) Will there be a midnight number reported for TE2? Yes 6) Will TE2 open to more than 40 mill internationally? Yes 7) Will TE2 open to more than 80 mill WW? Yes 8) Will Sparkle open to more than 10 mill? Yes 9) Will Sparkle have one of the two best theater averages? Yes 10) Will Paranorman open to more than 12.5 mill? Yes 11) Will The Odd Life of Timothy Green have a 5 day of more than 14 mill? Yes 12) Will The Odd Life of Timothy Green drop more than 25% on Thurs? No 13) Will TE2 gross more on it's 3 day weekend than the rest of the openers combined (including Wed and Thurs for Timothy Green)? No 14) Will Bourne fall more than 55%? No 15) Will Total Recall fall more than 55%? Yes 16) Will TDKR fall more than 45%? No 17) Will any film have a Saturday increase of more than 50%? Yes 18) Will Bourne finish second? No 19) Will the Campaign fall less than The Other Guys did in it's second weekend? Yes 20) Will Hope Springs Thursday be within 500K of it's first Thursday? No 16/20 5000 17/20 6000 18/20 7000 19/20 8000 20/20 10,000 Bonus 1: What will Expendables 2 weekend number be? 4000 $40,750,600 Bonus 2: What will Hope Springs total be after the weekend? 4000 $34,466,707 Bonus 3: What will the combined weekend gross be of Total Recall, Brave and ASM? 4000 $4,594,721 Bonus 4: What finishes in slots: 3: The Bourne Legacy 5: The Campaign 9: Diary of a Wimpy Kid 11: Total Recall 12: Ted

Agreed. Those situations are rare and I think that if anyone was to take the Oscars from PTA in 2007, the Coens were by far the best alternative. No Country is a fantastic film. And to be fair, Bigelow wasn't exactly conventional, either, I just love IB much more than THL and with that having been Tarantino's second chance to score it big at the Oscars, in addition to the film having won the main prize from the SAG, it was a shame to see Basterds come so close and still not get anything other than a statue for Waltz.Another curious thing is that this year, The Master and Django (as well as Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly) both have Harvey Weinstein backing them, and he just got to distribute two BP / BD winners in a row. I don't think it was hyperbole. They are both masters (sorry) of their craft and working with PTA, I wouldn't expect them to be anything less than astounding. But I think Phoenix and Adams are more likely to win Oscars than Hoffman because the latter has won one recently, and the competition could be strong (I'm dying to see Di Caprio's and Samuel L. Jackson's performances in DU in their entirety).

It doesn't need to collapse. Like I said, Basterds dropped 49% in its 2nd weekend, also had terrific weekdays, and still only managed 2.5x multi by Labor Day. Expendables opens to 45 million, drops over 50% next weekend (and the first movie dropped 51%), and it's almost certainly out of Top 11 right then and there. In order for its chances to make it not to fly out the window immediately, it will need to open to $50m, or to $48-49m at the very least. That's possible, but not very likely, in my opinion.

The best comparison here is Inglourious Basterds, which was released in the same exact weekend, and made $95m by LD off a $38m OW... and it had a sub-50% drop in its second weekend. 45 million on OW won't be enough to get TE2 above MM by Labor Day, and with 50 million it's not exactly a guarantee either.

I think Amy Adams is really likely to take Supporting Actress for it. She's been nominated 3 times in the past 7 years and this just looks like the perfect time to give it to her. The only real competition I see at this point is Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables (unless Helen Hunt in The Sessions is pushed as supporting). Maybe Sally Field in Lincoln but she's won twice already and, with all due respect, she ain't Meryl Streep.This is shaping up to be a very interesting year for PTA and QT's Academy chances not just because they both have a movie coming out, but because they are pretty much the only heavy contenders without a previous win. Ang Lee, Peter Jackson, Hooper, Bigelow all have won Oscars in the past decade. Spielberg has two from the 90's. That is what makes me believe that whether or not The Master wins Best Picture, at least PTA has a really good chance to win for Director - unless the Academy wants to reward, say, Lee or Spielberg yet again, they just won't be able to find a "safe" (i.e. what Hooper was to Fincher) alternative to PTA.And I have to wonder where Django should fall in all of this. Tarantino is my favorite working filmmaker and Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds, IMO, both should have won Best Picture, Director and Original Screenplay. For Anderson, There Will Be Blood should have cleaned up the same way. But, thanks to the Academy, after almost 20 years they have just one Oscar between the two of them (Pulp's for Original Screenplay) and this year they are competing against each other. It's difficult not to root for both at the same time.

Agreed. I've always loved the cold, gritty atmosphere of the European cities featured in the Bourne series, just the natural windy, grey streets and buildings (Zurich, Paris, Berlin, London... plus NY in Ultimatum) and Moscow is one of the more distinctive in that sense.

The Titanic question was the hardest for me. Didn't expect that IMDb quotes wouldn't have that piece of dialogue, and I neither have the movie on DVD nor have watched it in, like, the past 5 years.

Here it is:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aLxZZY9IKU

You can watch the whole of Following on YouTube.

Pretty much, give or take 2-3 million.

Not as great as Ultimatum, but a rock-solid action thriller. Joan Allen is a great addition, Julia Stiles' role is perfectly expanded, and watching Bourne use simple, everyday devices and scenarios to great effect to achieve his goals is more exciting than most action movies. Me being Russian, additional props to this movie for not only setting the whole last third in Moscow, but filming it all on location and avoiding pretty much any ridiculous stereotypes.

Dude, no matter how bad things are, it's not dropping over 70%.

That TBL won't even outgross Identity unadjusted is the real failure.

One of the most intense, exhilarating action films ever. Love it from the first to the last second. Damon is as cool as ever, various crowded European cities along with the snowy New York provide a terrific gritty backdrop, and the cinematography, editing and score are simply masterful - I just love it that where some directors can't make an exciting action scene with tons of CGI worth tens of millions of dollars, Greengrass does it out of 10 minutes of several guys walking/running around a train station. That's talent.

Gotta remember to do this.

I did think of posting a question about The Artist, Moonrise Kingdom or Scott Pilgrim vs the World, but decided not to be the one to torture you with that. ;)Edit: very cool - PF is my favourite movie, but even I would have to rewatch it to be sure about the answer to this question.

Ok, here goes. Question 2 (3000 points). In Pulp Fiction, what do both Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) order when they arrive at Jack Rabbit Slim's?

Do we post the questions here or PM them to you?

Well, The Royal Tenenbaums was nominated for Screenplay and FMF for Animated Film, so considering the overwhelmingly positive critical reception and strong box-office gross of Moonrise Kingdom, if there was ever a perfect time for the Oscars to embrace Anderson with a BP nom, it's now. Personally I think it could and should be a contender for Picture, Original Screenplay, Cinematography and Production Design.