Movie Prediction #2 - Results My first movie-related prognostication was that Catwoman was going to bomb, and it did. My second prediction was that Alien vs. Predator, despite being soundly panned by most critics, would do well. Despite my being off by a week in terms of when the wide-screen release was to take place, it still did pretty well in the box office this past weekend, clearing over $38 million.

I'll need to come up with a new prediction when I have the time. Right now, I'm too busy on vacation.
  ¶ Tuesday, August 17, 2004

  Garden State Saw this on Friday night with New Jersey residents Michelle & Kirke. Review is as follows:

1) Pet peeve (if any) - so why is this movie called Garden State? Yes, it takes place almost entirely in New Jersey but that doesn't seem to be enough justification. In Orange County, the movie is about the personalities of Orange County and the movie name seems to make sense. I'm not sure that Garden State really focuses on issues or personalities particular to New Jersey (with the exception of one mall comment - there wasn't even a reference to what exit each person lived on!). Still, found the whole movie to be quite engaging. My biggest complaint is something the makers of the movie could do nothing about - the audience. Perhaps living in Australia for several years has spoiled my movie experience, but one thing that I'm finding really annoying coming back is audiences who talk too much. During this entire movie it seemed like the audience felt the need to inform everybody else who sat around them of the various developments in the movie. Really folks, I have eyes. I can see. And if I didn't notice something that you did, you deserve to enjoy the movie more. Leave me alone to my ignorant misery.

2) Plot line - a bit confusing to start (which I'm sure was intentional), but this storyline, written by Zach Braff, immediately engages the viewer and keeps their interest, developing at a quick pace. POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT The ending is a bit storybook and cheeseball, but for those of you who are going to read my reviews or know me at all, you'll find that I thoroughly enjoy cheeseball romantic endings. SPOILER OVER

3) Special effects - not really an issue here since the movie is far more centered on plot and character development than it is on images and effects.

4) Actor performances - quite impressive. Not only did Zach Braff write and direct in this, he also starred. He very capably showed the development of Andrew Largeman over the course of the movie. As for Natalie Portman, my brother certainly has his opinion, and while I thought Portman was quite good, her performance in the beginning of the movie left something to be desired. Perhaps it was intentional (it's always difficult to distinguish between a good actor performance and good character and conversely between a poor acting performance and an annoying character), but she was much better in the second half of the movie than in the first. Other notable appearances were by Ian Holm (of Lord of the Rings fame) as Braff's psychiatrist father and Peter Sarsgaard as Braff's high school friend (played very well).

5) Musical score - less intrusive than I thought it would be. Typically, in the genre of movies targeted towards youth (i.e. Almost Famous, Singles, Reality Bites), it's accompanied by an amazing soundtrack with the latest bands. I'm sure Garden State's soundtrack will be similar, but the fact is, almost none of the music made the actual movie with the exception of one (if someone knows the name of the song or the artist from the hospital scene, let me know).

Overall, I highly recommend the movie to people from any state, not just New Jersey.

  ¶ Tuesday, August 17, 2004

  I, Robot Some more movie thoughts on this lazy Sunday (slept until after 11:00 a.m. today which is relatively unheard of nowadays for me).

Pam and I went to see I, Robot last night at our new local theatre (84th Street Loews on the Upper West Side). My thoughts on it are below. As a general rule, I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers in all reviews and if not, I will highlight the fact well beforehand in ALL CAPS AND BOLD. I'm going to try and follow a similar format for all the movies I see. If you think there are additional categories which would be worthwhile adding (and can be applied consistently to most movies out there), let me know.

1) Pet peeve - I have not read the book I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, but this movie obviously has used several elements of the novel / series in the creation of its plot (not least of which is the title of their movie). In the credits after the movie, it listed as the third of fourth credit "Suggested by Isaac Asimov's I, Robot." Now maybe it's just me, but "suggested by" seems like a bit of a backhanded compliment to one of the grand masters of science fiction. Wouldn't a far more appropriate homage been, "Inspired by Isaac Asimov's I, Robot"?

