ErikLundegaard.com

“When Ted Williams refused to wear a necktie in the late 1940s, he got scant argument from Red Sox manager Joe McCarthy, even though the skipper insisted that everyone else on the club be so attired. When a sportswriter asked McCarthy why he let Williams get away with it, the manager offered a simple answer. 'I want to be fair,' he said. 'Any other gentleman on this club hits. .390, he won't have to wear a necktie, either.'”

--Jason Turbow and Michael Duca in their book, “The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing & Bench-Clearing Brawls: The unwritten rules of America's pastime.” According to the book's footnotes, they got the quote from “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Cooperstown,” by Mickey McDermott and Howard Eisenberg.

Ted Williams, tieless, signing a contract at the desk of Red Sox general manager Eddie Collins at Fenway Park in the late 1940s. Photograph by Leslie Jones (1886-1967). Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

Posted at 04:28 PM on Feb 22, 2012 in category Quote of the Day
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How Do Best Pictures Rate on IMDb?

My recent post about the IMDb ratings of current best picture nominees, along with the usual slew of “worst best-pictures” articles, or revisionist or do-over Oscar picks, made me wonder how every best picture winner has fared with IMDb users—or at least those IMDb users who bother to rate films.

Which are the highest-rated best picture winners? Which are the lowest-rated? Which pictures get votes and which are ignored? Oscar Oscar Oscar

No big surprise: Recent best picture winners get rated more often, way more often, than older best picture winners. In the past 20 years, there are only three films that haven't been rated by more than 100,000 users: “Chicago,” “Shakespeare in Love” and “The English Patient.” Meanwhile, of the first 45 best picture winners—i.e., from 1927 to 1971—only two films, “Casablanca” and “Gone with the Wind,” have generated more than 100,000 votes. Most people can't be bothered with what's old. Those who can, like me, can't be bothered to rate them on IMDb.

The films with the lowest vote totals also tend to have the lowest ratings. That was a bit of a surprise to me. I thought that the few fans of, say, “Cavalcade” (1933), would skew its results up, but it's simply logic. Lesser movies just don't get watched, and thus don't get rated, particularly if they're older. Among best picture winners, “Calvacade,” from 1933, has the fewest votes: 1,426.

A note to IMDb: Isn't it time to increase the decimal? Ten of the 84 films are tied with an 8.4 rating. Nine are tied with an 8.0 rating. That's too many ties. Give us that hundredth already.

Now on with the countdown.

Here are the highest-ranked best picture winners on IMDb:

MOVIE	IMDb RATING	VOTES
The Godfather (1972)	9.2	535,083
The Godfather, Part II (1974)	9.0	336,575
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)	8.9	501,289
Schindler's List (1993)	8.9	375,193
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)	8.8	300,314
Forrest Gump (1994)	8.7	446,991
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)	8.7	344,094
Casablanca (1943)	8.7	209,989
The Departed (2006)	8.5	368,308
American Beauty (1999)	8.5	389,392
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)	8.5	98,407

Again, it skews recent. Of the top 11, more than half were released in the last 20 years. Only two—“Lawrence” and “Casablanca”—were released prior to 1970.

Here are the bottom 10:

MOVIE	IMDb RATING	VOTES
Cimarron (1931)	6.1	1,744
Cavalcade (1933)	6.3	1,426
The Broadway Melody (1929)	6.4	2,466
The Greatest Show On Earth (1952)	6.7	5,186
Around the World In 80 Days (1956)	6.8	9,129
Tom Jones (1963)	6.9	4,857
Gigi (1958)	6.9	7,472
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)	6.9	2,583
Out of Africa (1985)	7.0	25,363
Chicago (2002)	7.2	99,936
Chariots of Fire (1981)	7.2	20,114
An American In Paris (1951)	7.2	11,808

It skews old. We get the forgotten BPs of the 1930s, the bloated spectacles of the 1950s, plus a few recent head-scratchers. But “An American in Paris” at 7.2? Really? IMDb's voters don't like musicals, do they? The great musicals of the early sixties, “My Fair Lady” (7.9), “The Sound of Music” (7.9) and “West Side Story” (7.7) all get less love than the abyssmal “Crash,” which is somehow still perched at a lofty 8.0.

