CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
Profile continued . . .

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SUMMER 2008 MOVIE PREDICTIONS PART 2!

Sunday, May 04, 2008

this entry brought to you by gnarls barkley, "whatever"

if you missed yesterday's entry and want to read more movie predictions, click here.


June 6th

You Don't Mess with the Zohan
I'm not a big fan of Adam Sandler movies, but I'm in the minority-- mainstream audiences love 'em. To this movie's advantage, the trailer looks very funny, and the movie has a promising plot. Sandler plays a Mossad agent who decides to get out of Israel and become a hairstylist. We see lots of explosions and some hilarity involving Sandler's character training to do hair despite knowing nothing about it, and it's nice that Sandler is actually doing a character here, whereas in most of his movies he's pretty much just playing Adam Sandler. The potential downfall here is that the trailer looks suspiciously one-note-- I'm sure genuine laughs will be had, but can it hold up over a whole hour and a half? I don't really know, and the last time he made a movie that had this clever of an idea, Little Nicky, it was a flop.
Prediction: Hit. It's hard to predict Sandler movies. A bunch of them have gotten Rotten ratings, but a few of them have gotten fresh. Either way, his movies are kind of everything proof. Even Sandler movies with obviously awful plots like Click go on to do well enough. If Click made 137 million, I predict that Zohan won't make more than 160. But it definitely won't make less than Click.

Kung-Fu Panda
It's got Jack Black, and he's been a draw at the box office lately. There's Kung Fu, which never gets old. And while this seems to be yet another CGI animated movie with a cast of animals, Pandas have yet to be exploited, so that's a draw. But something about Kung Fu Panda seems second tier, as if it should've been released later, perhaps in September, or earlier, perhaps March. It definitely doesn't look like the makings of a blockbuster, like Shrek.
Prediction: Miss. It'll make some money I'm sure, but it's going to get stomped by Wall-E.

June 13th

The Incredible Hulk
Here's the thing: Ang Lee's Hulk was a really good movie. I loved it. Unfortunately, it didn't do very well at the box office, opening strong and then completely falling off the list instantly. The reasons why the movie failed could go on in another entry, but suffice it to say it wasn't treated very fairly. This time we've got a Hulk that's much more mainstream audience friendly. It's more action oriented, with Banner on the move, closer to the Hulk TV series from the 80s, and the military always on his tail. The trailer promises to be much more riveting and in-your-face, and also shows off an extremely impressive Hulk. It's also got Fucking Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, and Tim Frigging Roth as The Abomination. Seriously, this is a stellar cast, even if I'm a bit saddened by the lack of Eric Bana, as I really liked his performance in Lee's version. I'm cautiously optimistic that this movie is going to be awesome, and is going to make fans proud. Still, Hulk has hurdles. For one thing, audiences were bored as shit with Ang Lee's poetry, and will probably be apathetic towards this movie-- the trailer looks awesome, but the trailers for Lee's Hulk looked great too. I don't know for sure if this version is a reboot or a pseudo sequel that's going to acknowlege the previous movie, but the trailer seems as if it is a reboot, and I think people are going to say "Not this again". For another, Hulk's enemy in this movie is The Abomination, who is basically the Hulk, only ugly, and that isn't as interesting as it could be. Also, there's two more superhero flicks this summer that are going to be dynamite-- this one is going to be met with apathy.
Prediction: Flop. I think Hulk is going to get a fresh rating at Rottentomatoes, and I think the fans are going to love it-- they might possibly love it more than the original, because we won't have to wait so long for Banner to Hulk Out. But I think mainstream audiences are already bored with this movie, and it's going to need to be another 20 years before Hulk finally sticks. Which, frankly, makes me sad.