2) Plot - this is usually my biggest test of any movie because if the plot isn't sustainable, then I don't care about the amazing special effects, star actor performances or amazing scores, because, in my opinion, the core purpose of the movie cannot be sustained by these sorts of ancillary performances. On this most important element, I thought this movie did a pretty good job. Some good examples of movies which failed this core criteria would be Independence Day, another Will Smith science fiction movie which had some of the most amazing special effects I ever saw, but was SO BAD, I still left the movie wondering why someone would spend so much money making amazing special effects for a movie with such a comedically weak plot (for those of you who have forgotten him, I am mostly thinking of Randy Quaid's character when I think of what specifically ruined it for me).

3) Special effects - Fairly impressive I thought. The animation of the robot actions, faces and lines were pretty well done. If I was to judge it, it would fall somewhere in between the robotic characters in AI (some of which I thought were excellent, particularly in the wrecking yard) and Star Wars, Episodes 1 and 2, where the robotic drones were too simplified for me. What takes I, Robot's performance past these are some of the action scenes with the robots in semi-slow motion which are really quite breathtaking. Other technologically advanced ideas for the setting (Chicago, 2035) seemed a bit farfetched, particularly whatever happened to Lake Michigan. I mean, this is only 30 years away and last I checked, New York was planning for a subway straight to JFK for another 10 years from now. While certain technological advancements can be amazing in how quickly they are rolled out and accepted, never underestimate the lagging effect of infrastructure development. I'm specifically thinking of the highways, tunnels and parking lots for this one.

4) Actor performances - I have always been a big fan of Will Smith as an actor. Ever since his performance in Six Degrees of Separation, I was impressed with the breadth of his capability. His performance in I, Robot is a bit more in tune with his much more common character (the trash-talking cop - for more, see Independence Day, Wild Wild West, MIB, MIB II, Bad Boys and Bad Boys II, all listed courtesy of IMDB.com), but still delivers what it needed to make the movie work. The other major performance in the movie (Bridget Moynihan) seemed a bit forced, particularly the cold scientist bit in the first half. Other supporting performances by James Cromwell and Chi McBride were well done.

5) Musical score - In some movies, this can be incredibly impactful and for those of you who don't believe, try watching Jaws with absolutely no music. In the case of I, Robot though, the sound / music was so much in the background, I didn't even notice it. Please don't take this the wrong way. In my opinion, most movie scores fall into this category and are neither particularly good or bad. There are some special circumstances where great movies are made so much better by a great score (other than Jaws, Glory comes to mind) and can even make a bad movie not quite so bad (I don't know why this one comes to mind, but the only redeeming quality I remember thinking of Broken Arrow after I walked out of it was, "At least it wasn't a complete waste because the music was pretty good").

Overall, I, Robot was definitely worth the price of admission. See it in the theatre if you can just to get the special effects on the big screen, and because the plot is a decent one, you won't be inspired to walk out in the middle of it.
  ¶ Sunday, August 08, 2004

  Catwoman Follow-Up All the big movie news from this weekend is regarding M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village" which cleared over $50 million this weekend in a surprisingly successful first weekend on the market. Given the poor reviews, this was even more of a surprise.

What isn't really mentioned at all is that Catwoman, which debuted with a very low $17 million last week (compared to most other comic-inspired movies) sank to even lower lows this week, whimpering to only $6.1 million, a greater than 50% dropoff from a poor start. Given the studio quote from last week, I don't think they had a very good "middle of the week."

What's interesting to note however, is that just because a film bombs in the US market does not mean it cannot be a success. A good example will likely be King Arthur, which has disappointed for Disney but will likely make back their investment based on what it did in the US (something like $50 million), foreign box office (which should end up clearing more than what it did in the US) and distribution rights such as video and DVD, both foreign and domestic.

Some duds however have too much going against it, like The Adventures of Pluto Nash, which still has a working web site which is trying to shill the DVD. I don't think that one ever ended up making any money for the studio (not sure which one). While I don't think Catwoman will end up being quite as floppy as Pluto (I think Pluto cleared less than $5 million in its first weekend), it's definitely a dud given how much marketing muscle was put behind it.

Collateral Damage and Alien vs Predator coming up next week. While I never saw Jason vs Freddy (or was it Freddy vs Jason?), I think AVP could be a sleeper success given its target audience and the rich following of each of the starter movie franchises. Also, unlike Alien³ and Alien: Resurrection, this film looks to be much more action oriented like Aliens (still one of my favorite sci-fi action flicks ever).