Something is even more apparent when you look at each decade's highest- and lowest-ranked films:

Decade	Highest-Ranked	Rating	Lowest-ranked	Rating
1930s	It Happened One Night	8.3	Cimarron	6.1
1940s	Casablanca	8.7	Gentleman's Agreement	7.4
1950s	The Bridge on the River Kwai	8.4	The Greatest Show on Earth	6.7
1960s	Lawrence of Arabia	8.5	Tom Jones	6.9
1970s	The Godfather	9.2	Kramer vs. Kramer	7.7
1980s	Amadeus	8.4	Out of Africa	7.0
1990s	Schindler's List	8.9	Shakespeare in Love	7.3
2000s	Lord of the Rings: Return of the King	8.9	Chicago	7.2

It's the dude angle, the fanboy angle. The highest-ranked films above are testosterone-heavy. From the 1950s on, in fact, it's tough to find a leading woman in the mix. Diane Keaton in “The Godfather” maybe? Mozart's wife in “Amadeus”? Cate Blanchett in “LOTR: ROTK”? On the lowest-ranked side, it's all female-centered stories (“Chicago”) or empathetic male stories (“Kramer vs. Kramer”), or both (“Shakespeare in Love”). It's hardly a scoop that IMDb's users are young and male but it is sad. The Academy is historically dismissive of female-centered stories. IMDb's voters turn out to be worse.

As I was compiling the above, I noticed that the highest-ranked of the highest-ranked movies was “The Godfather,” while the highest-ranked of the lowest-ranked movies was “Kramer vs. Kramer,” both from the 1970s. It led me to break down the ratings by decade:

Decade	Avg Rating
1970s	8.35
1990s	8.16
2000s	8.13
1940s	7.94
1960s	7.88
1980s	7.72
1950s	7.66
1930s	7.48

The 1970s, with its great slew of American films, is rightly in first place. The 1950s is weighed down by a few of the Academy's tepid choices (“Greatest Show,” “Around the World”), as is the 1980s (“Ordinary People,” “Chariots of Fire,” “Driving Miss Daisy”). The '90s and 2000s are obviously too high but what are you gonna do? They'll come down.

For completeists, here's the entire list:

MOVIE	IMDb RATING	VOTES
The King's Speech (2010)	8.2	155,972
The Hurt Locker (2009)	7.7	137,683
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)	8.2	269,582
No Country For Old Men (2007)	8.2	274,692
The Departed (2006)	8.5	368,308
Crash (2005)	8.0	217,777
Million Dollar Baby (2004)	8.2	204,335
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)	8.9	501,289
Chicago (2002)	7.2	99,936
A Beautiful Mind (2001)	8.0	202,651
Gladiator (2000)	8.4	397,268
American Beauty (1999)	8.5	389,392
Shakespeare In Love (1998)	7.3	97,391
Titanic (1997)	7.5	336,027
The English Patient (1996)	7.3	72,322
Braveheart (1995)	8.4	327,548
Forrest Gump (1994)	8.7	446,991
Schindler's List (1993)	8.9	375,193
Unforgiven (1992)	8.3	135,496
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)	8.7	344,094
Dances With Wolves (1990)	8.0	94,144
Driving Miss Daisy (1989)	7.4	30,411
Rain Man (1988)	8.0	165,428
The Last Emperor (1987)	7.8	33,160
Platoon (1986)	8.2	145,818
Out of Africa (1985)	7.0	25,363
Amadeus (1984)	8.4	128,078
Terms of Endearment (1983)	7.3	21,085
Gandhi (1982)	8.1	71,833
Chariots of Fire (1981)	7.2	20,114
Ordinary People (1980)	7.8	20,192
Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979)	7.7	40,353
The Deer Hunter (1978)	8.2	117,540
Annie Hall (1977)	8.2	87,916
Rocky (1976)	8.1	143,362
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)	8.8	300,314
The Godfather, Part II (1974)	9.0	336,575
The Sting (1973)	8.4	85,891
The Godfather (1972)	9.2	535,083
The French Connection (1971)	7.9	42,667
Patton (1970)	8.0	49,384
Midnight Cowboy (1969)	8.0	42,805
Oliver! (1968)	7.5	12,026
In the Heat of the Night (1967)	8.0	26,928
A Man For All Seasons (1966)	8.0	14,614
The Sound of Music (1965)	7.9	68,810
My Fair Lady (1964)	7.9	35,262
Tom Jones (1963)	6.9	4,857
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)	8.5	98,407
West Side Story (1961)	7.7	37,371
The Apartment (1960)	8.4	49,785
Ben-Hur (1959)	8.2	76,925
Gigi (1958)	6.9	7,472
The Bridge On the River Kwai (1957)	8.4	76,003
Around the World In 80 Days (1956)	6.8	9,129
Marty (1955)	7.7	8,028
On the Waterfront (1954)	8.4	52,369
From Here To Eternity (1953)	7.9	19,141
The Greatest Show On Earth (1952)	6.7	5,186
An American In Paris (1951)	7.2	11,808
All About Eve (1950)	8.4	43,955
All the King's Men (1949)	7.6	5,597
Hamlet (1948)	7.9	6,557
Gentleman's Agreement (1947)	7.4	5,688
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)	8.3	21,793
The Lost Weekend (1945)	8.1	14,287
Going My Way (1944)	7.4	4,143
Casablanca (1943)	8.7	209,989
Mrs. Miniver (1942)	7.7	6,058
How Green Was My Valley (1941)	7.9	8,993
Rebecca (1940)	8.4	45,011
Gone With the Wind (1939)	8.2	106,428
You Can't Take It With You (1938)	8.0	10,500
The Life of Emile Zola (1937)	7.4	2,376
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)	6.9	2,583
Mutiny On the Bounty (1935)	7.9	9,276
It Happened One Night (1934)	8.3	32,375
Cavalcade (1933)	6.3	1,426
Grand Hotel (1932)	7.6	7,300
Cimarron (1931)	6.1	1,744
All Quiet On the Western Front (1930)	8.1	28,205
The Broadway Melody (1929)	6.4	2,466
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1928)	8.4	15,384
Wings (1927)	7.8	3,792

Posted at 06:59 AM on Feb 22, 2012 in category Movies - The Oscars
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Tuesday February 21, 2012

The Leftover, Less-Romantic, Movie-Quote Candy Hearts of Valentine's Day

It's a week after Valentine's Day. Look what we found in the remainder bin...

movie quote hearts

And can you match the quote to the correct movie?

American Beauty
Anchorman
Annie Hall (3)
Chinatown
The Descendants
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Gone with the Wind
Grand Hotel
Hamlet
Jules et Jim
Moonstruck
Say Anything
Scarface
The Silence of the Lambs
Some Like It Hot
When Harry Met Sally

Posted at 06:47 AM on Feb 21, 2012 in category Movies
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Monday February 20, 2012

Hollywood B.O.: Second 'Ghost Rider'? Road Kill

How bad must a $100-million-grossing movie be before studios nix a sequel? Is there a limit? Some kind of badness ratio that indicates dropping interest? A point where caveat emptor (buyer beware) becomes caveat vendito (seller beware)?

The first “Ghost Rider,” starring Nicholas Cage, was released Presidents' Day weekend 2007 and grossed $45 million in three days and $52 million in four. It was No. 1 at the box office by a long shot. The next weekend it dropped more than 55 percent—bad, but hardly the worst second-weekend drop ever—and by the end of its run, its overall domestic gross was $115 million: barely twice what it grossed in its first four days. So there were a few warning signs. Plus its Rotten Tomatoes rating of 27% was only that high because of so-called positive reviews like this one from Dave White at MSN.com:

By any real-world standard, this is a stupid piece of junk. But it's very good at being a stupid piece of junk.

Five years later, Presidents' Day weekend 2012, the sequel no one asked for, “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vegeance,” was distributed by Sony, who dumped it into more than 3,000 theaters despite a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 17%. Even so, the movie was expected to do ... OK. It might not draw as many moviegoers (“Fool me once,” etc.), and Cage has gone from star to punchline during that time, but prices were higher, and 3-D prices were even higher than that, and both would cover some of the ground lost.

