I would be surprised if it doesn't get a healthy upswing over the holiday weekend.
Does this mean I have to see it three more times over the Memorial Day weekend? Because I love it, but maybe not that much.
As far as navel gazing on the Internet about box office, I tend to agree that: -4 years is too long to wait between movies 1 and 2 in a new franchise. Given what a multitasker JJ was, there was just no way he was gonna direct a film in time for 2012 though, and who'd want that film to have gone against The Avengers in May 2012, or The Hobbit in the Thanksgiving/Xmas time frame in late 2012? I really don't feel there was a 2012 release date that would've given Into Darkness breathing room at the box office (they seem to only want to release them in May or in Thanksgiving-Xmas). And yet I do agree 4 years is just a bit too long for a fledgling franchise reboot.
-Chris Pine, for all the movies Hollywood is cramming him into, is not quite yet A Movie Star. He's great as Kirk, imho, just he's not at the point in his career where his name on the poster draws hordes into the theater.
While comparing him to Harrison Ford perhaps is unfair, you can look at Ford's post Star Wars-Pre Raiders output and generally it reminds me of Pine's choices since 2009's Star Trek. It's like Hollywood's trying to figure out if Pine's a romantic comedy guy, or an action guy, or a drama guy. Same with Ford back then (Force 10 from Navarone, Hanover Street, etc.). I liked Pine in Unstoppable, but have been lukewarm on him otherwise outside of the two ST films.
Hopefully the Kenneth Branagh-directed Jack Ryan reboot gives Pine a solid second franchise, and then maybe he takes that box office appeal with him into a 3rd Trek film. And guess how old Pine is now? 32, just a little younger than Ford was when they were filming Star Wars in 1975 (33).
-Maybe the whole "keep the villain a mystery" scheme hurt the movie instead of helped it. I've started to come around to that idea, because you know, some Bond movies were named after the villain. And it's not like I wandered into TDK wandering what the villain's identity was. The pleasure was the villain's performance, not the "reveal."
Maybe if they could've promoted Into Darkness' villain (which is a great one I think), rather than "Hey here's BBC's Sherlock as some Federation turncoat named John Harrison!", it would've been better for its box office chances.
JJ's brain trusts' justification in interviews and that official movie magazine I bought is, "Oh we don't want the audience to figure it out before the characters do." But look up Hitchcock's definition of suspense (from a filmed interview in 1962):
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Crucial to the Hitchcockian thriller is the difference between suspense and surprise. To put it simply, the director said that if you have a scene where two characters are conversing in a cafe, and a bomb suddenly goes off under the table, the audience experiences surprise.
On the other hand, if the audience sees the saboteur place the bomb, is told that it will go off at one o'clock, and can see a clock in the scene, the mundane conversation between two cafe patrons now becomes one of intense suspense, as the audience holds its collective breath waiting for the explosion. Fifteen minutes of suspense, as opposed to fifteen seconds of surprise. It was therefore necessary, to Alfred Hitchcock, that the audience be as fully informed as possible.
To my tiny mind, perhaps it would've been more interesting for us to all go in knowing who the bad guy was, and the suspense would be watching and rooting for our heroes to figure that out. The Big Reveal to me was, "huh," a perhaps .067 second little thrill. I found Cumberbatch's performance a thrill to watch, and if I'd known who he was beforehand, I really don't think it would've affected my enjoyment of his performance.
While this strikes me as about about 10 months too late, these sound like some promising improvements to the co-op experience... Developer Journal: Multiplayer Improvements http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/9382478/
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From day one, it’s been our goal to make Diablo III a great co-op experience, but right now it's not living up to its full potential. Even if you enjoy playing with your friends, it can often feel easier and more efficient to play solo.
Playing solo has a number of advantages. For instance, you can choose your own route. If you're farming for something in particular (like a specific recipe), you can do it as many times as you want. And you can pause the game and attend to things in real life without making anyone wait.
Of course, multiplayer is awesome, too, and comes with its own benefits. For example, leveling up characters with a group of friends can be an amazing experience. Working together with other players to take down bosses or destroy Elite packs super quickly makes for great farming runs. There's resurrections and the banner system, and don't forget farming for Infernal Machine keys and organs. But, there are also disadvantages, like having to coordinate where you're walking and what you're attacking, losing your followers, and trying to find groups that have similar goals to yours without a defined matchmaking system in place.
