No studying? Damn! Next thing they'll tell me is I'll have to eat jelly doughnuts or sleep with a supermodel to get things done around here. I ask you, how much can one man give?

Xander ,'Conversations with Dead People'


Buffista Movies 3: Panned and Scanned  

A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.


Jesse - Sep 05, 2004 2:10:28 pm PDT #3573 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

Rachel Leigh Cook will always be the chick who destroyed the kitchen against drugs.

Oh, shit. Really?


§ ita § - Sep 05, 2004 2:10:33 pm PDT #3574 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Does the Blockbuster service offer edited DVDs, like they were reputed to be "for contenting" their videos?

Me, I like Netflix because they were there first, and have the luxury of never having me had a confrontation with idiot clerks, which drove me away from Blockbuster as soon as I first heard of Netflix. Sour taste, not gone.


Gandalfe - Sep 05, 2004 2:13:47 pm PDT #3575 of 10001
The generation that could change the world is still looking for its car keys.

Well, according to IMDB, She's All That did $63,319,509 (domestic) on a $10 million budget, while Can't Hardly Wait did $25,339,117 on the same budget. So, um, yes.


Polter-Cow - Sep 05, 2004 2:15:12 pm PDT #3576 of 10001
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

Was She's All That really that much more successful than Can't Hardly Wait?

And don't they both owe Clueless a lot for softening the market?

That's a point. I don't remember when/why I deemed it, say, a cultural touchstone, but there may be a better candidate for "kicking off the teen movie craze of the 90s which bled into the 00s."

I agree that X-Men was hysterically successful, but there was still quite a lull between that and a bunch of high-profile actors putting on the spandex.

Well, there was a lull, yes, because the movies had to get made. I think after X-Men is when all the online buzz involved comic-book movies, because you had a big-name director attached to one. Thus Ang Lee took Hulk and John Woo took Ninja Turtles... which never managed to surface. If not X-Men, what would you suggest? Spider-Man ?


§ ita § - Sep 05, 2004 2:16:53 pm PDT #3577 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Damn. How wrong was I? Clueless did $56M on twice that budget. Shows how off-kilter my perceptions are. And I have to mentally be nicer to FPJr too. This bites.


Polter-Cow - Sep 05, 2004 2:18:10 pm PDT #3578 of 10001
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!

Hey, does this mean I was more right than ita?

savors this moment


Matt the Bruins fan - Sep 05, 2004 2:20:10 pm PDT #3579 of 10001
"I remember when they eventually introduced that drug kingpin who murdered people and smuggled drugs inside snakes and I was like 'Finally. A normal person.'” —RahvinDragand

If nothing else, I give She's All That props for embodying so many of the genre tropes that Not Another Teen Movie sent up so hilariously.

Watched Denied today. The editing made Lost Highway look linear, and I'll bet more than half the run time was taken up by black screens between scenelets. Sound and picture quality made me wonder if I was following in Helen Keller's footsteps. If you're tempted to watch this movie, look at this promotional shot instead. It's much better than anything actually in the movie.


Alibelle - Sep 05, 2004 2:20:16 pm PDT #3580 of 10001
Apart from sports, "my secret favorite thing on earth is ketchup. I will put ketchup on anything. But it has to be Heinz." - my husband, Michael Vartan

Me, I like Netflix because they were there first, and have the luxury of never having me had a confrontation with idiot clerks, which drove me away from Blockbuster as soon as I first heard of Netflix. Sour taste, not gone.

That's very fair. I have no idea about edited dvd's, but what a crappy idea, either way. I'm just thinking $2 x 12= a little more than one free month! Awesome. But I don't think I could really afford it, either way. My paycheck basically covers grocery shopping and the occasional bookstore necessity visit. And the only dvd player that I have is my computer. Of course, I do have the AV cables to connect my computer to my tv, but I think there's only a one inch difference in screen size, so that's not particularly helpful. Oh well. Either way, I'll be out of school soon, so hopefully I can afford things one day in the nearish future. I'm just window shopping, for now.


§ ita § - Sep 05, 2004 2:24:47 pm PDT #3581 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

I don't remember when/why I deemed it, say, a cultural touchstone

Mmm. Can you quote anything from it? Did it launch careers? What are your criteria for touchstone? I'd not say Can't Hardly Wait is a competitor in that regard (just that it's better -- it is, I swear!), but Clueless fills that spot a lot better.

As for comics -- if you sort the top-grossing comic book movies:

Movie YearGross 1Spider-man2002403.7 2Spider-man 22004368.2 3Batman1989251.1 4Men In Black1997250.6 5X2: X-Men United2003214.9 6Men In Black 22002190.4 7Batman Forever1995184 8Batman Returns1992162.8 9X-Men2000157.1 10Teenage Mutant Turtles1990135.2 11Superman1978134.2 12Hulk2003132.1 13The Mask1994119.9 14Superman 21981108.1 15Batman and Robin1997107.2 16Road to Perdition2002104.4 17Dick Tracy1990103.7 18Daredevil2003102.5 19Casper1995100.3 20Blade 2200282.3

by year:

Movie YearGross Superman1978134.2 Superman 21981108.1 Batman1989251.1 Teenage Mutant Turtles1990135.2 Dick Tracy1990103.7 Batman Returns1992162.8 The Mask1994119.9 Batman Forever1995184 Casper1995100.3 Men In Black1997250.6 Batman and Robin1997107.2 X-Men2000157.1 Spider-man2002403.7 Men In Black 22002190.4 Road to Perdition2002104.4 Blade 2200282.3 X2: X-Men United2003214.9 Hulk2003132.1 Daredevil2003102.5 Spider-man 22004368.2

I don't see enough of a gap or a bump in $$ to credit any of them with revitalising the market. And it's just wrong (even if technically right) to see a couple of those flicks up there.


Gris - Sep 05, 2004 2:31:38 pm PDT #3582 of 10001
Hey. New board.

Can you quote anything from it?

Rachel: "I'm not smart."
Freddie: "What?"
Rachel: "I'm not smart. I can't help you with your homework, if that's what you're trying to do here."
Freddie: "I have the third-highest GPA in the class."

Rachel: "I feel just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, only without the whole hooker thing."

Freddie: "I want you to help me with art."
Rachel: "You don't take art." (memorable because reprised later)

Freddie: "Don't miss, boy, don't miss. We're counting on you."....et ceterea...*plop* "Sooner or later, you have to miss." *APPLAUSE*

I can quote from it. More than I can from Can't Hardly Wait or Clueless. Even though I fully acknowledge that both of them are superior films. I think I might consider it a cultural touchstone if for no other reason than so many movies with nearly the exact same plotline have been worse (see: "Never Been Kissed") and still made money.