Prepping For Cannes

God, this makes my head hurt.

I guess it would be more fun to shoot from the hip if it wasn’t so damned expensive. But I am beginning to count up the friendlies who are able to offer me suggestions. And I finally got to dig into the press package of utterly unfamiliar publicists (and a couple very familiar ones) today. So at least it feels like I am getting stabilized. Even ordered a sim card for the cracked iPhone 4. And because I’ve heard that some people like to complain, I’m bringing my own mi-fi!

After Cannes, it’s Seattle, then LAFF, then Edinburgh. Full summer.

Hoping for a joyous experience… though I have a bad feeling that I’ll hear a lot of, “We’ll get it done in L.A.”

Weekend Estimates by The Klady 200

I’m camping… yes, with a tent. So did anything happen this weekend?

The Avengers number is a $30m or so (wait for finals) leap over last year’s record-breaker, Potter 7b, which passed by The Dark Knight by $11m. A new record can’t be far off. But no doubt, the Marvel strategy of seeding a group movie has worked. And no doubt, Joss Whedon helped keep things upbeat, positive, and moving forward… even behind making the film, because as you all know, opening weekend has nothing to do with the quality of a movie.

I don’t know whether this opening record will be broken this summer, next summer, or in 2014 , but. I think it’s a safe bet that the Dark Knight record will be broken again this summer. And it will be interesting to see if all the Avatar box office whiners will point out the 3D, IMAX, etc on this weekend’s record. My guess is that it will be more like the Republicans discussing the Bush era. All politics are local.

I’ll be going back to nature now…

Friday Estimates by Midnight?! Klady

So it’s pretty much impossible to determine what the 3-day on Avengers will end up being. As some of you will notice, Klady is about $3m lower than studio estimates on Friday already. The weekend number will likely be high from the studio, but remarkable nonethelesss. There is no diminishing an opening like this and not being #1 or even #2 should not be seen as a negative in any way. On the other hand, there is time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done. Is it $900m, $1b, or $1.2b? No one knows. And it doesn’t, as we have seen before, define the quality of a film… especially with an opening like this.

Did anything else open?

Missing Posts

I don’t know what the heck is going on… our techs are trying to figure it out. But yes, some of the posts are disappearing from the blog page. They aren’t going away or being erased… they just aren’t showing up. No idea why.

I appreciate your patience on this.

BYOB Unite!

I continue increase my Twitter life at the expense of blog entries. Sorry. But if you’re looking for me, it’s a good place to look.

Sheer Avengers Genius

hat tip to Gothamist

Beating Critics To Death

179 comments on my brief, but pretty clear Avengers review here – still Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes – and the disrespect of opinions about the film is now spreading to many other quarters, most notably, to AO Scott’s home, where Samuel L. Jackson doesn’t want no muthafuckin’ critics thinking too hard about his muthafuckin’ movie. I don’t think he actually called for Scott to be fired over this review, but he did suggest that fans should give him serious what for. (Scott reports on Twitter that his son worried, “Mace Windu wants to take the food from our table!”)

The easy response is to blame it on the fanboys, portraying them as mouthbreathers. But I noticed this in the Hollywood Reporter, “The critic is largely isolated in his negative viewpoint; the film has thus far earned a sterling 93 percent fresh rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.”

Oh, wait. Professional journalists can ratchet things up without thinking for a damned second too!

As I noted to a Twitter commenter, all but a handful of critics listed by Rotten Tomatoes choose “Fresh” or “Rotten,” themselves. And for me, I have to say, I have to feel strongly that people should avoid a movie in order to give any movie a “Rotten.” Why? Because I am not a prick. With just two choices, you are saying to a broad audience, yes or no. And whether it’s Rotten Tomatoes or guesting on Ebert’s old show, the bar is only clear in a minority of films. Most films are either well-made and just don’t quite cut it or not so well-made but have something special about them or are “just ok” or something in that range.

The Avengers is good… for what it is. As a result, even though I don’t think it’s as good a movie as it could have been, I can’t say, “Rotten.” It’s not rotten. It’s just not very nourishing.

And if you look at Metacritic, which is also problematic, they at least try to set a number to match the overall sense of where a critic is. Avengers currently has a “70,” not a “93.” And with AO Scott’s review listed as a “40,” which I think is too low, maybe that overall number should be a “75.”

That, having read a lot of the reviews, is about where I think Avengers really is with critics. It’s still probably better than all but a couple of comic-book movies. Nothing embarrassing about it. Still in the Top 5 of current releases… Top 3 of non-cartoons… higher than Hunger Games.

Where do they see the Ebert review? 75. Yeah. About there. Fits his review. Pleasant tone kept it from being a 65.

Metacritic starts “mixed” at 60%. If I saw at movie as being at 60%, it would be Rotten on RT to me.

In any case, Sam Jackson has been tricked by RT. So has the Hollywood Reporter. So are a lot of people who want to be believers.

So I put it to you – and I have taken IO/JSP off moderation, hoping he can be a strong, civil voice on this issue – are we shorthanding ourselves into utter stupidity?

Super Duper SEO Hot Trailer: The Amazing Spider-Man (Trailer 2)

Dark Shadow Art… It’s A Patrick Nagel Homage, Right?

20 Weeks: The Summer Box Office Guesses as of May 2

It occurs to me that this annual ritual is a bit of a suicide run. After all, I haven’t seen or seen marketing for many of these films. And the reality is, as always, that when you get into the big numbers, no one really knows until detail from here and abroad starts coming in. And even then, the end result tends to be elusive.

