Reel Entropy

The Visit Shyamalan’s masterpiece

Posted on September 9, 2015 by reelentropy

It wouldn’t be surprising to find out the AARP or another such organization is protesting The Visit. It really does make old people look that scary. Photos courtesy Universal Pictures.

After the turn of the century, everyone kind of gave up on M. Night Shyamalan. Though he entered the ’00s on a wave of critical acclaim with Unbreakable and The Sixth Sense, he steadily lost steam with dud after dud until the hotly anticipated Last Airbender broke the spirit of everyone who saw it and ended the public’s patience with the director.

Now, Jason Blum, the man behind the ongoing found footage renaissance, has given him a $5 million soapbox. Shyamalan stood on that soapbox and said nothing, his only communication, a long, throbbing middle finger to everyone, including his new benefactor, and that middle finger is titled The Visit.

The Visit tells the story of Rebecca and Tyler Jamison (Olivia De Jonge and Ed Oxenbould), pre-pubescent siblings who are spending the week with their maternal grandparents, Doris and John Jamison (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie), whom they have never met because of a falling out they and their mother (Kathryn Hahn) had before they were born. Rebecca brings her cameras along to document the adventure and quickly deputizes her little brother — yeah, it’s found footage. The trip immediately becomes a nightmare when the children discover their hosts are mentally ill, to put it mildly.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #9/11, #AARP, #after earth, #blumhouse, #deanna dunagan, #ed oxenbould, #found footage, #fuck you, #inside job, #kathryn hahn, #katy perry, #m. night shyamalan, #middle finger, #olivia de jonge, #peter mcrobbie, #shooting the bird, #the blair witch project, #the last airbender, #the sixth sense, #the visit, #unbreakable, #universal pictures, Jason Blum, Paranormal activity | 1 Comment

Jurassic World rampages through flop-filled summer

Posted on September 7, 2015 by reelentropy

All numbers via boxofficemojo.com are domestic and current as of Labor Day morning. Photos courtesy Universal Pictures.

We’ve written before about how much better Jurassic World did than anything else, and as the summer went on that article became more and more accurate. As of this writing, only two movies — Inside Out with $348.2 million and Minions with $328.6 million domestic — have joined the list of films that made more during their entire run than Jurassic World’s monstrous $208 million opening weekend. That’s the story of this blockbuster season — these movies moved significant amounts of tickets, and nothing else really did.

It’s not hard to see the common thread in this trio — they’re all children’s movies, or at least all thought of as children’s movies, and they were the only children’s movies. The only exceptions are Tomorrowland, which was horribly advertised, and possibly Pixels, which is almost deliberately offensive to the parents who would be paying to see it. Everything else was significantly adult-oriented.

Kid movies have a leg up in pretty much every way imaginable — more advertising outlets through fast food toys and other merchandise, easier minds for said advertising to sway, more money per convert as they typically have to bring their parents along — but it shouldn’t be this big of a problem. Movies should be able to make money without convincing children to beg their parents to take them. The fact that the only successful movies operated on this mechanism — or a bizarre reverse of that, in Jurassic World’s case — indicates that adults in general are simply less interested in going to the movies these days, and that conclusion is backed up by the week-to-week totals.

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Posted in White Noise | Tagged #adam sandler, #agent 47, #Alicia Vikander, #american dad, #american ultra, #amy poehler, #amy schumer, #ant-man, #antoine fuqua, #armie hammer, #arnold schwarzenegger, #bill hader, #blumhouse, #bridesmaids, #channing tatum, #chris pratt, #despicable me, #disney pixar, #dope, #dwayne johnson, #elixabeth debickig, #end of days, #entourage, #family guy, #fant4stic, #Fantastic Four, #forest whitaker, #furious 7, #george clooney, #guy ritchie, #HBO, #henry cavill, #hitman, #hugh grant, #inside out, #insidious 3, #jake gyllenhaal, #james wan, #jason bateman, #jesse Eisengerg, #joel edgerton, #john green, #judd apatow, #jude law, #jurassic world, #kevin james, #kristen stewart, #lebron james, #leigh whannell, #lewis black, #Magic Mike, #Magic Mike XXL, #mark wahlberg, #mindy kaling, #minions, #mission: impossible, #mission: impossible -- rogue nation, #no escape, #NWA, #open road films, #owen Wilson, #paper towns, #paul rudd, #peter dinklage, #phyllis smith, #pierce brosnan, #pirates of the caribbean, #pixels, #poltergesit, #rachel mcadams, #rebecca hall, #san andreas, #seth macfarlane, #sinister 2, #southpaw, #spy, #straight outta compton, #sundance, #Ted 2, #Terminator, #terminator genisys, #the fault in our stars, #the gallows, #the gift, #the heat, #the man from uncle, #tom cruise, #tomorrowland, #trainwreck, #transporter, #war room, #we are your friends, #zac efron, Insidious, Jason Statham, Marvel, Melissa McCarthy, Paul Feig, Rose Byrne | 1 Comment

Applying chaos theory: An introduction to trailer analysis

Posted on September 4, 2015 by reelentropy

We’re going to start reviewing high profile trailers on this site, and I’ll tell you the reason.

