Top 5 Films of Winter 2014

[JasonEvans]

At first, American Sniper was just a copy of Chris Kyle's autobiography. But, Kyle died while the movie script was being written and his wife came forward to tell the real story about Kyle's PTSD problems and how (despite his heroic bravado) he was a wreck as a husband/father. As a result of her contributions, the script took a huge left turn and, in my opinion, it now more accurately reflects the price soldiers pay for the horrors of war. Far from Chris Kyle's unapologetic celebration of Muslim slaughter, the movie is very much an anti-war film with a very flawed and tragic main character.

Does it still play fast an loose with the facts and with its heroic portrayal of Kyle? Yes, it probably does. But, it is not nearly the pro-sniper & rah-rah, America rules and Islam sucks story that one might think if one had read Chris Kyle's biography (at least that is what I have heard. I have not read Kyle's book and have no desire to do so).

So, to Olyfan and others who might feel like they are morally opposed to a film like this, take it from this bleeding heart, gun-hating liberal -- its worth your time and attention.

-Jason "Sniper may make a late run at being a player for the Oscars -- everyone thought the major awards were a Boyhood vs Birdman vs Grand Budapest battle... but Sniper is going to be in the conversation" Evans

[JasonEvans]

Here is a website with info on what is true and what is fake in American Sniper. Of course, as has been stated in the past, many of the claims in Chris Kyle's book are unverified by anything other than his word.

Personally, I don't have a problem with "Dramatic license" being taken for the purposes of telling a story and entertaining the audience -- though it bothers me more when talking about important historical events or people such as the marches in Selma or the events surrounding the ratification of the 13th amendment.

-Jason "movie falsifications can replace actual history in some people's minds, which is unfortunate" Evans

[Duvall]

So does it debunk the fabulism, or just ignore it favor of the parts Kyle might not have fabricated?

[Wander]

Personally, I don't have a problem with "Dramatic license" being taken for the purposes of telling a story and entertaining the audience

Sure, but changing things for storytelling purposes are things like eliminating the 3 second communications delay between astronauts and Earth in Apollo 13. The stuff in American Sniper sounds like it goes way beyond that - or to use an example of a movie I've actually seen (and liked!), the ending text about Alan Turing in Imitation Game.

[davekay1971]

I'm not sure, in the context of the quality of the movie, how much I care about how closely the movie follows the book, or whether Kyle's account of events is, at times, fanciful. I have never read Kyle's book, and I'm sure time won't allow me to do so. The Chris Kyle character in the movie is like many cinematic portrayals of real people - a partially true, partially fictionalized character, designed to tell a story. If that's significantly different from the way any number of real world people are portrayed in movies, let me know.

American Sniper was, im(h)o, a very well done tale of a person who placed a high value on a sense of duty to his country and to his fellow soldiers. He did not abandon his family, but he certainly placed duty to country and his fellow soldiers, for the majority of the movie, above his duty to his wife and children, and his family suffered from that. It also tells the tale of a person who suffered a great deal, emotionally and psychologically, from the service he gave to the country. His family suffered from that as well.

The sad reality is that many veterans, and their families, have suffered in very similar ways to what we see Kyle and his family go through. I've had the privilege of taking care of many, many veterans, and so I have seen it. I have one patient who drove a transport boat for the D-Day landing. He still suffers from what he saw that day, 70 years later. Another patient, who served in Vietnam, gets PTSD triggered by certain combinations of numbers that remind him too strongly of the number of his helicopter. Those are just two examples, I have lots more.

People who serve this country, whether they were drafted and honored the draft, or whether they volunteered, put themselves in harms way. I know most people in this country, and on this site, recognize and honor that, so I don't mean to preach (I would have different and harsher words for a clown like Michael Moore who lives his nice cushy life in his nice cushy mansion and calls snipers cowards). There are plenty of good books and movies about the impact of war on soldiers and their families. If the Kyle story in particular, or Eastwood's directing style (or his politics, after that silly "empty chair" routine) put you off, there's certainly other options. But I think it would be a mistake to dismiss this movie, without seeing it, because Kyle's telling of his own story is dubious, or because Eastwood's movie takes dramatic license with real world events. I did not pick up much of Eastwood's personal politics in the movie, but since I'm a Conservative, there may be some blindness there, and a "bleeding heart Liberal" like Jason who has seen it may have caught right-of-center political nuances that I missed. I thought the movie was a very well done examination into the life of a man, and his family, who all suffered from his service in an ugly, brutal conflict. I also think Jason nailed it - this is an anti-war movie: perhaps not in the knock you over the head sense of Platoon, but in that it focuses on the trauma war causes on one man, who was never seriously wounded in battle, and his family.

