Welcome to Movie Musings with Laremy, a weekly feature that dives into the weekly happenings around the cinematic landscape.
1. Avatar Will Vanquish Sherlock Holmes at the Box Office.
The reason? Avatar has had a week of positive word of mouth to boost it this weekend. Sherlock Holmes, though big fun, isn’t a proven product. It will be close, but people will choose the film their friends recommend over the untested product this holiday weekend. As for the Squeakquel? All bets are off!
Bonus Random Thought: They should have gone wide with Up in the Air a few weeks ago. I know the DVD is going to sell through the roof after The Academy Awards, but people should have been encouraged to see it in theaters.
2. Karate Kid Gets a Trailer, and It’s Decent!
Alert sites are jumping on the idea of “Hey, this might not be so bad.” But they are doing this based on the marketing alone. So what are we saying here? We think Sony / Columbia Pictures is capable of marketing a film effectively? What an odd thing to be given credit for. They are a conglomerate! They have teams of people working on stuff like this. It’s not as though you and I made this trailer on our home computer using only sticks and hope. Now that would be impressive. I’d expect credit for such a thing.
Bonus Random Thought: If you want to check out the trailer for yourself our friends over at Yahoo are hosting an HD version.
3. The Line Between Exploitation and Entertainment is Blurred Even Further.
The red band trailer for Kick-Ass was released this week and featured cursing, violence, and adult themes… in the form of a 12 year-old girl. I’m of two minds regarding this particular trailer — 1) It does indeed make the film look great 2) A 12 year-old girl? I suppose everyone will have a similar reaction. But as her parents signed off on it, who are we to be concerned? Just mark me down as vaguely worried.
Bonus Random Thought: Plenty of film geeks already screened this one at Harry Knowles annual film festival. They loved it. Still, they all loved Shoot ‘Em Up too, and that went on to a whopping $26m of business.
4. Kevin Smith’s New Film Gets a New Title.
Now that I’ve decried the morality of our current culture (see item #3) I of course have to say complain that we’re becoming too politically correct. Kevin Smith’s film was tentatively called A Couple of Dicks. That’s been changed to Cop Out. It’s not so much that I mind the change, no, what mostly galls me is that no one really knows what the standards are. The MPAA, advertisers, and studios have stirred up a witches’ brew of “rules” that are completely illogical. In some cases a pun such as Kevin Smith’s original title won’t fly, and he couldn’t use “Porno” in certain ads for Zack and Miri Make a Porno. But are words really affecting children? Are we really saving ourselves from vulgarity by outlawing words that are easily accessible 24/7 online? It seems like a lot of fuss for no real gain.
5. Is Lovely Bones Being Buried by Paramount?
Alert Hollywood.com readers have already heard the news: Bones is opting for a January theatrical push. That’s an odd choice given January is usually a desolate wasteland where films involving Mall Cops and others titled Meet the Spartans can win a weekend. Plus it kills all their Oscar momentum. So what gives? Is the film just not ready for prime-time? Did Paramount take a look at a brutally competitive late December and just give up? It certainly looks that way to me, a sad ending for a great book.
On that note, I hope you all have a pleasant holiday weekend. See Sherlock, see Avatar, spend some time with family and friends. My sources indicate it’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Check out last week’s Movie Musings here
Laremy is the lead critic and senior producer for a website named Film.com. He’s also available on Twitter, which will probably be a desolate wasteland this weekend.
