Crowd Reports Thread

[ChD]

Damn... Les Miserables/Django Unchained arrive in Romania in January 18 and 25th -.-Lincoln in early February...Anyone has an idea when Lincoln comes out on Home media?

[CJohn]

Here Les Miserables comes out next weekend, while we have to wait until January 24 to see Django. Lincoln arrives on January 31.

[acsc1312]

Damn... Les Miserables/Django Unchained arrive in Romania in January 18 and 25th -.-Lincoln in early February...Anyone has an idea when Lincoln comes out on Home media?

Probably late Feb/early March

[Spidey]

Django Unchained

December 29, 8:20 p.m. - Sold Out

Trailers

Gangster Squad - no reaction

The Last Stand - a few Arnold is doing movies again?

Oblivion - no reaction

Scary Movie 5 - a few laughs

A Good Day to Die Hard - mild reaction

This is the End - great reaction, a lot of laughs

Dark Skies - no reaction

Grade: A

[Hallowed Prince]

I saw two movies in theaters in the past three days.Jack Reacher9:20 pm showing, December 28, 3 total people(Myself, my brother, and his friend)Trailers:Oblivion(looks pretty good)Star Trek Into Darkness(Definitely looking forward to it)Can't remember the rest of the trailersMovie:I liked it. Tom Cruise did a great job as always and the supporting actors and actresses were very solid as well. Mixed the action in well with the dramatic parts. Solid film. A-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey7:05 showing, December 3010% full(in a 150 seat theater)Trailers:Jack the Giant Slayer(meh it looks average to me, silence)Man of Steel(Looked like a good film, silence again)Pacific Rim(Looks like a crappier version of Transformers without the hot girls)Star Trek Into Darkness(Same trailer as above, liked it as much the second time)Movie:Coming from someone who has never seen a Lord of the Rings movie or read the books for that matter, I didn't have high expectations going in. The good news is I loved it. The pacing kind of dragged a little bit midway through the film, but near the end the intensity picked up, and it got exciting. Can't wait to see The Hobbit:The Desolation of Smaug. A

[Ezen Baklattan]

I got the following trailers before I saw Django Unchained.Pain & GainA Good Day To Die HardGangster SquadMovie 43Scary Movie 5Dark Skies.Without a doubt, Dark Skies was the funniest trailer there. With the bird attack, Keri Russel hitting her head against the wall, and Josh Hamilton's creepy face, I could barely contain my laughter.

[Wormow]

Prepare for at least two more crowd reaction reports done by me on this film this month lol. I loved The Hobbit.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Saturday, 29/12, 11:00AM

Darling Harbor, 3D IMAX (Biggest screen in the world!)

Sold out: 100% (500 people, as expected as this is a huge tourist spot, especially during Christmas-New Years)

Trailers:

None.

Movie:

Went into the film with slightly low expectations considering all the reviews but was excited about seeing it in IMAX as this is the first actual film that isn't a documentary that I've seen in IMAX. Having read the first 50 pages of The Hobbit, I hated the novels but when the film started with the prologue I knew it was going to be good. So beautifully done, amazing script and actors and I lol at the focus on Kili for the female audience. I did notice a drag in the beginning where Bilbo was meeting the dwarves, but other than that I found the movie to be great. Loved it, will be seeing it again this week.

Crowd reaction:

- Everyone was pretty silent throughout except while finding their seats. Little bit of laughter during the comic relief scenes and by the end of it, everyone was rushing out to leave (but as expected anyway)

[Blankments]

Jack Reacher

January 3, 1:50 PM, 20%

Portage 16 IMAX, Portage, IN

Trailers - No reactions

Pain and Gain

Zero Dark Thirty

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

I thought it was going to be a cheesy action movie, so I was pleasantly surprised by the crime drama. Audience liked the jokes, there was quite a bit laughs for the small crowd.

