Box Office News: Friday the 13th

Perhaps it's my morbid desire to be proven right after the Dark Knight fiasco (here's the precis - it made more money than I imagined and predicted it would. My underestimation of the 'Brandon Lee' factor was due to my failure to factor in that people generally thought of Heath Ledger as a 'good' actor, a trait that Lee sadly did not share) that has left me giddily anticipating the long-term failure of the film Friday the 13th, which I also absolutely loathed.

Luckily for me, this time the numbers are backing my hatred of a film up. I think I can take as read the idea that opening weekend box office is an indicator not of a film's quality, but rather an audience's excitement about a film, and the success of the film's marketing. Judged solely on those criteria, Friday the 13th's opening weekend was a smashing success. Earning 40.1 million dollars in three days establishes this film clearly as one that was well-marketed, and one that audiences were interested in seeing.

Saturday Night Live RapeWatch! Alec Baldwin Edition!

Alec Baldwin was hosting SNL tonight, and it wasn't one of his more stellar outings. His performance on 30 Rock this week was above and beyond, though, so I'm willing to give him a pass.

As for the questionable content, it was fairly light this week, with just two instances of homophobia, and a single of rape.

The rape joke came in the 'Cougar' talk show sketch, in which the characters told hilarious stories about how they were so desperate to pick up younger men that they wound up hitting on 12-year-olds in a McDonald's. Again, statutory rape counts.

Jason: The Avod

Last night both the Divemistress and myself went to theatres and watched the film Friday the 13th. We each took an hour or two to process what we'd seen, and then went online to discuss.

This new Avod is that discussion, preserved for the viewing audience, especially those wondering just how much of a disaster the movie was.

You can listen to the Avod by right-clicking here, and then saving the film to your desktop. As always, it's also available on TheAvod's blog.

The Texas Jason Massacre!

I forgot to bring a notepad or laptop to the movie, so this is going to be a little less clear than my later – I-now-have-the-film-on-DVD-post is likely to be, but for right now, here’s the stream of consciousness that comes from liveblogging the film as I run it back through my head with my eyes closed.

Why are they ruining what might be an effective kinda-black and white flashback to the end of the first movie by cutting to black and running credits? I accept that you want opening credits, but if you must, play them over black before the story starts, or after the title card. Whatever you do, don’t interrupt storytelling with them. Also, Courier? Were the other fonts all too pricey?

Happy Avod the 13th!

That's right, after months of plugging it's finally time to unveil the Jason-themed Avod! The Divemistress and I went a little overboard this time, deciding that each and every film deserved in-depth analysis. As a result, the Avod has been broken up into three sections, each of which can be downloaded by right-clicking on the following links and 'saving (the) target as'.

PART 1 - In which we discuss Fridays 1-3, as well as debate timelines and characters' ultimate fates.

PART 2 - In which we discuss Fridays 4-7, which include the series' highest and (near) lowest points.

PART 3 - In which we discuss Fridays 8-11, three of which comprise the the so-called 'Fake Jason Trilogy'

Now for the show notes. As promised, the Internet did not let me down when it comes to celebrities dancing silly:

Why is the world determined to make me sad?

So, on the advice of those evil sons of bitches at Ain't it Cool News I swung by http://www.minutemenarcade.com to check out the flash arcade game tie-in for the Watchmen movie.

It's advertising schemes like this that make no sense to me - it's basically just a flash demo of a side-scrolling game, where you get a chance to walk across the screen, pressing the punch or kick buttons to watch a single frame attack defeat the same three enemies over and over again.

There's also a jump button, but it does nothing, since there is no jumping attack. There are better 2/D beat 'em ups made by small companies and released for free all over the internet.

Adventures in Comic Book Censorship: DMZ 35

Here’s a panel from the beginning of DMZ issue 35. In this storyline the book’s main character, one Matthias Q. Roth, Manhattan war correspondent during the new Civil War (Civil War 2: The Deadly Art of Illusion), has ventured to Staten Island, where it has been reported that the soldiers have ceased fighting and now busy themselves with more party-related pursuits.
The picture depicts Matty peeking in as two soldiers are about to perform a sex act, or have recently completed doing same. I mean, the image isn’t supposed to imply that they’re actually having sex, is it? Because she’s kneeling over his knees in that frame. For that to be full-on sex, his torso would have to be like four feet long.