[budwom]

For those very few of you who enjoy Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice is most entertaining. Surely not for everyone. As Anthony Lane of the New Yorker said,
no one has ever before made a movie of a Pynchon book, and probably no one will do so again, but Inherent Vice is a nice diversion on a cold, snowy day.

[JasonEvans]

For those very few of you who enjoy Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice is most entertaining. Surely not for everyone. As Anthony Lane of the New Yorker said,
no one has ever before made a movie of a Pynchon book, and probably no one will do so again, but Inherent Vice is a nice diversion on a cold, snowy day.

I snorted with laughter at least a dozen times during Inherent Vice. I thought the performances were really strong. I enjoyed being taken back to the hippie/stoner era too. But there were like 19 different stories/threads moving through that movie and I just got lost at times. The friend who saw it with me was utterly befuddled by it. When it ended, I walked out and said to him, "I'm not sure what I saw, but I think I enjoyed it." He said that though he did not feel like it was a bad movie, he would never recommend it to anyone.

I think you need to be in a certain frame of mind to enjoy it. I suspect it will do really well in Denver after a few tokes.

-Jason "I want to read the book now, as I suspect the book will make more sense" Evans

[budwom]

I was surprised our group was generally able to keep up with the rather convoluted plot...great style to the movie, we also had significant chortlage...for us, vastly more
entertaining than crap like Dumb and Dumber, Night at the Museum, and the other recycled puerile nonsense.

[pfrduke]

I snorted with laughter at least a dozen times during Inherent Vice. I thought the performances were really strong. I enjoyed being taken back to the hippie/stoner era too. But there were like 19 different stories/threads moving through that movie and I just got lost at times. The friend who saw it with me was utterly befuddled by it. When it ended, I walked out and said to him, "I'm not sure what I saw, but I think I enjoyed it." He said that though he did not feel like it was a bad movie, he would never recommend it to anyone.

I think you need to be in a certain frame of mind to enjoy it. I suspect it will do really well in Denver after a few tokes.

-Jason "I want to read the book now, as I suspect the book will make more sense" Evans

Have you read much Pynchon?

[JasonEvans]

We just got the Tuesday numbers and American Sniper has moved into 5th place ahead of Into the Woods. It did $9.9 mil on Tuesday while Woods did $486,000.

The current standings:

Mockingjay - $333.0 mil
Hobbit - $246.1 mil
Big Hero - $216.6 mil
Interstellar - $185.9 mil
American Sniper - $120.5 mil
Into the Woods - $116.9 mil
Unbroken - $109.7 mil
Museum - $106.5 mil

-Jason "this contest is over -- we had a whole bunch of folks go 4-for-5" Evans

[davekay1971]

We just got the Tuesday numbers and American Sniper has moved into 5th place ahead of Into the Woods. It did $9.9 mil on Tuesday while Woods did $486,000.

The current standings:

Mockingjay - $333.0 mil
Hobbit - $246.1 mil
Big Hero - $216.6 mil
Interstellar - $185.9 mil
American Sniper - $120.5 mil
Into the Woods - $116.9 mil
Unbroken - $109.7 mil
Museum - $106.5 mil

-Jason "this contest is over -- we had a whole bunch of folks go 4-for-5" Evans

So now the question for American Sniper is: how high can it go? Currently boxofficemojo.com is projecting a $65 million second weekend, after American Sniper posted the highest ever second Friday box office for an R rated movie. If American Sniper completes the $65 million weekend, that would put it at about $200 million. It seems certain to pass Big Hero 6 and equally certain not to catch Mockingjay, so I guess the question is whether it will pass Hobbit3 for 2nd place among the winter openings.

Edit: I may have been premature to suggest American Sniper has no chance to catch Mockingjay. Looking at boxofficemojo.com's chart of all time 2nd weekends, American Sniper is likely to coming in 8th. All of the top 12 movies in this particular ranking, with the exception of Alice in Wonderland, ended up with final box office grosses significantly higher than Mockingjay's.