Instead “Spirit of Vegeance” finished third for the weekend, grossing $22 million in three days. It got beat by the second weekends of “Safe House” and “The Vow.” GR lost his roar.

Could Sony have prevented all of this? Were there clues that the franchise, such as it was, had run its course, such as it was? Some measurement beyond RT ratings and second-weekend drops and opening-weekend-to-domestic-totals ratios?

I'm serious. I come not to mock Sony but to help them. And us.

The weekend estimates here.

What's not to like?

Posted at 08:58 AM on Feb 20, 2012 in category Movies - Box Office
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Sunday February 19, 2012

“And they're STILL cheering Mike Cameron...”

I'll always remember Mike Cameron for one thing.

It wasn't how he was dealt for two great players: Paul Konerko (straight up) during the 1998-99 off-season and Ken Griffey, Jr. (as the main part of a package) during the following 1999-2000 off-season.

It wasn't for the itinerant nature of his career. In 17 seasons he played for eight teams, and his stay in Seattle, four full seasons, was his longest. The Washington Nationals in 2012 would've been his ninth club but he called it quits today at the age of 39.

Grand Salami, May 2001 It wasn't for his numbers, which were nice if unexceptional: .249/.338/.444. He won three Gold Gloves, made one All-Star Game (I was there) and is currently 8th all-time in career strikeouts with 1901. Admittedly, he was nearly a 300-300 guy, with 278 career home runs and 297 career stolen bases, and admittedly he had that day, in May 2002, when he did what only 12 previous players in baseball history had done when he hit four home runs in a single game. But that's not what I'll remember him for.

I'll remember him for my first impression of him.

Back in 2000 I was still writing the player profiles for The Grand Salami, an alternative Mariners program, and this is what I wrote about our new acquistion:

Michael Terrance Cameron (44)
Height: 6'2,“ Weight: 195
Bats: Right, Throws: Right
Born: 1-8-73 in LaGrange, GA
Family: Wife, JaBreka, and two children, Dazmon and T'Aja
Acquired: If you don't know, you've been in a coma all winter
Major League debut: August 27, 1996, with Chicago White Sox
This was Cameron's second off-season trade in as many years. In November 1998 he was swapped by the ChiSox to Cincy for 1B Paul Konerko. Then in February 2000... Well, you know. In Cameron's one season in the NL he didn't perform poorly: .256 BA, .357 OBP, 34 doubles, 21 HRs, 37 SBs. Plus a helluva glove. His one major drawback is strikeouts. He piles great gobs of strikeouts onto his plate: over 100 each of the last three seasons, and 146 in 1999 (fourth most in the majors). The one place you don't want to bat him then is second, since the second spot is designed for moving the runner along, and strikeouts tend not to do that (unless Lou Brock is on the basepaths). So where are the M's talking about batting Cameron? Second. We say lead him off.

It was a bad time to be a Mariners fan. It would soon get good again (in 2000), and then great (in 2001), and then bad again (October 2001-present), but we didn't know that. We also didn't know that the guy we got for Griffey would, in his four years with us, outhomer Griffey's first four years in Cincinnati, (87-83), that he would drive in more runs (344-232), that he would steal more bases (106-10), that he would win more Gold Gloves (2-0). We didn't know he would charm us. We just knew our franchise guy, the ”All-Century“ player, the guy everyone thought would break Hank Aaron's homerun record, was gone. We were bitter. I know I was. Some magic seemed to have gone from the world. And to Cincinnati of all places.

Was it my first game of the season? The M's had already played three home games when the defending-champion New York Yankees, the team we loved to hate, and used to crush, sauntered in on a chilly Friday night, April 7, 2000. The pitching matchup didn't favor us (Andy Pettitte vs. John Halama), and our lineup, which used to feature a modern murderer's row, now included the likes of Charles Gipson, Joe Oliver and David Bell. A-Rod batted third, Griffey's slot, and hit a homerun. Cameron led off and went 1-4: a two-out double in the 4th with nobody on. He didn't score.