The point is that multiplayer can be lot of fun, but given the downsides it can often feel not worth the effort. By making it easier for players to find one another, improving social features, and providing direct buffs to co-op groups, we hope to change that perspective.
The stuff includes matchmaking "tags," multiplayer bonuses, reducing MP monster "extra health" from 70% to 50%, Identify All feature at vendors, combat alerts on map (when one party member encounters elite swarm etc.) and player portal/teleportation banners, private chat with up to 99 bnet friends.
This is going onto the test server first.
My only issue with the tags (via a drop down menu, they're still experimenting with different tag names, like Questing, Key Warden, PVP, etc.) is... people lie. If D3 could sort of determine what kind of player you are simply by how you've played the game over X period of time, that might be neat. Perhaps impossible, but given how intricate achievements are in games today, maybe not...
Quote from: metallicorphan on May 19, 2013, 07:31:52 PM
yeah he said on The Daily Show he was negotiating for more money,saying it with a wink and accompanied by Stewart laughing
Seriously speaking, it sounds like Marvel/Disney doesn't want to give Downey Jr. percentage points on box office anymore as salary. I would attribute that partially to Marvel/Disney being Scrooges, but also perhaps they don't want Hemsworth, Evans etc. to get similar ideas.
IM3 has topped $1 billion globally, so supposedly he gets more than $50 million at this point.
It all is incomprehensible to me, but probably they'd be more willing to just give him a flat $25M or $30M check - for one movie - but skip percentage points of total box office. Can you imagine?
Now, pre-Iron Man and pre-Sherlock Holmes, Marvel Studios probably felt that giving Downey Jr. some percentage points was an easy risk. He seemed washed up, had no track record at that point, how could it hurt? Oops
Quote from: Soulchilde on May 20, 2013, 03:07:19 PM
Okay, it seems like I am the only one who knew the big reveal
Spoiler for Hiden:
Harrison was Khan. My buddy and I were walking into the theater and I remarked after looking at the poster that we already know the Enterprise is going down in flames. I remarked the only thing they didn't spoil was Khan being the villain which caught him by surprise
I picked up Star Trek magazines' official movie mag yesterday. It's overpriced ($14.99), but has tons of cool interviews/features, including about the tie-in novels over the years. imho it's far "meatier" in content than most movie mag tie-ins I've read.
I remember being flabbergasted seeing Heather Langenkamp (actress in Nightmare on Elm Street, some of its sequels) in the closing credits. Turns out she and her husband co-own a successful makeup FX studio that worked on MI: Ghost Protocol and now this for the alien costumes/makeup. And she portrayed one of the aliens (Muoto, something like that?).
The magazine has a section (I assume the issue was completed around maybe March?) with the "odds" on what character Harrison is. A couple of the "lower %" predictions are kinda interesting and might suggest future directions...>>>>>
Spoiler for Hiden:
Khan was 90%. Gary Mitchell from the second classic ST pilot was second. (Karl Urban is actually a dead ringer for the actor who played that). Other guesses were much lower %.
I think it was kind of a red herring when Eve was cast, because her hair style in the publicity stills seemed similar to Sally Kellerman's in "Where No Man Has Gone Before." JJ and co. probably enjoyed the Internet taking that rumor and running with it.
While that could certainly make an interesting ST film, I don't think you introduce Klingons and warbirds in Darkness and then not use them in a third film. Who knows? Maybe they could weave a "Where No Man Has Gone Before" story into a Klingon vs. Federation battle story.
Maybe the Klingons and a power mad Gary Mitchell would force Kirk to open Pandora's Box (Khan-sicle) and plead, "Help us!"
I did see it a ridiculous 4th time Sunday at a Rave Xtreme (Crave Theaters) screen. Although I love its plush, wide seats, the format still doesn't hold a candle to the other formats I saw it on (Regal RPX, AMC ETX & IMAX). It is at $14.75, maybe $2-3 cheaper though. The IMAX show with my mom was the bomb, even if I totally got the seating diagram backwards. My mom was a good sport about it although she kept complaining the deafening sound was giving her heart attacks.