The Happening
The trailer looks intriguing. But here's the thing-- M. Night Shayamalan's movies always look intriguing. His only good movies have been The Sixth Sense and Signs, and depending on you who ask, Unbreakable. But his name is now associated with "boring crap", and while there are still revered directors with more misses under their belts than he has, I can't see anybody caring about The Happening just because it looks interesting enough in trailer form. Maybe Shayalaman's lost his touch and maybe not. Maybe this will end up being Signs Shayalaman, not Village Shayalaman. But either way, there's no audience for The Happening during the summer. Why not wait for a fall release?
Prediction: Flop. I want to say "Miss", I really want to say "Sleeper Hit", I want to say that people are going to like it but it won't find an audience, but my gut feeling says the critics are going to be bored and people aren't going to care. I want to be wrong, but I have a bad feeling I won't be.

June 27th

Get Smart
I saw the trailer for Get Smart, and I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I liked the show that it's based on, and while this has a slightly different feeling than that, Steve Carrell has that perfect takes-himself-way-too-seriously look. And the jokes looked legitimately funny, walking a line of silliness without getting into Austin Powers territory. In other words, this movie looks like it's actually going to have a plot and actually stick with that plot from beginning to end, whereas the Powers movies, much as I liked them, were more a series of gags with a plot to string them along. It looks like a just right combination. The down side is that the director previously brought us such gems as The Klumps, Anger Management, and 50 First Dates (the latter of which was cute, but not funny enough to warrant confidence in this movie). Still, the trailer looks like it's going to stand out from this summer's crowd of movies.
Prediction: Hit. I'm cautiously optimistic about the reviews, but I think audiences are going to run to it, because Carrell has been on fire lately, and the tone of this comedy looks like just what the doctor ordered. I predict this'll be the best comedy of the summer, both in terms of reviews, and in terms of box office.

The Love Guru
Just for the record, I loved the Austin Powers series. Each one tried my patience more than the previous one, as they were essentially the same set of jokes and the same kind of humor, yet I found them irresistible. Unlike Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler, fellow SNL alumni who seem to be willing to ride their popularity until they absolutely do not have any interest left, Myers has actually been much more selective with the movies he's mugged in-- yes, there was Shrek, but that wasn't tailor made specifically for his humor, and had more of an ensemble cast. Since Powers, Myers has essentially been only in Cat in the Hat. It's nice to know that Myers doesn't want us to get sick of him. Unfortunately, in his down time, he hasn't come up with any new shtick. The trailer for The Love Guru elicited a few laughs from me, but the humor is the exact same as the Austin Powers movies, with essentially the same jokes we saw in those trailers however many years ago-- Myers couldn't even resist using his favorite dwarf in this cast. If Myers had come up with new gags, I think people would care. But as it is, I'm sure there will be laughs to be had, but it seems tiring just thinking about it.
Prediction: Flop. It won't do nearly as well as Get Smart, and while it'll do well on DVD if the reviews are good-- and I don't think they will be-- this could, unfortunately, spell the end of Myers' career. At least until he can come up with a character that isn't the exact same as his old character with new make-up.

June 30th

WALL-E
If this were any other Pixar movie, I'd simply say "Dude. It's Pixar", and predict a hit. But it's not quite that simple this time. This movie is going to be fucking excellent, there's no doubt about that-- Pixar is incapable of making a movie that isn't at least four out of five stars. The trick here is that WALL-E has very little dialog, if it even has any-- the trailer features no actual words. It's more avant garde than your typical summer movie-- hell, your typical animated movie period, and while I'm sure people that watch this are going to love it, is this the kind of movie that's going to fill up aisles? I would say this move is ballsy, and in a way I suppose it is, but after every single one of Pixar's movies has been bona fide smash hits, they can afford to try something even less sure-fire than a movie about a rat who cooks fine French cuisine in Paris (which was pretty darned risky). With that said, I would like to mention that it's going to be much easier buying toys of an awesome robot for your kids than of a kung fu panda of some sort.
Prediction Direct Hit. It's their most daring movie to date, and I doubt it'll pull Finding Nemo numbers. But if this movie fails to break 200 million, then something very, very wrong has happened in the universe.
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on this day last year have you ever seen a tatoo that made you really think?
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with love from CRS @ 11:33 AM 

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