[Spidey]

Texas Chainsaw 3D

January 3, 10:00 p.m. - 40% Full

Trailers

Iron Man 3 - mild reaction

The Last Stand - no reaction

Mama - good reaction, a few screams

Evil Dead - mild reaction, a few screams as well

A Good Day to Die Hard - no reaction

GI Joe: Retaliation - no reaction

Grade: D

[rockNrollaDIM]

Saw This is 40 last night.Don't feel like giving a detailed report but there was a pretty good turnout for a weekday. Lots of couples. Seemed to get a mixed reaction at best though, the couple to my left was loudly complaining how boring it was in the middle of the movie and at one point I heard the quote "2 hours too long".

[Jandrew]

Django6:35 Amstar 14 $9 - that theater has gotten so strict with R rated movies, i had to show my ID twice and they were douches, my old friends from school were in front of me at they had tickets for Django, but the guy at the booth told them that if none of them was 21, they cant go- eventhough they had the tickets already. And there's apparently no refunds now. The R rule is so ridiculous, i hope some one one day get's it changed.A Good Day to Die Hard - mild reactionGanster Squad - no reactionOblivion - no reactionPain and Gain - mild reactionLone Ranger - mild reactionLoved the action and the sarcasm comedy. Didnt feel that long because something was always going on, wasnt all boring dialouge for 20 minutes a scene like most movies that long. Christoph Waltz did the best in my opinion. Leo was great too and Jamie was good. Jackson's character was over the top, but the audience and I loved it. Also the turn out was maybe 65% black, 45% other, and no one was bothered by the excessive n-word use, I dont know what Spike Lee was crying about. Word of mouth should stay excellent.A

Edited January 6, 2013 by jandrew

[riczhang]

Les Miserables

14:55 5 January 2013

Silvercity Coquitlam

75-80% full. All seats taken except for the bottom 4 rows in front of the screen

Audience:

Mix of Families, and Adults. Skews a little to the women (~55%-ish)

Trailers

Oz: No reaction, looks awesome though

The Great Gatsby: People loved this one, lots of chatter

The Identity Thief: Got quite a few laughs

Oblivion: No reaction

One more film that I can no longer remember

The Movie

This movie floors me more and more each time I see it. The first time I saw it it was around #5 on my list, second rewatch bumped it up to #3, third time around it climbed to #2, and now on my fourth time it's seriously giving Amour a run for its money which is saying a lot. I honestly feel like a 5 ton lorry just drove over me multiple times, and a little piece of my soul gets ripped away each time I see this. Applause after I Dreamed a Dream, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables (Which is by far the best in the movie), and the Do You Hear the People Sing reprise. Some people stood up at the end, and most people stayed until the title cards finished in the credits. You could hear the theatre breaking into tears as Valjean died as well.

The Thenadiers have just gotten worse on each rewatch, and I think more than ever know that Master of the House was completely unneeded. I'm really glad that Dog eats Dog got cut out because the Thenadiers are bearable but if I have to hear another Thenadier song in the movie (I like them in the musical) I might scream. I Dreamed a Dream is still as amazing as ever (And I cried at this point yet again ), Empty Chairs has gotten progressively better, and Stars is growing on me and might be my favourite rendition now. Russell's not the best singer, but in the context of how his singing matches his character's contrast with the rest of the cast it works really well. And, besides it's not like he's sounds like Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia, which was dead cow territory. I think that his acting, and just the way he sang the song really works in the movie.

10/10

[CJohn]

I saw Les Miserables today and I am not sure if I loved it like nothing else before or if I hated it. Very mixed feelings. I need to think about it some more days.

[DerekShooster]

Zero Dark Thirty

2:25PM Sunday, January 6th

AMC Boston Common 19 & Lie-MAX

Theater Capacity: 252 (100% full, SOLD OUT! Our auditorium skewed more middle-aged/older; the whole cineplex was extremely busy)

Ticket Price: $10.00

Concessions: N/A

TRAILERS:

Dead Man Down - Colin Farrell crime movie that visually looks amazing; got some talking and an okay reaction.

Snitch - meh action movie with The Rock (sorry, he'll never shake the name); whispers from the crowd.

Pain & Gain - LOL, this trailer gets better with every rewatch. It's the ultimate Michael Bay movie; got a great reaction and lots of talking from the crowd.

