Bell and Whistle Cage Match: Movies

Qualifications for entry: movie must have been release last November and either a) star someone with the last name "Hemsworth" or b) be based on a book with the word "Game" or "Games" in the title.

The contenders:

 vs.vs.

That's right, kids, a three-way showdown!

Fight!

The Official Rankings (2013)

1. Anthropomorphic Superheroes
2. Anthropomorphic Old Guy, Boyscout, and Dog
3. Anthropomorphic Monsters
4. Anthropomorphic Robots
5. Anthropomorphic Rats
6. Anthropomorphic Scotsmen
7. Anthropomorphic Cars
8. Anthropomorphic Fish
9. Anthropomorphic Toys (third time)
10. Anthropomorphic Monsters in College
11. Anthropomorphic Bugs
12. Anthropomorphic Toys (again)
13. Anthropomorphic Toys
14. Anthropomorphic Cars (again)

Fun fact: Monsters University is the first Pixar film since Monsters, Inc. that I did not get to see in theaters.

Facebook Miscellany 1/13 - 1/26

The most important news on the internet: J.J. Abrams to direct Star Wars VII. To me, this is wonderfully good news, as I have enjoyed all the Abrams films I've seen. According to IMDB, "'Argo' director Ben Affleck was also in contention [to direct]." (Insert huge gasp of relief here.)

I think the funniest response I've seen so far has been this one:

Star Wars Episode VII: Revenge of the Lens Flair

A note on why I like him: of the first three Mission Impossible movies, (the ones I've seen), #3 (directed by Abrams) was my favorite, while #2 (directed by John Woo) was an abomination that ought to be fed to the ravenous bug-bladder beast. What is interesting is that, in M:I2, the villain threatened to release a virus that would kill billions, and yet I could not motivate myself to care if the hero succeeded (I was hoping he wouldn't, so the heroine would be forced to throw herself off a cliff). In M:I3, we are never told what  plot the villain is attempting. There is no on-screen threat beyond the hero and his new bride. And yet I cared intensely.

And getting me to care about Tom Cruise is a feat in itself.

Movie Synopsis of the Day/Week/Month

(Spoilers abound)

(The Terminator/Looper) is a movie about an unstoppable killing machine played by action movie star (Arnold Schwarzenegger/Bruce Willis) who is sent back in time (45/30) years. His mission is to change the past by stopping a boy named (John Connor/Cid "Rainmaker") from growing up, because the boy is going to (save the world/destroy the world). Due to a lack of information in the future, there are three people who the killer must hunt down and destroy. He is opposed in his mission by the time-traveling protagonist who is (the boy's father from the future/the killer's younger self from the past), and by the boy's mother who is one tough cookie and willing to sacrifice herself to protect her child. Along the way, the protagonist gets to know the boy's mother and (sleeps with her/sleeps with her). In the end, the protagonist sacrifices his life to destroy the killing machine and save the life of the boy and his mother.

The Official Rankings

Updated for 2012

1. Anthropomorphic Superheroes
2. Anthropomorphic Old Guy, Boyscout, and Dog
3. Anthropomorphic Monsters
4. Anthropomorphic Robots
5. Anthropomorphic Rats
6. Anthropomorphic Scotsmen
7. Anthropomorphic Cars
8. Anthropomorphic Toys (third time)
9. Anthropomorphic Fish
10. Anthropomorphic Bugs
11. Anthropomorphic Toys (again)
12. Anthropomorphic Toys
13. Anthropomorphic Cars (again)

Random facts (courtesy Wikipedia).

• The lowest-grossing (worldwide) Pixar film was their first, Toy Story, at $361 million. It was made on a budget of $30 million. The highest-grossing is Toy Story 3, at over $1 billion
• Cars 2 is the only Pixar film not to have been nominated for any Academy awards.
• Six of their thirteen feature-length films have won Best Animated Feature. Two more were nominated but did not win.
• Here's a picture of me with the co-director of Brave, taken at San Diego Comic-con 2007:

Note stylish hat. Another reason to wear one.

I Checked Snopes

...and this is not a hoax.



There is actually, in fact, a movie being made, based on this game:



And it is, in fact, being advertising as based on a game made by the same toy company that made Transformers.

No joke.

And Liam Neeson was somehow press-ganged into being in it.

And someone, somewhere, decided to invest millions of dollars in this movie.

The official site is here, if you don't believe me.

I wonder how anyone was able to keep a straight face at any point during the entire pitching, writing, and filming process.

And if no one at any point utters the line "you sank my battleship," I will be sorely disappointed.

Marvel vs. DC

Comparison from a movie perspective, with scores based on Rotten Tomatoes' aggregate reviews.

DC:

Year	Movie	Score
1978	Superman	94
1981	Superman II	88
1983	Superman III	24
1987	Superman IV	10
1989	Batman	71
1992	Batman Returns	79
1995	Batman Forever	44
1997	Batman & Robin	13
2004	Catwoman	10
2005	Batman Begins	85
2006	Superman Returns	76
2008	The Dark Knight	94
2009	Watchmen	64
2010	Jonah Hex	12
2011	Green Lantern	27
	Average	52.73
	Median	64
	Standard deviation	33.63

Marvel:

Year	Movie	Score
2000	X-Men	82
2002	Spider-Man	89
2003	Daredevil	45
2003	X-Men 2	88
2003	Hulk	62
2004	The Punisher	29
2004	Spider-Man 2	93
2005	Elektra	10
2005	Fantastic Four	27
2006	X-Men: The Last Stand	57
2007	Ghost Rider	26
2007	Spider-Man 3	63
2007	Fantastic Four 2	37
2008	Iron Man	94
2008	The Incredible Hulk	66
2008	Punisher: War Zone	26
2009	X-Men Origins: Wolverine	37
2010	Iron Man 2	74
2011	Thor	77
2011	X-Men: First Class	87
2011	Captain America	79
	Average	59.43
	Median	63
	Standard deviation	26.58
	Independent average	78
	Independent median	77
	Independent std dev	10.22

Titles in red were independently produced by Marvel studios.