As far as addressing some mechanical differences from the 2009 film: -Yes, engineering still looks like the USS Budweiser brewery, but I think only in one scene. -I swear lthe first half of the film is relatively low on lense-flare, but right at the point where - the first time I saw it last Thursday - I was going to note "Wow, not too much lense flare" - JJ let himself get carried away again. Though I think at least he seems to have positioned the flare a bit so it doesn't blind the actor's face. There's one scene where Carol is speaking, and the blue lenses flare goes beserk, but it seems purposefully kept away from her face, lower on the screen. Baby steps, JJ.
-When I saw the 2009 film on FX last night, I remembered how the phasers had this weird mechanical "pop" effect. Like Kirk would put his finger on the trigger, and what seemed like a red Tootsie Pop head emerged from the phaser barrel. I think they went with a simpler design for Darkness. I think that's good - the mechanical "Tootsie Pop" effect seemed too Flash Gordon to me.
As far as a third film goes, I'm sure that's still in the cards. It's not under performing so badly that Paramount will want to reboot it again. Thought perhaps having seen how much better the Brad Bird-helmed MI3: Ghost Protocol did at the box office, compared to JJ's MI3 (which I quite liked, but which was definitely perceived as the "underperformer" in the MI franchise), Paramount probably won't blanche at JJ picking someone else to direct an ST3. Supposedly they really want one by May 2016, and just can't see JJ doing that while he's tied up with Star Wars.
Although JJ has raved about Rian Johnson (Looper) in interviews, it's unclear if Johnson has any interest in doing big budget/ST stuff (Looper had a $30M budget; Darkness $190M), or directing something where he hasn't totally written the script himself. JJ would presumably need to pick someone who's comfortable working in a team with Kurtzman, Orci, Lindelof, and JJ himself as a producer, etc.
Box Office Mojo suggests this may "underperform" domestically (estimates apparently down to $83M for the first four days vs initial $100M estimates), though it seems to be stronger internationally than it's 2009 predecessor.
While IM3's still gobbling box office, movin Darkness' release date back probably wasn't realistic, with the other big releases that week (Fast 6, Hangover 3). I'm sure 3D prices are scaring some people off. Outside of today's afternoon IMAX show, I just haven't seen the opening weekend crowds I expected. Though I noticed the same with IM3 and clearly it's making a zillion $.
Looking back at 2009, Star Trek was sort of first out of the gate that summer (May 8 ), so there weren't other big summer movie holdovers (Iron Man 2 was 2010 release) soaking up tickets, like IM3 and to some extent Gatsby today. Darkness has a bigger budget ($190m vs $150m for ST) and more expectations. I love the movie and want it to do well, so all this is a bit disconcerting.
Hopefully word of mouth will Help it. It did score an A on Cinemascore's moviegoer surveys. http://www.cinemascore.com/.
And I've done my part, dammit!
"Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a box office accountant!"
Anyone seen this in 2D yet? Maybe if I catch a 2D show, the theater will actually be crowded. Think the ticket prices are scaring folks off around here.
Gonna take my mom to a 2D, RaveXtreme show this afternoon. If I'm gonna keep seeing it, might as well see it on a variety of screens :-) And it's merely $12.75...
Hmmm, but the 3:40 IMAX 3d looks like it might actually get... Gasp.... crowded...
I always forget the CW channel (3, where I am). I finally made it a point to watch the season finale and definitely dug it even if, well, I never got to see a bow or arrow.
I have tried repeatedly to get into the show and just too often don't understand what the heck is going on. I think I need "Cliff Notes for Once Upon a Time," or "Once Upon a Time for Dummies and Idiots."
Just wanted to drop in and tell you all I'm not dropping in until I see this film so I can go in fresh.
...wait...did I just...
DAMN IT!
In vaguest terms, my favorite parts of the movie are all about character - humor, friendship, anger, frustration, playfulness, etc. Hard to believe I'm lauding a film for that when it's written by the guys behind the Transformer films and Prometheus. Granted, for ST they already have characters with rich back stories but I feel like if they didn't give them good interplay, then it'd be wasted.
Yes, imho, the FX and stunt work is often brilliant, and breathtaking, and cotton candy for your eyeballs. See it on the biggest screen you can get to. But for me, it's really the characters and how they all interact that I had the most fun with and is why I might run back into the theaters tonight.
