LawrenceBrolivier

This is going to be fun! Not just "superhero" movies, but comic book movies! So anything that began life as a comic... either a strip OR a book.... is eligible?

The bit about the critics was sarcasm... I was making fun of the idea that you can't trust film critics despite the fact it's literally their job to see and think about movies all the time... but somehow the opinions of 9000 randos nobody's ever heard of.... and half of whom probably don't even really exist.... leaving a rating on imdb is somehow trustworthy.... despite the fact we've got at least 10 years of sustained evidence that tiny groups of people on the internet love to brigade polls and game reactions for "reasons" as you put it... Nobody's fooling me because I make it a point to find people whose thoughts are understandable, whose writings are clear, and whose opinions I can get behind.... and I pay attention to those people. Some of them are film critics! Some of them are just friends! Some of them are people on message boards! But still, I make it a point to have some idea of who I'm listening to and why I'm listening to them.... instead of putting any faith or belief in the tiny percentage of people I've never heard of who anonymously rate things on one of the most easily gamed websites in internet history...

Why wouldn't I believe that? What reason would I have to trust any "user rankings" at imdb or rotten tomatoes? I don't have one.... because there isn't one... Your theory is everyone got out of Cannes and then went to imdb to rate the movie? Nobody at Cannes did that... something like 1 percent of all moviegoers ever do that. And about half of that 1 percent are weird randos with some agenda.... user rankings were notoriously unreliable before "brigading" became a story five years ago.... they're not any better now.

So you know the 9000 nobodies who went to imdb to rate a movie weeks before it opened? I guess you can believe what you want... but it's all randos here. Which is weird because the only people who aren't randos are.... critics. But we don't trust them because they're basically a different species of human who can't be trusted and never know what they're talking about.... kind of a catch 22 here....

To clarify... I'm not happy about the inevitability of what's happening (and has already happened) just pointing out that we're already there in many ways and we're likely never going back to what it was.... Change isn't always good, or exactly the way we'd like it to be... but that doesn't stop it from coming, either... this is actually a theme that Tarantino is wrestling with IN the movie, too...

More on topic... will be seeing this at the theater, in 35mm, this weekend... And I'm very much looking forward to seeing it that way while I can...

nope!

I'm not sure why you keep trying to draw the comparison to video games... especially that specific comparison, considering console gaming effectively killed the arcade. Sure, arcades still exist, and people still go to them... but not like it was, and it'll never be like that again.... And streaming platforms are already doing what you're suggesting! They've been doing it... not to mention the idea of "cinema" isn't mutually chained to something like Lord of the Rings. In fact, "cinema" as it keeps being used in this discussion is almost always mid-budget drama.... which is what streaming networks are almost single-handedly keeping alive now that the film studios have gotten caught trying to play catch-up with Disney's unbeatable box-office strategies. Scorsese is on Netflix. Spielberg is on Apple. Tarantino's last movie is probably going to be a Star Trek film. In about 10 years the best writers and directors will have some sort of deal with a streaming platform and their cinematic work is going to be pointed there... That's the future of cinema... that's not necessarily a bad thing, either... but the idea that theatrical exhibition is where cinema thrives is an idea that is half-extinct already, and we're all going to see it die before we do... Much like a lot of us watched the arcade diminish... Movie theaters will become novelty amusement parks for big-budget blockbusters. Our TVs... however big they'll end up being, whether they become rollable displays or super-cheap pocket size 4k projectors that fill a bare wall in your apartment... that is where most of our cinema will be consumed.

Streaming platforms are already investing in big-budget films... as well as a lot of mid-budget films and independent features that would otherwise never see any distribution at all. They've been doing it for awhile now too... they're chasing industry awards, exhibiting them theatrically solely to qualify for the awards... but even when they aren't doing that, the fact is there is an entire mid-budget model of film that studios used to make more than anything, and they just don't do that anymore, and streaming networks are the ones doing it now... TV has been making legitimately cinematic product for almost 20 years now. Some of the best "cinema" released in the last decade was made for TV... a distinction that doesn't really mean what it used to because making something for TV hasn't meant "for a square barely 27 inches wide" for a very long time now. The TV Industry isn't separate from the film industry in a lot of ways. They're largely just a different department within the same content studio, but at this point the consolidation going on in a lot of these entertainment companies is erasing those divisions and departments... Cinema is already on the streaming networks. The studios all want to be their own individual streaming networks.... this is not even a new thing for them, really... Before our grandparents were born, the studios were trying to own theater chains... but now they're trying to own streaming networks... It's less about the quality of the product and more about the means of distribution because at this point the quality of the product... especially audio/visually... is basically equal between home viewing and theatrical exhibition. If there's no meaningful distinction between the two anymore, or that distinction is rapidly shrinking every year.... then it makes sense theaters are going to become the novelty (amusement parks) and streaming and home video is going to be the main target... And it's already happening, too...

