The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of: I Am Legend

I'm going to go with this format of reviewing movies for the time being. I like this concept when the fine folks over at Reality News Online use it to discuss a television episode so hopefully it will work for movie reviews.



The Good: 1. The first hour. It was a solid, tight hour, that introduced the world nicely and set up the character of Robert Neville. You can really get the sense of what it must be like to be the last person on Earth, how the simple act of going through a specific routine each day keeps insanity in check.

2. Will Smith. I'm not his biggest fan, but I really enjoyed his performance. He threw off his joking persona (I refuse to watch The Pursuit of Happyness, so I don't care what he did there) and really got to the heart of the character. He got the audience to feel empathy for the character and what he was going through.

The Bad: 1. The Last Half-Hour. What happened? It was such a great movie for 60 minutes then suddenly it all went to pot. It was almost as if the screenwriters ran out of ideas and just decided to end the film as quickly as possible. As beautifully paced the first hour was, the last 30 minutes were rushed and riciculous.

2. The mother and son. They're obviously supposed to play a major part in the film, but when they have less than 30 minutes of screentime, it's hard to feel a connection to them.

The Ugly: 1. The ending. !!Spoilers herein!! Uh....a cure? He spent the whole movie looking for a cure and all he needed was some ice cubes? And what was that about "It's in the blood."? It didn't appear to be in the blood before. He uses the same compound that killed the mutant before only with ice this time but yet it's in the blood?

2. The mutants. I liked the special effects. Though it looked as if they were going to go down some mutant adaptation route then didn't. And if you're going to have a great actor like Dash Mihok in the film...give the man a scene that's not fx'ed over.

3. The title. Call it something else. It's one of these adaptation that aside from the title and main character name, has nothing in common with the source material. Either a different title or an "inspired by" credit would have worked better than claiming it's a adaptation.

There you go.....my opinions of the film....let me know yours! Seriously....please....I'm happy to take comments.

Finally

Granted....almost nobody who reads this will understand it...but for my own satisfaction....

From Daymaker to Essence.....8 years 5 months 20 days....228 puzzles.....I'm all done with The Stone.

Legendary Box Office

Yep....it's a day later than when I said I'd post it. Christmas caught up with me and I had to get a ton of things done in preparation for the weekend....but I refuse to deny my (non-existent) regular readers the box office receipts.

Rank / Title / Weekend Gross / Total Gross

1 / I Am Legend / 76.5 / 76.5

2 / Alvin and the Chipmunks / 45.0 / 45.0

3 / The Golden Compass / 9.0 / 41.0

4 / Enchanted / 6.0 / 92.3

5 / No Country for Old Men / 3.0 / 33.6

6 / Perfect Holiday / 3.0 / 3.6

7 / Fred Claus / 2.3 / 69.0

8 / This Christmas / 2.3 / 46.0

9 / Atonement / 1.9 / 3.0

10 / August Rush / 1.8 / 28.1

I am Legend certainly performed up to expectations. I saw it over the weekend and hope to have a review of it up soon. This will guarantee many more holiday Will Smith films (summer and winter). Alvin! Ugh.....I can't in good faith see this movie. When a trailer for a film has to resort to a poop joke to get a laugh...it's not something I want to see. With $45 million though, I expect to hear that a sequel is being developed sooner rather than later. AIE! There goes The Golden Compass....down....down...down to the depths of failed films. New Line is going to take a hit on this one, though foreign BO is slightly better. I'm not going to hold my breath for the next film in the series. Not to much to say about the others....they made very little for the weekend...I think it shows the dearth of great holiday films this year that appeal to a wide audience. No Country for Old Men is a fantastic film.....but as I suspected...and as a friend of mine confirmed for me....audiences in the suburbs are hating the ending and spreading that word around. Good for Atonement though....it's only in 117 theaters and still beats out August Rush.

Century Mark

Hey Hey! I hit 100 people! Granted, most seem to stop by, realize this isn't what they want and leave immediately....but at least 100 people have stopped by in less than a month. Ego boost!



Box Office Roundup tomorrow......

Well......that's depressing

So I spent most of yesterday and today attending the wake and funeral of the father of a close friend of mine. Which got me thinking again, is it better for a loved one to go quickly or slowly? Quickly leaves no time to have a proper goodbye, while slowly does, but obviously it's worse for the loved one. This just might be one of those life questions that have no good answer. I'll probably be pensive now for the weekend.

