Random Thoughts by the forum members (formerly 20 random thoughts)

[baumer]

Inspired by hockey writer and broadcaster Elliot Friedman's 30 Thoughts on Hockey, I thought I'd start a weekly or bi-weekly thing as well where I give 20 (I don't have time for 30) thoughts about the world of movies.  We'll see how well it goes over.

 

 

These are completely random thoughts about anything to do with film.

 

1) There are a lot of good polls going on in the forums right now but because this is a dead time of year here, many aren't participating.  You guys should check out the speakeasy for some of them.

 

2) The internet fanboy meltdown over Ben Affleck being cast as Batman is mostly funny but still a little sad.  These people who care that much about who is going to play a make believe character are imo expounding too much energy on something that really will do nothing positively or negatively to them.  And at least give the man a chance to play him before creating a petition to have him removed.  Having someone like Josh Brolin or any number of other actors might not cause the same kind of controversy, but they also don't come with the credentials Ben does.  Affleck has two Oscars to his name.  Two.  Find me others who have those kinds of credentials.  There aren't many.

 

3) One Direction is laughed at most of us, myself included.  But this is a film that has already made more than 50 million dollars WW and it looks like it could challenge the 75-80 million dollar mark. It has already almost made as much as Bieber's Never Say Never internationally.  These boy bands might be annoying to many of us, but there is a market for them at the box office.

 

4) August: Osage County looks to be a front runner this year for best everything.  Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts share the screen together for the first time and oscar nominees Chris Cooper and Abigail Breslin add to a very nice cast.  It opens Christmas Day in NA.  Streep reportedly asked that she be removed from the Academy's list of possible best actress possibilities and only be considered a supporting actress.  She feels that Roberts is the lead of the film and that she should be recognized as such.  Classy.

 

5) Cementing Keanu Reeve's reputation as one of the nicest guys in the world (and most generous), some volunteers at TIFF have come forward to tell of Reeve's taking time out of his schedule to spend a little bit of time with them.  He signed autographs and took pictures with the volunteers and asked them how they were doing.  There is a litany of things this man has done to show how generous a person he is.

 

6) So far the winners this year by studio have been Universal (DM2, FF6, Identify Thief all in top 15) and Disney who have three films as well in the top 15 including 2 of the top 4 films of the year (domestically).  The loser so far has been Sony who only has Grown Ups 2 and This is the End set to break the 100 mill mark so far.  RIPD is an unmitigated disaster and even though it didn't cost them much, more was expected from Kick Ass 2.  Hopefully Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 can perform well for them.

 

7) Ron Howard's Rush opens next weekend and it will be interesting to see how well it does.  It stars Chris Hemsworth and he has been on a bit of a roll.  Thor and the Avengers did a lot to boost his profile but he even helped Cabin in the Woods and Snow White and the Huntsmen hit respectable grosses.  Red Dawn even did better than expected.  So it will be something to watch.  Will it open well, have legs or will it just not be something that audiences aren't interested in no matter who is in it?

 

8) Two films that have been developing a bit of buzz are Prisoners and Don Jon.  Two very different films but two that could do well at the box office.  Prisoners has almost an all Oscar nominated cast and Don Jon has a buffed up Joseph Gordon Levitt directing and starring a funny looking film with the very sexy Scarlett Johansson in the lead as well.  Two films to keep an eye on.

 

9) Tomorrow is Friday the 13th.  For those of us who love the series, Friday the 13th, it comes out on BR tomorrow.  There promises to be a lot of extras in the box set and hopefully they make it better than the abomination of a box set that came out about a decade ago.  There is so much passion and love for the series that they owe it to us, the fans, to give it everything.  It won't be cheap (rumoured to be close to $100.00) so they better be good to those of us who are willing to spend that kind of money on the box set.

 

10) The Weinsteins' look like they just acquired a potential box office hit and a critical darling when they bought distribution rights to Jonathan Teplitzky's Railway Man, which stars Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman.  This just played at TIFF a few nights ago and they paid 2 million for the distribution rights.  No word when this will be released in North America but it has a January release date for the UK.

