Jun 29 2009 'Transformatons 2' Easily Beats 'My Sister, the Reluctant Organ Donor' and Everything Else

Somehow the smashing, clanging robots sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen beat the weekend's other wide release, the sister-dying-of-cancer melodrama My Sister's Keeper. Go figure:

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - $112 million, giving the film a five-day domestic total of $201 million and a worldwide total of $387.3 million. And that's all in Bay Bucks, the new, Michael Bay-printed international currently that we're using now.

2. The Proposal - $18.5 million--pretty respectable against such explosion-filled competition. Just goes to show that faking-a-relationship-for-a-green-card comedy works better as a movie than it does as a part of the TGIF sister lineup, I Love Saturday Night.

3. The Hangover - $17.2 million. Can we give Zach Galifianakis another televised talk show yet?

4. Up - $13 million, still scoring ticket sales from all those kids whose parents thought robots smashing each other would be too violent. Come on, moms; lighten up.

5. My Sister's Keeper - $12 million. And that's the last time you'll hear of this movie until ten years from now when it's coming on TV and you watch 45 minutes waiting to see Juliette Lewis play retarded, because you're confusing it with The Other Sister.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Jun 19 2009 'Up' Color Script: Colors Pretty!

A less heartstring-tugging Up item: Pixar's Lou Romano has posted Up's color script--colored storyboards used as a reference for tone and visual ambiance (via Drawn). Just scrolling through them, you can plainly see how the color and saturation visually parallel the film's dramatic and comedic highs and lows. Or, if you're completely color blind, you can see how there are nice drawings of things. Fun for everyone.

Jun 19 2009 Girl Seeing 'Up' Creates More Touching Story Than 'Up' Itself

The emoticon with the tear time! Here's probably the saddest thing you'll read today: Pixar grants girl's dying wish to see 'Up'. I don't want to spoil every heart-wrenching detail, but basically, as the title implies, a 10-year-old girl is dying of cancer, her mom contacts Pixar, Pixar flies out an employee with a DVD, and the girl dies 7 hours later. That's right, she doesn't even secretly make a copy of the disc and upload it to the internet; this story is pure, gut-wrenching sentimentality.

Sample quote: "I’m ready [to die], but I’m going to wait for the movie." And it only gets sadder. It's Fanboys for real, and obviously much better.

(Thanks for making everyone weep uncontrollably, Kelly.)

Jun 15 2009 'The Hangover', Like Actual Hangovers, Not Affected by John Travolta

For your copybooks, the weekend top five:

1. The Hangover - $33.4 million, another victory for insobriety repercussion comedy!

2. Up - $30.5 million. Thankfully, few tickets were sold to the elderly, saving the group from getting a false, fleeting sense of hope, whimsy, and adventure.

3. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 - Only $25 million. I knew they shouldn't have included the poorly-received twist ending where you find out John Travolta is both the villain and the Denzel Washington.

4. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian - $9.6 million. Now can we stop all this senseless warring over historical exhibit territory?

5. Land of the Lost - $9.2 million, damning Imagine That to 6th place and an afterlife with Meet Dave in an Eddie Murphy Bundle Pack.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Jun 8 2009 'Up' Maintains Dominance in Face of Drunks, Dinosaurs

The top movies in the United States last weekend were:

1. Up - $44.2 million, a startlingly large number considering that what appears to be the DVD is coming out soon enough.

2. The Hangover - $43.3 million. Sounds like this is one Hangover you can look forward to! (I'm trying to get quoted in the newspaper ads.) In the case of this Hangover, laughter is the best medicine!

3. Land of the Lost - $19.5 million. This does not bode well for Jack Black is H.R. Pufnstuf.

4. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian - $14.7 million. Do the Tenement Museum next!

5. Star Trek - $8.4 million. I miss the days when this kind of success would warrant a Kirk & Friends Saturday morning cartoon spin-off.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

UPDATE: It turns out The Hangover probably made more?

Jun 1 2009 'Up' Was Your Favorite Movie Last Weekend

The weekend box office report. Email me for the Excel version.