It’ll get more clicks. That’s it. That’s the reason.

The reason it won’t be trashy bullshit is because of how far movie trailers have come in the past few years and how important they’ve become to the art form. Movies release so much promotional material now, every bit of it making its own wave via social media if the movie is anticipated enough, that the material has realistically become part of the movie. It shapes expectations, caters directly to the target audience and betrays a lot about the producers’ state of mind. Obviously it’s not OK to say a movie is bad or good without seeing it, but it is OK — necessary, given the amount of work that goes into it — to glean as much as we can based on how distributors are communicating with their audience.

We’re going to go through a few examples of recent trailers, good and bad, and explain why they’re good or bad and what they tell the audience.

***

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Posted in Applying Chaos Theory | Tagged #Batfleck, #david ayer, #fant4stic, #Fantastic Four, #james wan, #josh trank, #man of steel, #paste eating, #secret life of walter mitty, #suicide squad, #the maze runner, #trailers, #zack snyder | 1 Comment

Dope re-releases for snore-inducing Labor Day lineup

Posted on September 3, 2015 by reelentropy

The thinking is the movie that’s been no. 1 for three weeks running is about poor black kids in a Los Angeles suburb whose lives helped define ’90s culture, and Dope is a movie about poor black kids in suburban Los Angeles who are obsessed with ’90s culture, so this release ought to go a lot better, but the reality is absolutely nothing good has come out since Aug. 13 and Straight Outta Compton has stayed on top mostly by default. Dope’s similarity to the recent alpha movie could end up working against it. Photos courtesy Open Road Films.

Straight Outta Compton has held for no. 1 three straight weeks now, and it has definitely been for lack of trying. The highest profile release since it came out was the critically eviscerated Sinister 2. Compton barely beat evangelist film War Room last weekend. When a movie’s tagline is as lame as “Prayer is a powerful weapon” and it had, like, no advertisements, and you can only get $2 million over on it, that’s not really something to brag about. The film looks to limp into another first place finish over Labor Day, as the only real movie slated for the three-day weekend is the Transporter reboot with some rapper nobody’s ever heard of taking over for Jason Statham. Wonder how that’ll work out.

Anyway, the time is clearly ripe for something — anything! — new to come out, and Open Road Films is filling that gap by re-releasing their Sundance darling/commercial flop Dope. While most movies that make it out of a festival go straight to arthouses and not many people hear about them, Dope was given a wide release and significant advertising, an honest shot to succeed. However, that wide release was June 19 against the second weekend of Jurassic World and the first weekend of Inside Out, and a director spliced with DNA from Tarantino, Hitchcock and Michael Bay couldn’t have drawn an audience under those conditions. Dope finished its run with a laughable $16 million, barely more than twice the $7 million Open Road paid for its domestic distribution rights in a six-way bidding war, and less than the $20 million it promised for advertising.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #dope, #open road films, #straight outta compton, #sundance, #transporter, #transporter: refueled, #war room | Leave a comment

Wes Craven dead at 76

Posted on August 31, 2015 by reelentropy

Wes Craven, who destroyed and rebuilt horror as a genre almost once per decade over a 40 year career, died of brain cancer last night in his Los Angeles home.

Craven is best known for his seminal works, 1972’s Last House on the Left, 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street and 1996’s Scream, each of which begat a long list of imitations and ended up defining an era of horror films, much in the same way Jason Blum and Paranormal Activity created and define this era. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th and the Scary Movie series, among many others, would not exist without Craven’s defining films.

Craven had two children, Jonathan and Jessica, with his first wife, both born in the late ’60s. He is survived by them and his third wife, Iya Labunka, whom he married in 2004.

Posted in The Möbius strip | Tagged #a nightmare on elm street, #last house on the left, #rip, #scream, #wes craven | Leave a comment

Reel Entropy

The Visit Shyamalan’s masterpiece

Jurassic World rampages through flop-filled summer

Applying chaos theory: An introduction to trailer analysis

Dope re-releases for snore-inducing Labor Day lineup

Wes Craven dead at 76

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