42 - biopic about baseball player Jackie Robinson, and looks pretty good; had some talking after.

Iron Man 3 - this is a really excellent trailer, kudos to the team behind it; absolute silence afterward.

Broken City - another crime drama set in New York, but this time with a bunch of Oscar winners; met with whispers from crowd.

After Earth - can't believe I hadn't seen this trailer before now--LOOKS INSANE! This is definitely poised to be a huge summer blockbuster; good reaction from crowd, lots of talking.

THE FILM:

Goddamnit.

I really didn't want to like this movie--I mean REALLY didn't want to like it. As so many friends of mine would agree, we are still a little bitter over The Hurt Locker winning Best Picture at The Oscars in 2009--seriously, Up, Inglorious Basterds, Up In The Air, and District 9 at the very least are far superior films. So naturally a lot of us rolled our eyes at every Zero Dark Thirty trailer and scoffed at the notion of going to see Kathryn Bigelow's next film, let alone actually enjoying it. But critical acclaim caught my attention and persuaded me to check it out today, and... GODDAMNIT!!!

Zero Dark Thirty is an excellent movie. It is a near-perfect movie. Even while watching it I was skeptically observing it for flaws--visuals, sound, acting, editing. Nothing. From the very first moment the movie begins the mood becomes painfully apparent and every scene that follows captures the essence of how dire it is to fulfill the main objective: finding Osama Bin Laden. Very similar to Silence of the Lambs, the movie follows a wunderkind female working for one of our more secretive government agencies (in this case, CIA) to ultimately find a mass murderer. Unlike Silence of the Lambs, however, the disturbing realities of Zero Dark Thirty never feel glorified, Hollywood-ized, or inorganic; they're honest. Obviously the accuracy of many details featured throughout the movie has been up for debate by many, but essentially the movie as a whole is true.

The ensemble cast is great (*I think this is the first film I've seen where Mark Strong isn't playing a villain), but the star of the whole show is Jessica Chastain. In such a short period she has demonstrated a special ability to inhabit each of her screen characters completely and dish out amazing performance after amazing performance. Her performance in Zero Dark Thirty is no exception, and the praise she's garnered for her work in this film is extremely worthy. I was concerned about halfway into the movie about the score as it wasn't exactly figuring into the story's ambiance as one would expect from a similar picture. But like the action and pace of the story, the score really picks up in the second act.

Director Kathryn Bigelow truly made a film that fires on all cylinders and, had it been a 2009 picture, a film I could've stood behind beating the competition. Its two-and-a-half hour runtime sounds intimidating, but goes by very well. In fact, I believe a big strength of the film was its duration's ability to illustrate the ten year journey our armed forces were spending to find Osama Bin Laden, even if inadvertently. For a whole minute after the credits began rolling, the entire audience was silent--something I've only witnessed from a crowded theater on a handful of occasions. The movie definitely earns its R-rating, but I think it'll serve as a very educational resource for future generations to understand the War on Terror fought during our lifetimes.

Experience - 30/30

Story/Writing - 20/20

Acting - 15/15

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

Directing - 10/10

Music - 10/10

THE VERDICT: 100/100, A+

Also for the record, I'm modifying my grading slightly... there will no longer be bonuses as I've realized they're extremely subjective, and films earning a 96-100 will be A+'s. The rest of the grading scale will stay the same:

85-95 = A

70-84 = B

55-69 = C

40-54 = D

<40 = F

[Blankments]

So, I'll be seeing Gangster Squad this weekend against my will. My editor (for the school newspaper) said that it was between it, Django Unchained, and Zero Dark Thirty as my assignment. They clearly picked the best film.

[ainsleyb]

Texas Chainsaw 3D

21:15 Norwich Odeon

Attendance: Pretty much Sold out (attendant had to come in to find seats for people)

Trailers:

Mama - Bit of chatter

Django UnchaIned - Some laughs

Gangster Squad - Mixed reviews have put me off it

The Film:

Pretty much pure garbage from start to finish. My expectations were low going in due to the negative press it's received but the film turned out to be truly one of the worst horrors of the past few years. The faults with the film are endless but here is a glimpse of the most glaring issues.