It's streaming whether this movie comes out or not... It's been too late to go back. Studios are spending almost hundreds of billions over the next 5-10 years to launch streaming networks and put movies on them to compete with Netflix, which has spent hundreds of billions to become a studio on top of already being a streaming network. Add to that the fact the theatrical experience has been diminishing for decades on top of the always rising ticket and concessions price,... now contrast that with the fact home theater product has been as good if not better on the PQ side of things, and has been that way since the first blu-ray rolled off a production line... The future of cinema is streaming because the future of exhibition is amusement parks... nothing's going to change that in the next 10 years, this movie included.

The framerate really doesn't have anything to do with the de-aging effect and CG head replacements not working quite correctly.... although the framerate is another knock against the film possibly breaking out, since audiences have firmly told the industry they don't like HFR multiple times now.... Paramount will sell this thing on the back of its VFX.... which are obviously not doing what Lee needs them to do... and to compound that problem the HFR thing will be brought up... and audiences aren't interested in any of that... Lee will have to make one hell of a spy movie in order to overcome the built-in negative reaction Gemini Man is going to inspire.

They're probably sweating bullets anyway because this really doesn't look good... even with audiences having seen semi-CG Will Smith in a huge movie earlier in the summer...

oh

I got the sense you weren't a fan when I looked at your very long list (100+ movies for a 25 movies list) and noted The Iron Giant wasn't ANYWHERE on it.... but I also didn't feel the need to call your excessive list out as "horrible" and demand you justify your personal tastes, either... It's just a poll thread for about 20 people on a box-office message board... I guess it could be worse, you could be using multiple alt-accounts to cheat (all due respect to the goony Cameron stooges here and abroad)

Which tabs did you fold back before you returned it?

I thought this was pretty interesting. I don't have a very high estimation of CinemaScore (or PosTrack or imdb/rotten tomatoes ratings either) but I didn't realize the CinemaScore polling process was so.... janky It's funny to me to realize this mostly inconsequential data point that people take so seriously is gathered like... that.

oh wow that's right.... Perfect Blue was released in America in 1999! Revising my list now...

25: Magnolia 24: Go 23: Blair Witch Project 22: 10 Things I Hate About You 21: Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai 20: The Talented Mr. Ripley 19: Eyes Wide Shut 18: Bringing Out the Dead 17: Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels 16: Boys Don’t Cry 15: Three Kings 14: The Sixth Sense 13: Bowfinger 12: Galaxy Quest 11: The Insider 10: Perfect Blue 9: The Straight Story 8: The Limey 7: Being John Malkovich 6: Toy Story 2 5: Fight Club 4: Princess Mononoke 3: Election 2: The Matrix 1: The Iron Giant

I don't know why I didn't include it in my original response... I meant to and then I just... forgot, LOL. But another great example of this isn't even just Batman. It's Spider-Man! Spider-Man showing up in Civil War was a fun reintroduction, but a lot of people maybe don't remember so clearly now how much of the discussion around Homecoming focused on the fact this was the third live action re-imagining of the character to hit screens in 10 years... And the novelty of it wasn't even really "What is this take on Spider-Man now!" but "What will MARVEL do with Spider-Man now!" It made a lot of money, and was well-liked... but Far From Home is where that appreciation really kicked in. It could also be argued that Far From Home is benefitting from being seen as the Endgame epilogue... which is also a pretty novel thing for a superhero movie to be... but the point stands that suggesting Matt Reeves' Batman might only do Homecoming numbers isn't an egregious act of "stanning" or whatever, it's a decent observation that superheroes who have been around a LOT and have been reinterpreted many times over many decades in film will need a little extra to convince people this new one is worth going to.... they'll still be popular, nobody's saying they won't... but just shouting BATMAN!! off a rooftop and expecting box-office records to drop isn't reality.