On average, Marvel's films tend to be a little better than DC's.

Lowest of the low: Superman IV, Catwoman, Elektra (10%)
Best of the best: Superman, The Dark Knight, Iron Man (94%)

The Official Rankings (Updated)

1. Anthropomorphic Superheroes
2. Anthropomorphic Monsters
3. Anthropomorphic Robots
4. Anthropomorphic Old Guys, Dogs, and Boyscout
5. Anthropomorphic Cars
6. Anthropomorphic Rats
7. Anthropomorphic Toys (third time)
8. Anthropomorphic Fish
   ---The good/great dividing line---
9. Anthropomorphic Cars (again)
10. Anthropomorphic Toys (again)
11. Anthropomorphic Bugs
12. Anthropomorphic Toys

Although it was not made by the studio whose mascot is an anthropomorphic desk lamp, last year's "Anthropomorphic Princess with really long hair" fits between #2 and #3 on this list, and although it was not made by the company whose mascot is an anthropomorphic mouse, last year's "Anthropomorphic Dragons and Vikings" fits between #4 and #5. Those are the only two non-anthropomorphic Desk Lamp 3D animated feature films that I can think of (off the top of my head) that fit somewhere on this list.

The Official Rankings (IMHO)

1. Anthropomorphic Superheroes
2. Anthropomorphic Monsters
3. Anthropomorphic Robots
4. Anthropomorphic Old Guys, Dogs, and Boyscout
5. Anthropomorphic Cars
6. Anthropomorphic Rats
7. Anthropomorphic Fish
8. Anthropomorphic Toys (again)
9. Anthropomorphic Toys (third time)
10. Anthropomorphic Bugs
11. Anthropomorphic Toys

I hate all of you

This trailer has been out for THREE DAYS and NONE of you bothered to tell me about it!



Y'know, it's only my second-favorite Narnia book.

You monster.

(Which reminds me of another trailer....)

The Power of the Feminine

So babby's aunt/godmother is staying with us this weekend, which provided the Murloc and meself with free babbysitting. We took the opportunity to go out to the movies (the first time since we saw Half-Blood Prince!) and went to see the non-Imax, non-3D Alice in Wonderland.

The movie was entertaining and visually splendid, but suffered from the same thing every Tim Burton movie I've ever seen; that is, it's formulaic and the characters didn't engage me. With the possibility of Victor Van Dort, I can't think of a single Tim Burton character that I cared for enough that I would have been emotionally moved by the character's death. I think part of it stems from an unclear character dramatic need and motivation. (So what's Alice's dramatic goal, upon reaching Wonderland? How does Charlie's deep-seated want influence his actions once he's in the chocolate factory?) Also, within ten minutes of the start of Alice, I predicted how it was going to end and even what her final speech was going to be, with a great degree of accuracy (and I'm talking more than just general "the good guys win" prediction).

About the time Alice donned the silver armor and rode into battle with the Vorpal sword to slay the Jabberwocky (that's really not that big of a spoiler; see: predictability), I realized why my co-worker liked the movie so much, and why she urged me to see it, to the point of offering to babysit. Alice is definitely the strong female character, but as I watched, I began to wonder whether she was in fact a strong female character, or a strong character, who just happened to be female. When I thought about it, I realized that she didn't have a single pronounced feminine trait, and had the movie been Bob in Wonderland, it would not have been significantly different or fundamentally changed.

(And we have seen this movie staring a man before. It's called Harry Skywalker and the Dragon of Narnia. In the only-six-plots-in-the-world school of thought, this movie is "boy destined to destroy evil; boy resists destiny; boy finally fulfills destiny," except replace "boy" with "girl". Not that this is a bad thing. I happen to like this plot, thank you very much. But in this particular movie, it's hampered by the fact that Alice's dramatic need is that she wants to be the master of her destiny, and not have to live to other's expectations of her. Her arc of change (learning to forge her own destiny) is kind of incongruous with the movie's events (fulfill other's expectations of her destiny).)

One might argue that everyone expecting her to marry and be a good wife is a part of the movie that only works if Alice is a woman. But this would still work even if the main character was male. The expectation could have been for him to take a wife and follow into his father's business when he wanted to do his own thing.

This is something I've been aware of for a while. Where are the strong female characters? I mean the characters who are strong because of their femininity, instead of in spite of it? This was something that bugged me all the way through "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". After seven seasons, she still didn't have a single trait that required she be a woman. And in fact the other strong "female" character, by which I mean strong character who was female (Willow), had some distinctively masculine traits, i.e., being in love with a woman. This is a problem with all of Joss' shows. Typically speaking, his strong women are usually strong men who happen to have two X chromosomes.

(And this flows directly from my issues with modern pseudo-feminism: that is, women become strong by becoming just like men. "The basic flaw is that feminists start by seeking equality," writes John C. Wright in a recent post, "but finish by seeking androgyny." Women are told that in order to find equality, they need to be like men. Of course, this goal is in direct conflict with biological, psychological, and spiritual realities, in which women are not men. The end result of this philosophy has women rejecting there bodies, and becoming both physically and psychologically sterile.)

I started thinking about female characters who I liked, who were actually strong women, not strong humans. Princess Leia sprung to mind almost immediately. But how is she feminine? I mean, she's good with a blaster, strong leader of her people... y'know, masculine traits. But then I realized that's not what makes her strong. She's a strong character primarily because of how she influences the other characters, namely the men, and namely Han Solo. Luke (a character with an extremely clear dramatic need, as opposed to Burton's characters; he states it outright: "I want to become a Jedi like my father before me") joins the rebellion because of Leia. Han sticks around and changes from scoundrel to noble because of Leia. She really shows the true power of femininity; that is, women have power over men.