Because JJ really loves in your face closeups where someone's face is 80-feet high on a big movie screen, it should work well when it hits DVD too.
Just got home. I loved it. And judging from the audience reaction, it hits the mark. I may actually run back and see it with hopefully a larger Friday night audience tomorrow.
Of course this is JJ Abrams, so if you don't like frantic, swooping camera zooms and frantic editing and frantic frantic, and -- though less often, thankfully -- lense flare and the Budweiser brewery engineering room (also seen less often but I did see it), then you probably should save your money.
I loved the character interaction, the humor, the scope, and Cumberbatch. While I don't think it's TDK/Ledger level, I thought he's tremendous, and just magnetic on screen. A helluva lot more interesting villain than Bana as Nero.
The 3-D really does pop on this, and because JJ likes for the most part to be bright-bright-bright, I think that cuts through the dimness that 3-D projection tends to bring.
I'll stay out of the spoiler stuff for now. You really should enjoy what the movies throws at you with a fresh perspective.
The best thing I can say is that I didn't want the movie to end. It almost felt too short. I wanted to hang out with them a little while longer. And I don't feel like the ensemble characters get shortchanged.
And I didn't like Prometheus last summer, blaming a lot of that on Damon Lindelof. So I didn't come into Darkness as a fanboy really. I was really worried that Lindelof would muck it up. I eat crow.
I'm just about to hit the road to the theater. If I had thought about it, i would've polled you all on what I should get for dinner at the theaters (pizza, hot dog, hot dog sliders, corn dogs, chicken nuggets etc. - or all those combined ). They're all awful for me, but a poll on it might've been fun.
I usually favor the slider dogs because I can parcel out the awfulness throughout the film.
Seems like to be more touch friendly, the menu icons (when you pull them up) are spaced out along the perimeters of the screen (rather than bunched up, as I recall the PC version doing).
I have refrained from my usual review linkage since I've found too many reviews are too spoilery even when they claim not to be. I can say I've seen many very positive (lets say 3.5 stars/4 is common) reviews at major media outlets.
Collider.com's cranky main reviewer who hates everything hates this (no surprise ), but for the most part what I've seen the last few days is very positive. And no, not just from those no-names that get quoted in posters for bad movies, usually with ellipsis removing anything critical...
"... blockbuster of the summer..." ".... exciting... has performances...."
No, really, many enthusiastic reviews from critics who don't like most summer blockbusters. IT's a good sign I think. And a few fans here and there who claim to see earlier preview screenings and already run back in to see it again.
Long day at work. 7:10 can't arrive soon enough. Oh who am I kidding? I mean 7:25 or 7:30, whenever the interminable trailers finish...
In case you were wondering, when the appropriate day presents itself, I will be trying this.
We expect a full report with photographs, videos, a 3-D animation (maybe X-Ray video of the sandwich going down your esophagus), and a Powerpoint presentation.
Actually, if the Memphis pulled pork bbq is any good, I need to try that.
I tried getting back into Rift a while back and just found it kinda...dull. After the active combat systems in GW2, Tera, and Neverwinter, I'm not sure I could go back to just spamming an attack rotation over and over again.
had the same issue when I tried going back to Age of Conan last weekend; I used to love their combat system but it just feels clunky now. still, I liked the world of Rift enough to at least give it another go with free to play.
To be fair, AoC as originally released was more focused on key combos, almost like a fighting game. Some required 3 coordinated key presses to trigger an attack.
I liked that aspect (here I even suggested it would've made light saber usage in SWTOR more fun), but the major AoC updates years later seemed to prune back most of that combo-key stuff to the point that it removed the game's most unique combat feature and rendered it a routine key-basher, imho.
I mean, nudity will only get your mmorpg so far.
As for Rift, if the F2P switch at least brings in enough players for the massive combat events to be more massive as they were closer to launch, I might at least re-visit.
imho, still too many cop shows (none sound as interesting as the canceled Southland), and too many "high concept" shows that'll probably make for great pilot episodes, but probably won't be able to sustain the momentum. A lot also depends on what network they're on. NBC and Fox in particular seem to have no patience with just about anything.
