Engaging Culture

Nicholas Carr has written a new book called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, and he shared some of his findings in an article for the June edition of WIRED Magazine. I would tell you more about it, but my brain is so fried from the internet that I didn’t retain a word of it.

I love wasting numerous hours diving into the movie stats heaven that is Box Office Mojo. I get lost as I look for patterns and make predictions. One of the only things I like about sequels is doing this kind of prediction, and for new movies, I can make comparisons to other movies in the same genre. If you are a movie geek like me, check it out and look at the fun things I found out about this weekend’s openings and one from next week.

Shrek Forever After – The saga of that lovable green ogre adds what is its final chapter, and not a moment too soon. Each Shrek film has increased its opening weekend revenues: Shrek (42.3 million), Shrek 2 (108 million), Shrek 3 (121.6 million). I find it hard to believe that Shrek 4 can keep this upward trend in motion. Statistically, Shrek 2 was the peak of the series. It grossed over 120 million more than Shrek 3 despite lower opening weekend numbers. I think most fans of the series were disappointed with the third film and aren’t expecting much from this final installment. Therefore, I predict that it will barely pass the $100 million mark in its opening weekend.

MacGruber – Saturday Night Live is a great TV show. It is filled with current cultural happenings and has endured for 35 seasons and nearly 700 episodes. It has spawned several feature films, but none of them has met with particular success, The Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World are the only ones that have cracked the 50 million mark. Critics have given MacGruber mixed reviews, saying that the film is very crude and feels a bit like it was thrown together with duct tape and paper clips but many conclude that despite it’s shortcomings it is very funny. I think that MacGruber will be the best SNL adaptation of the past decade… Oh, wait, it’s the only one of the past decade besides The Ladies Man.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time – I’m not sure what to think about this movie. I’ve never played the game, and 16th century Persian history doesn’t exactly get my engine revving. However, I want to like this movie. I want it to be the next in a line of successful adventure movies from Disney like National Treasure and Pirates of the Caribbean, but video game adaptations have never fared well at the box office. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is currently the only one to ever gross more than $100 million. I think that statistic stands to be broken, but I’m afraid it still won’t be as successful as Disney hopes.

Another fun little factoid. Both of the films opening to wide release next week were shot in Morocco. One is supposed to be 16th century Persia and the other is modern day Abu Dhabi, but I guess to our undiscerning Western eyes, all deserts look the same. I had no idea that Morocco was wild about movies but it’s good to know.

Ridley Scott brought us Alien and Blade Runner. Brian Helgeland brought Man on Fire and Mystic River from the page to the screen. And Russell Crowe starred in A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, and 3:10 to Yuma. You would think that if these three joined forces, the result would be phenomenal, I mean Helgeland and Crowe worked together on L.A. Confidential, and Scott and Crowe teamed up to create the epic Gladiator. But their forthcoming collaboration, Robin Hood, looks less than stellar to me.

Three years ago when I first heard about this movie, I thought the idea was good. The plan was, as far as anyone on the outside could tell, to tell the story of Robin Hood as if he were some sort of double agent, by day he would be the dutiful Sheriff of Nottingham, just a guy doing his job. But in the shadows, he would be Robin Hood. The movie would be called “Nottingham”, and in it, Robin Hood would battle the excesses of the opulent government by working from the inside to bring it down. Originally, Russell Crowe was slated to play both Robin Hood and the Sheriff which would concur with that plot line. That looked like a good idea for a movie, it was something that I’ve never seen before. But then last February, the story broke that the film would be called simply Robin Hood, the lead character would no longer be the Sheriff, and that Crowe would no longer play the role of the sheriff, but only Robin Hood. Also Scott said that the plan was to give the sheriff a very minimal role, because he’s not the villain, instead the black hat goes on the entire country of France.

At that point I was confused and disappointed and stopped reading the news about new cast members and seemingly a half a dozen rewrites because I was sure that they had relied on their collective past successes and simply taken the easy route to making several million dollars. After all, people will line up to watch this film simply because of the star power. They lost the nerve to bravely do something unique and intelligent, wanting instead to simply sell tickets. After watching all the previews and featurettes and interviews, I can’t even muster enough excitement to put together a good prediction. I’m just expecting two hours of Gladiator in tights. It may be the best most expensive Robin Hood film yet… but it’s still the same old story we’ve seen dozens of times.

You can watch the trailer below if you’d like. Personally, I’m gonna pass on this one, and if I go see anything the week of its release, I’ll probably take my wife to see Letters to Juliet or Iron Man 2 for the second (or third) time. Predicted score: 63
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With less than two weeks until this blockbuster makes its debut, I’m super stoked. I’ve been ready to see what returning Director Jon Favreau and Writer Justin Theroux (Tropic Thunder) have to offer since the moment I stepped out of the theater on May 1, 2008. It has been 2 years in the making and, if the trailers are any indication, the concerns of some fans about there not being enough action in the first movie have been addressed and conquered. I was pleased with the amount of action in Iron Man, because to me action is only a vehicle of the story, and Iron Man was full of dialogue and a great story. I have no reason to believe that they would throw that very lucrative formula out the window just to satisfy the cravings of a few teenagers who only want to see a movie full of pointless CGI fight scenes. Before I go much further, let’s watch one of the trailers together. If you want to see more, go to TrailerAddict.com for all sorts of interviews, viral videos, tv spots, and teasers.

Click here to watch trailer

So even though Marvel has only released a very basic plot summary, that doesn’t keep fanboys like me from postulating based on what I have been given. First of all, the trailer presents several new faces, so to avoid any confusion, let’s break the characters down. continue reading »