The Movie Bar 4.0
6Jul/090

I Was Wrong

Ice Age 3D was good enough to tie Transformers 3 with a $42,500,000 weekend and a $67,506,000 five day take. Nothing spectacular, however it was a ridiculous drop for Transformers 3, demolishing any chances it may have had to be this summer's Dark Knight. My big surprise for the weekend box office was Public Enemies pulling $26,172,000 over the weekend and $41,044,000 over 5 days. I don't expect to see those numbers continue because word-of-mouth is saying "okay, but boring and too long."

Box Office Report for July 4th Weekend:

  1. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs $42.5M
  2. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen $42.5M
  3. Public Enemies $26.1M
  4. The Proposal $12.7M
  5. The Hangover $10.4M
  6. Up $6.5M
  7. My Sister's Keeper $5.2M
  8. The Taking of Pelham 123 $2.5M
  9. Year One $2.1M
  10. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian $2.1M

Out this weekend:

If I had to make a pick of the week, I'd say the mockumentary Humpday looks semi-promising, as it's hard not to make a good comedy about porno. As for top of the Box Office, I'll roll with Bruno.

1Jul/097

First Episode of “The Cleveland Show” Leaked

A quick look at the usual places reveals that the pilot of The Cleveland Show, the upcoming spinoff of Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy, has leaked and is available for download. Fox has a really good preview of the show on Youtube:

This actually looks funny, thank god. As big of a fan of Family Guy as I am you cannot call me a Seth MacFarlane fanboy at all, because American Dad and the Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy are mildly funny at best.

30Jun/090

The Eastbound and Down DVD Set

This is not really a review per se, however if I were to give the "set" a score, it would be as follows:

Content: 4.5/5 Beers - If there is any justice at all, Danny McBride will forever be remembered fondly as Kenny Fuckin' Powers by a large and devoted fanbase. There are only 6 episodes, but aside from a few slow spots it's pure raunch at it's best. Scene stealing cameos by Will Ferrell and Craig Robinson and a great deal of hilarious outtakes and deleted scenes make the whole thing that much better.

The actual set itself: 1/5 Beers - No blu-ray release? Come on HBO, you should be ashamed. Also, the packaging is just plain terrible. The flimsy cardboard slip cover is a bit smaller than the awkward, cheaply made plastic case, and the cover artwork is just plain awful. I am well aware of how geeky it is to harp on the packaging details, but as a collector if it weren't for the content, this wouldn't go anywhere near my collection.

So I guess this was a review. If you haven't seen the show and you have any type of appreciation for low brow humor whatsoever, then you will not be disappointed. Spread the word. It would be a shame if this went the way of Lucky Louie.

Eastbound and Down Season 1 DVD Cover Art

Eastbound and Down Season 1 DVD Cover Art

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30Jun/093

Funny MPAA Rating Explanations, Vol. 1

Rarely do people read the fine print in the rating box, however a close examination will reveal exactly why the MPAA decided to give a movie a particular rating:

The R-rating for "Hatchet" is for some juicy stuff

The R-rating for "Hatchet" is for some juicy stuff

So the MPAA keeps a searchable online database of movie ratings, complete with explanations and alternate titles. Needless to say, this is a source of a great deal of unintentional humor. Here are some that I found that gave me a good chuckle, usually at the expense of maturity. Some are better than others:

  • Twister (1996) - Rated PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather.
  • 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up (1995) - Rated PG-13 for non-stop ninja action.
  • Bog (2005) - Rated PG for monster action and language.
  • Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (2005) - Rated PG for quirky situations, action and mild language.
  • Tokyo Decadence (1993) - Rated NC-17 for strong, explicit, sado-masochistic sexuality.
  • Team America: World Police (2004) - Rated R for graphic crude and sexual humor, violent images and strong language - all involving puppets.
  • Braveheart (1995) - Rated R for brutal medieval warfare.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1992) - Rated PG for swashbuckling violence and mild language.
  • The Viking Sagas (1995) - Rated R for brutal and bloody Viking combat, and for some sexuality.
  • The Littlest Viking (1994) - Rated PG for Viking combat.
  • Shark (2000) - Rated PG-13 for shark-related violence.
  • Teenage Space Vampires (1999) - Rated PG for mild alien vampire violence.
  • Ghost Brigade (1993) - Rated R for satanic war violence.

The best are those that not even a copywriter could have done better. Like Ghost Brigade's "satanic war violence." I am going to actively seek this movie out now. It's not just war violence. It's satanic war violence. That has got to be a whole new level of war violence.

If you find any that are really funny, let me know and I will make a volume 2.

UPDATE: Ghost Brigade is also known as The Lost Brigade, The Killing Box, and most importantly Grey Knight, which it is known as on Netflix where it available for instant streaming. It stars the can't-miss-trio of Corbin Bernsen, Martin Sheen and Billy Bob Thornton. Why have I never heard of this? Satanic war violence and B.B.T.? How can this not be the greatest movie ever made?