UPDATE: More confirmation of the success of certain movies overseas that didn't fare as well domestically. While I, Robot led the international haul, this key quote was also in the report.

The United Kingdom greeted Jerry Bruckheimer's take on local history, "King Arthur," with a strong No. 1 reception ($3.5 million), which led the charge for an $11.3 million weekend from 22 countries. With No. 1 scores in Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Israel and four more markets, plus stable holds in Japan, Korea and Sweden, "Arthur" showed signs that the foreign market may make up for its disappointing performance in North American where it will finish with about $50 million. The total after two weeks abroad has hit $39.1 million.

It goes on to mention that Catwoman opened up at #1 in the Philippines, one of its first international markets.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Onion seems to agree somewhat with my thoughts on the quality of the previews of Catwoman. One of the funnier paragraphs was as follows:

"Judging from the ads, I assumed I'd want my eight bucks back," Berger added. "But after seeing the movie, I was pleasantly surprised to find I only wanted three, maybe four bucks back, tops.

  ¶ Monday, August 02, 2004

  My First Prognostication I guess it didn't take a genius or anything, but I'm still pretty proud of my first movie prediction.  Catwoman, as I thought, didn't really do that well in the box office.  A quote from USA Today is as follows:

Audiences don't seem to feel the same way about Halle Berry (news)'s Catwoman. The comic-book adaptation, which cost $100 million, brought in a measly $17.2 million. The take marks one of the lowest ever for a major comic-book adaptation, one of Hollywood's most dependable genres because it is so popular with teen audiences.
"We did a little less than we anticipated," says Dan Fellman of Warner Bros., which released Catwoman. "But we're hoping to do well in the middle of the week." (emphasis added)

Looking forward to writing more about movies in the future.  Perhaps I'll go on to make bolder predictions that weren't quite as easy as this one.


  ¶ Monday, July 26, 2004

  Television Show Credits Still no movie reviews, but on a separate but related note, has anyone noticed what's happening to the world of TV, particularly in relation to TV credits?  In the old world, a typical half-hour show would actually be composed of 21-22 minutes of actual programming, 6-7 minutes of advertising and 1-2 minutes of credit at the end.

Around 10 years ago (maybe more), a lot of broadcasters (network and cable) started shoving the credit to the side of the screen and ran advertisements for their other shows (typically called promos for those us formerly in the TV biz)  on the other two-thirds of the screen.  This was just the first step of the slippery slope however.  Credit started getting rolled quicker and ever quicker, and the credits for a feature length movie have gone from taking two to three minutes to 30 seconds or less (get your speedreading glasses out!).

Last night, I watched an episode of Law & Order on TBS, which seems to broadcast at least two episodes every night, and when the episode was over, before you could even say Dick Wolf, the credit were relegated to a small strip at the bottom of the screen which is around the size of the running stock ticker on CNBC or the sports update on ESPN.  Not only that, but the next episode of Law & Order was already starting on the rest of the screen!

A question worth asking is "who cares?"  Does anyone read these things?  Do they matter at all and if not, why have they been cluttering up our lives?

After a quick search on google, I came up with the following news clip on the AP, courtesy of the the Detroit News.

The Discovery-owned cable channels have backed down from a plan to eliminate credits at the end of television programs.    The change had been criticized by many professionals who would see their names disappear from the screen. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' board also urged Discovery to reconsider.    Discovery said this week it would give producers of its shows the option to continue to show credits or try another approach, such as directing viewers to a web site that would list technical achievements.    Discovery believes -- as do other networks that squeeze the size of credits or speed through them -- that most viewers don't care about this information and begin channel surfing to avoid them.    John Ford, president of Discovery's content group, says most of the people who objected to the plan made fictional programs that Discovery doesn't air. On many of their channels, Discovery enlists outside producers to make nonfiction programming.    He was more interested in the concerns of Discovery's own producers, who he says "weren't so much upset as they had practical difficulties in implementing it."    For example, in some cases producers offered expert consultants on-air credits instead of payment, he says.    Discovery Communications operates 11 cable channels, including Discovery, the Travel Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, BBC America and Discovery Kids. Many producers worried that their proposed policy would quickly be imitated by other companies.    Discovery has offered to pay to set up credits on the web. It has also offered producers the chance to air a limited number of credits at the beginning of programs. (emphasis added)

The thing that mystifies me from this is not that a content provider attempted to get rid of credits, but that some people actually accepted a credit as a form of payment instead of cash!  I know some people are vain, but really, this goes too far.