Also funny how some shows seem to be reaching for Homeland... Crisis (NBC) Washington's most powerful players, including the president, find themselves blackmailed into an international conspiracy by an unlikely puppeteer. The FBI and a rookie Secret Service agent (Lance Gross) must unravel the mystery.
Hostages (CBS) Toni Collette plays a surgeon who is recruited to operate on the president (James Naughton), an assignment that propels her family — Tate Donovan, Mateus Ward and Quinn Shephard — into a grand political conspiracy.
Hmmm. And Hostages is based on an Israeli TV series, just like.... Homeland.
Burger King (BKW) is about to offer up some competition. The fire-grilled burger-maker unveiled its summer BBQ menu on Wednesday, which includes the Rib Sandwich along with 12 other items.
The menu, also featuring a Memphis BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich and a Carolina BBQ Tendercrisp Sandiwch, will debut on May 21.
While a Burger King publicist wouldn't confirm if this menu is intended to lure customers away from the McDonald's McRib, the Burger King rib sandwich does bare a BBQ-themed resemblance.
Burger King described the Rib Sandwich as a "juicy boneless rib patty with a sweet and tangy BBQ sauce" that is "topped with crispy bread and butter pickles" served on a "warm toasted artisan style bun."
Chris Evans, star of the upcoming "Captain America" sequel, made an appearance on the National Mall Tuesday, shooting scenes for the upcoming movie with co-stars Scarlett Johansson and Anthony Mackie.
The production underway in D.C. Tuesday is officially known only as "Freezer Burn." But that working title is associated with "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," the sequel to the 2011 blockbuster that starred Evans, took in an estimated $140 million and was a key part of the series that led to "Avengers" in 2012.
Evans was seen in sweatpants and a grey T-shirt, laughing with makeup staff and briefly doing push-ups and jumping jacks.
The production has put up tents and trailers close to the mall. At about 7 a.m., 4th Street between Jefferson and Madison streets was closed. But the closures will move through the area and could affect traffic until 10 p.m. tonight, reports News4's Megan McGrath.
The actual shooting site is expected to move around throughout the day, but several roads are closed and parking is limited. More closures are expected Thursday, according to a release from the Metropolitan Police Department. Hillyer Place NW (between Connecticut Avenue and 21st Street) and 20th Street NW (between Connecticut Avenue and Q Street) will be closed Thursday from 7 p.m. to midnight. Maryland Avenue SW will be closed from Independence Avenue to 6th Street until midnight Thursday.
The closures, however, aren't likely to keep curious fans away. In fact, signs near the production warn that anyone in the area may be photographed in the background of the movie -- and that they won't get paid for it, reported McGrath. The District seems to have a role itself in "Winter Soldier." Earlier this month, the production closed the Roosevelt Bridge briefly for shooting.
District film officials have said the bridge plays an "integral role" in the new movie.
She reveals: “Fans of the first film really wanted to find out what happened to Peggy afterwards, so Marvel are also making a short film, which is basically ‘What Peggy Did Next’, which will be shown at Comic-Con [the annual international pop culture convention held in San Diego] and be on the DVD extras of the second film.
So as well as doing a bit in the new film, I’ve got a whole new spin-off short film. It has been great to be back in training with the stunt co-ordinators, kicking some butt again.”
We’re proud to announce that everyone’s favourite (note: not scientifically verified to be everyone’s favourite) tactical game is ready for release on the iPad.
From Thursday 16th May (midnight in each territory apparently), it’ll be available here:
If you’re thinking of buying the game, please note you’ll be doing a massive favour if you decide to do this close to launch, such is the nature of the App Store: thanks.
Any tweets, mentions, Facebookings, honks, blurts, toots, parps or flanges are extremely welcome as well: we would love to get people talking about the game.
Here are some things you can do with this wonderful product:
- Play the full single player campaign and every multiplayer mode from the original game
- Enjoy full cross-play on the same account: start a game on your desktop and finish it on your tablet, perhaps during a boring family occasion
- Luxuriate in the portability of tablet gameplay with a brand new interface crafted explicitly for your horrendous wiggling digits
- Hotseat your way to both friends and fortune (fortune sold separately) with local multiplayer! Passing your device around in a public place has never been more likely to excite your forlorn cortex
- And a whole lot more!
Android
The Android version is being handled by another team and is on its way. If the shapeforms finish deliberating (fanservice) over the code, it should be out by the end of this month.