Okay, now I’m just making fun of slightly awkward art mistakes, which isn’t what I’m here to do. Well, okay, it is, actually, but in a different way. Let’s move on.

CSI Sunday!

There's a new CSI on Monday, and before it gets here, I thought I'd finally get around to reviewing the previous episode, since it was notably stupid, even for a show notable primarily for the idiocy of its writing.

The episode opens with an NCIS-style flash ahead to the body we'll be seeing at the end of the teaser. The setting is quickly revealed - it's a racetrack! The man who's about to be murdered is watching the race, desperate for his horse to win. It doesn't, and he's murdered soon after.

Saturday Night Live RapeWatch! Bradley Cooper Edition!

After a fairly bland week with Steve Martin hosting, we're back up to countable instancing this time around.

The 'guys singing' segment, which regularly features rape and homophobia as the subject matter, did not disappoint tonight, even going so far as to throw an incest joke into the mix. The premise of the sketch is that four guys sign along to a favorite song of theirs, and then tell a banal story with an offensive punchline. Tonight's joke of note concerned a man who was complaining about the perils of internet dating because a man showed up at his door... when he was expecting a 12 year old boy! Paedophilia is rape, so that one counts.

It's an Avod Saturday!

That's right, a new Avod is available for download right here! If you right click and save the link as, of course. Otherwise you'll just wind up listening to it.

No show notes this time around, as I've been informed that unless they're accompanied by funny videos, they come off as condescending.

So now, apropos of nothing, the funniest and most heartwarming video in the history of YouTube.



Have a good rest of the weekend, everyone!

Anamorphism is the new x-raying canvases

This film belongs to a a really interesting sub-genre of the serial killer movie. It occurs when a writer discovers some really interesting factoid about history and then can’t think of a way to make a movie about it, so they just include a serial killer who themes himself around that factoid. It’s a pretty common occurance among hack writers. I, for example, am currently working a screenplay about a serial killer who themes himself around the evidence that Francis Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare’s pays (Thrill! To the handwriting-analysis scene!).

Some recent movies that follow this formula included W-Delta-Z (or “The Killing Gene”) which was about genetic survival instincts rednering love a lie, Brutal, which was themed around the Golden Ratio, which is sometimes called the Fibbonaci sequence. Even Seven, in one of its early drafts, was one of these movies, themed as it was around medieval paintings of people suffering in hell. These elements largely disappeared as the film was rewritten to the point of actually being good.

Batman isn't the only moron in the Batcave

This is Doctor Tommy Elliot. Like most Batman villains, he enjoys murdering people. His list of murders includes, but is not limited to, his own parents, Batman’s mechanic Harold, and many Gotham police officers.

Unlike most Batman villains, he knows Batman’s secret identity (Riddler mentioned it over drinks one night. Riddler discovered the identity off-panel), and when he’s not dressed as the invisible man, he looks exactly like Bruce Wayne.

Death Race 2008

Maybe I’m crazy, but shouldn’t a movie make even the littlest bit of sense?

It’s not like the original film ‘Death Race’ was a brilliant piece of filmmaking. It was a delightfully mean-spirited romp with a wonderful premise and some decent performances. What it had going for it was some honestly biting satire about American Car/Sports/Death culture mixed in with a 70s ‘paranoia about governmental fascism/overpopulation’ theme that managed to hold together over the course of the entire film.

It had that, and the fact that the plot, no matter how absurd it may have been, logically progressed forwards, the characters actions make sense, and everything followed a clear and (basically) understandable internal logic.

Would that I could say the same thing about ‘Death Race’ by Paul Anderson.

Saturday Night Live RapeWatch! Steve Martin Edition!

Another slow week this time around, with no rape or homophobia jokes to be found!

All in all, it was a pretty mediocre and depressing episode, with many attempts at humour that fell flat, the requisite sketches that absolutely refused to end, and, of course, the ongoing abomination that is Seth Meyers hosting Weekend Update.

Add to that roughly a minute of dead space when the show was supposed to come back from commercial, and wound up hanging on the title card, or in one case, a black screen.

The high point of the night was the new laser cats sketch, which was just as wonderfully absurd as ever.