The Matrix predictions

[Skins24]

Anyone see the latest Matrix EW article? I didn't see it on the EW website but according to the producer on April 28th there was 95% awareness of the movie (Reloaded). With 89% definite intrest. And the first choice of 30% of movie goers - not sure what that means but I think it's good seeing Spider-man was 21%.

...it's going to rack up.

I'll be seeing it twice before the week is out

On Thursday and again on Saturday

[mardi gras skin]

I'm seeing twice on Thursday with two different groups of guys. I guess that's all I'm doing the whole day.

[Jagsbch]

There will be a lunar eclipse on the 15th, starting @ 10, it will turn an ominous blood red too. The Scorpion Moon will be a site to see.

The movie though hollywood had it's way with it still reflects the reality I believe we live in. From the nanocomputers in our brain to the make up of matter and the univers, yes this is definately a Matrix Reality Baby.

[Glenn X]

Originally posted by mardi gras skin

Wow Glenn. That's freaking amazing. :notworthy

Thank you, sir. You're too kind.

BTW, I loved your above comment about Jar Jar the Digital Goober and Star Wars homerism.

Originally posted by rdogblue

Hey Glenn do you have a wife or girlfriend

No. And no. :cry:

But seriously, yes, I do have a girlfriend. However, she and I are currently separated from each other by three continents and two oceans. As a result, I have a lot of free time on my hands. In other words, I get in plenty of mental :jerkoff: on topics such as this. :laugh:

Originally posted by OrangeSkin

Both will be among the top-grossers ever. R-rated or not

I agree. It will do very, very well. However, that R-rating does hurt its prospects in terms of coming close commercially to, say, The Phantom Menace, which benefited from a PG-rating and perhaps the best built-in audience for a sequel ever.

Originally posted by rskin24

Anyone see the latest Matrix EW article? I didn't see it on the EW website but according to the producer on April 28th there was 95% awareness of the movie (Reloaded). With 89% definite intrest. And the first choice of 30% of movie goers

As I said, this film will be a huge commercial success, for sure. In fact, if this film doesn't make at least $700-800 million in worldwide tickets sales, I'd be mighty surprised -- and the boys at Warners would be mighty disappointed.

I must say that this is the first big-time sci-fi sequel that I've been really, truly excited about since T2 back in '91. (Well, to be honest, I did get pretty geeked about Alien 3 back in '92 and Alien Resurrection back in '97, but I think I always knew, deep down, that they were gonna ultimately disappoint me. But, with Matrix Reloaded, this is probably as sure a moviegoing bet -- outside of a Jim Cameron sequel -- as you're likely to come across in the near future. )

[Henry]

Glenn, excellent post. As always, there's a reason I immediately check out a thread with your name on the end of it.

Let me say again that I don't like comparing movies the same way I compare football teams. When it comes to movies like The Matrix, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or whatever, I can like them all without feeling that I've betrayed the other. I may have appeared particularly ciritical of the Matrix, but I did like it. If you read back, my initial post was a fairly innoucous explanation as to why I didn't think the sequels will be The Greatest Selling Movies of All Time or something.

I personally hope the sequels rock, but as George Lucas himself proves (to some of you, anyway), hype does not necessarly equal great movie, and great movies do not always spawn great sequels. I will be paying full price to see it, though, regardless.

And as far as the movie's place in history, well, the only way to know that is to wait a few decades and revisit. Many Titanic fanatics raved that that movie would always be remembered as one of the great works in cinematic history, and here we are, six years later and it's all but forgotten. Sometimes it's difficult to distinguish the difference between Fad and Phenomenon without the benefit of hindsight.

EDIT: One other thing I wanted to clear up from before. I don't think Keanu did all that bad a job in The Matrix. He's actually found a nice niche for himself as a second-tier action star, and I generally find him tolerable in movies that don't expect too much of him (like The Matrix or Speed.) The character that really bugged me was (brace yourselves) Morpheus. I thought Fishburne's delivery was terrible. "He's starting to believe," "He's going to make it" in that continuous monotone "terribly mysterious" guru voice. Ugh. I know the director was going for a certain feel with Morph, but that act got real old real fast for me. Just a peeve of mine. Don't go crazy. Jar Jar was much worse and I liked that movie too. I just didnt think I was being fair to Reeves when I threw out "terrible acting" and you guys jumped all over him. I actually thought he was fine.