 

11) I watched The Color of Money for the first time last night.  Has there ever been a better actor to play the cocky young asshole who is mentored by a veteran only to become better than he is?  Cruise did it perfectly in this movie and by the midway point I was rooting for Paul Newman to take his pool cue and shove it up Cruise's ass.  That's talent. 

 

12) I watched Barry Levinson's The Bay on the weekend and it's one of the best horror movies of the decade so far.  It's a found footage film about a small town in Maryland that has to deal with a conspiracy that goes as high up as Homeland Security and the CDC.  It's a terrifying film because it could happen.  I urge all of you to see it.

 

13) Speaking of Levinson, he should not have won best director in 1988 over Alan Parker.  Mississippi Burning is a better film in every way than Rainman imo and it's too bad that Rainman cleaned up.  

 

14) Sylvester Stallone is a busy guy this year.  He bombed out with Bullet to the Head, which was a pretty terrible film but now he is filming Expendables 3, he stars in Escape Plan with Arnold, in October, wrote the Jason Statham/James Franco film Homefront and then at Christmas he's in a boxing comedy with Robert DeNiro.  Stallone by the way, just turned 67 this summer.

 

15) There is a growing trend in film now where there seems to be way too many producers on one film.  I don't know why this is and frankly I don't get it.  Producers do everything behind the scenes.  They hire people, help out with scouting, get money, pay for things and so on and on.  Look at films from any era and most of the time you have one or maybe 2 producers on the film.  Jerry Bruckheimer, Joel Silver, George Lucas, they produce alone for the most part.  Now you look at films like Homefront, Runner Runner (7 producers) Argo (5 producers and 6 executive producers) Insidious (10 different producers/executive producers).  Why the growing trend to have so many producers on one film?  Can someone answer this?

 

16) Tyler Perry returns to his most lucrative character Madea, as he dons the fat suit once again to play the old black woman but this time at Christmas.  Madea's highest grossing film in the series in Madea goes to Jail, with just over 90 million.  Smart money is that this will be Perry's first 100 million dollar grossing film.

 

17) Why do films like Getaway get produced?  The script sounds generic, the trailer looks generic and the film ends up getting dumped at a time when no one cares anyway.  Ethan Hawke in a lead performance about a guy who has to rob a bank or his wife dies?  I realize the budget is next to nothing but how does stuff like this get made and they just forgotten about by the studio?

 

18) I've already said it once, but thanks to everyone who played the summer game and thanks to LAGUY for doing his awesome thread.  The game means a lot to me because it is well liked here.  So thank you once again.

 

19) Really interested to see how 47 Ronin plays over the holidays.

 

20) Summer of 2014 looks kind of bland thus far.  But it'll be interesting to see if Captain American benefits from the Avengers the way IM3 did and the way it looks like Thor 2 will.  

 

Till the next time.

 

 

 

1. Prisoners isn't a movie I wanted to see at all until I started reading the reviews. Then I went back and watched the trailer again and I could see myself liking the film. Isn't that weird? Probably not. 

2. I want to see Short Term 12 more than any other movie playing right now, but there's no way of me getting to a theater to watch it. I'm really hoping it pops up on iTunes soon. We're at a point with indie movies that aren't necessarily awards contenders that a VOD push goes an extremely long way.  

3. It's been two weeks since I've seen Not Fade Away and that movie is still on my mind. That doesn't happen often... just this summer I had to remind myself I saw 2 Guns a few hours after I watched it. The film got no attention in theaters because Paramount positioned it as an awards contender but the film is too loose and specific for any awards play, but it has all the dramatic weight you'd expect from the director of The Sopranos and it comes from really interesting places. It's a movie based in nostalgia instead of the other way around, and James Gandolfini is magnificent in it.  It probably would've made my top 10 last year if I bothered catching it in theaters. Can't recommend it enough. 

