I went yesterday. A halfway decent action flick, but nothing to write home about.
Normally there is at least one trailer that gets my interest, but yesterday there wasn't one.
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We all knew that the locks would be:
Hunger Games 2
Frozen
Thor 2
Hobbitt 2
5th one could come down to the wire. I am seeing Wolf tonight and if the audience reviews are anything to go by this movie is apparently a 3 hour adult movie directed by Scorsese. I think that keeps it from doing really big numbers. That and its 3 hour run time. I don't think Lone Survivor releases wide until January but if the 5th movie is hovering around 95-100 million it may have a chance.
Saw it Friday and it is simply spectacular. Best movie by far.
I loved Nebraska, of course, but Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper blow the roof off the joint.
All the acting, every part is sterling silver quality.
RUN to see it!
You called it. American Hustle is really the only spoiler left in the mix. Updated numbers for our contest can be found here:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/seasona...season=Holiday
In three weeks of release (one week limited and two weeks wide), it's at #9 with $60 million, but should reach #6 sometime next week. Anchorman 2 is at #5 with $83 million. But only one of those 2 films is expected to get an Oscar bump.
Box Office Mojo is trying to compare American Hustle to Silver Linings Playbook, but that film had a weird trajectory. It opened in November 2012, had only $68 million by the end of January, but ended up with $132 million when it finally closed... in June. A lofty comparison might be Lincoln, which made $62 million in the same amount of time as American Hustle, but had $167 million in late January and ended up with $182 million. A grounded comparison is Life of Pi, which made $60 million in 3 weeks, $103 million by January's end, and $124 million total. Split the difference and you see a final box office of about $150 million. Which raises two questions:
1. Can Anchorman 2 make $150 million?
2. Will American Hustle make enough of that $150 million by the end of January, the informal cutoff date of this contest?
Actually, the voting above reveals 3 locks (Thor, Catching Fire, and Desolation of Smaug) and 3 very strong contenders. Though I think Ender's Game was heavily influenced by timing, it came out and led the box office right around the time the poll closed. That or we have too many science fiction fans in the voting pool.
Don't want to get into PPP territory, but I wonder if the strong reaction to Scott Card's politics may have had a significant impact on the box office for Ender's Game? There was a boycott ... could that have contributed to the film's disappointing performance?
Nah, boycotts don't work.
Seriously, though, while I'm vaguely aware of the controversy, I didn't even know there was a boycott. I think the film failed on its own merits. Harrison Ford is no longer a draw, and Asa Butterfield is the picture of blandness. Even if everyone who read the book saw the movie, it wouldn't be a hit. It needed strong marketing or stellar reviews to draw in a general audience. It got neither.
Besides, a futuristic film about using kids for battle can only have limited appeal.*
*Unless it has a huge current Young Adult following and Jennifer Lawrence.
As others have identified, it is coming down to American Hustle versus Anchorman 2 for the 5th spot in our contest. The other 4 are locked in place (all 4 of them have over $200 mil in total boxoffice -- very impressive for winter films).
Many of us had the quad-pick of Catching Fire, Thor, Hobbit, and Frozen in our top 5. Several (including me) also have Anchorman 2. But Cato is the lone person to pick American Hustle. Props to Cato for seeing that film's success well in advance of its release.
At the moment, Anchorman 2 leads American Hustle by $95.5 mil to $72.9 mil, a gap of around $32 million. Over the weekend, Anch2 beat American Hustle by half a million (20.5 - 19.6) but Hustle appears to be showing a bit more staying power during the week. On Tuesday, American Hustle made $5.4 mil while Anch2 made $4.9 mil. It also seems likely that Hustle, as an Oscar front-runner, will get a nice award bump throughout January while Anchorman is likely to fade, especially once kids go back to school over the next couple weeks.
If I had to guess, I would say that around the end of January, we will see Hustle top Anchorman, but is likely to be very close. I'll update periodically with the gap between the two films.
-Jason "$23 mil is a big gap to make up considering Anchorman2 is still doing strong business in theaters" Evans
Mrs. 1995 and I saw American Hustle over the holiday and we were not impressed. Mrs. 1995 hated it. I merely disliked it. Adams and Bale were good (Adams in particular), but the movie dragged something terrible. The plot was, while loosely based on Abscam, ludicrous, and basically every part save Adams and Bale were cardboard cutouts of any character you'd find in a mob/corruption drama based in NY/NJ in the 1970s. Cooper was overacting something terrible, I thought, and the movie just made me more sure I don't like him at all as an actor. The script didn't even bother with subtlety as to some of the underlying plot themes -- Carmine Polito is a good man! Corruption might benefit more than the corrupt! Irving's wife is crazy, a wild card and likely to say anything! In case you can't tell Irving is conflicted about Carmine, here's another close up of his pained facial expressions! The stress might kill him -- see Heart Pills! It's kind of inconceivable that you could make the 70s, corruption and a con game boring, but boy did they do it.