For a while, the game was a back-and-forth affair. M's went up 2-0. Yanks tied it and went ahead 3-2. We tied it and went ahead. In the top of the 8th, it was 6-3, us, but the Yankees had the top of their lineup against reliver Paul Abbott. Chuck Knoblauch flew out for the first out.

Then this happened.

We went nuts. We gave Cameron a standing 'o' after the catch, we gave him a standing 'o' as he trotted in, we gave him a standing 'o' as he batted the next inning, and we gave him a standing 'o' as he walked back to the dugout after striking out on three pitches. ”I don't think I've ever seen anyone get an ovation for striking out," Lou Piniella said with a smile after the game. But how could we not? How else do you thank someone who lets you know it's not over? How else do you thank someone who's restored a bit of magic to the world?

Cameron, robbing Jeter, April 7, 2000.

Posted at 04:18 PM on Feb 19, 2012 in category Seattle Mariners
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How 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' Speaks to Our Time

The absurdity of the title is the point of the title but the point of the movie isn't absurdity. From the trailer, it appears to be the usual slow-mo, martial-arts mayhem but with a strong, 19th-century industrial and gadgetry presence. It's “Sherlock Holmes” but in America, and with a real historical (and beloved) character. Plus vampires. The ol' railsplitter is now a vampire-splitter. God save the union.

I'm sure it'll be shite. But it's the tagline at the end that made me post this. It made me laugh out loud. Did you catch it? It says:

ARE YOU A PATRIOT OR A VAMPIRE?

Brilliant. Truly. It lays bare the absurdity of our time: the uncompromising, absolutist, bifurcated vision of our modern politics and media. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. Because there's no middle ground. America during the Bush years lost its middle class and its middle ground. We've been trying to get both back ever since.

Are you a patriot or a vampire? Someone, somewhere, is laughing their asses off.

Posted at 07:25 AM on Feb 19, 2012 in category Trailers
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Saturday February 18, 2012

The Best Picture Nominees by Current IMDb Ranking

The Artist: 8.4
Hugo: 8.2
The Help: 8.0
Midnight in Paris: 7.8
Moneyball: 7.7
The Descendants: 7.7
War Horse: 7.3
The Tree of Life: 7.1
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: 6.4

I'm a bit surprised that “The Help” is that high but I shouldn't be. I'm a bit surprised that “The Tree of Life” is that low but I shouldn't be. I should revisit in a year and see what's changed. Someone remind me. Vinny? Reed?

“The Help”: It's funny cuz it's untrue.

Posted at 03:26 PM on Feb 18, 2012 in category Movies - The Oscars
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Max Landis and 'the Death and Return of Superman'

A few weeks back, during music breaks on the “Karl Show (Starring Jason),” Karl and Jason talked up “Chronicle,” and screenwriter Max Winter, son of Jon, who apparently, recently, had a few scripts on “The Black List,” which are the great unmade (soon-to-be-made) scripts making the rounds in Hollywood. Karl said the dude had also done a video on “The Death and Return of Superman.” I asked for a link.

Turns out I'd watched a bit of it before but turned it off, or the web equivalent, because Landis' persona, his general pronouncements, and the scotch sloshing around his glass, all annoyed me too much. This time I watched the whole thing. Here it is:

Landis, who was born in 1985, is railing against “The Death and Return of Superman,” a comic-book storyline that began in 1992 with, yes, the death of the world's first superhero, continued into a storyline in which four super men vie for the now-open position of “Superman,” and ended with Superman's return, not from death, but from a Kryptonian-type “healing coma,” which is similar to our “human death.”

Right. Lame. And Landis rightly rails against it. But he begins so poorly. First words:

Nobody gives a fuck about Superman. You don't give a fuck about Superman even if you think you do. What's special about him? That he was the first superhero? That's it.

How untrue is this? It's not even true for Landis. Here he is in a more recent video:

Lastly, a quick note to people who have been saying 'I hate Superman.' If I hate Superman, would I have spent two months of my life and 16 minutes of yours talking about him? I LOVE Superman.