4. We're in for a fabulous fall/winter season, guys. Gravity and 12 Years a Slave have been seen and apparently they're fantastic. There's also Labor Day, Blue is the Warmest Color, Inside Llewyn Davis, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Rush, Don Jon, and Kill Your Darlings, which have been seen and all have some very passionate support. But look at all the films left sight unseen: Wolf of Wall Street, Her(?), American Hustle, Saving Mr. Banks, The Counselor, Out of the Furnace, Foxcatcher, and Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Will all of these be good? No. Do they all sound like interesting projects that have tons of potential? Absolutely. 

5. I should mention that Frozen and Anchorman 2 are also among my most anticipated for the rest of the year, even if they're not Oscar contenders. Not that they need to be. Or should be. 

6. I feel conflicted about seeing The Grandmaster in theaters. I've heard it must be watched on the big screen, but I don't want my first viewing to be a hackneyed cut. 

7. If you need a movie recommendation for something new on iTunes, look no further than Stories We Tell. Second best film I've seen all year (behind Before Midnight). Even if you're not a documentary person (and why shouldn't you be?) you'll be fascinated by what Sarah Polley does here. 

8. I feel anxious/sad that we've recorded so few podcasts in the last few months. The show was one of my big plans for the summer, but Rich, Andrew and I have all been quite busy with our own lives. I'm happy I have time/motivation right now to write this damn list. 

9. Baumer, I'm pretty sure RIPD is Universal, so they haven't had a perfect season though. Not that it really matters when Despicable Me 2 is their most profitable theatrical release ever. 

10. For some reason I had always had a problem with the end of Fight Club, but I just watched it for the first time in two years and loved everything about it. You can't get movies made like that in today's studio system, even with Brad Pitt attached. You just can't. 

11. Anyone here an Arcade Fire fan? I think Reflektor is a phenomenal song. Haven't heard anything quite like it before. Oh, right, back to movies...

12. I watched the original 1931 Scarface in film class this week. Rarely do films bore me so tirelessly and then immediately have momentum in the last 20 minutes, but this one did. The stakes and situations are laid out pretty clearly at the end, so it's a shame it took them so long. 

13. We also saw the Marx brothers comedy Monkey Business this week and it amazes me that a movie 82 years old is that funny. It's basically a joke/gag machine. I love everything about it and I think it's my favorite Marx brothers movie (I've seen most of the famous ones).  

14. Summer's gone, and with it the absolutely insane threads and the crap ton of likes I receive for funny posts. At least maybe we can get some real discussions going about new movies instead of the same crap in the TDKR thread every week or so. 

15. Gravity is a movie that needs to open as soon as possible because I'm hyping it up to insane levels in my head and I'm worried that at the rate I'm going I'll be disappointed if it's not the best sci-fi movie I've ever seen. 

16. You people underrated the hell out of Iron Man 3. I just saw it for a third time. It may be the most interesting movie Marvel has made. 

17. I just realized that Millers has made 126 million and counting. Should hit upwards of 145-150. That's a huge run, probably one of the most impressive of the year considering I had no expectations for the movie whatsoever. It's going to do at least 1.5x of Elysium's gross. 

18. Two of the year's best genre movies came out at the very end of summer: The World's End and You're Next. No one saw them, which is a total bummer, even if both will break even in theaters. I went back to rewatch both in theaters and they're still great. 

19. I just looked at a movie blog and the front page article was something saying that Ben Affleck's Batman will be "tired and weary." That's the front page article and it's all based on an offhand quote from a Warner Bros. CEO. The next article was about how the Star Wars spinoff movies (to the trilogy we haven't gotten yet) will be origin stories. Am I the only one who really doesn't give a damn about following all the details of these projects? I can't be. Don't get me wrong: I'm curious to see these films, but they're far off enough that everything we're hearing about them right now is inconsequential. But it's still all anyone is talking about. I would like to not see a single trailer for a 2015 tentpole and go in completely cold to all of them. I'm not talking about JJ's mystery box garbage, I just don't care to know anything before I watch. I want to be genuinely surprised in a blockbuster. In today's culture that unfortunately can't happen. 

