July 2013

Tristan Hardy 7/22/13

What is the Banana Song?

Ba ba ba ba ba na na Ba ba ba ba ba na na (Bananaaaaaaah!!!) (Oh!) Ba ba ba ba ba na na (Potato yaaaaaaaaah!!!) Ba ba ba ba ba na na Ba ba ba ba ba na na (Bananaaaaaaah!!!) To ga li no potato ni ga ni ba no ba ni ka no ji ga Ba ba ba banana Yo plano hu La pa no no tu Ma banana lai ka mupi talamu Banana! Ba ba ba ba ba na na (Potato OOOOOOOHHHH!!!!) Ba ba ba ba ba na na To ga li no potato ni ga ni ba no ba ni ka no ji ga Ba ba ba ba ba na naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Gru is the #1 Dad and has #1 movie

The killer robots of Pacific Rim were no match for the diminutive yellow minions of Despicable Me 2 at the box office over the weekend. Despicable Me 2, the animated sequel from Comcast Corp.s CMCSA +1.11% Universal Pictures, collected an estimated $44.8 million in the U.S. and Canada. That boosted its total domestic haul to $229 million, while its international gross nearly doubled in a week to $243.2 million. Despicable Me 2 was able to hold the top spot in its second weekend despite new competition in the family market from Grown Ups 2, which opened at No. 2 with a solid $42.5 million. The weekends other new release, Pacific Rim, took third place and collected $38.3 million, a so-so sum for the movie, which had a budget of nearly $200 million. The performance of Grown Ups 2 was welcome news for Sony Corp.s 6758.TO 0.00% Sony Pictures Entertainment, which had two high-profile, big-budget flops this summer with White House Down and After Earth. Gross-out comedy Grown Ups 2 cost about $80 million to make and gave star Adam Sandler a much-needed hit after turns in flops like Jack and Jill and Thats My Boy. One of the things about the DNA of Grown Ups 2 that is so terrific is it really does play to everybody as well as all parts of the country, said Rory Bruer, Sony 6758. TO 0.00% Pictures Entertainments president of world-wide distribution. Meanwhile, The Lone Ranger slipped to fifth place, collecting $11.4 million and taking its two-week domestic total to $71.1 million. The Walt Disney Co. DIS +0.87% franchise reboot cost nearly $250 million to make but has been one of the summers biggest box-office disappointments.

On a torrid late afternoon in Manhattan, Universal Pictures finally let critics see its action comedy R.I.P.D., starring Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds as a pair of deceased lawmen who return to modern Boston to confront a horde of zombies, called Deados. The movie, based on Peter M. Lenkovs Dark Horse comic book, arrived with its own stench of decay. A dozen years in gestation, with an announced budget of $135 million, this knockoff mashup of Ghostbusters and Men in Black bore the mark of a zombie artifact

R.I.P.D. a total RIP off of M.I.B.

hence the screening for critics just hours before the picture would open for business. Less a bad movie than simply not a movie, R.I.P.D. gives every indication of having been a sloppy first-draft script (by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi) that the producers, in a strange spasm of innovation and despair, said, Aaah, what the hell, lets just shoot the damn thing. Any consideration of the film deserves the same level of carelessness: no artful shaping of the review, no arduously composed lede

and capper. So here is a rough transcription of my notes, scribbled in the 3-D dark, while sitting through the summers most inert film. Nick (Reynolds), a Boston cop on detail with his partner Bobby Hayes (Kevin Bacon, in the familiar Kevin Bacon sleaze0-bag role), finds a stash of gold that they decide to keep. Nick has second thoughts, since hes a good guy at heart, and Hayes shoots him in the face. The dead Nick is slowly sucked into the sky along with Catholics below the age

Just about every zombie movie I can think of is set, for the most part, in tightly defined spaces where groups of survivors huddle to fend off the flesh-hungry hordes outside. World War Z, which may be the most entertaining and accomplished zombie thriller since George A. Romeros Dawn of the Dead (1979), has touches of that suspenseful high-tension claustrophobia. Yet its a very different sort of zombie feast (far more than, say, The Walking Dead). Its vast and sprawling and spectacular; its the first truly globalized orgy of the undead. The director, Marc Forster, is a filmmaker whose work Ive never particularly liked (he made the genteel Finding Neverland, the overblown Monsters Ball, and the Bond dud Quantum of Solace). Here, though, working from the 2006 Max Brooks novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, he shows a new audacity and flair. World War Z is epically scaled, but its not a messy, noisy, CGI-bogus, throw-everything-at-the-audience sort of blockbuster. Its thrillingly controlled, and it builds in impact. The film open with music thats meant to remind you of Tubular Bells, the chilling theme music from The Exorcist, and thats followed by a collage of actual TV news snippets cleverly edited together to suggest a world already tilting toward the abyss. In Philadelphia, where Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), his wife (Mireille Enos), and their two daughters (Sterling Jerins and

Running Zombies?!

Adam Sandler does it again with Grown Ups 2

Following back-to-back misfires Jack & Jill and Thats My Boy, Adam Sandler needed a hit to re-establish his box office viability and it looks hes got one with Grown Ups 2, which topped Friday with $16.3 million. If the $80 million Sony comedy can hold off Pacific Rim and Despicable Me 2 through Sunday night, it could finish the weekend in first place with a robust $45 million, but its going to be a close race. Related Box office preview: Will Pacific Rim sink or swim? Despite The Lone Ranger, Disney will press on with branded tentpole strategy Pacific Rim, Guillermo Del Toros $190 million robots vs. monsters adventure, took in $14.6 million on Friday, which could lead to a weekend in the $35-40 million range. (It looks like tracking not online buzz was right this time.) With an A- CinemaScore grade, Pacific Rim could have strong enough word of mouth to reach the higher end of that range and overcome the tendency of many geek-oriented titles to overperform on opening night and lose momentum through the weekend. In third, Despicable Me 2 finished Friday with $13.4 million, but it probably has the best shot at hitting No. 1 this weekend thanks to family matinee shows on Saturday and Sunday. The animated film, which has already earned $197 million, could take in about $47 million this weekend, which would give it a $230 million total after just 12 days. The Heat finished in fourth place with $4.2 million, which sent the Sandra Bullock-Melissa McCarthy comedy straight past the $100 million mark and puts it on pace for a $14 million frame. Disneys expensive mistake The Lone Ranger rounded out the Top 5, dropping 68 percent from its first Friday and lassoing just $3.4 million. The $225 million Western could earn about $11 million in its second weekend, which would give it $71 million total after 12 days in theaters.