A man's power over a woman is purely physical. He can beat her up and take what he wants, but if he is civilized and taught that women are not men (an idea the pseudo-feminists are rapidly trying to expunge), he won't. But a woman's power is so much more than that. If she wants something, all she need do is bat her eyelashes and smile sweetly.

Understanding this relationship also throws St. Paul's teachings into clarity. He puts as head of the family the member who is most easily swayed by the needs of the other, then tells him to love his family as part of his own body. Any guy can understand this, because we already act as servants of our bodies. If it itches, we scratch. If it's hungry, we feed it. If it wants a beer, we drink. To say that we should server the needs of our wives as we do that of our bodies is language any caveman (and let's face it, men are just barely one step above cavemen, largely due to the efforts of women) can understand.

I think at least on a subconscious level, I understood this. When I started writing Jack Flint: Space Pirate (you knew this was coming!) I wanted to write the anti-Joss woman (understandably, because JF:SP is partly my rebuttal to "Firefly.") (Of course, you write what you know, and since I don't know what it's like to be a woman, that sort of leaves out writing a realistic female character, so I did what I assume every other male author does and wrote my fantasy of a woman.)

Regina Burke is my idea of the strong female character. While she is certainly a strong character who happens to be a woman—Jack of all trades, master of many; she's the best pilot Redemptrix has ever had, a good engineer, can handle the guns, and even helps the ship's cook—that's not what makes her a strong female character. Instead, her real strength comes from the one quality she has as a woman that no man can have: her influence on Jack. She, and she alone can stand up to Jack, change his mind, and push him to do good. Not even Jack's long time friend and first mate can manage that. I mean, how could he? Male-male relationships are won by strength alone, and Jack has superior strength over Damian, by virtue of rank. Regina, even though she is the lowest ranking member of the crew, has a power no one else has.

And this is a similar trait that, I realize, all my heroines—written and un-written—have. Father Max's assistant (when I write her), and the heroine of the story I will write when I finish Father Max. </toot my own horn>

This is only what I intend, of course. Whether or not I am good enough to translate the thoughts in my head to words on a page is left as an exercise for the reader.

* * *

"Miss Burke," Jack finally started after a long deliberation. "When I give an order on me ship to me crew, I am accustomed to having it followed."


"Excuse me, sir?"

"Back on the fluyt, you disobeyed me direct order to await me return before leaving. Now, I find this a disgusting display of insubordinate behavior."

"Your order reeked, Captain," Burke retorted. "It would have gotten us all killed. Had I stayed for your arrival, you wouldn't have had a ship to come back to."

"Well that is most certainly your opinion, but your reckless actions nearly got you killed anyways, or have you forgotten the EMP you flew me ship into?"

Burke narrowed her eyes and pointed at Jack. "You are not blaming that on me! Your junk heap of a ship failed on me. I saved her at every turn and came up with the plan to defend her without power."

"Me 'junk heap' was working just fine when I left her. Me engine mate could have fixed any problems you had. Maybe if you had waited for him, instead of rashly running off to battle, we wouldn't have even needed your defense plan—which I might point out only worked because of the stupidity of your enemy and not any cleverness on your part. Or perhaps you're too busy trying to do every job yourself, except those I give you."

She made a noise of disgust and rolled her eyes. He continued. "I am the captain of this ship and as such, you will show me the respect me position deserves. And as captain, me orders are final and should be obeyed without question."

"Well, Captain," Burke said snidely, "you're only such because you stole this ship from Lord knows who, not because of some merit-based promotion. Now, judging by your crew's unwavering loyalty, I'd guess that normally your orders warrant respect, but when you're giving orders that will result in the death of your crew, I'm very disinclined to follow them."

"Miss Burke, you are completely out of line. Now as far as disciplinary action—"

"Cut the crap, Jack," she blurted out. "I know your attitude towards me is just part of your 'breaking-in' process. You want to learn if I work under pressure. That's fine. I can deal with it. I served in the armed forces. But I've bled for you." She pointed at the crusted blood on her forehead. "And this marks the second time I've saved your skin without so much as a 'thank you.' I think I've demonstrated my trustworthiness, so you can back off a little."

She stared at him, arms akimbo, her blue eyes looked as if lasers might shoot out of them. Jack returned her glare. She was a good six inches shorter than he, and stared up at him, but didn't back down one bit. He felt the fury boil under his skin. "Miss Burke, you're dismissed," he said coldly, not able to think of anything else to say.

She didn't move. She didn't even shift her gaze.

"That means 'get out'," he explained. But she remained rooted in place. After a few moments he sighed and asked, "Is there something else, Miss Burke?"

"Yes," she replied, with a certain sharpness in her tone. "I think you owe me an explanation."

Jack could feel his ire rising. This was too much. "I do, do I? About what?"

"I think I deserve to know what I've gotten myself into."

"What's your meaning?" Jack said, feigning ignorance. He was afraid he might know the direction she was heading.

"You had been on that fluyt before." Jack was about to raise an objection but she beat him to it. "And don't try to deny it. You knew the layout. You knew which quarters were which. You knew exactly where to find the disk."

"Aye, so I did. Were you going somewhere with this?"

"Yes. It's not a hard jump to make from realizing you were on that ship to realizing you attacked that ship. Which means that, apparently, I'm now the pilot on what's probably the most wanted ship in the system. So I wonder, Captain, what other sorts of jobs am I going to have to perform? Anything that could get me thrown in prison for life or strung up by my neck?"