1. Up - $68.2 million, because Pixar could animate a cockfight and it would still open huge. Especially in Latin America.

2. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian - $25.5 million, bringing its total gross to over $100 million and popularizing use of the saying, "It was no night at the museum!", used to refer to nights that did not include exhibits spontaneously gaining consciousness.

3. Drag Me to Hell - Only $16.6 million. Where are all the teenagers taking dates to scary movies so that when the girl cowers in fear against the boy, he can give a sly grin and put his arm around her? Popular media led me to believe that happens constantly.

4. Terminator Salvation - $16.1 million--just enough to save humanity. We did it.

5. Star Trek - $12.8 million in gold-pressed latinum! Get it? Star Trek reference. The guy with the ears always talked about it.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

May 28 2009 Films You Could See in a Theater This Weekend

Keep seeing trailers, posters, and clips that catch your interest but unsure of when the films are being released? How about I start telling you what's coming out every week? So you can ask girls on dates to movies. I'll try to come up with a better title by next week.

Anyway, this weekend:

Up
Director: Pete Docter
Starring: Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Delroy Lindo, some other voices.
Recommended if you want to see: the elderly as three-dimensional computer-renderings; the delighted faces of children exiting the theater; a talking dog; an obviously good movie because it's a Pixar.

Drag Me to Hell
Director: Sam Raimi
Starring: Alison Lohman (that girl from Matchstick Men), Justin Long (that guy who is a Mac commercial).
Recommended if you want to see: Raimi's favorably-reviewed return to horror; a bug crawl into a girl's nose (I think that happened in one of the TV spots); someone forcibly pulled into a fiery netherworld.

Departures
Director: Yôjirô Takita
Starring: Masahiro Motoki, more Japanese names that will mean nothing to you.
Recommended if you want to see: an Academy Award-winning, moving, sometimes comical, beautifully-shot film from Japan; how this thing managed to lose you the Best Foreign Language Film point in your office Oscar pool when you heard that Holocaust movie was a fucking lock.

What Goes Up
Director: Jonathan Glatzer
Starring: Steve Coogan, Hilary Duff
Recommended if you want to see: confused families saying, "I thought this was supposed to be the animated thing with the old guy."

Mar 19 2009 'Up' Opening Cannes

Pixar's old-guy-traveling-with-a-fat-boy-and-his-house film, Up will be opening the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, Variety reports. There, the audience will recognize the picture as a flowing, contemplative, utterly charming commentary on finding meaning in sedentary, octogenarian life, and as a metaphor for impotence.

Mar 13 2009 'Up' Clips Available in Short Episodic Format

Disney/Pixar has posted some clips, or episodes, from Up, creating a new a new, amalgamated media format known as the "UPisode." The second UPisode just went up, so watch it at Apple and let's never use the term again.

Mar 9 2009 New 'Up' Trailer: Pixar Has Made Talking Dogs OK

A couple months ago, I heard from someone that attending an Up screening that Pixar had included a talking dog character to co-exist with the humans. I thought for sure these guys had finally slipped up. Oh, how the mighty had fallen for adorable talking pooches. I mean, a completely unjustified speaking animal serving only as comic relief? What is this movie, a Disney without a /Pixar immediately following it? But alas, no, the longtime leaders in computer animation have made yet another innovation to the field: rationalization for a funny talking animal sidekick. They did it. Just explain that the dog is wearing a specially designed collar that translates his dog-talk into various human languages and it's time for naysayers like me to shut the fuck up.

Here's the new trailer:

Continue Reading " New 'Up' Trailer: Pixar Has Made Talking Dogs OK "

Mar 4 2009 Kids Will Love This Horrifying 'Up' Toy

The French Disney/Pixar blog has posted some shots of toys from the upcoming animated feature Up, thus giving us a first look at a plastic version of the Christopher Plummer-voiced character, Charles Muntz. As /Film has noted, he looks a disturbing amount like Kirk Douglas (possibly doing a Gap Elderly ad).

I'm all for making the under-represented old age population the central characters in a film, but I would hold off on making too many of the action figures, Pixar. No matter how successful Up will undoubtedly be, I don't think many kids are going to ask to see this gaunt, sinister face under the tree on Christmas day. It's terrifying enough they'll have to see it in the mirror on their 90th birthdays.

