Crowd Reports Thread

[DerekShooster]

Paranormal Activty

9:00PM Thursday, October 18th

AMC Hoffman Center 22

Theater Capacity: ~400 (70% full; very diverse audience of people spanning from children to older couples on dates and mostly 20- and 30-somethings)

Ticket Price: $0 (*originally $10, but I had reward bucks on Stubs!)

Concessions: medium popcorn, $6.00

TRAILERS:

Oz - same trailer, a few people talking after it, okay reaction.

Mama - the Guillermo Del Toro horror film, plays well with a horror crowd. A lot of people were shouting "Holy Sh!t!" after the trailer, perfect reaction.

Carrie - YAY! I'm very pumped for this remake--I LOVED the original! Had some talking after.

Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters - very cool-looking, was a funny trailer and got a lot of talking after. I wouldn't have suspected this to be so R-rated.

Chasing Mavericks - good reaction to the trailer, just not for me.

Jack Reacher - Tom Cruise action movie? Could be worth checking out; got lots of talking after.

THE FILM:

This was my third time seeing a Paranormal Activity film during opening weekend, and the experience never disappoints! Usually, you expect any movie franchise to lose its steam after the second or third installment, but Paranormal Activity 4 does such a great job simultaneously adding on and peeling off layers of the story that stem from the same universe.

Katie Featherston will haunt my dreams for eternity for her presence in these films. Just as I said in my crowd report for Paranormal Activity, I refuse to call what I observe in these films "performances" because the technique employed for these found footage documents consistently fools me and others into believing what we're watching has actually happened. Yes, I understand that there's a script, a director, a set designer, and special effects specialists. And more so than the other PA films, PA4 intentionally includes homages to horror/thriller classics that the audience sees and immediately knows something f*cked up is about to happen. While this is kind of a cheap move, I think it works very effectively on an experience level in a large theater auditorium.

As always, the only way to watch this film is at night in a packed movie theater or with a large group of friends. Everyone's reactions to this film and the others are priceless and an experience well-worth the price of a ticket. Also, I'm normally put off by anyone that talks during movies, but there is something so great about the outbursts and cautionary exclamations, like "DON'T GO IN THERE!" or "TURN THE F*CK AROUND!!!" It's totally worth going to see this in theaters.

Experience - 30/30

Story/Writing - 13/20

Acting - 8/15

Tech Specs (Cinematography, Editing, Effects) - 8/15

Direction - 6/10

Music - 10/10 (*No, there is no music or score for this film. But the mastery at which they use the simple creak of a door hinge or sound of a footstep to raise the audience's anticipation is incredible)

THE VERDICT: 75/100, B

[CJohn]

Just came back from Arbitrage. Amazing performance by Richard Gere. He deserves Oscar recognition.

[Impact]

Just came back from Arbitrage. Amazing performance by Richard Gere. He deserves Oscar recognition.

He is not qualified as it premiered on VOD.

[Mango]

I've got two-

Sunday, Oct. 14th

Argo

2:15pm

60-65% full/ 380 seats (biggest auditorium)

Trailers:

Cloud Atlas - There was some general interest in this, I think. I heard one guy behind me go "thats going to be amazing" so who knows?

Skyfall- Lots of excitement.

Alex Cross - A little chatter.

Zero Dark Thirty- Chatter.

As for the movie, it was absolutely amazing. Perfectly paced, intensely written, and superbly acted. I can't believe I'm saying this but Ben Affleck seriously deserves a medal for this film. The audience loved it too, even applauding at the end.

(Slight spoiler- The "Ar-go fuck yourself!" at the end of the film garnered the biggest laugh/cheer I've heard in an audience since the ending of The Dark Knight Rises.)

And...

Friday, Oct. 19th

Pitch Perfect

7:20pm

85% full/172 seats (smallest auditorium)

We got in as the last trailer was playing, so the only one I saw was some weird romance/fantasy where they had southern accents and all I got was that it comes out in February.

The actual movie was actually quite entertaining, a lot better than I initially expected it would be, mainly because it actually manages to stay consistantly funny throughout. The plot has your typical "we need to do something different" theme but it's written quite well and acted very nicely (Rebel Wilson stole the show, but I have to say Anna Kendrick is quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses in the business.) The audience enjoyed it a lot as well and laughed throughout most of the movie it seemed.

[Ezen Baklattan]

The trailer you saw with PP was probably Beautiful Creatures. I think it looks atrocious.

[Mango]

The trailer you saw with PP was probably Beautiful Creatures. I think it looks atrocious.

Oh yeah, that was it. And it does looks terrible.