[Glenn X]

Originally posted by Henry

If you read back, my initial post was a fairly innoucous explanation as to why I didn't think the sequels will be The Greatest Selling Movies of All Time or something.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on this, Henry. Titanic made an astounding $1.6 billion in worldwide ticket sales, including a whopping $800 million domestically. If either of the Matrix sequels -- or any film within the foreseeable future -- comes close to that box office haul, I'll sh*t on my own face... which is no small feat, gymnastically speaking!

Originally posted by Henry

I personally hope the sequels rock, but as George Lucas himself proves (to some of you, anyway), hype does not necessarly equal great movie, and great movies do not always spawn great sequels. I will be paying full price to see it, though, regardless.

Amen. There's nothing worse than getting really excited about a movie that you've been waiting to see, and then having that movie take a massive dump all over your expectations. I'm hoping like hell that Matrix 2 kicks ass, but there's always the distinct possibility that it could be just another lame sequel.

Originally posted by Henry

And as far as the movie's place in history, well, the only way to know that is to wait a few decades and revisit. Many Titanic fanatics raved that that movie would always be remembered as one of the great works in cinematic history, and here we are, six years later and it's all but forgotten.

Re: the issue of time

Agreed. Absolutely.

Re: Titanic

Wouldn't you agree that, taking your own advice into consideration, we should wait at least a decade (let alone a few decades) before passing judgment there?

I mean, I still like the heck out of Titanic, as do most people I know. Though, I do recall a film professor of mine at 'SC being spiteful toward Titanic yet overjoyed by The English Patient, which he claimed would "go down in history as one of the best romances ever!" Well, everyone I know -- excluding Academy Award voters, of course -- snoozed through The English Patient, and no one I know owns the film on VHS or DVD.

Then again, the aforementioned professor is one of those kinds of people who goes on and on about what a "towering achievement" Citizen Kane is, yet can't quite explain why he (allegedly) "loves" the movie. And I think that's because he really doesn't personally love Citizen Kane. He just acts as if he's infatuated with it because he's a film professor, and film professors are "supposed" to love movies like Citizen Kane, I guess.

[Henry]

Glenn, again we agree on almost all points.

I absolutely, completely and in all other ways DESPISE The English Patient. In fact, I hate it so much my friends never bring it up because they know I will go off on another lengthy tirade about adulterers, Nazi sympathizer protagonists and fifteen minutes of story stretched into a three and a half hour movie. How that piece of crap won best picture is a mystery to me, but best EDITING? Good God, my four year old would have done a better job of paring that garbage down by about an hour or so. The fact that Seinfeld had an entire episode about that movie's crapulence says it all. I too would rather get fired than sit through that gawdawful movie again ...

uh ... where was I? Oh yes, however, I thought Titanic was an ok movie. Despite the backlash against the hype, I recognize that the Big Boat sinking into the drink is one hell of a sequence, and definately worth the price of admission. The love story was a bit droll (only Cameron could sneak a back-seat-of-the-car sex scene and gunplay into a period piece distaster movie. ) but the FX more than offset that. However, my point is that old movie poplarity rarely waxes AND wanes. It usually does one or the other, and in my opinion, Titanic's standing amongst the Pantheon of All Time Great Movies has been steadily waning. Perhaps I'm mistaken, and if so, disregard that as an example and simply understand my point, which has now been completely lost in my aimless blather.

So, let's hope Reloaded is worthy of the original.

[Glenn X]

Originally posted by Henry

I absolutely, completely and in all other ways DESPISE The English Patient... The fact that Seinfeld had an entire episode about that movie's crapulence says it all. I too would rather get fired than sit through that gawdawful movie again.

:laugh:

Absolutely! That episode of Seinfeld was classic, and I almost mentioned it myself in my prior post.

Originally posted by Henry

I thought Titanic was an ok movie. Despite the backlash against the hype, I recognize that the Big Boat sinking into the drink is one hell of a sequence, and definately worth the price of admission. The love story was a bit droll (only Cameron could sneak a back-seat-of-the-car sex scene and gunplay into a period piece distaster movie. ) but the FX more than offset that.

I said to friends at the time that Titanic came out: "If anyone but Cameron had made this film -- if, say, Merchant & Ivory or Ang Lee or Sidney Pollack had made this film -- there'd be no way in hell that I'd go to see it. But with Cameron, I just gotta give it a chance."