20. This forum/community is kind of wonderful. I'm always happy to see certain faces milling about. 

 

So that's what I've been thinking about these days.. movie-related, at least.

Edited September 14, 2013 by baumer

[CoolioD1]

Yeah, I adore The Color of Money, it's pretty underrated. Cruise is great in it too. And speaking of Rain Man he was better than Dustin Hoffman in that too.

 

Also, doesn't The Butler have like 40+ producers or something? Pretty crazy. I guess they had to get their money from a bunch of different sources.

Edited September 12, 2013 by CoolioD1

[baumer]

But I don't think producers put the money up, they get others to put the money up.  That's where the EP's come in.  It's very confusing.

[Plain Old Tele]

4) A:OC got pretty mixed buzz at TIFF. It'll get a bunching of acting moms, no doubt, but its status as a front runner in other categories is gone (if it had it in the first place). I'm sure ric will chime in with more. :)7) It's getting very good buzz, which should help. Still, I imagine the F1 theme (and characters) will appeal more overseas where people are more familiar with the names and events. 15) A producer credit is often given out like candy. The Producers Guild has been fighting this for some time, and recently got the studios to sign on to putting a "PGA" extension on PGA producers working on a film (in other words, like cinematographers and editors get). This will help distinguish the "real" producers from others. A lot of times too an actor may get a producer credit if their name and/or influence helps get the film financed or distributed. Sometimes it's just window dressing, sometimes they actually do a lot of producing (like Brad Pitt on WWZ). And, of course, there's a big difference between a producer credit and an exec producer credit (an EP credit can be all the partners of whatever production company or financing company is involved with the production).

[CoolioD1]

I'm pretty sure that Meryl thing isn't true. Gold Derby reported like a month ago that she was going supporting for awards but now they're saying she'll go lead instead so idk what's going on there

[baumer]

The Meryl thing is just what I read.

 

As for the producer thing, EP's used to be like Mario Kassar and Adrew Vajna or Menaham Golan and Yorum Globus (lol) now it seems like everyone is an EP.

[Plain Old Tele]

The Meryl thing is just what I read. As for the producer thing, EP's used to be like Mario Kassar and Adrew Vajna or Menaham Golan and Yorum Globus (lol) now it seems like everyone is an EP.

There's a lot more companies involved now. Whereas back in the day you'd usually have a single studio cover all the financing, now you have co-productions that might also bring in outside partners like Legendary or something. All those names add up.

[baumer]

So if you run a company, and that company finances the film, you get a producer's credit?

[Plain Old Tele]

So if you run a company, and that company finances the film, you get a producer's credit?

You definitely might get an EP credit.

[Jack Nevada]

A good text, baumer.

Edited September 12, 2013 by Jack Nevada

[IndustriousAngel]

Hey baumer, that's an awful lot of thoughts for such an old brain. Myself, I'm happy about each single thought of mine (usually one, maybe two a week) but nowadays it's mainly the Missus does the thinking for both of us ...

 

kiddin aside:

 

2) well, fans will be fans, the phenomenon is not limited to movies

 

3) I'm with you here, more so because I see the business from the theater's side (which often gets neglected here). For theaters, such movies, plus live transmissions from concerts or sports events, are a very welcome source of income. The MetLive program sells out the 2 biggest screens here for most events.

 

7) Don't know about the US potential bit it should be bigin UK and Austria and Italy and maybe Germany too.

Edited September 13, 2013 by IndustriousAngel

[Plain Old Tele]

I forgot:1 - very ironic.

[Water Bottle]

15) There is a growing trend in film now where there seems to be way too many producers on one film. I don't know why this is and frankly I don't get it. Producers do everything behind the scenes. They hire people, help out with scouting, get money, pay for things and so on and on. Look at films from any era and most of the time you have one or maybe 2 producers on the film. Jerry Bruckheimer, Joel Silver, George Lucas, they produce alone for the most part. Now you look at films like Homefront, Runner Runner (7 producers) Argo (5 producers and 6 executive producers) Insidious (10 different producers/executive producers). Why the growing trend to have so many producers on one film? Can someone answer this?