Feb 23 2009 A Few Seconds of a Bunch of Upcoming Movies

If you made it to the end of the Oscars--or more likely, if you dozed off and were awakened by the credit sequence's jamming guitar--the night's reward was a three-minute movie preview sequence. For some of the films (Public Enemies, Whatever Works), it was a first look at scenes from highly-anticipated projects. For others (Old Dogs!), it was the warning: oh god, Robin Williams and John Travolta made some kind of boot camp comedy, and it's called Old Dogs. Here it is:

Continue Reading " A Few Seconds of a Bunch of Upcoming Movies "

Feb 3 2009 Inter-Football Movie Ads: The Rest of Them

So, I didn't get to all the Super Bowl ads yesterday. Sorry. But in the spirit of never fully betraying you, here are the rest of them, including spots for Year One, Up, Angels & Demons, Fast & Furious, and Duplicity. I suggest only watching the clips for Year One, which has some promise. Unless you're my dad--then clear off the edge of your seat and watch Angels & Demons. This promises to be as taut a thriller as "The Code"! Or if you're a car, watch Fast & Furious.

Continue Reading " Inter-Football Movie Ads: The Rest of Them "

Jan 22 2009 'Up' Poster: Old Man, Scout, Dog, Bird Thing, House, Balloons

No matter the circumstances, old guys love watering their lawn. It's just something that comes with retirement boredom and nascent senility. The next poster will probably be the old guy scattering hard candy.

'Up' Stills [Yahoo!]

Dec 29 2008 Look! An Elderly Man and a Rotund Child! From Pixar's 'Up'!

Boy: "Wow! With these, I can really see your face decaying!"

Old Man: "Don't stare at my death."

And that's why I've never won a caption contest.

The Only Way Is Up [Empire]

Dec 16 2008 'Up' Clip Less Morbid When Watched Than Explained

In this clip from Up (most of it seen before in the trailer), an overweight child stands precariously on the edge of an old man's floating house. The older gentleman asks how he arrived there, to which the child gives a confused answer that reveals he was chasing a rat. Then, realizing he is thousands of feet in the air, and fearing for his life, the pudgy youth begs to be admitted inside, but the old man refuses, shutting the door and leaving the boy on the porch, presumably to die at the next wind gust. Pixar is really getting dark with their stories:

Continue Reading " 'Up' Clip Less Morbid When Watched Than Explained "

Nov 7 2008 Pixar's 'Up' Trailer: It's Pixar, so, You Know

Pixar has released a new trailer for Up. I know better than to say anything derogatory towards it because, well, it's Pixar, and it isn't about anthropomorphic cars, so chances are I come out the one looking stupid, not the most critically and commercially successful animation studio ever. So I'll just say that I like how he has tennis balls on his walker feet. Old people always do that!

Continue Reading " Pixar's 'Up' Trailer: It's Pixar, so, You Know "

Oct 14 2008 From Your Favorite 3D Animation Company (Pixar): 'Up' Poster

Here's the poster for Up, the movie where Pixar will prove to everyone, "Look, we can even animate a really old man and you'll still love it." It's just some balloons carrying a house, but since it's Pixar, we know each of those balloons is full of a child's dream/soul, and are therefore better than standard balloons.

'Up' Poster [Yahoo!]

Aug 5 2008 Another Look at Old Man of Pixar's 'Up'

From BadTaste.it, here's a new glimpse of Pixar's Up. I'm really getting curious how they're going to sell any Up merchandise when the protagonist looks like Larry "Bud" Melman, but I'm sure they'll find a way (mind control).

Jul 28 2008 'Up' Teaser Trailer Much Like an Octogenarian Prank Show

Since 1995, Pixar has found ways to impart humanizing, sympathetic qualities to plastic toys, insects, monsters, fish, cars, rats, and robots. But how will they handle the far more daunting task of making us care about the elderly? Find out with this teaser trailer to Up.

Continue Reading " 'Up' Teaser Trailer Much Like an Octogenarian Prank Show "