I recall seeing it on opening night, not knowing what to expect. I'd already seen Alien Resurrection and MGM's latest Bond flick a few weeks prior, been rather disappointed by both (especially AR), and was unsure of what to make of Titanic. I'd already heard some pre-release buzz on Titanic that -- contrary to two-year's worth of full-on negative pub about Cameron's over-schedule, over-budget epic -- was remarkably upbeat.

But still... you never know.

However, I ended up being bowled over by the film. Completely. Totally.

Do I think it's a perfect film? No. Then again, what film is? (For the record, as much as I liked Titanic, I'm still a much bigger fan of Aliens and T2, and can't wait to see Cameron get back to sci-fi again.)

Screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men) wrote an excellent, pre-'98 Oscar telecast breakdown on all the Best Picture nominees that year in Premiere magazine (which I think I still have around here someplace) that really summed up quite well, in my opinion, all the pros and cons of Titanic.

Goldman's verdict? Titanic very much deserved to win the little gold guy.

Goldman's runner-up, L.A. Confidential, was runner-up -- and firmly so -- because, as he correctly pointed out, the film's script was not as airtight as L.A. Confidential's proponents vociferously claimed, and its denouement was weak, going on for too long and being tonally out-of-step with the rest of the picture.

Originally posted by Henry

However, my point is that old movie poplarity rarely waxes AND wanes. It usually does one or the other, and in my opinion, Titanic's standing amongst the Pantheon of All Time Great Movies has been steadily waning. Perhaps I'm mistaken, and if so, disregard that as an example and simply understand my point, which has now been completely lost in my aimless blather.

No, I understand what you're saying, Henry. In fact, I recently had a conversation with a buddy of mine about this very topic and we both asked the same question: "Can you remember even one film released during the 1990s that was in some way considered great at the time of its release, and is still considered great today?"

We couldn't think of one. Not one.

We could think of plenty of movies that we liked at the time and still liked. But we couldn't think of any that were still considered great by consensus.

Forrest Gump?

Sure, it was considered great when it first came out and it ultimately won the Best Picture Oscar (although I was never all that personally smitten by it), but many movie critics and film studies academics now regard it as being overly schmaltzy.

Pulp Fiction?

When this thing first came out, it was like someone set off a daisy-cutter bomb on movie theater screens across the country (and I vividly recall me and my friends going to see it again and again), but I remember a film professor of mine, Dr. Todd Boyd, gleefully dismissing it in 1996 as little more than "a big back of tricks" by writer-director Quentin Tarantino (as if all cinema, especially good cinema, doesn't involve some degree of trickery or sleight of hand, Dr. Boyd? :doh:). And now, almost ten years later, the prevailing "wisdom," especially among most movie critics, is that Pulp Fiction was good "for its time," but that it was more about style than substance, and that it spawned a series of imitators (as all successful films do) that are almost universally reviled or forgotten today.

How about Gladiator or American Beauty?

Are most people going to reflect on these movies years from now and regard them as Truly Great Cinema? Maybe. But I somehow doubt it.

Which isn't to say that any of these films are "bad." It's just that I think we've gotten too cynical about most everything anymore, movies included, and that we simply find it very difficult to put our seemingly ever-present sarcasm aside and enjoy anything current as anything other than "transitory, momentary, and disposable."

[Skins24]

Biggest opener (1 day)

Biggest May opener

Biggest opening weekend (3 day)

Biggest extended opening weekend (4-5 day) [did Spiderman come out on a Wednesday or Thurdsday?]

Biggest opening week (7 day)

Got one right so far.....

....too bad they're only going to last 6 months

[Henry]

I recently had a conversation with a buddy of mine about this very topic and we both asked the same question: "Can you remember even one film released during the 1990s that was in some way considered great at the time of its release, and is still considered great today?"

We couldn't think of one. Not one.

The three films that immediately came to mind for me were Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump and Braveheart. I pretty much agree with your assessments of PF and FG. I like Forrest Gump better personally, but I'm not a huge Tarantino fan. My guess is that he was the guy who ate paste in the third grade to gross out the girls. Now he's just got more expensive paste. I think my favorite movie of his was Jackie Brown, probably because it included a truly noble character that actually lived through the movie ... for once. But I digress yet again.

I coincidentally watched Forrest Gump last night, and it still holds up pretty well. The one thing that really struck me was how antiquated the FX have already become. I remember all that hoopla the industry made about the seamless the superimposition of Hanks and dead Presidents having conversations, and it really isn't that great by today's standards. Anyway, the overall movie is very well done, though I agree that the schmaltz factor does bring it down a bit. Still, I remember the biggest criticisms it received (and still receives, for that matter) is that it presents an overly simplistic view of the boomer generation's formative years, and that the conservative message of 'just put your head down and work hard' is layed on too thick to give the presentation any legitimacy. Personally I think that's just sour grapes from an industry dominated by extreme liberals, but maybe that's just sour grapes from me.