If I know a famous actor and I get him in your low or mid budget film, I get a producer credit in return even if I do nothing else.

[SchumacherFTW]

Interesting Thoughts Baumer. I hope Rush catches on with you guys. It's a superb film, and Bruhl really steals the show.

[Jack Nevada]

 I hope Rush catches on with you guys. It's a superb film, and Bruhl really steals the show.

I agree with the latter part of this sentiment. 

[ChD]

I agree with the latter part of this sentiment. 

 

Interesting Thoughts Baumer. I hope Rush catches on with you guys. It's a superb film, and Bruhl really steals the show.

Have you seen it or is this commentary based on the reviews? 

[TLK]

11) I  love Cruise. There is a reason he has been an A list actor for more than two decades.

 

15) The Butler has 41 producers. I think it is pretty common for Indie movies to have a lot of producers for $$$$ reasons.

[CaptainJackSparrow]

RIPD is from Universal, not Sony. :)Cool list!

[baumer]

Sorry, thought for some reason it was Sony.  My bad.

[riczhang]

4) A:OC got pretty mixed buzz at TIFF. It'll get a bunching of acting moms, no doubt, but its status as a front runner in other categories is gone (if it had it in the first place). I'm sure ric will chime in with more.  

 

Right you are And I think that it isn't getting that bad reviews. The film as a whole still will do very well critically; it will do as well as something of its sort will do. Probably a high 70s, low 80s RT score, maybe a tad higher. I think on RT right now, it's at 73% and all the negative RT counted reviews have been added. I believe there are still a few positive reviews to be added. The big thing that will work in its favour is definitely the fact that it is aimed squarely to the mid-brow critics that do make up most of the critical community. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) The high brow critics won't like it quite as much, for extremely obvious reasons, but even those are on a whole pretty positive. The trades were all positive (especially Variety which I think will hit a 90+ on MC) and so was Time. And I believe the NYT critic chimed in on twitter, or maybe that was the Second Guardian reviewer that said they liked it. So far the only RT negatives are the Guardian person (but that'll be balanced out by a second positive Guardian review), Film.com, and Playlist. More will come in obviously, but I think that it won't be another Les Miserables that some people on ADF seem to think it is now. (But that probably is just like 12YAS or Gravity and Flavour of the 5 seconds reactions). MC will be harder to predict but it should end up 70s. I don't think anyone, me included, were thinking that this would receive like Amour reviews 93% RT, 95 MC (With the highest number of 100s at 24 or 25 for 2012 I think). 

 

Secondly, I think that Weinstein will probably make Christmas the wide release date because this will be a crowd pleaser. This will make quite a bit of money. Definitely 70+ and 100 million is quite possible. (overseas will be a different story though) It's immensely quotable and will stick around in people's minds. And it definitely will be one of those perverse not really Holiday movies that seem to do well for some absurd reasons. 

 

Lastly, I don't think the buzz was that mixed at TIFF. Sure the critical response was muted, but as far as I know the crowds are just eating it up. It's been doing great amongst the festival goers. There's definitely talk and buzz going around town from what I hear. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it wins the Audience award a la Silver Linings Playbook. However, with that being said I think Gravity will win. I mean 12YAS won't win, imo, because it is simply too hard of a watch. People do feel very uncomfortable watching the movie at points and I think that while it makes people enjoy the movie as a whole more, it'll also give them reservations towards voting for it. 

 

And I'm not predicting it for BP. I think it'll be Top 5 still, but as of now, I still have Llewyn Davis at #1 but I really don't know at this point. Neither 12YAS nor Gravity is winning logically speaking, after looking at the movies themselves and understanding the Academy tastes and composition. So, there really is not real legitimate frontrunner at this point.