[SchumacherFTW]

Looper

10/20/2012

21:00

100/165

Eastbourne Cineworld 6, UK

Trailers

Bullet to the Head: Looks stupid, but reasonably entertaining, no reaction

Skyfall: I need this in my life now, lots of chattering

Silent Hill Revelation: Looks cool and it has both Ned Stark AND Jon Snow. No reaction

End of Watch: Could be cool, some chatter

Movie

Obviously all that could be said about this movie generally has, so I'll be brief on my opinion.

I feel that this is definitely a movie of two halves. Before diner and after diner.

Before the diner I thought was awesome, set up a really interesting looking world and some interesting characters too. The action seen to start with was great, and the two perspectives of his future self's arrival was awesome.

Paul Dano's demise was both clever and disturbing at the same time, slowly cutting pieces off the current version of him to harm his future self was an ingenious idea.

But, I felt that, apart from the finale, the After Diner section of the film was just too slow to sustain my interest. While it does showcase some great performances from JGL, Blunt and Willis, it didn't do anything to really engage me.

The finale was pretty awesome though, and actually reasonably shocking at the end.

I'd say overall that this is a good film, which is a shame as at the beginning I was prepared to shout its praises from the rooftops. I definitely feel that it's the most overhyped and overrated film that we have seen this year, but it's still worth a watch.

B

I couldn't really get a gauge on what the audience thought of it when they were leaving. Nobody was saying it sucked, or saying it was amazing. They probably had a similar reaction to me of thinking straight away: That was weird.

[DerekShooster]

The Paperboy

4:20PM Monday, October 22nd

Landmark Kendal Square Cinemas

Theater Capacity: 140 (10% full, some old women and some couples)

Ticket Price: $9.00

Concessions: Peanut Butter M&M's, $4.00

TRAILERS:

Deadfall - the trailer shows too much, got a bad reaction from audience.

Smashed - it looks artsy and has a good cast, got whispers from audience.

This Must Be the Place - very strange-looking Sean Penn movie, got an okay reaction.

Hitchcock* - this was a teaser instructing audiences to turn off cell phones and be quiet, actually a very clever marketing gimmick considering that Alfred Hitchcock was the very same way when tell people how to watch Psycho in theaters.

THE FILM:

Before anyone asks: Yes, I do have a job and go to work. Unfortunately, our servers were down this afternoon so I took the opportunity to go on a bike ride and see a movie.

The Paperboy is a movie most people probably hadn't heard of. It has a fantastic cast including Zac Efron as the title character, Nicole Kidman, Matthew McConaughey, Macy Grey, and John Cusack. Also very notable is that this film was directed by Lee Daniels, the same man behind Precious (or as I call it, the film you'll need a hug after watching). Paperboy is not nearly as affecting as Precious was, but its graphic detail and sexually explicit content make them great companion pieces for one another.

The acting in this film is great, if only for the reason that each of its stars play against type and give disturbing performances. For instance when you've got two musical icons like Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge!) and Zac Efron (High School Musicals) co-starring together as love interests, probably the last scenario you imagine is one of them giving the other a golden shower (that's right, a golden shower), but in a Lee Daniels movie that's exactly the place this story goes as a means of telling how much one cares about the other. The story is a bit muddled--even pointless in many ways--but comes together passably in the end.

If you're in the mood for a disturbing, sexually-charged, visually explicit romantic thriller that plays like Basic Instinct meets Winter's Bone but with more f*cked up performances, you should definitely check out The Paperboy. Set in the 1960's, the film was even shot in such a way that it looks like it fits the times; so this should be watched by anyone that's nostalgic for the time period.

Experience - 24/30

Story/Writing - 11/20

Acting - 15/15

Tech Specs (Cinematography, Editing, Effects) - 15/15 (*really liked the editing during some fantasy/dream scenes, and the 60's filter looked really great)

Direction - 7/10

Music - 6/10

THE VERDICT: 78/100, B

[Impact]

Well I may see Frankenweenie finally this weekend. Did parents have tons of babies in October 2002 or something? My nephew had to go to a bday party EVERY weekend this month so far! Dang...what were his friends parents doing in January 2002....Was there a snow storm?

[Impact]

Actually more and more I think about it-I think there was a huge blizzard that Winter....

[Ezen Baklattan]

Hopefully, I'm seeing Cloud Atlas this weekend and Wreck-It Ralph the next.

[Kvikk Lunsj]

I am planning on seeing Looper, Perks of Being A Wallflower, and Cloud Atlas over the next week.