Jack chortled dismissively. "Miss Burke, you may have only just now noticed, but we're privateers. And since the laws of space change depending on the whims of lawmen and the alignment of the planets, we, almost by definition, do jobs of questionable legality. We're not in the US Navy, so we don't have the luxury of making up the laws by which we want to abide. So if you're suddenly concerned or are getting cold feet that you might have to steal—"
 
Burke cut him off. "Stealing's not my concern here, Captain. I understand I'll have to do a bit of that. I'm more concerned about murder. I saw at least one dead man on that ship, and I can only imagine what happened to the rest."


And with that, she had hit on something that had been nagging at Jack for almost a month now. As much as he tried to avoid killing, as much as he tried to blame the man with the case, Jack was the one who attacked the fluyt. He was the aggressor and therefore, he was at least partially responsible for spilling their blood. He tried to suppress the sudden guilt he felt. He couldn't understand why he was feeling it so strongly. He'd been dealing in questionable ethics for years now, and hadn't had any trouble sleeping at night. But suddenly, with Burke giving him that accusatory stare, he could no longer suppress his—what did other people call it?—his conscience.

He couldn't bring himself to look back at her, so instead as he spoke, he stared out the windows at the back of his quarters, at the dreadnought, now small in the distance. "Those deaths... were regrettable."

"Oh, regrettable. Is that it? Is that how you see it? Captain, I wonder how regrettable it really was for you. Did you enjoy it? Is that how you get a thrill in this job? Tie a man up, then starve him of air?"

"Regina," he said, looking back at her. 

Something softened in her expression. She seemed to notice that it was the very first time he had addressed her by her first name. 

He continued. "I know you have no reason to believe me, but I need to tell you anyways. I took every step I could to keep those sailors alive. Didn't you see the marks on the hull? Three clean shots through the sails and one through the cannons. We could have more easily punched a hole through their quarters and killed half the crew before even boarding. I mean, for God's sake, we left their communications untouched so they could call for help."

She relaxed her body language, and while she still looked doubtful, something told Jack that she believed, or at least wanted to. "So then how did those sailors die?"

"The man we were after, the man with the disk, killed them." Jack told her about his near-death experience and how he only just barely managed to get onto his ship before it was stolen.

Regina uncrossed her arms and, but for scowl she was still giving him, seemed at ease. "But you still could have saved them, couldn't you?"

A memory flashed across Jack's eyes. He felt the shudder of his corvette as she powered up; the adrenaline he had felt, fearing his ship was about to be hijacked. He remembered diving into the hold and slamming the aft hatch shut mere moments before she pulled away. And he remember watching through the aft portal as the bodies and cargo were flushed out into the vacuum of space.

"Yes," he finally said. And he felt that a weight had been removed, finally admitting it to himself. "Yes, we could have. But I didn't. All I could think of was meself."

Hm.

Joe Johnston, director of the new Captain America movie, on the costume:

"The costume is a flag, but the way we're getting around that is we have Steve Rogers forced into the USO circuit. After he's made into this super-soldier, they decide they can't send him into combat and risk him getting killed. He's the only one and they can't make more. So they say, 'You're going to be in this USO show' and they give him a flag suit. He can't wait to get out of it."

(Emphasis mine.)

Erm, why on earth would you think that you have to get around that, as if it is some sort of obstacle? Unless....

(H/T Shamus Young)

I miss Tom.

No, wait. I don't. I just miss making movies with him.

Who Watches "Watchmen"?

I consider myself fairly "up" on topics of geekitude, even when it's something that I don't use or doesn't interest me. For instance, I know that the mascot for the next release of Ubuntu is Karmic Koala, even though I've never used that OS. I know that Vodaphone's new Google Android phone is the first that won't have a keyboard. I know the premises of Dr. Who, the X-Files, Red Dwarf, and other geek TV shows, even though I didn't ever really follow any of them.

So you can imagine my surprise when last year, when the Watchmen trailer debuted, every geek on the interwebs simultaneously had a nerdgasm. "omfg teh Watchmen movee looks soooooo good!" the interweb trolls cried out. News and opinions on whether it was going to be any good have been flying through the 'tubes ever since. Lamentations that they might "mess it up" have probably been the internets' greatest fear. Verily, every single geek website I read has had some mention or post or comment on the movie, about when the author is going to see it, or if he thinks they'll stay faithful to the graphic novel.

Which makes me wonder, who are these Watchmen and why have I never heard of them?

It's bizarre. Every other geek on the face of the planet is flipping out about this movie, and I had not even heard the name "Watchmen" until I saw the trailer before whatever it was I saw the trailer before (Dark Knight I think?). Granted, there are other items of geekery that had slipped by me and I only discovered in retrospect (Firefly comes to mind here, as I didn't know about that until the movie came out). But typically in those cases, I could tell I wasn't alone, as other geeks would mention just finding out about it, or talk about it in a such a way that it seemed they didn't expect their entire audience to be aware of it, or give the general impression that it wasn't prevalent. But Watchmen, I just can't get away from, and every geek is making it seem like every geek who is some geek has read Watchmen at least twice.

And it get's even more bizarre when, watching the trailer, I think: "this looks really, really lame." Every geek has been talking about how awesome the trailer is, and how it gives them high hopes that Mr. 300 won't mess it up, but honestly? I just looks dumb to me. I mean, you've got the big blue glowy guy who looks like a cross between the Silver Surfer and a smurf. There's Night Owl, who looks like a cheap knock-off of Batman. The "Comedian"? Really? How is this different from "The Joker"? As the Murloc put it, they all seem like riffs of DC or Marvel heroes. And don't get me started on this Silk Spectre chick. That has got to be the most unflattering costume I've seen on a superhero. All the fanboi geeks are raving about hot hawt she looks, but I think the costume just looks uncomfortable and ugly. (Go here if you don't know what I'm talking about.) I mean, there's hot superheroines, hawt superheroines, and there's this, which is neither hot nor hawt. And what's with the "I" and "II" after the names? Did Nite Owl have a son, and become "Nite Owl, Sr."?