Landis' conclusion is that, rather than being about the death of Superman, the storyline was ultimately about the death of death, since, afterward, no character died, truly died, in comic books. I'd say that's the perspective of the young. When the “death of Superman” story broke into the mainstream media in 1992, I was 29 years old, 15 years removed from my comic-buying days, but even I knew they weren't talking about the real death of Superman. Did the Green Goblin die? Did Gwen Stacy? Everyone comes back. If there's money to be made, you come back. And there's nothing but money to be made from Superman.

In fact, rather than being about the death of death, you could argue that “The Death of Superman” began the birth of “the death of” storyline: Superman, Captain America, whomever. But they all come back. It's the industry that's dying.

Superman at the 1940 World's Fair: two years after his birth; 52 years before his “death.”

Posted at 08:18 AM on Feb 18, 2012 in category Superheroes
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Friday February 17, 2012

The Bechdel Test, Stein, Hemingway and Woody Allen

“What's even more embarassing about this film [Midnight in Paris] is that one of the more important historical figures that Gil interacts with is Gertrude Stein. For those of you who aren't familiar with her, Stein is one of the most famous writers, and lesbians, in American history. And Woody Allen has the nerve to not have her speak to another female character in the entire film?”

--Anita Sarkeesian, in her video, The 2012 Oscars and the Bechdel Test, below, at the 3:30 mark. (But keep reading beyond the video.)

“Miss Stein was very big but not tall and was heavily built like a peasant woman. She had beautiful eyes and a strong German-Jewish face that also could have been Friulano and she reminded me of a northern Italian peasant woman with her clothes, her mobile face and her lovely, thick, alive immigrant hair which she wore put up in the same way she had probably worn it in college. She talked all the time and at first it was about people and places.

”Her companion [Alice B. Toklas] had a very pleasant voice, was small, very dark, with her hair cut like Joan of Arc in the Boutet de Monvel illustrations and had a very hooked nose. She was working on a piece of needlepoint when we first met them and she worked on this and saw to the food and drink and talked to my wife. She made one conversation and listened to two and often interrupted the one she was not making. Afterwards she explained to me that she always talked to the wives. The wives, my wife and I felt, were tolerated...

“'I said to my wife, ”You know, Gertrude is nice, anyway.“ ...

”'I never hear her,' my wife said. 'I'm a wife. It's her friend that talks to me.'“

--Ernest Hemingway, ”A Moveable Feast"

Posted at 07:32 AM on Feb 17, 2012 in category Movies - The Oscars
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Movie Review: A Separation (2011)

WARNING: SPOILERS

Our sympathies keep changing in “A Separation” in a way that reminded me of life.

Initially, Simin (Leila Hatami) seems the sympathetic one, at least to western eyes, since she wants out of Iran for both herself and her daughter, while her husband Nader (Peyman Maadi) seem stubborn and awful for refusing to go. When Simin does leave, she goes, not out of the country but across town, to stay at her mother’s, leaving Nader to care for their daughter, Termeh (Arina Farhadi), who’s 11 and smart, as well as his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi), who is old and suffering from Alzheimer’s.

But we also have sympathy for Razieh (Sareh Bayat), whom Nader hires to help in his wife’s absence. She’s pregnant; she has her own daughter, Somayeh (Kimia Hosseini), an adorable, big-eyed thing, to worry about; and now, for 300,000 rials a day (about US$26.50), she has to look after Nader’s father, who wets himself, and who may wander off at any moment to get the newspaper at the newsstand down the street. Wetting himself, and not being able to change himself, is the big problem. She’s unsure whether it’s a sin for her to be this close to a man she doesn’t know, but there’s a kind of Islamic hotline she can call to plead her case. She does, successfully, but it’s really more than she bargained for. So she asks Nader: Could her husband, Hodjat (Shahb Hosseini), take the job instead?

Nader is willing, even grateful, but surprised when it’s still Razieh who shows up the next day, and the next. Something about her husband being in jail? Something about creditors? Nader is even more surprised, and angered, when he comes home early one day to find no one at home and his father tied to the bed. Initially he thinks he’s dead. He’s not, but he’s bruised. And really who would do such a thing? And where is the day’s money Nader left on the dresser? And it’s at this point that Razieh returns, with her daughter, and with nothing like shame or guilt on her face. Who is this woman? How could she do such a thing to his father? And still she demands her day’s pay? Why doesn’t she get out of his apartment. Out! Out!