[BD80]

So now the question for American Sniper is: how high can it go? Currently boxofficemojo.com is projecting a $65 million second weekend, after American Sniper posted the highest ever second Friday box office for an R rated movie. If American Sniper completes the $65 million weekend, that would put it at about $200 million. It seems certain to pass Big Hero 6 and equally certain not to catch Mockingjay, so I guess the question is whether it will pass Hobbit3 for 2nd place among the winter openings.

Edit: I may have been premature to suggest American Sniper has no chance to catch Mockingjay. Looking at boxofficemojo.com's chart of all time 2nd weekends, American Sniper is likely to coming in 8th. All of the top 12 movies in this particular ranking, with the exception of Alice in Wonderland, ended up with final box office grosses significantly higher than Mockingjay's.

Interested in opinions of those who have seen the film:

How much of the film's success is due to the advertising scheme which makes it look like a first person shooter game?

[NashvilleDevil]

Interested in opinions of those who have seen the film:

How much of the film's success is due to the advertising scheme which makes it look like a first person shooter game?

If that was the case then the movie would not be holding strong in its second week.

[davekay1971]

Interested in opinions of those who have seen the film:

How much of the film's success is due to the advertising scheme which makes it look like a first person shooter game?

Any link to that kind of ad? The ads I saw reflected pretty clearly the strong sense of pathos in the movie. Being someone who plays Call of Duty, and who has seen American Sniper, I have not seen any ad that would make me think I was going into a cinematic equivalent of the former. However, I admit it's absolutely possible that you've seen some ads that I have not.

Agreed with Nashville Devil, that if the ad campaign had attempted to portray the movie as an action/adventure shooter, the movie would have probably had a strong first week then a big fall-off. The action in the movie isn't action-y enough to carry it...there's nothing there that could satisfy action audiences used to Marvel's fireworks, and even other military movies like Back Hawk Down and Lone Survivor had much more prolonged and "cinematic" action sequences.

The strong second week is probably due to the A+ cinemascore (in both men and women, in both the above- and under- 25 y.o. age groups), indicating that the movie is getting very good word of mouth. In addition, the movie has become something of a cultural touchstone, with a visceral negative reaction among some on the political left, and an equally strong visceral positive reaction among some on the political right. This is giving the movie all kinds of free publicity, probably inducing people to go see it simply to see what all the fuss is about. Finally, add the feeling among conservatives that the movie deserves support, so it will probably get some boost from people who are, to some extent, voting with their wallets.

[YmoBeThere]

Final totals in yet?

[CameronBornAndBred]

Final totals in yet?

From RT.

THIS WEEK	LAST WEEK	T-METER	TITLE	WEEKS RELEASED	WEEKEND GROSS	TOTAL GROSS	THEATER AVERAGE	# OF THEATERS
23	17	65%	The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1	11	$0.5M	$335.1M	$1.1k	490
16	11	60%	The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies	7	$1.3M	$251.7M	$1.4k	910
1	1	73%	American Sniper	3	$31.8M	$248.9M	$8.2k	3885
25	23	89%	Big Hero 6	13	$0.5M	$218.1M	$1.3k	336
30	30	72%	Interstellar	13	$0.2M	$186.7M	$1.3k	158

[BD80]

Final totals in yet?

1 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 LGF $335,123,000
2 The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies WB $251,678,000
3 American Sniper WB $248,942,000
4 Big Hero 6 BV $218,056,000
5 Interstellar Par. $186,666,000
6 Into the Woods BV $124,388,000
7 Unbroken Uni. $113,874,000
8 Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb Fox $109,788,000
9 Dumb and Dumber To Uni. $86,112,000
10 Annie (2014) Sony $84,452,781
11 Penguins of Madagascar Fox $81,354,012
12 The Imitation Game Wein. $67,955,000
13 Exodus: Gods and Kings Fox $64,600,795
14 Horrible Bosses 2 WB $54,310,032

Time ran out on the Sniper, another week and it hits #2.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/seasona...ew=releasedate

[YmoBeThere]

3 of 5 again, good thing I don't do this for a living.

[Tommac]

Have seen several news sources reporting that American Sniper has passed the last Hunger Games movie for top domestic box office sales for movies released in 2014. Who would have thought?