It's a good thing I don't have a large audience, because I'm sure I'd get the all the fanbois descending on me like a ton of bricks. "omfg u dont no wutz ur talking about if u red teh novel u would no how awexome it is night owl is nuthing lke batman ur so dum and ghey and dum." But that's a point I concede. Perhaps if knew more about the story, I would know what everything is about and the trailer would be less a ball of suck and more a ball of intrigue. Granted.

However, generally speaking, I like what other geeks like. Rarely have I been disappointed by what other geeks say is cinema classique. I am a geek, ergo I like geeky things, ergo if other geeks like it, so, too, will I, probably. So, despite my shear ignorance on the subject, I was willing to trust the General Will of the geeks of the internet and give the movie a shot.

Until I saw the rating.

"Rated R for strong graphic violence, sexuality, nudity and language." Erm, yeah— no. Just... no. And most of the geeks I have read say that's a good thing, and necessary to stay true to the graphic novel. I think I'll pass. I probably won't even try it on DVD. I might watch it when it comes to TV or basic cable. But until then, you can have your Watchpersons.

(Note that I did watch 300 on DVD, despite have a similar rating, but that's because it at least interested me. I hadn't read the graphic novel, but the subject matter, combined with the trailer, at least made me want to see if it was any good. (Conclusion: meh, but I still won't be heading downtown.))

Also, I gather that Richard Nixon is a villain, or something, in the movie which just confirms my theory that the left still isn't done crucifying him, long after he's dead and burried.

Summer Movie Preemptive Roundup.
I've done Summer Movie Recaps in the past. This year, I thought I'd also do a forecast using the Reviewinator to determine which movies are worth seeing. I know it's a little late, since the summer movie season started over a week ago, but that's how I roll. Deal.

May 2nd

Iron Man
Cool Superhero (weight 5): 10
Cool Costume (weight 3): 10
Cool Special Effects/Explosions (weight 5): 10
Interesting source material (weight 4): 6
Trailer: Double Wide (weight 3): 7
Adjustment factor for ratio of bad to good superhero movies (weight 2): 5
--------------------
Overall rating: 8.41
Having seen this movie already, I can already tell you GO SEE IT! It wasn't one I was particularly interested in, having no familiarity with the source material, but when every single geek on teh interwebs started proclaiming it as teh best comic book movie evar, I had to check it out.

See it? Yes


May 9th

Speed Racer
Good directors! Haha! (weight 5): 5
Style! Haha! (weight 3): 9
Cool special effects! Haha! (weight 5): 9
Trailer: Single Wide! Haha! (weight 3): 5
Fact that it is based on cheesy anime! Haha! (weight -3): 7
--------------------
Overall rating! Haha!: 4.79
This one gets a big fat "Meh". The Wachowski's are... I dunno. The Matrix was good, and I think that I'm the only person on the planet that liked its two sequels. V for Vendetta was a heavy-handed, agenda-ridden piece of fecal matter—the debating equivalent of making your point by hitting your opponent over the head with a mallet with your thesis written on it—whose protagonist was a terrorist.

See it? No


May 16th

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Good source material (weight 5): 10
Sequel adjustment factor* (weight 4): 9
Take that, Philip Pullman (weight 5): 10
Fact that they need to make enough money on these to at least get to A Horse and his Boy, which was my favorite of the series, and I'm still bitter that the BBC productions stopped with The Silver Chair (weight 5): 10
Come on, it's frakking Chronicles of Narnia! I still have to convince you to see it? (weight 5): 10
--------------------
Overall rating: 9.83
*This is a complicated factor taking into account the quality of the previous movies in the franchise, whether or not it's the same writers/director as previous installments, and the likelihood that they're just cashing in.

Prince Caspian is the one Narnia book that I never read. I got bored of it before I could get through it, and the BBC production, while good, was IMO the weakest of the four. The trailer makes it look like it's going to be very exciting though.

See it? Yes


May 22nd

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Dum dada dum. Dum dadadada dum (weight 4): 10
George Lucas Presents (weight 5): 10
A Steven Spielberg Film (weight 5): 10
Starring Harrison Ford (weight 5): 10
Two words: INDIANA JONES (weight 5): 11
Yeah yeah, Shia LaBeouf, Marian Ravenwood, Cate Blanchett etc. etc. (weight 1): 10
--------------------
Overall rating: 10.20
I know I'm supposed to be extremely excited about this one, or so the reviewinator tells me, but there's some small part of me that is very hesitant about this and I'm not sure why. Despite the fact that I love all the Star Wars movies and despite the fact that I haven't seen a Spielberg film I didn't like (yes, that includes 1941 and Munich), I'm still approaching Indy 4 with reservations. I don't know why. I think it's because I don't think it can be better than Last Crusade, my favorite of the bunch, which I think was a perfectly good ending to the trilogy. I guess I really don't see the need to make another one so many years later to tack on the end of a series which is already very good. Plus, I don't want to listen to the hordes of internet fanboys screaming about how George Lucas has ruined their childhood again, which you know is going to happen, no matter how good the movie is.

See it? Hell, yes.


May 30th

Sex and the City: The Movie
Sarah Jessica Parker (weight -5): 10
Kim Cattrall (weight -5): 10
Kristin Davis (weight -5): 10
Cynthia Nixon (weight -5): 10
Oh yeah, it's Sex and the City (weight -5): 10
--------------------
Overall rating: -10.00
I think Darth Vader sums it up best.
Whale Biologist Tom Adams has mentioned the chorus of "Yes's", sung to the climax of the 1812 overture in response to a leather-clad Natalie Portman asking us if we could live a lie. What would be the best music to sing a chorus of "No's" to? The Dies Irae from Verdi's Requiem?