See everyone on Monday with the Box Office roundup. For, as I learned the morning after my own father died, life keeps going on.

FDot

American (Well...International) Idiocy-- Chug-a-Lug Edition

Too bad.....he almost earned a Darwin Award.

Chug-a-Lug

Box Office Roundup

Kind of a meh week for Hollywood. Let's look though.

rank / title / weekend gross / total gross

1. / The Golden Compass / 26.1 / 26.1

2. / Enchanted/ 10.7 / 83.9

3. / This Christmas / 5.0 / 42.8

4. / Fred Claus / 4.7 / 42.8

5. / Beowulf / 4.4 / 76.0

6. / No Country for Old Men / 4.2 / 28.9

7. / August Rush / 3.5 / 25.1

8. / Hitman / 3.5 / 35.8

9. / Awake / 3.3 / 10.7

10. / Bee Movie / 2.6 / 121.0

Not so good when the number one movie makes only $26 million and numbers 2-5 together don't even equal that. Enchanted keeps a nice run going, it will probably hit $100 million. No Country for Old Men is still taking in small amounts of money. Hopefully, they'll expand or it will be one of those Oscar contenders that few people saw. Looking down the list: This Christmas did quite nicely. Fred Claus will go down as a disappointment. As will Beowulf. I don't think anyone expected August Rush to do any better than it has. I'm actually surprised Hitman made over $30 million, considering it's supposed to be awful. Awake is about where it should be. Bee Movie did quite nicely, probably will drop off the top ten next week when I am Legend opens.

Early B.O.

I'll get the whole shebang up in a day or two....but for now the compass points to:



This must stand for NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Only $26.1 million for a movie that cost $180 million to make. Ow! I hope overseas makes up the difference or I doubt we'll be seeing the two sequels anythime soon.

Finally---All Done Shopping

And a bit early too this year...more time for movies!

Bringing the Funny

I just got back from seeing Rita Rudner's standup act. I haven't laughed so hard and so long in quite some time. UGH! Why won't she come to New York more often? It's been almost 10 years since I've seen her last. I require more Rudner for 2008.

At least I have Kathy Griffin to look forward too in January.

Fool, I'm a Fool, I Say!

My God! Why did it take me so long to get around to watching Battlestar Galactica? I finally sat down and watched consumed the original miniseries today and completely geeked out for the entire running time. I will so completely race through the rest of the episodes to get ready for the new season. Yay new obsession! And a huge thanks to JA of the fantastic blog My New Plaid Pants (a daily read for me) for providing the last little push I needed to get myself watching this show!

Grah!

It's been a rather frustrating night for me, I won't bore with the details....but I need something to make me feel better....



Ah...Bret Harrison...nerves calming....knees weakening....going to happy place.

Me, Glorious Me!

I guess the time has come to say a little bit more about myself...

I actually recently saw my birth certificate again, so I can state with accuracy that I was born on Monday, April 30th, 1973 at 10:27am at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan. Shortly thereafter, I was adopted and shuttled 35 minutes north to beautiful Mamaroneck where I've been ever since. Yes this does mean I live at home still, and yes, I know I'm 34..... let's just say there were some family issues that led to this decision and it really couldn't have played out any differently. However, I am now on the lookout for an apartment, hopefully somewhere in NYC.

Upbringing was quite normal, nothing too salacious to report. I worked for 14 years at Blockbuster Video as I went through college, master's degree and even a few years of full time work. Technically, I'm a Special Education teacher, but there was a snafu at my last job, so I'm currently working for a tutoring agency while searching for another position.

I spend most of my time devouring pop culture. If it can be watched, read or listened to, I'm all for it. Movies are my number one passion. I see at least 250-300 a year. It's nice being near NYC since there are so many screenings to go to :)

The only thing I lack right now is a boyfriend. Life has seen to it that I have remained involuntary single for an exceptionally long time. It's something I'd like to remedy soon, really soon. I consider myself a nice, decent guy; it's gets irritating after a while not having anybody truly close to share thing with.....and I'm going to stop there before this turns into a pity fest.

I'm still not entirely sure what direction this blog will take; I'm certainly open to suggestions as to what people would like to see here. My MySpace and Facebook links are finally up so feel free to become a friend, I'm always looking for more.

Posting again soon,

FDot

I Have B.O.!

Box Office that is. Boring week, but let's see how Hollywood fared.