[IndustriousAngel]

I saw "Die Wand" on Wednesday 24th, 8:30pmabout 30 people in a 100-seater, not bad at all for mid-week. Especially because here in Austria it was released on October 4, so already in its 3rd week.Trailers: The only one I remembered was for "Die Vermessung der Welt" which looks visually compelling; otherwise the trailer was all over the map and didn't make any sense but since it's a bestseller adaption this won't hurt much. Plus there was a non-trailer for "Cloud Atlas" which left me a bit clueless - is this a new trend that they don't show a real trailer but only some images plus a weblink?! I half expected younger folks in the audience to whip out their smartphones and start typing ... sincerely? A weblink?The film: It's complete arthouse fare but since the source material is one of Austria's great novels of the 20th century (it was written in the early 1960s) this film has a semi-wide realease here as opposed to Germany. It's a last-woman-on-Earth-story - think about Robinson Crusoe, The Road, I am Legend, but very naturalistic except for the wall which traps the protagonist in a secluded alpine area. It was a bit toned down from the book - some of the more violent or dishusting passages were missing, I guess not to alienate the audience too much since the story is bleak and intense enough already. This seemed to work as WOM is quite good, everybody was discussing it on our way out. My son (who didn't know the book) was impressed too. Also left out were any references to the cold war which were not that important in the book to begin with; here the wall is more like a natural catastrophe and the story is much more timeless this way.From a technical POV this was excellent, filmed with a RED-to-35mm and much natural light I think. Most of the crew hail from TV productions but it's clearly visible how much fun they had with the wide format (here some stills). Sound design was good too. Music was sparse, a few Bach sonatas. And I liked how they didn't color-grade the thing to death as happens sometimes (The Road, Children of Men ...) - the story is bleak enough without much fiddling - we get the message. The landscape, wood and winter sequences are just beautiful.Highly recommended if you're able to see this. Maybe it gets a foreign run; there's nearly no dialogue, most spoken text is just offscreen-quoting from her diary so subtitles or dubbing won't really take away much.

[MovieGuyKyle17]

Cloud Atlas tonightWallflower tomorrow

[ainsleyb]

Film: Skyfall

Time: 22:30

Capacity: 30% (300+ seater)

Trailers:

Jack Reacher

Les Miserables

Life of Pi

The Hobbit

The Film:

Keeping it brief, don't go in expecting a masterpiece. The current RT score is only going to serve to over-hype the film and leave people dissapointed. It's better than QOS but it's a fair way off the quality of Casino Royale. All of the performances are solid, especially those of Craig, Dench and Bardem and the script has a good number of witty one liners.

There are quite a few instances of poor effects in background shots, most notably in the opening scene, which was slightly off putting. Whilst none of the effects are particularly bad i found the majority to be quite noticeably CGI which i considered to be a bit poor considering the cost of the movie and the fact that a lot were just generic explosions that have looked so much better in other films.

None of the action scenes have really struck me as being very memorable, unlike the car flip/opening sequence in CR. With the exception of the introduction of Bardem's villain I can't imagine much of the movie will stay in my memory for very long which again is another sign that it was serviceable entertainment rather than something special.

To conclude, the film is fine, forgettable entertainment but don't let the early reviews fool you into thinking it's going to be the second coming of cinema, it isn't.

7/10

[Impact]

^Try to keep your review short since this is the derby and we don't want spoilers or anthing like that yet.

[ainsleyb]

^Try to keep your review short since this is the derby and we don't want spoilers or anthing like that yet.

There aren't any spoilers or plot points included in the review, just general comments about what i thought of the film

[CoolioD1]

Skyfalltoday, 4:45PMaround 500 seats, sold out.Trailers:Life of PiGambitDjango UnchainedArgoJack ReacherI heard some VERY positive responses as the movie finished. Also during the movie a reference to classic Bond got a small round of applause and when the 50 years sign came up at the end that also got a small round of applause. That kind of thing never, ever happens here. This is gonna get such awesome WOM.

[Wildfire]

Skyfall ..attendance very good for an early showing ,film not quite what i was expecting but excellently donetrailersbreaking dawn part2The hobbitlife of PiTaken 2 ..considering how many weeks its been out the attendance was very very good.i liked it more than i thought i wouldtrailers were almost the same as SkyfallIt was strange seeing Taken2 right after Skyfall because both films used exactly the same locations ..so you saw Bond rideing across the very same rooftops that Bryan Mills and his daughter are running across all i could think of when watching wouldnt it be cool as heck if their paths had crossed

[DerekShooster]

(Three-hour long movie) x (two viewings) = Extra Long Crowd Report!

Cloud Atlas IMAX -AND- Cloud Atlas (***That's right, I watched this twice today!!!***)

3:20PM Saturday, October 27th

Jordan's Furniture Natick IMAX

Theater Capacity: 350 (50%+ full; a surprisingly Asian-leaning audience, but this could just be the demographics of the area)

Ticket Price: $11.50

Concessions: small Diet Coke, large popcorn ($9.25)

/

8:15PM Saturday, October 27th

Regal Fenway 13 & RPX

Theater Capacity: 500 (85% full; very mixed audience... this theater only has 3 showings of this a day, which at the very least I'm pleased for because it makes for a fuller auditorium and, thus, a richer crowd experience)

Ticket Price: $9.00

Concessions: turkey club sandwich, Odwalla Superfood Juice (snuck these in from grocery store, $7)

TRAILERS:

(IMAX)

Oz - looks too intentionally-made for IMAX 3D with all the pop-out gags featured in the trailer; bad reaction from crowd.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Great new trailer, the Smeagol/Gollum bit made for a good laugh; very good reaction and some talking.