See it? Only if you are out of your ever-loving mind.


June 6th

You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Adam Sandler. 'Nuff said (weight -3): 0
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Overall rating: 0.00
Ok, the guys been in exactly one good movie: The Wedding Singer. He, along with Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, and Will Ferrel, need to crawl into a cave and die.

See it? Only if you want to lower your IQ by about 20 points.


June 13th

The Happening
M. Night Shyamalan. 'Nuff said. (weight 5): 9
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Overall rating: 9.00
I am an M. Night fanboy (meaning: I liked The Village and Lady in the Water). Slap his name on a movie and I'll be there like... something that is strongly attracted to something else.

See it? Yes

The Incredible Hulk
Superhero (weight 5): 8
Interesting source material (weight 4): 6
Comic book adjustment factor (weight 2): 5
Franchise adjustment factor (weight 4): 5
Marvel adjustment factor (weight 2): 9
Trailer: Double Wide (weight 3): 7
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Overall rating: 6.65
It's your call on this one. There isn't much going for it. But one thing that's important to note is that Marvel, tired of getting screwed with crappy comic book movies, like X3 and the first Fantastic 4 movie, has set up their own movie studio so they can do them right. The studio's first production was Iron Man, which was very good. The Incredible Hulk is next, so who knows?

See it? Yes, matinee


June 20th

Get Smart
Source material (weight 5): 7
Cast (weight 4): 8
Trailer: Single Wide, with a porch (weight 3): 6
Recent-trend-of-turning-old-TV-shows-into-movies adjustment factor (weight 2): 3
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Overall rating: 6.50
This is also sort of a "meh". None of the recent TV-show-to-movies have been any good, but this one looks more promising. Steve Carell is funny, Anne Hathaway is pretty, I'll probably see it at some point, on DVD if nothing else.

See it? Maybe matinee


June 27th

Wall-E
Pixar (weight 5): 10
Cute Robot (weight 5): 10
Pixar (weight 5): 10
Trailer: Triple Wide, with a porch (weight 5): 10
Did I mention the fact that it's Pixar (weight 5): 10
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Overall rating: 10.00
Come one here, people. Just the fact that "Pixar" is stamped at the beginning should make you want to see it, regardless of what it is about. They shouldn't even need to show a trailer, or provide any movie details whatsoever. All they should need to do is have a Dublin Generics-brand movie poster (bright yellow with big, black, block letters, for those of you not in the know) stating "PIXAR'S NEXT MOVIE: JUNE 27TH" and you should line up to see it.

That aside, the teaser trailer tells you next to nothing about the movie, and it still looks fantastic.

See it? For the love of all that is good and sweet in Oden's beard, YES


July 2nd

Hancock
Will Smith (weight 4): 9
Cool Superhero (weight 5): 9
Trailer: Double Wide, with a porch (weight 3): 8
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Overall rating: 8.75
Will Smith can brings the funnies. Will Smith can brings the cools. Will Smith can brings the actions. Will Smith can bring the dramas. In this case, it looks like he's going for three of the four.

See it? Yes


July 11th

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Big red guy. About 7 feet tall. Can't miss him. (weight 4): 9
Fish guy (weight 3): 7
Moderately hot girl. You know the kind that are only sort of hot, so they don't mess around with other guys. (weight 3): 7
Trailer: Double Wide (weight 3): 7
"Visionary" Director. He must be because it said so in the trailer! (weight 5): 9
Franchise adjustment factor (weight 4): 8
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Overall rating: 8.00
This must be a horrible, horrible year for people who don't like comic book movies.

See it? Yes

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
The Other Indiana Jones in 3D! (weight 3): 8
Walden Media in 3D! (weight 3): 8
It's in 3D in 3D! (weight 2): 9
Trailer: Single wide, with a porch in 3D! (weight 4): 6
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Overall rating: 7.50
I object to this movie in that it teaches kids bad science about what's at the center of the Earth. Even still, it will probably be more realistic than The Core.

See it? Yes, matinee


July 18th

The Dark Knight
Cool Superhero (weight 5): 10
Cool Costume (weight 3): 10
Cool Source material (weight 4): 10
Cast (weight 4): 10
Trailer: Triple Wide, with a porch (weight 3): 10
Franchise Adjustment Factor (weight 4): 9
--------------------
Overall rating: 9.83
Ok, aside from Indiana Jones, Prince Caspian, Iron Man, and Wall-E, this is the movie of the summer. Batman Begins is my new gold standard for comic book movies. But as great as it was, its one, tiny, niggling little flaw was Katie "Dawson's Creek" Holmes. They got rid of her in this one.

See it? Batman is a ninja. You can only see him if he wants you to see him, and even then, only if you squint your eyes and turn your head sideways (in which case he looks like a bunny).


July 25th

The X-Files: I Want to Believe
The Truth is Out There (weight 5): 9
Franchise Adjustment Factor (weight 4): 8
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Overall rating: 8.56
I really didn't know how to Reviewinate this one. I haven't seen the first X-Files movie, and I didn't watch the show until the poorly-received final season. But I'll still probably see this one anyways.

See it? Yes, matinee


August 1st
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
The Other Indiana Jones (weight 3): 8
The Very Hot Rachel Weisz (weight 1): 0
Franchise Adjustment Factor (weight 4): 8
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Overall rating: 7.00
Did I mention Rachel Weisz isn't in it? Boo.

See it? Yes, matinee


August 8th

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Remember the Star Trek VI soundtrack? Remember how cool it was? Remember how we had never heard of the guy who wrote the music? Well, he wrote the music for the first SotTP. But not this one. (weight 0): 0
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Overall rating: 0.0
Use this weekend to catch up on previous releases, if you've fallen behind.

