Excellent. It seems that Will Smith's unfairly maligned genre-busting super hero film Hancock made a shitload of money. Any wealthy movie stars / directors / producers involved with the film who want to pay me vast sums to beat the drums of praise for their movie should get in touch at myglesias at gmail dot com. I'm not that principled!
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Hancock's Triumph
08 Jul 2008 12:41 pm
Comments (17)
I'm not that principled!
That's...not cultural criticism we can believe in. *unnerving giggle*
Matt, I'm watching your newest bloggingheads right now and it's reaffirming something I've though for a long time; people from the new republic are really annoying (aside from noam scheiber)
I haven't seen Hancock yet, but if both the American public and Matt thought it was good, then all them highbrow out-of-touch big-city innerleckshewl critics who said it was flawed must just be wrong, wrong, wrong.
See also: War, Iraq.
My wife and I saw it too. It was a nice change of pace from the assembly line Marvel/DC superhero movies. I was also very pleased that they kept it to 90 minutes, which seems to be a rarity with blockbusters these days.
Did anyone doubt that Kirchick was really annoying?
"It seems that Will Smith's unfairly maligned genre-busting super hero film Hancock made a shitload of money."
The weird thing about your assumption that it was doing badly at the box office is that it's been widely known for weeks that it was going to do well.
The box office tracking predicts the summer blockbusters very closely at a bizarrely high rate. It's like polling an election a week out - you can usually get a pretty good picture.
if both the American public and Matt thought it was good, then all them highbrow out-of-touch big-city innerleckshewl critics who said it was flawed must just be wrong, wrong, wrong.
Actually, it's interesting to look at the critics who liked it and those who didn't.
Liked it:
The New Yorker (Denby, not Lane)
The Onion
New York Times
Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times
Hated it:
Wall Street Journal
Variety
Newsweek
New York Post
Although the total list is muddier than these examples I've picked, the intellectuals seem to be leaning toward the movie being decent.
What's even better is that it knocked the insanely over-praised "WALL.E" out of the top spot. God, what a bore that movie was. Memo to Pixar--you do great work. But you seem to have forgotten that when your target audience is little kids, you need a story that actually engages little kids.
Any time a comment contains the self important aside 'Memo to-" I move on.
Well, Matt, I've been debating whether to go see this one. Your endorsement has probably tipped the scales for me. But I'm not taking my wife. I'll see if my son wants to go with me.
I agree - everyone should go out and buy Ron Sexsmith's new album, "Exit Strategy for the Soul." It's great, possibly his best, and includes his version of "Brandy Alexander," a song he wrote with Leslie Feist.
I am conflicted on Will Smith. On the one hand he seems like a fun and funny actor who does his signature role of a smartass wisecracking hero.
On the other, he is a bat-shit balls to the wall Scientologist who hands out cards for (free) Scientology interview sessions to his movie cast.
Will Smith a Scientologist? I don't think so. Nobody from Philly is that naive.
I'm pretty sure Will has mad game, so, he doesn't make enemies with the likes of Cruise and Co.
Best to go along to get along.
As of March, at least, he was saying he wasn't. Just a sort of general student of many religions, which includes Scientology.
Regardless, I'll cheerfully see the movies of any Scientologists who are also good actors; I just won't listen to them about Scientology.
Matt: "I'm not that principled!"
We knew that already, Matt, didn't need to confirm it. Your Aspen trip pretty well proved it.
I saw Hancock last night. Good flick. Recommend it. Charlize is hot. The movie shifts gears nicely, from comedy to serious.
I still prefer "Wanted".
Meanwhile, I've just discovered a new TV show that is absolutely brilliant!
From Boing Boing Web site:
Leverage: hyper-geeky caper TV show Posted by Cory Doctorow, July 8, 2008 10:16 AM |
John Rogers -- who wrote the superb pilot for the stillborn TV show based on Warren Ellis's excellent comic Global Frequency -- has a new TV show in the works, called Leverage. TNT has a little trailer available and I was able to see the whole thing via BitTorrent. On the strength of both, I'd say that Leverage has the potential to be the first new TV show in more than five years that I would actually put my butt on the couch for, every week, without fail.Leverage is an hour-long tensely plotted, technologically literate heist/caper show whose likable, flawed, comedic foursome of infiltration specialists are well-cast, funny, and given some damned good lines. The direction and camerawork is distinctive and fearsomely great: this show feels like a graphic novel (in a good way) -- that fast-moving, highly visual, stylized thing that the Wachowskis got so right in the first Matrix movie. It's a really neat trick: it feels like a cinematic graphic novel, one of those graphic novels that appears to be setting up every panel like it was a camera-shot. But those novels always transcend what a mere camera could do (because the artist is more flexible than the lens), so it was freaky to see a camera mimicking the stuff that the notional "hypercamera" of graphic novels uses.
Rogers is also a comics writer (Blue Beetle, among other things) and has had a diverse history in the field. I've been lucky enough to hang out with him a couple of times, and he really feels like "one of us" -- a net-centric geek with a gigantic D&D collection, a nonstop sense of humor, and a lust for all things gadgety.
View the first episode here:
http://www.sidereel.com/Leverage/_watchlinkviewer/2
You NEED to see this show! It matches and probably beats Terminator.
Speaking of which, the Season 2 trailers for Terminator are out:
http://www.summer-glau.net/wp/
They suggest that Cameron goes bad in season two!
Summer Glau recently at the Saturn Awards said that the first episode of season two will be a "game changer" - and completely change the series. All the characters go through major changes, she says.
The trailer shows a wild scene which appears to be Cameron throwing a car over! Also, there is a clear implication that she may have reverted to hunting John Connor instead of protecting him - likely as a result of the car bombing at the end of season one - while John apparently wants to capture and reprogram her back to being his protector.
Show starts Monday, September 8.
Comments closed July 22, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
My wife and I saw it, enjoyed it, and we felt we got our money's worth. What else can you ask from a movie?
Posted by LFC | July 8, 2008 12:54 PM