Since I'm part Korean, i guess the Chosen Ones are for me, though I get the impression Sulu and Chekhov don't get as much chance to shine as they did in the first film.
Now I just need to figure out if I want to again sit in the first row behind the front entry aisle - great legroom, easy exits to the restroom, but the RPX screen literally is wider than my eyeballs can take in without swiveling left and right, and the 3D glasses worsen that.
May 15th marks the one-year anniversary of Diablo III. Help us celebrate the Lord of Terror's rebirth (and contribute to an awesome community project in the process) by submitting your very own birthday greeting!
To participate, simply print out one of the birthday images below (or create your own), take a photo of you and/or your friends, and then tweet the picture to @Diablo using the hashtag #D3BDAY or email it to [email protected]. In addition to re-tweeting our favorites and uploading them to our Diablo Facebook page throughout the week, we'll also be compiling the most impressive greetings to show off here on the official community site after the festivities have concluded.
Sad to remember how I hoped I'd be enjoying it for years and it ended up being a couple months or so.
For me, if some of the insane boss bottles later on were a bit more fair -- maybe a checkpoint within the boss battle -- I might've stuck with it longer. I can't say the AH bothered me as much as what I perceived as unfair difficulty spikes here and there.
Or maybe my late 40s brain just didn't enjoy repetitive dungeon hack'n'slashing over and over as much as my 30s self enjoyed the first two games.
Dutifully bought my $17 (doesn't even shock me anymore) ticket for early Thursday evening. Given my IM3 experience at this Regal RPX theater, I think I'll try to sit a couple rows further back, rather than let JJ Abrams' 3D-conversioness poke holes in my cornea as I struggle to keep the whole screen in my 3-D glassed vision as I enjoy my $8.50 pizza and my $6.00 soda. Money? Bah, it's summer at the movies...
Billy Joel's 52nd Street (Big Shot, My Life, etc.), in 1978, I think, at about age 13. I got into music-buying fairly late.
My teen years, most of my musical taste was copying my brother's (he's 4 years older). He had bought "The Stranger," although his favorite artists/groups at the time were probably Boston, Styx and The Eagles.
I didn't even have a stereo. I had this goofy, off-white, "boxed clamshell" type turntable with a single mono speaker. My best friend Joey and I would go to the mall and visit stores like Korvette's, Harmony Hut, etc. and other record stores whose names are lost to time. Ultimately I just went with 52nd Street, because buying some album my brother already had seemed like a moot point, and because Big Shot and My Life were saturating FM radio at the time and helping block disco from the airwaves.
I found 52nd Street "aged" pretty well over the years. By that, I mean some songs that did nothing for me at age 13, I suddenly started to like when I was in college, or in my 30s and listened to the songs (albeit, by then it was either of a tape of that record, or a greatest hits CD).
"Until the Night" is this melodramatic attempt at Billy Joey as The Righteous Brothers, and at age 13 I thought it was terrible. I never listened to the song all the way through. At some point around age 20 in college when I was having a hard time, I listened to the song again and it meant more to me. And now as old fart, it's one of my favorite Billy Joel songs. But I think you almost have to have aged and lived through some heartache before you appreciate the song. At least, that's how it worked for me.
Cool thread idea btw. Enjoyed reading everybody's firsts.
I'm inclined to say that the Galaxy S 4 is still the Android phone to beat, if only because HTC's Sense 5 is too grating for my normal TouchWiz ways. Although Samsung's TouchWiz UI has its own follies, it feels like it's still an Android experience, though it's not Google's. The One's UI doesn't feel so much like Android, although I instinctively know how to swipe around to get to what I need within Sense 5.
The HTC One also attracted more attention than the Galaxy S 4 did when I used it in the real world. It was the aluminum chassis that caught onlookers' eyes at first, and the general consensus was that the HTC One felt better in the hand. This is really a matter of personal preference, and while I don't like that HTC has made some changes to Android that I'm not too keen on—the lack of a Menu button and the BlinkFeed takeover, for instance—it's no different from what any other OEM is doing with its Android handsets that aren't a part of the Nexus program.