See it? Erm, no


August 15th

Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Star War— wait, what? There's a new Star Wars movie? (weight 5): 12
CG— It's in CG? (weight 4): 10
Star Wars in CG— Just so I understand you, there's a new Star Wars movie coming out, and it's in CG, and I hadn't heard about it before now? (weight 5): 10
The fact that this is just the beginning of a brand-new Star Wars TV series that will be on cartoon network (weight 5): 10
Squee! *Dies* (weight 5): 10
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Overall rating: 10.42
I have no idea how this one snuck up on me. I only found out about it by accident when I happened to turn on the TV about an hour before the "world exclusive" trailer on Cartoon Network. I had heard about the CG series this year, followed by the live action series next year, but I had no idea they were leading it off with a CG movie.

See it? Are you insane? You have to ask?


August 22nd: The end of the season. You made it! Relax and stay at home for once.

And there you have it. The Summer Movie Season That Would Not Die. Assuming $11 for full-price, and $9 for matinee, which is what they're charging at the Spectrum, the communist extortionists, this summer will cost The Murloc and me $288 on movie tickets alone, not including concessions.


Other releases of note, later this year.

October 17th
Max Payne. They're making a movie out of my favorite under-rated video game franchise? Very nice. But can you get around to making Max Payne 3, please? Especially interesting is that Mila Kunis (voice of Meg Griffin on Family Guy) is playing the hot assassin babe Mona Sax. Interesting in that Mona is the complete opposite of Meg.

November 21st
Here, I'll hum the theme song and see if you can guess what it is: dum da da dum da dumm dumm / dum da da dumm dum dummm / dum dumm da da dumm dum dumm dum dumm da da dumm da da dumm dum dumm. Did you get it? I'll give you a hint. It rhymes with Mary Water. This November the third to last movie in the franchise comes out, based on the second to last book. It's the third to last, after the exciting announcement that they'll be splitting the seventh book into two movies, not wanting to leave anything out.

The Summer Blockbuster Final Tally.

Now that this mad, mad, mad, mad summer of big movies is finally winding down, we can take a step back to analyze, objectively, which one was the best. Noticing a void and filling it in his best manner, Dave put together a Reviewinator program in Visual Basic that provides a method of rating movies, taking into account that different movies are good for different reasons. The Reviewinator allows you to define categories for a movie, and weight them according to what is most important. For instance, "ability to make you cry," "touchy-feely-ness," and "David Duchovny's suaveness" might be important categories for Return to Me but not for Commando. The Reviewinator then takes a weighted average to determine the objective score for a movie. Note that a category can have a negative weighting, which indicates that it's important that a movie does not have that quality (for instance, "touchy-feely-ness" in Commando), but in all cases, higher category values are better (for instance, a category weighted -5, with a value of 10 indicates that it's important the movie not contain any of that, and it didn't).

So without further adieu, I present the final, objective, and completely inarguable scores for the summer's top blockbusters.

Review for Spider-Man 3
Overall rating: 8.56
Content summary:
Web-slinging action (weight 5): 9
Intense, character-driven story (weight 5): 10
Evil, freak-show villains (weight 5): 10
Ability to stay on a single plot line for more than 30 seconds (weight 3): 3

Review for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Overall rating: 8.24
Content summary:
Pirates (weight 5): 10
Ninja (weight -5): 10
Swords (weight 5): 10
Boats (weight 5): 10
Coherent Plot (weight 1): 6
Scene in which it is revealed that after 10 years, if the Dutchman's Captain's love remains true to him, he is released from his service and a new captain is found, otherwise, he is bound for an eternity, which explains that Calypso's betrayal of Davey Jones doomed him to an eternity as captain of the Dutchman, and gives the movie a satisfying ending, wherein Elizabeth, by being true to Will, gets him back after 10 years (weight 4): 0

Review for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Overall rating: 7.50
Content summary:
Superheroes (weight 5): 8
Supervillains (weight 5): 7
Action (weight 5): 7
Extreme lameness, like the first one (weight -5): 8

Review for Ocean's 13
Overall rating: 8.22
Content summary:
General Confusion about what's going on (weight 4): 8
George Clooney's suaveness (weight 3): 10
Brad Pitt's ability to make any woman swoon (weight 3): 6
Matt Damon's boyish good looks (weight 3): 8
Al Pacino's eeeeevilness (weight 3): 10
Julia Roberts' mouth the size of New Hampshire (weight -1): 10
Witty Repartee (weight 5): 7
Vegas, baby (weight 1): 10

Review for Transformers
Overall rating: 9.00
Content summary:
Awesomeness (weight 5): 10
Extreme Explosions (weight 5): 9
Crap-your-pants Action (weight 5): 10
One-liners (weight 3): 7
Ability to be appreciated by anyone outside of the 18-35 male demographic (weight 1): 5

Review for Ratatouille
Overall rating: 9.47
Content summary:
Animation (weight 5): 10
Humor (weight 5): 9
Sweetness (weight 4): 10
Pixar's Magic (weight 5): 9

Review for Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix, in IMAX 3D
Overall rating: 10.00
Content summary:
Witchcraft (weight 5): 10
Wizardry (weight 5): 10
Story (weight 5): 10
Shootout in the Ministry of Magic, in 3D (weight 5): 12
Quidditch (weight 1): 0

Review for The Simpsons Movie
Overall rating: 7.95
Content summary:
D'oh! (weight 5): 10
Why you little! (weight 5): 10
Aye Carumba! (weight 3): 8
*sneers* Excellent (weight 3): 7
Humor (weight 5): 8
Bart's penis, which I really just did not need to see (weight -1): -10

And there you have it, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix easily walks away as the best movie of the summer. Remember, if you disagree you are not just wrong, you are educated stupid and evil.

