Saturday, December 19, 2015

Star Wars - The Box Office Awakens

I'm assuming that all of Hollywood is waiting with baited breath.  Accountants are busy working overtime, crunching the numbers, and J. J. Abrams and company will be positively damned if the headline's not something like "Fastest $100 million of all time!"  Of course, $100 million doesn't go as far in Hollywood these days.  Probably the unions' fault; they'll get blamed for it, anyhow.  And hey!  What about Mother Nature?  Surely, she cares about rich people and hopes that their profits increase exponentially forever and ever until the end of time too?  No?  Wotta bitch!
(Sunday proper).... yeah, it must be nice being J. J. Abrams.  Notice how, in his latest appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," he made a reference to his early '90s work, having written the script for 1991's Regarding Henry.  Well, his days of reality-based stuff are far behind him, as his transition from so-so writer to the new Spielberg-Lucas hybrid is finally complete.  And yet, directing the next one isn't his top priority.  Figures.  Meanwhile, Llewyn Davis continues his stay at the top of the A-List... how did he get in Star Wars?  How do the Coens' casting choices get so influential anyway?  And will February's Hail, Caesar! suffer a similar fate as The Big Lebowski going up against Titanic at the box office?
Anyway, despite the fact that the latest installment of Star Wars made probably about as much money as a movie can these days over one weekend, we've got, what?... FOUR other debuts this week?  I'm just sayin'.  Last week, Ron Howard's little Moby D... Richard movie managed to be the only debut, and two weeks ago Krampus was the only new debut.  Okay, so the distinction doesn't guarantee good performance at the box office.  Still, I can't help but wonder if the people behind these big blockbusters get a little jealous when a couple new debuts get a little bit of the thunder for themselves.  Take the latest installment of the Chipmunks saga, for example.  One of Ebert and Roeper's replacements wondered if Walt Becker's next pic was going to be called Bumps on Logs, seeing as how he directed Old Hogs and Wild Dogs all previous-like... I'm sorry, I'm being told that it's Wild Hogs and Old Dogs, actually... damn.  Even I have to admit the cleverness of that poster: "Sit.  Stay.  Play Dad."  It's exactly this kind of gumption and gung-ho attitude that got him the latest Chipmunks movie.  Oh my God... apparently Jason Lee has reprised his role as Dave in all four Chipmunks movies.  Now I'm starting to check if the same three guys have done the same voices for the movies!  Justin Long apparently has... I thought the whole point of the Chipmunks voices is that they're relatively interchangeable.  You could have Mariah Carey and Barry White doing the voices and no one will be able to tell the difference because they're sped up at twice the speed.  Next thing you know, you'll be able to buy all eight seasons of the '80s animated "Alvin & The Chipmunks" show at the theater.  They could probably jam all of it onto one or two Blu-Rays, right?  Damn, I'm good.  No, the sanctity of the multiplex would never stoop to selling DVDs of anything.  Concession stand, video game section for the kids and juvenile delinquents, that's how it will always be, forevermore.
...man, I hate that.  I keep forgetting I have to wait to click on something now, because the page hasn't finished loading and it has to make that jump where everything gets pushed down a few pixels.  All the buttons I want to click have ads for adult diapers above them that I end up clicking.  Anyway, believe it or not, going up against the latest issue of Star Wars magazine at the box office is a coveted spot for films to get.  That way, they can always say, "Well, of course it didn't make any money!  It was going up against Star Wars!  Duh!!"  One of the finalists is the latest from Tina Fey.  But bear in mind, this is no Admission, mind you.  It's more in the vein of Baby Mama territory, so it's not for smart people only.  And, why look!  It's Amy Poehler!  People like her, right?  She's Marisa Miller, but with comedic chops to boot.  As for Tina, well, she seems to have all but ditched her trademark glasses from the 2000s, and is going for kind of an Annabella Sciorra vibe... or Sarah Silverman, either one.  I always get them mixed up.  As for me, I can't get out of my head the time I started to watch Brian De Palma's 1973 effort called Sisters.  It starts with this horrible medical footage of conjoined twins, and I had to bail on it.  May this new one not suffer the same fate.
What else?  Well, there's two other debuts called Dilwale and Bajirao Mastani, which I better make links for, because I won't be able to find them later on.  These results will probably get changed at some point this week, and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo will make a brief reappearance.  Gotta run!!!

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