There's also a bit to be said about the construction of the HTC One. As Brian Klug at Anandtech pointed out in his review of the device, HTC has created a design story for the One that gives it some Apple appeal. Rather than try its hand at branding through a flagship name—like Samsung has done with its Galaxy line of phones—HTC will instead attempt to gun for the design savvy with its “zero-gap” construction. It must be working, because even at-a-glancers seem to like what they see in the One's aluminum construction and design.
Now, not that I know crap about this (I'm a happy iPhone user since last year), but I think it's more do you want a fancy pants aluminum case with front firing amplified speakers, or not.
Bah, as much as I like the borg, please, no more! They've been overused and any appearance in the new movies would mean they're creatively bankrupt. Create on your own damned ideas, J.J!
Agreed.
And I'd like at some point a little more exploration/discovery in the movies. I don't expect them to be TV episodes per se, but really, we've had our reboot Origin story, and I loved it; and now it's the dark "space terrorist" who at least on the surface seems a riff on Javier Bardem's character in the recent Skyfall bond film. Now...
OMG. Now it's gonna be a riff on Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (which I liked, but don't feel JJ and co. need to reboot). What have I done? Forget my suggestion.
Seriously though, we haven't yet had our "Kirk trapped on a planet where he has to team up with some combative alien to survive/escape" storyline. Maybe that's the third movie right there. God knows, so much of our planet is so busy trying to kill each other over everything. How about giving us a sci-fi movie with a little bit of teaming up/hope? They can rip off Wolfgang Petersen's "Enemy Mine," perhaps minus the hermaphrodite angle...
Like they did with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Paramount chose to stagger the release of Star Trek Into Darkness by releasing the film in IMAX before releasing it into theaters. The IMAX 3D screenings were set for May 15th starting at 8pm, and 2D and 3D screenings were set for the 17th. Now that all IMAX 3D screenings for May 15th have been sold out, Paramount has decided to say “screw it” to the extra day, and will now release the film on all screens on May 16th.
As a film critic, I will tell you why this is a tad disconcerting. While press in New York and L.A. have seen the film and released their reviews, critics in other cities such as Atlanta, Boston, and Oklahoma City (these are the ones I can confirm), will not get to see the movie until 9pm Wednesday night. I’ve been doing this for seven years, and this is the first time the press screening was after the film’s release. This also means print critics won’t be able to meet their deadlines (I’ll be up until 2am writing my review, and posting it immediately). This doesn’t mean the film is bad, but Paramount seems seriously worried about critics chiming in.
I guess the optimist would say, fans are clamoring for more tickets so much, that they moved up the release date a day to make fans happy.
Pessimists will say Paramount wants to get the movie into theaters faster before critics get their knives out. Since many reviews are already out, esp. overseas, it seems a little late for the pessimists' conspiracy theory imho.
Anywho, I'll probably see if I can get a ticket for next Thursday. I'm not keen on IMAX moving to reserved seating (even if STID has 30 minutes of IMAX-camera-filmed stuff), and really prefer the ETX screen at AMC now, so I might aim for that.
Tucker and Dale was a hoot, caught it last night. I think my favorite line was... "They cut off his... BOWLING FINGERS!"
It's always fun to play with stereotypes. I don't think movies do that often enough.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Serenity and currently on screen as a bigot baseball team manager in "42") and Tyler Labine (who has been in a couple of my favorite, short-lived shows the last several years - Reaper, and Mad Love). I just recognize their faces, more than their names -- I probably would've seen it much sooner if I'd realized who they were.
My brother and I caught Cabin in the Woods in April a year ago. I just wish the theater had been packed. It felt like the best movie that nobody (apparently) wanted to see -- the theater was nearly empty and some people even walked out in the middle of it.
It's just, the movie is so reliant on its twists/shocks that I don't know if I'd want to see it again. I really had managed to avoid spoilers before it so I really did get to feel surprised even if I had an idea in the back of my mind how things would go.
I've noticed Tucker and Dale, but the little Netflix summary makes it sound like the worst thing or the best thing ever. And often when I roll the dice, I end up with stuff like ATM and The Frankenstein Theory. If you guys swear by Tucker and Dale, perhaps I'll give it a try.
fwiw, I found the kid alright. I mean, was he as annoying as Edward Furlong in T2? No. But I did find that part of the movie meandering at times. I think in essence the kid is there to try to humanize Stark a bit without turning Tony into a sentimental tub of goo.