Skyfall - I may have to see this in IMAX; it looks incredible. Good reaction.

/

(Regal)

Gangster Squad - very cool trailer and a good audience reaction; lots of talking.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - same as other trailer, got a good reaction.

Zero Dark Thirty - lots of talking, very timely movie.

Les Miserables - excellent teaser, excellent reaction

Life of Pi - a number of "WTF's?!" from the audience and lots of talking

The Impossible - such a moving trailer, great reaction and lots of talking from crowd.

The Collection - torture porn from the makers of several Saw sequels?! Sign me up! LOL; more and more talking from crowd.

THE FILM:

Since being blown away by the

(at an unprecedented five minutes length, no less!), I've had a lot of excitement and anticipation for Cloud Atlas. With each passing day I would watch featurettes on Cloud Atlas, read the-making-of articles, and peruse the waterfall of critical analyses both celebrating and skewering the movie. Although the film has obviously divided some, I think most people agree on a couple things: A) Cloud Atlas is probably the boldest and most ambitious movie to be released this year, and visually, it is absolutely stunning. Of course I already believed these things to be true before watching Cloud Atlas a first and second time; however, the opportunity to watch Cloud Atlas more than once AND back-to-back remarkably enabled me to have nearly polarizing experiences.

Much like The Matrix and Inception, the first time you watch Cloud Atlas you find yourself paying extra close to detail because the events of the story are neither handed out to you on a silver plate nor does every character make sense at all. This is compounded by the fact that the film arcs back and forth among six different stories interwoven within each other, featuring characters played by actors whom appear multiple times as different people, different genders, and/or different races. And in any one time an actor/actress may play someone admirable and instrumental, yet in another time they could be someone cruel and feared by most. When you add up all the parts and observe the tall order asked of the film's cast to play these multiple roles, it's really an impressive feat what a wide range they all play and at such a professional level. This is not another Eddie-Murphy-wearing-a-fat-suit type of film where all the parts are played by the same person; this ensemble effort featuring these actors/actresses in multiple times as multiple people is quite an impressive feat of talent.

After a first viewing, I certainly got a handle on the story and understood by the end what each person's role was. But it wasn't until I watched Cloud Atlas a second time that I really appreciated an underlying theme throughout the film: every person possesses the ability to express themselves by the actions they take. It doesn't seem it the first time around, but when you watch it again you'll see that every actor across different times plays a different theme: prisoner, hero, lover, comic, messenger, revolutionary, and others. And a mechanism used to tie all these themes together (aside from the screenplay) is a subtle but beautiful theme song written within one of the stories called the "Cloud Atlas Sextet". I was disappointed after watching this a first time that I didn't notice the theme music more frequently throughout the film--for some reason I thought Tom Tykwer's score would have the same oomph to the picture as Clint Mansell's compositions for Requiem for a Dream or The Fountain. Again, however, when watching this a second time I actually had no complaints about the music and noticed contemporary versions of it played for every respective time in the story, a detail I'm now actually very impressed with.

Directors Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski, and Tom Tykwer truly did create an ambitious project that merits multiple viewings. Their screenplay has done the best job I've seen at jumping between interwoven story lines since 2002's The Hours, and despite the 172-minute run time I would have happily sat through this picture if it was another hour longer. Cloud Atlas really does take on a scope as big as Inception... probably bigger. And to the critics that call this film pretentious or too artsy, I don't buy it. While there's something to be said about the religious undertones featured throughout the film, Cloud Atlas skirts more along the lines of universal acceptability--something that probably plagued the reception of the comparable-but-less-realized The Fountain. What's special about Cloud Atlas is that when it ended the first time, my friend and I were searching to finding meaning from the stories. After seeing it again though, I realize Cloud Atlas exhorts audiences instead to search for meaning in our own lives and challenges each of us to evaluate our own behaviors as well. It's certainly a tall order for a film that achieves all of this deep stuff to be entertaining as well, but the audience reactions throughout the film (especially in the Regal audience) suggests that Cloud Atlas delivers the experience we all long for when heading to the movies.

I couldn't recommend this more highly.

Experience - 28/30

Story/Writing - 19/20

Acting - 15/15

Tech Specs (Cinematography, Editing, Effects) - 15/15

Direction - 10/10

Music - 9/10

Bonus Points: Originality +5, Music-Driven-Plot +2, Awards Caliber +5 (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Ensemble Cast, Best Score, BEST MAKE-UP), Special Effects Caliber +2

THE VERDICT: 110/100, A+

Edited October 28, 2012 by Andy Stitzer 2