Reel Entropy

The Möbius strip: Most films continue to disappoint, Star Wars on track for record-shattering opening

Posted on December 1, 2015 by reelentropy

As expected, part two of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay took its second crown with $76 million over the five day weekend. The film is still tracking well behind its predecessors. The Good Dinosaur opened in second place to a similar paradox — its three day and five day totals, $39.2 million and $55.5 million, are both the fourth highest all time for Thanksgiving weekend, but its three day total represents Pixar’s lowest opening since the studio’s first film, Toy Story, in 1995. In third place, Creed had the highest opening ever for a Rocky film with a $29.6 million three day total and a $42.1 million five day total. The last new release, Victor Frankenstein, had one of the worst wide releases of all time, collecting just $3.6 million over the five day weekend, good for 12th place behind Oscar hopefuls Spotlight and Brooklyn, which are each playing in fewer than 1,000 theaters. Victor Frankenstein was expected to take in around $12 million and earn fourth or fifth place- Box Office Mojo

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Posted in The Möbius strip | Tagged #, #20th Century Fox, #adam mcday, #alec baldwin, #arthur miller, #bones, #brooklyn, #christopher mcquarrie, #creed, #death of a salesman, #Disney, #eddie redmayne, #exodus, #Fantastic Four, #george lucas, #gods of egypt, #laurence fishburne, #lionsgate, #mission: impossible, #mockingjay, #pixar, #quinten tarantino, #rocky, #rogue nation, #sony, #spotlight, #star wars, #the big short, #the danish girl, #the force awakens, #the good dinosaur, #the hateful eight, #the hunger games, #tom cruise, #victor frankenstein, #warner bros. | Leave a comment

Creed could have been excellent, isn’t

Posted on November 29, 2015 by reelentropy

Liked that incredible one-shot fight we did? Well, here’s a slow motion shot of Johnson yelling while he runs! Totally the same thing. Photos courtesy Warner Bros.

Hailed as the best movie of the year, Creed is exactly the kind of overlong, deliriously predictable feature that comes away with its accolades for all the wrong reasons.

The movie follows Donnie Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) from the first few Rocky movies. Johnson is a successful coorporate climber in his early 20s, but gives it all up to pursue a boxing career because, as much as he wants to stay out of his father’s shadow, he also wants to follow in his footsteps. No one will train him, so he moves from Los Angeles to Philadelphia to train under his father’s old rival and friend, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) in another display of blatantly taking advantage of his heritage while also saying he doesn’t want to take advantage of it. As Balboa trains Johnson, Ricky Conlon (Tony Bellew), the light heavyweight champion of the world, has an opponent drop out due to injury, and selects the unproven main character to take his place, which, if you remember, is the exact plot from Rocky.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #creed, #fruitvale station, #hippity hop, #michael b jordan, #rocky, #ryan coogler, #sylvester Stallone, #tessa thompson | 2 Comments

Good Dinosaur one of Pixar’s worst

Posted on November 29, 2015 by reelentropy

Pixar draws emotions. They bring us high and they bring us low. Inside Out brought critics high. The Good Dinosaur brings them low.

Arlo’s and Spot’s roles are reversed, and that’s weird as well. Arlo is supposed to be the human in this relationship, but he’s the one who can’t fend for himself. The movie wants Spot to be this wild animal that needs to be domesticated, but he’s the one feeding and defending and taking care of the dinosaur. It seems like they tried to go two different directions at once with this relationship, and it doesn’t work at all. Photos courtesy Walt Disney Motion Picture Studios.

Set in an alternate timeline when the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs missed, The Good Dinosaur follows Arlo (Raymond Ochoa), an apatosaurus born to a family of corn farmers and the runt of their litter, in every imaginable sense of the term. As his siblings grow into their own and quickly start to take over the farm work, Poppa Henry (Jeffery Wright) takes the cowardly Arlo under his wing and tries to teach him how to trap and kill pests. Using a trap that his father set up everything for, Arlo catches a human child, later to be dubbed Spot (Jack Bright), that has been stealing the family’s corn, but doesn’t have the nerve to finish him. Henry angrily takes Arlo up the river after the creature, but is killed in a flash flood. Arlo is knocked out and loses his way, but is thrust together with the human child, who takes a shine to him.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #dinosaurs, #Disney, #inside out, #jefferery Wright, #pete's dragon, #pixar, #the good dinosaur | Leave a comment

Applying Chaos Theory: Showdown of the century

Posted on November 29, 2015 by reelentropy

The global box office ain’t big enough for the both of them.

In 2016, the showdown between Warner Bros. and DC and Disney and Marvel will begin in earnest, and things had already started to come to a head in 2014. Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, seen as the early headstone of DC’s cinematic universe, pushed its release almost a full year from July 2015 to May 6, 2016, “to realize fully their vision, given the complex visual nature of the story.” Marvel, which started announcing release dates even before scripts were completed early in its production history, had already claimed that weekend, and they didn’t budge, announcing in April that Captain America: Civil War would hit theaters that weekend after a titanic performance from Captain America: The Winter Soldier. After a few months of talking about how Warner Bros. would get slaughtered if it didn’t step off, the studio pushed their date forward to March 25 after Marvel shocked everyone later in the summer with Guardians of the Galaxy, a virtually unknown property that opened within a few million dollars of The Winter Soldier and went on to outgross it on the year.

Everyone in their right mind knew Warner Bros. was going to back down, but what we didn’t know until the Civil War trailer dropped just before Thanksgiving was this — Marvel isn’t going to let them back down.

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Posted in Applying Chaos Theory | Tagged #Batfleck, #Batman, #batman vs superman, #civil war, #Dawn of Justice, #DC, #Disney, #iron man, #man of steel, #superman, #the dark knight, #warner bros., Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel | Leave a comment

Room fantastic — and the sequel is, too!

Posted on November 24, 2015 by reelentropy

Room represents another critical coup for infant production company A24. It’s the company’s 27th film in just three years of operation, and further cements them as the new gold standard for taste in film distribution. Other highlights include Ex Machina, Enemy and The Spectacular Now — again, in just the past three years. They’ll be distributing Sundance darling The Witch in February. Photo courtesy A24 Films.

The generous billboards for Room won’t tell you one very important thing — it’s actually a double feature.

Based on the 2010 novel by Emma Donoghue, which is itself based on several real-world extended kidnapping cases, Room reveals itself through the eyes of Jack Newsome (Jacob Tremblay), who celebrates his fifth birthday at the film’s start. His mother, Joy “Ma” Newsome (Brie Larson), was kidnapped by Old Nick (Sean Bridgers) seven years beforehand to serve as his rape slave, and he’s never been out of the garden shed where she’s held his entire life. After about an hour of this, he and Ma hatch a daring escape, and spend the rest of the film dealing with the aftereffects of their captivity.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #A24 films, #brie larson, #enemy, #ex machina, #jacob tremblay, #rape, #room, #sean bridgers, #short term 12, #the spectacular now, #the witch | 1 Comment

Reel Entropy

The Möbius strip: Most films continue to disappoint, Star Wars on track for record-shattering opening

Creed could have been excellent, isn’t

Good Dinosaur one of Pixar’s worst

Applying Chaos Theory: Showdown of the century

Room fantastic — and the sequel is, too!

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