Rank/ Title / Weekend Gross / Total Gross

1/ Enchanted / 17.0 / 70.6

2/ This Christmas / 8.4 / 36.9

3/ Beowulf / 7.9 / 68.6

4/ Awake / 6.0 / 6.0

5/ Hitman / 5.8 / 30.2

6/ Fred Claus / 5.6 / 59.8

7/ August Rush / 5.2 / 20.4

8/ No Country For Old Men / 4.5 / 23.0

9/ Bee Movie / 4.5 / 117.6

10/ American Gangster / 4.3 / 121.7

It looks like The Mist has dropped out of the top ten, chalk that one to being a bomb. Enchanted holds onto the top spot for the second week in a row, certifying Amy Adams as a new star (go watch Junebug!). Otherwise, the rest of the box office looks meh. Everything else is under 10 mil for the weekend. Beowulf turned out to be a disappointment, the only bright spot there is that the 3d screenings sold well compared to the regular screenings, so hopefully theaters will install more 3d projectors for when films with better scripts get released in that format. Awake managed to open in 4th place, but with only a 6 mil take, that's not saying much. Jessica Alba better find a hit quick, or we might not be seeing much more of her. Fred Claus also turned out to be a disappointment, I remember advertising for that film last Christmas. No Country for Old Men is holding on nicely, hopefully it will expand a bit further, as this film is almost a lock for major award nominations come next month (commence salivation over awards season). Bee Movie and American Gangster look like they're wrapping up their runs, respectable numbers for them, but I bet the studios were hoping for a little more.

As to next week, I'm not expecting Atonement to shake things up, it's coming in too quietly. The Golden Compass should fare better, but the short running time (1:54), and the ok but not great early reviews coming in might keep it from exploding at the box office.

Tonight's the Night......

8:00pm Lincoln Center

Saturday, December 1st--World Aids Day

World Aids Day

Make it stop!

My God!

I have a rather nascent MySpace page, only a couple of friends at this point. Hopefully, I'll get a link up to it on this page soon enough, Pretty much every single day now, I have to spend time clearing off spam. I don't know what happened, what page I visited or clicked on, but I get at least 2-3 messages and 10 friend requests a day from what are obviously spam profiles (read: trying to direct me to porn). Does anyone have a clue how to stop it? I can keep hitting the mark as spam button, but I'd rather just not have these requests show up at all. Naturally, all the requests come with a picture of a scantily clad woman attached to them, so I know it's not somebody who knows me. Not that a picture of a guy in boxers would exactly get me to click add, but it would be nice for once.

Anyone know how to curtail the spam?

American Idiocy-- Frank Said Edition

I once put serious thought into creating a reality show around this concept. I would travel the country finding examples of people doing idiotic things, but I wondered if it would come across as mean spirited. I still haven't given up total hope on it thought....but until then, enjoy this story on yet another person who can't understand why people won't accept bills of imaginary amounts. I especially love how the AP writer ended nearly every paragraph with "Frank said"; I guess he was the man to talk to.



Frank said

Dancing with the Stars

Ok.....so I'm not unhappy with Helio winning. He was a good dancer and he had quite the winning smile, but after 5 seasons, this should be about voting for the dancer as much as for the celebrity. So really.....



Would it kill America to vote Maksim the trophy just once? At least he's made it to the finals the past two times so I have something to look forward to every week. Ah well, there's always season 6.......

6 days to Salo!

A one and a two.....

The Vault of Forgotten Movies

Due to my all consuming love of movies, (and I mean all consuming, I have 2 fishbowls full of all my movie stubs dating back to Working Girl, which is the first film I started saving stubs on) I feel it is my duty to share with (checking StatCounter.......) the 8 of you who have checked in so far and hopefully more people soon, some films that may have escaped general notice. For your entertainment, I will raise these films from the depths of obscurity and give them their brief shining moment on a blog that nearly nobody reads yet. They may range from films of actual quality to the bottom scrapers I usually fill my time with. If I can get at least one person to watch one of the films I'll mention in this series, my job will be a success! Let's start with one of my favorite bottom feeders.......