No one can act - Whilst it's nice that all the kids look like they're straight out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue the lack of acting ability is painfully obvious. I'm willing to give Alexandra Daddario another chance (for obvious reasons) but the rest of the cast, in it's entirety, lack any sort of talent in portraying emotions. Even the painfully awful script can't be entirely blamed for how bad they are.

The Script - Awful dialogue mixed with a paper thin plot. Almost everything that happens in the film is so obvious you'll be able to guess the next scene well in advance.

The 3D- Oh...there really isn't much in 3D. Another reason why 3D needs to go away now.

Overall, i couldn't recommend the film to anybody, horror fan or not.

4/10

[DerekShooster]

Gangster Squad

10:00PM Thursday, January 10th

Regal Fenway 13 & RPX

Theater Capacity: ~220 (10% full; the movie had another showing in RPX at the same time as well)

Ticket Price: $7.75

Concessions: hot chocolate, $2.50

TRAILERS:

42 - longer trailer than the last one I saw, it looks good; some whispers from audience.

Bullet to the Head - Sylvester Stallone movie that looks good, got lots of talking after

The Call - Halle Berry movie that looks like a neat premise, but I'm annoyed at how much the trailer spoils; some talking after

Lone Ranger - meh trailer, some talking

The Last Stand - Arnold's back? Oy vey; this got pity laughs from the audience.

Side Effects - excellent trailer, excellent cast, and excellent director; looking forward to this. Good reaction, too.

A Good Day to Die Hard - sooooooo many guns!

Dark Skies - interesting horror trailer, no reaction.

THE FILM:

When I got to the theater tonight I hadn't made my mind up on whether I would watch Gangster Squad or A Haunted House. I suspected Gangster Squad would be the better movie, but I'd wanted to go see whatever had sold more tickets. The gentleman at the box office told me that Gangster Squad had indeed sold more tickets, so I obviously went with that. But 20 people in the theater? Please. The crowd experience was already off to a less than desirable start, but then 30 minutes into the movie a group of 3 girls started texting/checking their Facebooks. Had that only happened once, I would've let it pass; however, one of the three girls who was clearly unhappy with the movie persisted using her brighter-than-sunlight smartphone. So I quietly got out of my seat about 2/3 of the way into the movie, walked up behind her, and sternly told her, "Turn off you phone!" I must've scared the shit out of them, because there wasn't a peep the rest of the movie. A little victory for the sake of enjoying the movie. But about the movie...

Gangster Squad kind of stinks. I felt like the marketing insinuated this would be a smart crime drama, but instead the movie is a formulaic, thoughtless, and alarmingly cheesy product. This is through no fault of any one actor/actress in the movie (actually, Emma Stone was very enjoyable as always)--the fault here was all the ingredients just not matching together. Visually, they capture a 1949 LA vibe well, I'll give them that. But Sean Penn's villainous crime boss was so dry. There were extras in The Dark Knight that were more threatening than this film's principle villain. And Ryan Gosling? I give props to the guy for picking roles that disassociate him from his baby face reputation, but it's impossible to rationalize his character when he talks in an intentionally baby voice. He sounded like Jean Hagen in Singin' in the Rain.

Between the reshooting of a principle scene from this film following the Aurora theater shooting massacre and the ever-presence of gun/mob violence while Americans continue the gun control debate following the Newtown shooting, I'm afraid Gangster Squad was dead on arrival. There's just a lot that's off about it and, right now, it's more uncomfortable to watch that I'd have expected. But of course my opinion may be skewed a bit after the experience was tainted by those girls in the front of the theater. Whatever.

Experience - 4/30

Story/Writing - 5/20

Acting - 6/15

Tech Specs (Cinematography, Editing, Effects) - 12/15

Directing - 3/10

Music - 7/10; this at least complemented the time period well

THE VERDICT: 37/100, F

Edited January 11, 2013 by Andy Stitzer 2

[acsc1312]

Ouch

[CJohn]

I will still see it when it opens here in early February.

[Michael Gary Scott]

Im still going thur