Yeah, so what if Razieh slipped when he shoved her out the door. Really? She miscarried? That’s awful. From the shove? That doesn’t seem...? She and her husband are pressing charges? For murder?

Poor Nader.

God, where the fuck is his wife during all of this?!

The relativity of all of this is key. The lack of absolutes is key. The small lies that occur daily, or the big lies that occur when our backs are to the wall, or the information withheld to make one’s case better, all of these things are key. “A Separation” begins inconclusively before an unseen judge, and it ends—beautifully—in a kind of purgatory of inconclusiveness, and in the middle ... is anything resolved? The more both parties go to find justice, the more injustice they find. The more control they attempt to exert, the more things fall apart. “A Separation” isn’t just about the separation of a man and a wife; it’s about a separation from truth, from respect, and maybe from love.

Posted at 06:06 AM on Feb 17, 2012 in category Movie Reviews - 2011
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Thursday February 16, 2012

Quote of the Day

“...rarer has it been clearer to me that 'the Academy' is not a monolithic individual entity we conveniently paint it as for the purpose of analysis, but a hive of conflicting individual opinions and personalities. The new voting structure for the Best Picture race is a case in point. We know each of these nine nominees received at least 5% of the number-one votes cast, suggesting a diverse range of committed camps. The people responsible for The Tree of Life being on the list are not the same people who put War Horse there, who in turn are different from the sneaky contingent who came through for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

”There's evidence of contrasting impulses within individual branches, too. Are the actors who rallied for Demián Bichir the same ones who are high on Rooney Mara? Are there Academy screenwriters who are equally jazzed about Bridesmaids and A Separation? I'm sure there are some — speaking as the person whose best-of-2011 list found room for Margaret and Immortals — but I'm sure you'd find plenty more who are befuddled by at least one of those nominations. Get angry with the Academy if you like, but wonder first what — or who — you're even getting angry with.“

-- Guy Lodge, ”Stuck in the middle with you: Thoughts on the Oscar nominations,“ on the ”In Contention" site. Which is now, what, HitFix? Too bad.

Posted at 04:47 PM on Feb 16, 2012 in category Quote of the Day, Movies - The Oscars
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Hollywood B.O.: The Devil Whimpers

I haven't posted much on box office lately. Got bored with it, I guess. Began to do other things with my Sundays. More power to me.

So I missed the near-historic performance of “The Devil Inside” in the first week of January. Opening weekend, it was No. 1 at the box office with $33 million, even though moviegoers had a slew of great, end-of-the-year releases to choose from. (Fuckers.) But “Devil” was the only new film opening, it was horror, and the horror fans came out for it. (Fuckers.)

Then they didn't. That's the thing with horror. Opening weekend: BANG! Second weekend: whimper. For “Devil,” it was a near-historic second weekend of whimper:

Movie	Opening Wknd	2nd Wknd Drop	2nd Wknd BO	Theaters	Total BO	Release Date
Gigli	$3.7m	-81.90%	$0.67m	2,215	$6,087,542	8/1/03
Friday the 13th (2009)	$40m	-80.40%	$7.9m	3,105	$65,002,019	2/13/09
Star Trek: Nemesis	$18.5m	-76.20%	$4.4m	2,711	$43,254,409	12/13/02
The Devil Inside	$33.7m	-76.20%	$8.0m	2,551	$53,153,016	1/6/12

It tied for the third-largest, second-weekend drop of any film opening in more than 2,000 theaters. The movies ahead of it? The Bennifer-related disaster that was “Gigli”; and the 2009 remake of Friday the 13th. “Devil” tied with the umpteenth version of a “Star Trek” sequel. It dropped 76.2 percent. That's like bungee jumping. Gnarly.

“The Devil Inside”'s second weekend wasn't helped by a 5% critics rating and a 23% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Its current IMDb rating? Where 7.0 is generally considered “good”? 3.6.

Posted at 07:20 AM on Feb 16, 2012 in category Movies - Box Office
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