sent

Not everything is a question of "stanning" or whatever.... I agree with his take if only because I think at this point audiences for superhero films are a little more interested and intrigued by the promise of newer things, and newer takes on things. Batman is a series that has been around for a long time now, and "new takes on Batman" is not a unique or intriguing thing, really... If a new Batman is going to make a lot of money, it has to overcome the bad taste in everyone's mouth from Snyder's take, and decades of Bat-saturation.... Think of it this way: Batman Begins was a re-set and re-introduction of the character. A new take on the character that was essentially the first ever "real" take on the character from the comics.... and while it was a success, it wasn't a blowout success. Everyone didn't rush back all at once and give it 1989 money and attention... They waited until a very new, odd, and amazing take on Joker was placed against that Batman... and THEN it became a thing. This movie is going to have to show what it has to offer audiences that they can't readily get not just from previous Batman films, but from other superhero properties currently out there. Wonder Woman, Shazam, and Aquaman are trading on that novelty, and their quality as films is helping provide extra rewards... Batman is going to be a "wait and see" proposition now... although it speaks to Batman's ability to draw that even a "wait and see" new incarnation of Batman is likely going to make Homecoming numbers.

On the one hand.... https://variety.com/2019/film/opinion/quentin-tarantino-films-ranked-pulp-fiction-once-upon-a-time-hollywood-1203274226/ The capsule review in that list/article isn't doing a lot to raise my anticipation levels, although I'm still definitely going to watch this film... but on the other hand.... their ranking of Tarantino's films (Once Upon a Time... included) is very bad.

Also want to add that at this point... if you're trust in the users here has diminished to the point you can't really expect them to be honest about something THIS low-stakes.... that you have to try and protect the poll from itself... it might be that the poll isn't really worth doing. I've seen multiple people so far... myself included... trying to figure out ways to prevent really weird and disruptive people from ruining the good faith efforts of others, and on the one hand that's not a bad endeavor.... but on the other if we're dealing with all of 20 participants, and you're STILL unsure if you can trust about a fifth of them? And the rest you can trust are potentially goony enough that when open cheating showed up it was easily brushed off as the acts of some "gang" that has literally built their personalities.... multiple, in at least one case LOL.... around a film director's box-office totals?.... This is all low-key weird and off-putting. JimGangs and alt-accounts... what a way to make an already questionable use of time seem even more silly... smh Anyway: Close Encounters is John Williams' best score, James Cameron has never really known how to treat or edit his composers, Interstellar is probably the best thing Hans Zimmer's done since Crimson Tide turned him into an industry, and I probably ranked Fellowship of the Ring too low in my list considering what a monumental achievement that entire trilogy was...

This is awful considering how much work, time, and energy Numbers put in to put this together, and how ridiculous and silly someone has to be to take this cool thing and then try to game it for.... who the hell knows what reason.... Hell, James Cameron isn't even a film composer... And even if he was, it's not like he would appreciate this effort on his behalf. It's not as if Jimbo is gonna turn to whatever composer he's screwing over in post on Avatar 2 and show him the results of this poll on his phone and say.... "Hey, music wimp, check it out... I won the best scores poll at that one box office forum.... maybe you can win it someday, hahah just kidding get out." But I'm almost happy it turned out someone cheated like crazy on this list because it was.... PRETTY bad otherwise, LOL... It probably won't be THAT different if you just kill the three ballots the cheater sent in... seriously how bizarre is it someone cheated on this poll... but I would suggest just deleting all three of those entries and retabulating the votes that remain. I know I still have my list in my PM sent folder, and I posted it in the thread, too.... Pretty sure everyone else who sent a ballot in has a copy of it still in their inbox, it wasn't that long ago. I can't imagine someone would re-do their list to "game" the system further but then again I wouldn't have imagined someone would be so ridiculous as to cheat this poll. making people post their lists in the forum so everyone can see it is probably a good safeguard against this happening again in the future, too...

Bolded for obvious... Italicized for emphasis... Grace Randolph is terrible. Don't pay any attention to her if you absolutely positively do not have to.... and 99.9999% of the time, you do not.