Pajiba

(sigh) Does anyone else remember when Ice Cube was Amerikkka's worst nightmare? I feel old.

Black Dynamite: $141k on 70 screens.

Want to see it. Haven't yet. Prisco jizzed over it on the Twitters, for what it's worth.

Janky: "adjective used to describe a person, place or thing which is questionable, fucked up, wrong, strange, broken down, undesirable, and/or just some thing you can't think of another word for."

(UrbanDictionary.com, y'all.)

So I went to see It Might Get Loud Friday night (GO SEE IT), and when I got out there was a huge line for WTWTA. It was almost all kids between about 14-19 years old. So I can see why they weren't too young to want to watch but I was definitely not expecting that to be the demographic it appealed to. I didn't see a single family group or any young kids with the older ones. Where are they advertising this thing? The Hipsterama at the mall?

I'm not shocked at the Where the Wild Things Are gross, all heavily marketed kids movies make fucktons of money, even though just about everyone says it's a crappy kids movie.

So what, do you reckon will the drop off be for Where The Wild Things Are? The aforementioned 6th Saw is coming, but also The Vampire's Assistant, Astro Boy, and Amelia. I guess Saw VI is a lock for #1 -- tis the season for torture porn. And then there was Dustin's reminder about the Twilight epidemic that is grossly more pervasive and only slightly less dangerous than H1N1. Will they embrace or condemn a vampire film without Robert Pattinson? ( Goddamnit! I nearly misspelled his name b/c I referenced one of the quotes from Dustin's article -- it wasn't his last name.. some dumb bitch spelled it Robbert)

In any event, I am encouraged. If WTWTA drops, it will be because it is recognized as the artistic film without the widest kind of appeal; at least it got a good opening. Why is that encouraging? Given the steep decline of Couple's Retreat America got a good look at a pile of shit, and believe it or not, thought better about recommending to their friends and family that they dig in.

Vampire's Assistant is fun, especially for teens, and I wish it well.

Astro Boy, on the other hand, shares a first act with A.I. Lovely to look at, bright and shiny for kids, but tonally askew from the start...

oh Manda90210, i feel you.
i was in tekei's tonight, in a booth, and when paranormal activity came up in conversation, everyone involved went kinda creepy.

powerfully nuanced spookiness aside, my theater experience was top notch as people kept getting up and running out of the theater. i'd never seen that type of behavior and the outbursts heightened the all-around drama of the whole thing.
hands down: best movie-going expeience in years.

I think this will be the first Saw sequel that opens under $20M. Even the most die hard fans have to be tired of it by now. I've seen them all at home and while I liked 1-3 (Note: part 3 was one of the most intense fucked up horror movies in some time. Really unpleasant but well done.), they have just gotten progressively worse. Part 5 was mostly terrible, cheap looking effects, and the series plot is now so convoluted and contradictory you need cliff notes to make any sense of it.

At this point in the series we know there were at least 4 people involved in the games of the first movie. Jigsaw is like a supervillain with henchmen that he continues to control despite having been dead since the 3rd movie. And from the hints in part 5 his wife was involved also? Ugh. 5 of them was more than enough, I'm done with the franchise. If I get really curious Wikipedia will have a synopsis up by Saturday.

The PG-13-ified remake of The Stepfather only opened to fifth place with $12.3 million

And Terry O'Quinn smiles cryptically.

First weekend gross never has anything to do with what the audience actually thinks about the film, so don't go thinking America had a change of taste in the last week. The only factor that has anything to do with opening gross is marketing, regardless of content or quality. With the right trailer and the right built-in sentiment for a popular book, you can lead a sheep to an art film almost as easily as you can lead it to the lowest-common-denominator drek. The second weekend percentage drop is where you find what people truly thought of it.

God, I loved that movie. I think the main reason some people didn't like it is that they thought it was intended for children. But really, it's not for the children, but rather about them. It perfectly captures the mindset of a 9-year-old boy, better than any film I've ever seen. It's visually arresting, layered with subtext and dramatic irony, and extremely moving. My girlfriend couldn't stop crying. I got choked up myself (though, being a dude, I'm incapable of producing tears for anything but sporting events). I'm glad so many people saw it. Now if only more critics would have gotten their heads out of their asses.

I'm not surprised at the negative reactions Paranormal Activity has generated from some. Horror (like comedy) is a very visceral movie genre and while folks will admit to laughing at bad jokes, they don't like to admit to being scared out of their seats.

Is it a great movie? No. But I liked it far more than any of the Saw movies (even the first one). Unlike The Blair Witch Project, it's not all left to your imagination. You actually see enough to convince you that there is something wrong here.

But I have some criticisms. At what point should Katie and Micah not called the psychic doctor (who seemed to pull the James Woods move out of Scary Movie 2 when he came back) and asked for another reference? Or how about calling a priest or two? I think that's what everyone who's hating Micah subconsciously is saying to themselves. "Your brilliant plan to get rid of it is to film it and piss it off? Is you retarded or just brain dead?"

And they do say that this thing is tied to Katie as a means to avoid the "Why didn't you leave?" argument. But it would have been good to have shown that this demon would continue to follow and threaten them even if they left the house. Of course, the limit of this "cinema veritas" always comes back, i.e. "WHY ARE YOU STILL FILMING THIS?!"

The director does a good job of establishing the rules and sticking by them. And everytime you saw that static camera shot of their bedroom, you knew bad things were going to happen. Folks were looking away by movie's end.

So I'd still say go see it for the experience.

I caught WTWTA Saturday, and I still can't stop thinking about it.
It was a let down at first, but the more I think about it, the more I come around to it.
I think it does perfectly capture the 9 year old, goofy, Will the size of a planet, gloriously rejoiceful, out of control, sad, lonely, angry-at-the-drop-of-a-snowball-fort, inchoately fascistic, helplessness of that age.
I mean, it is called Where the Wild Things Are, after all.
The Wild Things are his emotions, no?
Max learns that he is not in control of his "wild" side.
That his old "teddy bears" now have teeth.
That he is not a good "king". Yet.

I would really love to read a blog or website of actual children's reviews of this movie so we could get past this "is it good for children or not" thing.
Or at least a "traumatized/not traumatized" poll.
The best review I heard was, I believe, A.O. Scott, who said something to the extent of "I think kids will be fine with it. But I think it will scare the Grown Ups."