Here’s last summer’s first chart. I feel pretty good about all but 3 pieces of it. I way underestimated the two Marvel-made Marvel movies. And I way overestimated Super 8. Thor and Captain America outproduced my expectations domestically, but it was really the foreign that killed me. I also guessed at double the gross that Cowboys & Aliens managed, though I seem to remember being told, often, that I was way low on that film… so I don’t feel so bad about it.

And ironically, I was closest to the worldwide gross of The Hangover: Part II… within $1.5m. Sorry to be so far off, Todd.

This summer, there is a lot of big, muscular product, including a troika of superhero movies. I’m only looking at one billion dollar film… but I could easily be wrong on that count. There could well be three… or even four.

There are also plenty of smaller films that could break out much bigger simply by being crowd pleasers. Mamma Mia! did 2.5x my estimate internationally. So is Tom Cruise singing really exciting? Or is this a more muscular and international Hairspray? Ted smells like a sleeper… but we’ve seen this kind of humor draw a very narrow audience in the past. Will Neighborhood Watch turn out to be the quiet revisitation of Ghostbusters? And could the Twilight draw connect on Snow White & The Huntsman in a big way?

Time will tell…

Welcome To A New Medium: Direct-To-YouTube Movies (Oy!)

Has Anyone Seen This Before?

Avengers is tracking through the roof… but they are still giving away one of the strongest action sequences online. Huh?

Is it just habitual now? Are they going to show us the movie before we get there and then make us pay to get out?

Review-ish: The Avengers

It’s mighty… mediocre.

There isn’t anything BAD about the film. On the flip side, the only thing I took away as remotely memorable was Joss Whedon’s rendition of The Hulk.

Downey does his Iron schtick. Thor is a little looser, but still a bit of a stiff. Sam Jackson has never really been this uninteresting. Paltrow, in brief appearances, is better as the cat who has already eaten the canary. And the earth-bound Avengers, Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye are really stranded through much of the film, victims of bringing dull knives to a CG gun fight.

The opening sequence with Natasha Romanoff is meant to be edgy and dark and non-CG-surprising in a heavily CG movie, but we’ve seen this scene literally hundreds of times, 95% of the time shot better. Of course, the fantasy of it being Scarlett Johansson letting herself being smacked around before giving it back 10x harder… well, I guess that is a geek orgasm. (I prefer thinking it was just spilled Coke on the floor.)

But hey… it was fine. Whedon remains a much better writer than a director, though this film has endless passages of talking that seem to do nothing but fill the running time with the cheap content of actors talking on a set. And I have no idea what Marvel obsession there is with massive ships that fly over cities and have little value to the story until the countdown to a crash begins. But, whatever.

For me, the ONLY thing I feel any compulsion to see again in this film is Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner and, again, Whedon’s take on The Hulk… basically the take that this comic book loving kid felt was the most natural I’ve seen on film. Perhaps it was only a real option because The Hulk was not counted on to move the story, but I would happily pay to see Whedon’s Hulk movie with Ruffalo. The understanding of power and rage and intellect really, really works.

On the other hand, the adversaries in this film really, really suck. It’s petty motivation and not well defined and in the end, it’s another endless storm of faceless, characterless machines (or whatever the hell they were) wreaking havoc.

It was fun to recognize Powers Booth and Jenny Agutter in little roles. It was fun to see director Jerzy Skolimowski (here in a DP/30) hamming it up. It was amusing to see Cobie Smulders in Sue Richards’ uniform from Fantastic Four, her primary superpower seemingly the ability to stay incredibly skinny. And honestly, the great Harry Dean Stanton turning up was a little painful. He didn’t seem well.

All that said… it was okay. It’s probably the best of the Marvel-made Marvel movies, though I prefer Captain America up until the very end (which, after messing up that ending, is not really in this film as it is in CA, as I recall it) and I get why Iron Man is so beloved, even if I was turned off by some bad directing and the shocking lack of a character arc. But Whedon does deliver the Marvel Universe and it feels fresh enough.

Very much defining this movie is the Captain America character, who remains strong and focused in spite of mocking by Stark… Evans is really quite good in the role. But… so what? In the end, this is a movie about the mechanics. Cool suit, cool hammer, big green. Lots of stuff to break. I’d be interested in the Xavier/Magneto relationship of ideas between Stark and Rogers… but there is only time to glimpse it here. I’d be interested in S.H.I.E.L.D. as a player… but only a glimpse of it here. Johnasson is actually quite good in her role… but it is just not that much of a role.

The only thing that stuck, for me, was Hulk. And really, because it was the first time we’ve seen a CG Hulk that had a little joy to him. And Ruffalo is a great brooder, so getting into the levels of emotion around that character, with Whedon writing, could be a joy. Meanwhile, the pure pleasure of id displayed here is very quick to stick.

The one other action sequence that should have been great was not because the motivations made no sense…. when Iron Man and Thor go at it.

So I’m not calling out everyone giving it a pass. Some of the enthusiasm seems a little ratcheted up by all the hype and the Whedon lust (welcome to his first hit movie), but I’d have to go red on the Tomato rating too. It’s fine. It is what it appears to be.

I just wish it was actually a really good, memorable summer Movie Movie. And it’s not. It doesn’t suck, but it’s not One Of Those.

In the world of mega-movies, we have five more shots this summer. Battleship, Men in Black 3, Prometheus, Amazing Spidey, and TDKR. If 2 of them are great Movie Movies, I will be very, very happy.

Weekend Estimates by Len

Friday Estimates by 2x Da Man Klady