Girlfriend from Hell




The Devil is a woman! She is on the run and being pursued by God's "chaser", (who is an ex-lover coincidently). The chase drops her in the lap of an ongoing birthday party where shy Maggie is on a blind date with equally shy David. As the Devil inhabits Maggie's body the fun starts. First she proves that there is no one that she cannot offend, most especially her girlfriends when she takes their boyfriends upstairs for some killer sex. As the bodies pile up the chaser arrives. The plot reveals that the devil is pissed because she is jealous of her boyfriends over-enthusiastic flirting. Every woman in the film wants to pound our chaser into pulp as his obnoxiousness escalates. Also not to be messed with are the crop of Nuns with rocket launchers and semi-automatic weaponry. Quick trips in and out of deep space, bodies in the bathtub, and restaurants where the food attack the patrons. A must see, must rent, and must own for every happy couple. (From imdb.com, I even fixed up all the spelling errors and missing words there were!.)

That's a decent enough description, but this film is quite the fun 90 minutes. It falls into that so bad, it's actually kind of good as long as I don't have to think about it too much catagory. The first hour is fun enough, but then it takes quite a loony turn for the final 30 minutes. Plus it has Dana Ashbrook for all my fellow Twin Peaks fans! and Brad Zutaut who was in......well....he was in some other stuff....but I really never heard of those films (even I have some standards), except for Back to School, but I don't remember him in that, so really...Dana Ashbrook! Lack of names aside, it is a goofy way to kick back and enjoy some brain dead time. I believe some copies of it are still floating around somewhere, only on VHS though.

If you have any Vault films that you are passionate about, I'm happy to take suggestions and write them up in future installments.

And do let me know if you've actually seen Girlfriend from Hell, I'd like to know I'm not the only crazy out here.

7 days to Salo!

Woo Hoo! One of my fav's is being shown in NYC next Monday! Salo or 120 Days of Sodom. (Feel free to speculate what this says about me that it's one of my favorites.) It's at Lincoln Center Sunday 12/2 4:00pm and Monday 12/3 8:00pm. I'll be at the Monday night show myself. It will be easy to spot me since I'll be the one laughing at all the icky stuff.

I Have B.O.!

Box Office that is. Let's see how Hollywood fared this past week.

Rank / Title / Weekend Gross(in mil) / Total Gross(in mil)

1. / Enchanted / 35.30 / 50.0

2. / This Christmas / 18.6 / 27.1

3. / Beowulf / 16.2 / 56.4

4. / Hitman / 13.0 / 21.0

5. / Bee Movie / 12.0 / 112.1

6. / Fred Claus / 10.7 / 53.1

7. / August Rush / 9.4 / 13.3

8. / American Gangster / 9.2 / 115.8

9. / The Mist / 9.1 / 13.0

10. / No Country for Old Men/ 8.1 / 16.6

Thoughts: Well, I'm not too surprised with the showing from Enchanted. Decent reviews, and with the Disney brand, it was bound to do a bang-up job over Thanksgiving. I'm a little wowed by the showing from This Christmas. It wasn't even on my radar two weeks ago and looked like it was kind of dumped in theaters, so good for the little film! Hitman's take is expected; I imagine next week it will see a huge dropoff as all the video game fans have seen it. The biggest shock I see this week is The Mist. A good pedigree and good to excellent reviews and all it can do is scare (yes, a pun) up $13mil over 5 days? I doubt this will hurt Frank Darabont's career, but this might put a hold on big budget horror films for a while. It couldn't even beat out American Gangster, which has been out for a month. I hope No Country for Old Men continues to drum up business, it really is a terrific film, and one I expect to rack up a number of nomination come Oscar time.

Feel free to respond with your own opinions on this week's Box Office Take. Am I right? Wrong? I love talking movies!

Don't forget something to drink!

Wow. I rememeber seeing this only once, and its stayed with me forever.

Starting the day the right way....with Timer

As this is the start of the blog.....what better way to begin than with the most important meal of the day.....steak and luncheon meats!

Creeping in

Hello All!

It appears that I am about 2 years late to the blog party, but I never let being late to anything stop me before. (Except movies, if I'm late to a movie, I refuse to go in.)

I'm still working out ideas in my mind about what shape (of a falcon) and form (of an ice cage) this blog will take; I'm guessing that the Wonder Twins reference might give some people an idea of where my mind is, as future posts will too.

As my main interests lie in pop culture, I can reasonably assure you that you will see many, many posts devoted to that topic.

As for myself? I'll reveal exceptionally boring nuggets about me as time goes on.

Please feel free to comment or e-mail as you see fit. I'm happy to respond to ideas, thoughts and incorrect criticism.

And away we go.......