29Jun/090

Eastbound & Down Season 1 on DVD Tomorrow

Are you buying it? If not, you damn well should be (despite the lack of blu ray love from HBO.)

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29Jun/090

Good LORD That’s a Lot of Money!

So now that Transformers 2 has made $201,246,000, where is all of the "will it beat Titanic" talk? What about the "does it deserve a best picture nomination" bullshit? Hell, I haven't even seen it get props for spanking X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Terminator Salvation's totals in it's first five days.

Oh that's right, Megatron didn't off himself.

For the record (just in case all of that record breaking madness starts up when it makes another $100 million this week,) it's not going to touch Titantic. The new Harry Potter is coming July 15th and crashing that party.

Out this week:

I don't think Ice Age has the muscle to dethrone Transformers, but it'll definitely rake in some dough. Public Enemies is the one I want to see more than anything. Lion's Den looks to be the best of the bunch for the limited releases.

26Jun/090

Dude…

First things first, this new theme kicks the ever loving crap out of the last one. I makes me actually WANT to blog.

Second, Now playing on The Bar:

I have avoided Fancast simply because it was a Comcast product, but damn if they didn't get it right this time.

Oh yeah, BTW, the old site got nuked. It was an accident, but it was going to happen anyway so... fuck it. The database is good though, so if anybody wants to see a an old review/post/whatever I'll be more than happy to retrieve it.

25Jun/090

Oscars to Have 10 Choices in Best Pic Category

From the announcement on Oscars.org:

"The 82nd Academy Awards, which will be presented on March 7, 2010, will have 10 feature films vying in the Best Picture category, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis announced today (June 24) at a press conference in Beverly Hills.

'After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of the year,' said Ganis. 'The final outcome, of course, will be the same – one Best Picture winner – but the race to the finish line will feature 10, not just five, great movies from 2009.'"

I don't like it.

This is going to crush any chance of films like Crash or Slumdog Millionaire have of winning the award for a long time. The problem is exposure. Check this out:

1. Last Five Best Pics and Their Worldwide Box Office Numbers:

  • Slumdog Millionaire - $359,247,749
  • No Country for Old Men - $162,113,329
  • The Departed - $289,847,354
  • Crash - $98,410,061
  • Million Dollar Baby - $216,763,646

Total: $1,126,382,139

2. Highest Grossing Movies for the Last Five Years (numbers are for the Worldwide take)

  • The Dark Knight - $1,001,921,825
  • Spider-Man 3 - $890,871,626
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - $1,066,179,725
  • Star Wars Ep. III - $848,754,768
  • Shrek 2 - $919,838,758

Total: $4,727,566,702 (numbers from boxofficemojo.com)

The highest grossing movies for the last 5 years have made 4 times as much as the Best Picture winners. Hell, Pirates alone was just shy of the total mark of all 5 movies. This is an obvious attempt to include more popular films a part of the marquee category, and then in turn get a boost in the ratings. But take 2007's Crash as an example. You add five more films to the pool that year, it doesn't get enough votes to pull the upset over Brokeback Mountain.

I'm just saying, you start putting bullshit comic book movies in a category that pretty much guarantees a film immortality, it fucks the whole thing up. I saw Frost/Nixon because it was nominated for Best Picture. Add five more nominees, I probably overlook it.

It also takes away my ability to bitch about snubs (American Gangster, Wall-E.) THAT is what I am really pissed about.

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25Jun/090

Been a Minute…

I should really start blogging more often. I came across the aboslutely hilarious blog "Stuff White People Like," and dude got a book deal (a book that spent some time on the NY Time Bestseller list nonetheless) because of the thing.

Now to find a gimmick. I am all about the Blacula thing still, however I suffer from this disease known as Lazy, and the proposed project also would leave me susceptible to a severe case of Copyright Infringement, so I dunno.

Note: Fancast lets you stream Blacula, so you should go watch it and declare it the greatest film of all time.

19Mar/090

Blacula in Rudimentary 3D

Get yourself a pair of the red and blue 3D glasses to check this one out. I used a paper pair I picked up at a Wawa they were using to promote Monsters and Aliens during the Super Bowl.

blacula_1-3d_test

Not really much of an accomplishment, but it works. John and I were fucking around with settings trying to get it to look a little better, but adding the darker background really made it jump out. The afro'd silhouette was a corny attempt at giving it the Blaxploitation feel. It didn't work too well. Ah well, it's a test.

One thing is for certain, creating the red/blue 3D (technical term is "anaglyph" in case you were wondering) is for the birds. My eyes are ready to mutiny. The next goal is to find a way to use the 3D glasses I got with "My Bloody Valentine 3D" (technical term: hell if I know.)

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