Anyways, my quick opinion on this is that I only pay attention to the credits when there is someone in a show or movie who I think I recognize but am not sure of what their name is.  The credits used ot be the only place to confirm my guess (or to even settle a bet or two).  A great example would be any animated movie where the voice sounds so familiar but you're not quite sure who it is...

But now that we have imdb.com, I guess this isn't much of an issue anymore either.  So to all of the people who really cared who the best boy or the technical grip was on a program, I'm sorry, but the times have moved on.
  ¶ Wednesday, July 21, 2004

  No Movie Reviews Yet, But While I have all the best intentions to write some movie reviews (recent movies seen include Spiderman 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Shrek 2 and Troy) but for now, all I'm going to talk about is a movie which I think is going to bomb. I have no idea if I have this predictive power and I'd like to try and make a call before I've read any reviews, just seen the previews.

Using this data, I'm pretty sure that Catwoman ain't gonna do so good at the box office when it launches. Despite the recent popularity of comic book movies, which seem to have created their own craze, I think this one is a loser. The telling part was the quote in the preview from Sharon Stone saying to Halle Berry, "Now I can kill you." I mean, this is the best dialogue they could come up with?  ¶ Wednesday, July 14, 2004

  The Low Carb Meltdown OK, I wasn't planning on talking too much about the transition from Australia to the United States, but there have been a few things that I have noticed, even while doing all the other stuff we've needed to take care of (finding a place to live, learning my new job, etc).

The largest of these differences is definitely the way that the United States, and the consumer product manufacturers in particular, have embraced the concept of the Atkins diet. It's not just that people are trying the diet, but in a phenomenon that I have never seen before, the consumer product companies are joining the wave and have introduced all sorts of products to market to this audience.

They include:

- Aspen Edge beer, the new low-carb premium tasting beer from Coors
- low-carb milk?
- low-carb yogurt AND ultra low-carb yogurt
- low-carb ice cream? (we're getting pretty ridiculous here)
- Atkins-friendly chocolate?!?!?
- C2 (you know how Coke is great with marketing new ideas); and even...
- low-carb blogs!!

Not only that, but have you tried to do a search on Google for "low-carb" lately? Pretty ridiculous.

It's amazing to see how quickly the food marketers just jump on this bus given the history of various lose weight quick diets (does anybody else remember a grapefruit diet that was all the fad in the 70's?).

Of course, I'm not commenting as to the efficacy of the diet or it's health ramifications.  ¶ Wednesday, July 14, 2004

  Back in the USA As you can probably tell from some previous posts, Pam and I are officially in the United States now (although in Pam's case it is still temporary). This brings up the question of the purpose of this blog.

If you go back to the beginning, the genesis of this blog was as a birthday present from my brother, the famous blogger, Daniel Drezner.

Quickly thereafter, I decided to continue posting on this new medium, mostly as a tool to keep friends and family updated as to my life in Australia. While I was at it, I put in a couple of random observations which I thought would be useful to Americans who didn't know much about Australia or the world in general outside the US.

Now, I have moved back to the US and no longer need to update my friends and family in the same fashion since I can see them in person far more regularly. Also, no more observations from Australia since I don't live there anymore. So what is a blogger to do?

Firstly, congratulations to two new family blogs. Pam's, which is in the news section of her website, is more for her friends and family back in Australia, similar to what I've done here. Erika's (my sister-in-law and wife of my much more famous brother), is still a bit nascent but looks to be observations from the wife of a Republican blogger / mother of a cute kid / pregnant lady who is staying at home until she gives birth. Best of luck to the both of you.

As for me, I think I'll continue to occasionally post, perhaps with observations of an American who used to live in Australia and has now moved back to the US, or perhaps with thoughts on new movies (I've always wanted to be a movie critic).

Also, by the way, I've tried to add a comments section to this web site. I'm not sure if anyone really wants to put comments in, or for that matter if anybody actually reads this, but feel free to opine. Try to keep it clean though. Don't know how many kids are coming to jbdgenius.blogspot.com nowadays.  ¶ Wednesday, July 07, 2004