I know Hustle is a critical darling, but as many people who have seen the film that I've talked to share the opinion of Mrs. 1995 and I. Either they loved it or they were bored to tears by it and thought it was pretty bad. It's probably a 60/40 split among people I know between positive and negative. I know that it's about 99.5-.5 among critics. Interesting, I guess.
I don't typically have views on movies that lie too far outside the norm, but I couldn't stand American Hustle. I know I'm in the minority here, but it completely blows my mind that this film is so well received. I stopped watching halfway through (somewhere around the casino scene). Only one or two of the group I was with even made it through the whole movie. Perhaps I went in with too high of expectations?
Edit: Just read Chicago 1995's post... glad I'm not the only one.
Saw Wolf of Wall Street....and it's my favorite movie of the year. It was 3 hours long, and I wanted it to last even longer. Excellent acting by pretty much everyone. It's a shame that DiCaprio won't win Best Actor (because the guy from 12 Years a Slave will), because he deserves it. They both do, really - but I thought DiCaprio was better.
If you can find the time, go see this movie. You will not be disappointed.
I actually know a pretty fair number of people who were disappointed in it. The movie got a very poor C rating from Cinemascore, which means a lot of people who saw it were turned off. Many have described it as "rich person porn" because there is a lot of sex and drugs in the film without really advancing the story much.
Personally, I thought there were things to love about it and things to not really like very much. It was wonderfully acted and has some great humor but I thought it did go on and on and on with the same thing happening over and over again (sex, drugs, make a great sales speech and then do it all over again). I was also bothered by the utter lack of any moral compass for the film as the main characters never show any remorse and we never see the impact of their crimes on the victims. These guys sold hundreds of millions of dollars of essentially worthless stocks -- in some cases wiping out the savings of hard-working middle-class American families -- and we never see them have to deal with how they hurt people.
Bottom line -- it is not going to win awards because it is not as good a film as some of the other top pictures of the year. And it is ridiculously over-long. Heck, everything is over-long this season. American Hustle should have been 15 minutes shorter, WWStreet should have been 30 minutes shorter, and Hobbit should have been 45 minutes shorter. Sigh...
-Jason "my wife hated WWStreet and I am yet to meet a woman who said she really liked it" Evans
JE - I agree there's no impact of the actions of the stock sellers, but I think that was the point. These guys are like gangsters - only they make millions and don't end up in a pool of blood after some gunfight.
I can also see why women wouldn't like it much.
But I still found it profoundly impactful. The scene with him trying to take his daughter showed what kind of a person this was. And yet the movie had long stretches of incredible humor. As NashvilleDevil said it also has the funniest scene of the year (by far) with Leonardo at the country club.
As for the length, I was enjoying it so much I didn't want it to end. I cannot say that about The Desolation of Smaug, or Anchorman 2, or even American Hustle and 12 Years a Slave.
Don't you mean two movies shorter?
Anyway, I think people who voluntarily go see a Peter Jackson film forfeit the right to complain about its length. By now they should know what they're getting into.
For me, the Peter Jackson experience stopped in 2001, shortly after I gathered the strength to lift myself out of a theater seat after the interminably long Fellowship of the Ring and vowed, "Never again." No regrets. Well, one regret: losing those 3+ hours.
Length wasn't the problem with the Peter Jackson movies. You can make a vapid 45-minute film, or a fascinating 3.5-hour one.
Turning the story into an inane series of fight sequences rather than telling the story was the problem with the Peter Jackson films.
If Two Towers comes on TBS, and Miranda Otto is on the screen, I'll pause and watch a while. Otherwise, ESPN is one channel away on Dish. I wouldn't consider attending the Hobbit movies under any circumstances, based on what I saw in the first three movies.
Another weekend down and the gap, though narrowing, is still pretty darn big.
American Hustle made $12.4 mil last weekend. Anchorman2 made $10.6 million. That puts the current race between these two at--
Anchorman 2 - $108,713,000
Amer. Hustle - $87,923,000
So, the gap is currently $20.8 million. While there are signs that Anchorman 2 is slowing down a bit more than Hustle (it dropped 45.9% from last weekend, while Hustle only fell 33.7%), there is still a lot of room between these two flicks. I do expect Hustle to get an Oscar nomination bounce when noms are announced on Thursday Jan 16th but if I had to guess I would say it will be a tiny bit too little, too late for Hustle to catch Anchorman 2 by our self-imposed end-of-January deadline.
-Jason "it is going to be very close, I expect... " Evans