Does it have anything to do with it sucking?

Um.... maybe?

The short version, I guess, is... 11 is a 50's Rat-Packian heist movie, and 12 is an early 60's European heist movie. Which, you know, slightly more surreal and maybe not as popular.

Note: this theory is not even a quarter baked, and probably makes no sense outside of my own head.

I'm puzzled at the use of excitement to describe PotC. (I figured out how much money I owed whilst watching it. Which was quite scary on many levels). Although only puzzled as it doesn't fit what I saw in my world.

Saw - I don't think the leg saw thing is actually shown, although it depends on your view of censorship and such. I'd forgotten about the dead body in the room, amusingly.

Not really, not in the tv version anyway. Though there was a good shot of a woman pawing through some poor guy's guts looking for a key.

I'm puzzled at the use of excitement to describe PotC.

All of them, or just the third?

I wasn't excited during O13. It was "Hey! Those guys! I like them. They're cool. Doing cool things again? Oh, I sure hope it turns out well." But not an action movie.

PotC 3 had fight scenes, which always help, and they were better integrated into the narrative than #2, which helps even more.

Even though I was pretty sure who'd make it out whole and who wouldn't, it asked my eye to track around the screen and I felt rewarded for the efforts besides.

Nice.

I see Hostel 2 didn't perform nearly as well as the first at the box office. Although still well enough for another sequel if they want one.

ETA: ita, I thought PotC 1 was great fun. 2 was a bit of the same reaction you had to Ocean's I think. 3 just lost me for half hour periods a few times.

Box Office for Horror Movies is Weak

That's what happens when you flood the market--demand goes down.

I'm hoping that more studios will take note of the success of films like Waitress, and start funding more smaller-budget, well-written romantic comedies and light dramas for summer release.

Interesting article, Jesse. Anybody have thoughts on the reasons?

It isn't unusual for genres to go through cycles (look at the romantic comedy glut of a few years ago). Is it that? Perhaps fueled by the classic instance where everybody copies an unexpected success without bothering to add the quality that caused the success in the first place?

Or have horror movies set the gore level higher than the audience will stomach?

Or is life so stressful these days that horror movies remind people of the stresses rather than cause a catharsis? Or (thinking of the "radiation creates big creatures that go on rampages" movies of the '50s) are horror movies creating catharsis for the wrong stresses?

I'm not much of a horror movie fan, especially where gore is involved. But it's an interesting question.

I say it's glut/cyclical. Horror movies of one type or another cycle through every decade, it seems. We've already had the "torture" cycle and the "J-horror" cycle, pretty much simultaneously (though I think the latter pre-dated, burned and in some ways initiated the former in that the extreme cycle has been in reaction to the PG-13 cycle) in the 'oughts.

Of course, we're rank amateurs compared to the Italians and Hong Kong for taking a trend and glutting the hell out of it.

I'm hoping that more studios will take note of the success of films like Waitress, and start funding more smaller-budget, well-written romantic comedies and light dramas for summer release.

You'd think the movie making its first $10 million from only a handful of theaters might make them want to. Plus, it looks like it cost maybe a half million to make. But I definitely think this sort of quality is lightning in a bottle—we could just get a rash of soulless Wedding Planner type movies if the studios decide it's a trend they want to milk.