Also, I haven't yet seen Live Free or Die Hard or The Bourne Ultimatum so if you have, please feel free to send me a pithy and arbitrary review.

-----EDIT-----

Finally saw Bourne Ultimatum and Die Hard 4 so here are the indisputable reviews.

Review for Bourne Ultimatum
Overall rating: 8.39
Content summary:
Suspense (weight 5): 10
Action (weight 5): 10
Suspenseful foot chases (weight 4): 10
Action-ful car chases (weight 5): 10
Matt Damon's boyish good looks (weight 3): 10
Hot chick, saved by Matt Damon's boyish good looks (weight 4): 10
OMFG WOULD YOU HOLD THAT GORRAM CAMERA STILL FOR JUST ONE FRAKKING SECOND! (weight 5): 0
Hehe. I used swear words from both Serenity AND BS Galactica in that previous category (weight 0): 10

Review for Live Free or Die Hard
Overall rating: 7.76
Content summary:
Compelling villain, portrayed by either Alan Rickman or Jeremy Irons (weight 4): 0
Explosions (weight 5): 10
"I'm a Mac" guy (weight -1): -5
More explosions (weight 4): 10
Bruce Willis progressively getting the crap kicked out of him (weight 5): 10
Even more explosions (weight 3): 10
Improbable means of killing bad guys (weight 3): 5
Destroying a helicopter by jumping a car into it (weight 4): 10
Hot asian ninja chick (weight 3): 10
Hot asian ninja chick getting her butt kicked by a non-ninja punch to the face (weight 3): 10
Plot where, in the end, it does in fact end up being a bank robbery (weight 1): 7
Beethoven's Ninth (weight 1): 0

Statshot.
A look at the numbers that... wait this is actually real.

Top 9 inflation-adjusted domestic box office movies' ticket sales as percentage of US population at year of release.



Data courtesy US Census Bureau and Box Office Mojo.

What this chart represents is, basically, how many tickets a movie sold in the US divided by the US Population in the movie's initial release year. It's supposed to be a rough estimate of the percentage of the US population that went to see the film and gives an idea of the saturation of the movie in popular culture. The nine movies are the top nine movies on the inflation-adjusted domestic all-time box office gross list.

The reason it only goes to nine is the tenth movie on the list (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves) was originally released in 1937, and the midyear population data only goes back to 1950. For Gone with the Wind (1939) I used data from the 1940 US Census, so it is slightly inaccurate.

Also adding to the inaccuracies is that many of these movies were re-released in subsequent years. For instance, $128 million of Star Wars' $460 million were made in the 1997 Special Edition re-release, when the population was higher than the 1977 population.

But it gives you a rough idea of how ubiquitous certain movies are in the culture or past cultures.

The idea for this Statshot was given to me while browsing the list of top 100 domestic grosses adjusted for inflation. The movies on that list are really the most popular movies of all time, since it takes into account that tickets cost more today then they did in years past. Looking through this list, a number of other interesting things come into light. Here are a few of them:

Number of movies on the list starring Harrison Ford: 7
Number of movies on the list featuring music composed by John Williams: 17
Number of movies on the list directed by Steven Spielberg: 8
Number of movies on the list written by George Lucas: 10
Number of sequels on the list: 17
Number of Disney Animated Features on the list: 12
Number of movies on the list I've seen in their entirety: 62

Other interesting notes:
When Warner Brothers Pictures adapted My Fair Lady for the movies, they passed over Julie Andrews, who played Eliza Doolittle in the stage version, in favor of Audrey Hepburn. This is partially because Warner Brothers was investing a lot in the movie and didn't want to take a risk with the relatively inexperienced Julie Andrews, who had yet to star in a movie. However, this left Julie Andrews available to star in Disney's production of Mary Poppins. It's interesting to note that Mary Poppins sits at #23 on the list where My Fair Lady is #52. Note, however, that like most Disney movies on the list, Mary Poppins made most of its money on re-releases, having only made $31 million of its total $102 million on the initial release.

Gone with the Wind: This has got to be the most phenomenally successful movie of all time. In its initial release, it made $189 million dollars. $189 million 1939 dollars. That's over $1.329 billion 2007 dollars. No other movie made that much money for 34 years, not until the release of The Exorcist in 1973 with $193 million. But by then, Gone with the Wind had made an additional $9 million on re-releases, keeping on top of the box office list. The movie that finally bumped GWTW off the top spot was Steven Spielberg's Jaws in 1975 with $260 million. That only held onto the top spot for two years, when Star Wars burst onto the scene, raking in $307 million in its initial release. Star Wars held onto that spot for 16 years until Jurassic Park came along with $357 million. Jurassic's reign was short-lived because in 1997, the Special Edition re-release of Star Wars pushed it up to $460 million. But even that paled in comparison to the $600 million Titanic made the same year. Titanic still sits atop the box office, far ahead of even Star Wars in second place. Titanic is the only movie to have made more than $500 and $600 million dollars, and was the first movie to gross more than $1 billion worldwide, with a total worldwide gross of $1.8 billion. No other movie grossed more than $1 billion until Return of the King came along in 2003 with $1.1 billion worldwide. The billion dollar gross club also recently got its third member with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest at $1.065 billion.

Titanic is a success story similar to Gone with the Wind. Whereas most major blockbusters experience their largest gross on their first weekend, followed by a 30%-50% drop off on second and subsequent weekends, Titanic actually experienced a 35% gain on its second weekend, and didn't begin to significantly drop off until its 10th weekend. This is primarily why it sits on top of the box office chart and why no other movie is likely to touch it soon. Very few movies follow that same pattern. The only other one that immediately comes to mind is My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which had a very long, steady 52-week run, not permanently falling off until its 41st weekend. But since it never had a #1 weekend, it "only" made $241 million and is #45 on the all time domestic chart.