Archive for the ‘Double Features’ Category

Greetings everyone! Although it has been a few weeks since its initial release, we here thought it a good idea to continue talking about The Hunger Games. Although The Avengers has taken the world by storm, Suzanne Collins’ movie adaptation still continues to impress with a worldwide gross of $635 million and climbing. Its RottenTomatoes score is a very respectable 84%, so this is a rare summer occasion when critics and audiences seem to agree wholeheartedly. The film’s popularity certainly intrigues us, but what has still been left unsaid about it interests us even more. So rich is the film, we thought, that even with our first Double Review covering a myriad of angles we still have plenty to discuss. Below is the latest Conversation between our writers Cliff Bugle and Marisa Carpico, which we hope you’ll join via the comments section below. For those of you who have been debating internally about going to see The Hunger Games we hope our musings give you the extra incentive you need to give it a go and experience it for yourself.

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Although it might be a bit untimely to talk at length about Drive nearly three full weeks after it opened on Sept. 16th, we at Movie-Thoughts thought it to be an even worse idea to not talk about it at all. Our Marisa Carpico did of course write a glowing review of the film, directed by Nicolas Refn (Bronson) and starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, and it appears her sentiments match that of the critical majority (RottenTomatoes rating is 93%), and because of these reasons we thought it was downright necessary to devote more time toward inspecting this refreshingly stylized action thriller. We tried to elaborate more on some of the angles explored in Marisa’s review, and took the opportunity to also bring up topics we felt hadn’t been addressed as often or thoroughly by other critics. We hope you find our discussion intriguing, and we of course encourage you to throw your two cents in at the comments section below. For those of you who have been debating internally about going to see Drive we hope our musings give you the extra incentive you need to give it a go and experience it for yourself. And for those of you who simply don’t wish to see it… well, you’re missing out.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 concludes the Potter film franchise that has lasted eight films and ten years. Thanks to its devoted worldwide fan base, the film is breaking box office records left and right. Critics are also showering the film with praise: it received a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, the highest for any film in the series.

We at Movie-Thoughts.com thought it would be interesting to talk about the franchise as a whole. Below is the conversation between Cliff Bugle (a casual fan who experienced the story chiefly through the movies) and Marisa Carpico (a long-time Potter fan who read the books and saw the movies). Be sure to get into the conversation by leaving your own comments!

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Transformers: Dark of the Moon has quickly become a box office phenomenon, pretty much just like most of us thought it would. However, what has been surprising is the relatively positive word of mouth the film has earned. After the critical failure of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen expectations were exceedingly low for the third installment. But even with this being the case audiences have seemingly been walking away feeling very satisfied.

Critics have by and large panned Dark of the Moon, amassing only a 37% approval rating on RottenTomatoes.com. On that same site, however, 90% of over 60,000 people voted to say they enjoyed the film. So for those of you who got a charge out of the movie we here at Movie-Thoughts thought it would be interesting to talk about several aspects of it that we weren’t able to fit into our review. Below you can find the conversation that took place between our writers Cliff Bugle and Marisa Carpico. Be sure to send us your comments! We want to hear your thoughts as well.

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Cliff:

Answering this question is not as easy as it might seem. For starters, I would like to make clear that I am a supporter of torture films (or what many people incorrectly call “torture porn”) as a subgenre of horror cinema, for reasons that can be best understood by reading my essay on the topic. In short, however, I would claim that torture films can be considered artistic, and thus if a torture film’s artistic merit can be defended then it is justifiable insofar that it is a valid cultural artifact. Not all torture films can be sufficiently defended, but the possibility is there nonetheless. Read the rest of this entry »

Five more nominees, but still just one of these.

Is the Change Good or Bad?

Cliff – This past June, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciencesannounced it would increase the number of nominees for Best Picture from 5 to 10, starting with the upcoming 82^nd Academy Awards taking place March 7^th. Reportedly, the reasons for the surprise change were to, among other things, increase viewership of the Academy Awards. The academy board of governors (which delegate certain awards such as the one for lifetime achievement) felt there were more than five films that deserved to be nominated for Best Picture last year, with The Dark Knight being the most popularly cited example.

It can be said that every year there are films that get “snubbed” by the academy that deserved to have been nominated for Best Picture. Last year was no different. The main reason for the change, which the academy admits is only one of many, is to attract more casual viewers. Many filmgoers have expressed either dissatisfaction or disinterest in the Oscars over the past few years because none of the movies they saw and enjoyed were nominated for any kinds of awards outside of special effects, sound, or editing -the kinds of awards that people tend to spend the time using the restroom or refreshing drinks. Last year The Dark Knight became the fourth-highest grossing film of all time worldwide (second domestically behind only Titanic). This alone should mean nothing to the academy, but the film was also one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year (ex., it earned a 94% on RottenTomatoes.com). For such a popular and well regarded movie not to get a Best Picture nomination seemed rather perplexing to many people, including yours truly. Luckily, however, Heath Ledger’s win for Best Supporting Actor helped alleviate some of this frustration. Read the rest of this entry »

The Ugly Truth

Marisa –

The Ugly Truth starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler debuted on July 24, 2009.  Like any other film, the usual slew of reviews appeared; according to RottenTomatoes.com only 15% of critics recommended the film.  While reading many of the reviews yields the impression that the film is a sign of the death of the romantic comedy, there is an even more interesting trend that becomes clear regarding the course language used in the film.  Quite a number of critics complained of the film’s vulgarity not because it was more offensive than the average film, but because it was so unexpected in a romantic comedy aimed mainly at women.
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New Moon - Opens November 20th, 2009

Marisa – On Tuesday, August 11^th, Summit Entertainment released a teaser trailer for the next installment in the Twilight series, New Moon.  Let me rephrase that, what they really did was release a fourteen second teaser trailer for a full-length trailer that was to be released a few days later on Friday the 21^st.  Besides this type of ridiculous publicity manipulation being a sign of the apocalypse, it also indicates something about the importance of an aggressive publicity campaign these days.

While the quality of the nearly $200 million grossing Twilight is up for debate, it’s difficult to debate the strength of the film’s publicity campaign.  The first film may not have been so successful without all the media manipulation leading to its release: the premiere of the trailer during the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, the Comic-Con appearances, the trading cards, all of it.  Summit knows that a good section of its audience will do anything to see a glimpse of the upcoming films.  They even based their ad campaign for Bandslam around the assumption with commercials for the film teasing that anybody who bought a ticket would get a glimpse of New Moon as well.

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