I took my mom to see it Saturday at an AMC ETX screen. Now that IMAX is assigned/reserved seating (which I'm not usually crazy about), that's about the largest "non-reserved" seating screen at AMC multiplexes. The sound was over the top. Even the trailers were about to make us deaf.
She enjoyed it. I thought maybe she'd find it all too hard to follow, but she didn't seem to have any complaints. I actually enjoyed it more the second time. I guess scenes that struck me as meandering or "what's the point" on first view, somehow seemed to fit better on second viewing. I better understood where the plot pieces fit.
I still feel like the Maya Hansen character (Rebecca Hall, appealing in The Town) got such short thrift I could barely understand what she was up to. The movie's 2 hrs 20 mins though. I suspect maybe some scenes with her ended up on the cutting room floor.
Lastly, as far as the suits themselves, I found it
Spoiler for Hiden:
... more exciting when he actually has to be IN the suit to use it because there's more at stake.
While it certainly makes sense in this day of drone warfare/recon for him to be piloting stuff remotely, for me the charm of the movies/comics was always Stark being in the suit (or biologically combining with the suit as in the recent comics era), I felt a bit of disappointment when we see in some situations he's not actually IN the suit.
And I ultimately still don't understand Killian's motivation for some of the things he does.
I finally caught up on the indy, Blair Witch Project-y, "The Frankenstein Theory" on Netflix after mixing it during its extremely abbreviated/limited theatrical run.
While I think the idea is pretty cool (an ancestor of Dr. Frankenstein thinks Frankenstein's monster is real and running amuck in the upper Canada/North Pole regions committing murders here and there, and thus gathers a team to search for him), the execution does, imho, eventually boil down to too close of a Blair Witch Project knockoff without a fresh angle, and too much of a requirement of ostensibly smart characters making incredibly stupid decisions, as if the screenwriter/director watched Prometheus too many times.
So no, I don't recommend The Frankenstein Theory. However, if someone else got to use the idea to make a better movie, I still think the initial jumping off point is a cool concept.
Just got back from my Iron Man 3 show. It was strangely not crowded - perhaps due to the $16.50 price or perhaps due to people assuming there'd only be midnight shows tonight. There were crowds forming for midnight shows as we left.
Overall I enjoyed it. Unlike Iron Man 2, which I felt in retrospect had one terrific action set piece (the Monaco race track stuff) and then a bloated climactic battle, IM3 has a few action set pieces I really found entertaining and at times innovative in terms of how the armor's used/not used. The cast is still fun to watch, and the screenplay has a fair amount of laughs.
On the other hand, I found the pacing -- maybe by design -- to be all over the place. You might enjoy an amazing 10 minute action sequence and then spend 17 minutes feeling the story is meandering. And the villains just didn't really register with me. I like Guy Pearce, I just couldn't summon up much hate for him, or feel mesmerized by him (a la Ledger in TDK). I felt that way with the IM2 villains too, but I guess it bothered me less in this.
I badly misunderstood Extremis. I think I'm confusing it with some Matt Fraction-written comics in the 2009 or so era where Stark basically fuses armor into his DNA so that's part of him. I thought maybe this movie delves into that but it doesn't, and so I guess all this time I had the wrong idea about what Extremis is. My bad.
I still feel like there has to be a way to have more interesting villains that aren't terrorists, space aliens, nasty weapons merchants/defense contractors or the Drug Cartel.
This was in fact their one RPX screen. It's not spectacularly large, but the picture/sound were terrific. It was fun to see the trailers for Star Trek into Darkness and Man of Steel on that screen.
Anyway, I liked it enough to probably see it maybe one more time. It's no IM, Avengers or (for me) Captain America, but for me it was in the OK-good category.
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If D3 could sort of determine what kind of player you are simply by how you've played the game over X period of time, that might be neat. Perhaps impossible, but given how intricate achievements are in games today, maybe not...
Who knows? Maybe they could weave a "Where No Man Has Gone Before" story into a Klingon vs. Federation battle story.
I think I need "Cliff Notes for Once Upon a Time," or "Once Upon a Time for Dummies and Idiots." 
And I don't feel like the ensemble characters get shortchanged.
). They're all awful for me, but a poll on it might've been fun.