Braveheart was really the only great epic of the 90s on the scale of Ben Hur or Sparticus. Unfortunately, the writers took some serious creative license with regards to the actual William Wallace, who by all accounts was just a big-ol' English-hating thug who liked to get into brawls with soldiers and maybe kill a few here and there. As a history buff, such gross misrepresentation bugs me a bit, but the movie as a movie is pretty darn good. The battle scenes are as good as you'll see and the drama is better than most. Not as goofy as Titanic or as manipulative as Gladiator, which I felt was sort of a Braveheart Lite. I have yet to meet anyone who has actively disliked it.

There are actually two movies you didn't think of (and neither did I until now) that do fit your criteria: Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. Oddly, both Speilberg movies, but both have already taken their place at the top of their genre. (Despite The English Patient and American Beauty both winning best picture, the greatest travesty of justice the Academy ever perpetrated was giving Shakespeare in Love the Best Picture Nod over SPR. But that's a whole other rant. )

Back to The Matrix, didn't get a chance to see it yet, but hopefully over the upcoming weekend if I don't see X-Men 2. (This is what happens when you have little kids. Sigh) The reviews look promising, so I'm anxious to see it, though avoiding the spoilers is nigh impossible.

[A_Monk81]

I thought the movie was a huge letdown.

The first Matrix was just awesome..just enough special effects mixed with a good script.

Martix reloaded is a special effects orgy covering a very poorly written script.

Does not come close to comparing with the first movie.

The case sequence is the movies one saving grace in my opinion..it was pretty awesome.

Other than that it was a letdown.

[mardi gras skin]

There's no way to say this without comming off as arrogant but, for those of you who feel the plot was weak, I question whether or not you understood the plot. There was a ton information delivered visually and in conversation at such a rapid pace that missing it isn't hard.

[Glenn X]

Originally posted by Henry

I remember the biggest criticisms it [Forrest Gump] received (and still receives, for that matter) is that it presents an overly simplistic view of the boomer generation's formative years, and that the conservative message of 'just put your head down and work hard' is layed on too thick to give the presentation any legitimacy. Personally I think that's just sour grapes from an industry dominated by extreme liberals

Amen, Henry. I remember the aforementioned Dr. Todd Boyd dismissing it for just those reasons. Then again, Boyd is the same gentleman who once simplistically summed up the Cold War with the following bit of far-left idiocy: "The thing you gotta understand about the Cold War is that, after World War II, the United States needed a new enemy, needed somebody new to point its missiles at. So it picked the Soviet Union."

Originally posted by Henry

Braveheart was really the only great epic of the 90s on the scale of Ben Hur or Sparticus.

I found it to be a tad too long. Other than that... I really don't have much to say about it. And I think that's my problem with it. I have friends who love the hell out of it. But a week after I went to see it, I never thought about it again. Till I saw it once more on HBO. Then I totally forgot about it once again a week later. For whatever reasons, the film just doesn't stick with me.

And I've got Scottish ancestry, for goodness sake!

As for Schindler's List: good one, Henry! I totally spaced on that. However, as great as it was and as privileged as I feel to have seen it in a movie theater (as opposed to the minimizing experience of home video), I have no desire to ever watch it again. It's like going to the Museum of Tolerance: it's an important thing to do, something that everyone should do at least once in his/her life... however, it's such a deeply depressing experience that few desire to go through it a second time.

Two other Still Great Films from the '90s that I just thought of: Silence of the Lambs and Unforgiven. Some may quibble over whether these remain Great Films or not, but I still hold them in very high regard.

And that's what it really comes down to for me: what I like. I don't care if the Academy likes it. I don't care if Ebert & Roeper like it. I don't care if Dr. Todd Boyd likes it. I don't care if the review board of Film Comment magazine likes it. I only care about whether I like it or not.

Manhunter was a critically acclaimed box office dud. I don't care. I love it.

Resident Evil was a critically savaged, marginally commercially successful flick. I could care less. I enjoyed it.

Lord of the Rings was a HUGE hit commercially and critically. But that means little to me. The movie nearly put me to sleep.

And that's the bottom line. For me, anyway. Let the "experts" and box office receipts be damned.