Welcome again folks to the War of the Months. All year long we're examining Month by Month the best trends in Movies, including commercial success (or lack of) as well as critical appreciation (or lack of). Today, being the last day in September, we're looking at the preceding month, and it's pretty terrible. September is all about going back to school or work and getting into the swing of things after that long, pleasant, warm summer. It's a doomed month, no one looks forward to September. Likewise the films released are terrible.
September: Awful Month
No one is going to the movies in September. It's not a place for Studios to debut their greatest accomplishments and it suffers likewise. There are certainly some gems in the rough, though. Generally it's a limbo between Summer Box-Office Season and Oscar Season and there are some films that cross over either from being Summer Stragglers or preemptive Oscar Runners. True Septemberians are so unbelievably bad though. It's a cinematic no-man's land.
September Box-Office: Poison
The Greatest Opening Weekend Ever in September still belongs to Sweet Home Alabama (2002) for some reason at $35,648,740. Rounding out the Top Ten are other surefire hits as Eagle Eye (2008), Flightplan (2005) and the original Rush Hour (1998). Check out the full list over here. The Resident Evil Movies seem to keep cropping up here but there really isn't rhyme or reason to what has success. In essence September is a month with a blank slate. No one really has any expectations so it's fair game for anyone. It would be cooler if any of these films that didn't make any money were actually good.
September 2007 is the Best September Ever at $554,716,620, which is far below any other month of the year by a tremendous margin. It's awful. It's tough to say what fueled this. The only major debuts were 3:10 to Yuma, Shoot 'Em Up, Resident Evil: Extinction and The Game Plan. That one with The Rock. You know the one. None of these were really that big hits but that particular month was helped by some holdover sleeper hits from August 2007, including Superbad and The Bourne Ultimatum.
Top Movies All Time: Are You Joking?
Actually September used to be a premiere month in the early 80s. There are a few Best Picture Winners and Nominees including Ordinary People (1980), Chariots of Fire (1981), Amadeus (1984) and The Big Chill (1983). And there's also Jackass: Number Two (2006). In recent times though all we've really got is The Town (2010) and The American (2010). The Best Ever though, are below:
#10: The Princess Bride - 09/25/1987
#9: Zoolander - 09/28/2001
#8: Ed Wood - 09/30/1994
#7: Dog Day Afternoon - 09/21/1975
#6: Shaun of the Dead - 09/24/2004
#5: Burn After Reading - 09/12/2008
#4: Se7en - 09/22/1995#3: American Beauty - 09/15/1999
#2 Almost Famous - 09/15/2000
#1: Goodfellas - 09/19/1990
Other notables include Remember the Titans (2000), as well as some franchise starters such as Barbershop (2002), Underworld (2003) and even Crocodile Dundee (1986). Other than that September has plenty of cult favourites like Bubba Ho-Tep (2003), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Ronin (1998), Blue Streak (1999) and The Rundown (2003). We've also got one of the Better Nic Cage movies, Lord of War (2005).
So really the Dead September is more of a recent phenomenon. Still none of these films really made any money. September is terrible. Teachers smell.
30 September 2011
22 September 2011
Because it was on TV: The Strange Sitcom Reality of Two and a Half Men
I never watch Two and a Half Men. It mostly features simplistic joke and plot structure that fits into Sitcom Tropes far too easily and a general lack of depth or insight into character or story development. Naturally though my interest was peaked last Monday when the star of such landmark films as Valentine's Day (2009) and No Strings Attached (2011), Ashton Kutcher was set to debut in place of the Great Charlie Sheen.
I've been interested in Fictional Realities before but watching this show really got me thinking about the show's Real World. I don't mean to judge what would happen if shows took place in real life (That's for Robot Chicken to sort out), but I am intrigued by how things operate within the confines of a specific Reality. For example, in Superman's Reality, people can fly and giant monsters arrive once a week to attack the same city. That's a very distinct example but the reality of Sitcoms are more subtle. Actually if any of you watched the Emmy Awards this Sunday (apparently none of you did), the Opening Jane Lynch Musical Number touched on this concept. Around 2:18 she walks into a Sitcom full of its own Reality (more specifically a CBS Sitcom Reality, that is). So what defines this and why the hell should we be talking about it?
What struck me about Two and a Half Men was its opening scene. Charle Harper (Sheen) is dead and it's mostly played for laughs. Now, many Sitcoms equally as cringe-worthy as this have had characters pass on and treated it with much more respect. This happens more often than not when the actor actually dies, as was the case of John Ritter on 8 Simple Rules or Phil Hartman on News Radio. Even on Sheen's old show, Spin City when Michael J. Fox departed to deal with his worsening Parkinson's Disease his character was given a strong, heartfelt goodbye. As recently as last season's The Office which featured Steve Carrell's leave had some very sentimental moments. So why was Charlie Harper's death so simultaneously ridiculous, hysterical and quickly forgotten?
1) The Nature of Charlie Sheen's Departure. This wasn't a long time coming, or a sudden, sympathetic leave. Charlie Sheen, in his own words, told his boss to "fuck off" and was kicked off the show after being the Highest-paid Television Actor Ever. Not only that, after his pink slip he went on a glorious tour both through New Media and live Stand-Up stops so in case anyone was out there still believing that he wasn't crazy they could come around. There's no sympathy here, no reason to give Sheen's Character any decent burial or long afterthought. Ashton is rushed in as soon as possible (literally immediately after some kind words by Alan Harper (Jon Cryer) Ashton appears and startles him, causing him to spill Charlie's ashes everywhere, unceremoniously. He is later sucked into a dustbuster and not mentioned again - true symbolism of Ashton's supplanting Sheen).
2) The Nature of the Show's Reality. More to the point of this article, Two and a Half Men just isn't a place for these kinds of intimate moments. There's room for Real Drama on The Office or even How I Met Your Mother, but not here. Those shows have a foot in reality much further than Two and a Half Men does. Even its former lead-in program, Everybody Loves Raymond had room for real emotion, anger and character development in each episode. Two and a Half Men is far more concerned with goofiness, a floating, humming reality of irreverence and stupidity. It's not to say it's not funny, there were certainly some laugh out loud moments Monday Night, but that's all it strives to be. No character within the Reality of the show has any actual feelings or sentiment. Even at death there are jokes to be made. A Funeral like Charlie Harper's exists comfortably within the preceding confines of the show because of its reality. If Steve Carrell had left The Office like Charlie Sheen left Two and a Half Men and the writers decided that Michael Scott had been hit by a train and exploded (like a "balloon full of meat") the Funeral would have a drastically different tone, which is based on that Show's Fictional Reality. Two and a Half Men gets away with it because the characters within the reality accept the absurd as such.
So what's next? Charlie Sheen is off to bigger and worse things, if his last six months are any indication. As for Two and a Half Men, that reality works. It had one of the biggest premieres in recent memory and surely isn't worried about leaving anytime soon, even if they eventually need to change the title to just Three Men, which is really the most basic title for a show ever.
I've been interested in Fictional Realities before but watching this show really got me thinking about the show's Real World. I don't mean to judge what would happen if shows took place in real life (That's for Robot Chicken to sort out), but I am intrigued by how things operate within the confines of a specific Reality. For example, in Superman's Reality, people can fly and giant monsters arrive once a week to attack the same city. That's a very distinct example but the reality of Sitcoms are more subtle. Actually if any of you watched the Emmy Awards this Sunday (apparently none of you did), the Opening Jane Lynch Musical Number touched on this concept. Around 2:18 she walks into a Sitcom full of its own Reality (more specifically a CBS Sitcom Reality, that is). So what defines this and why the hell should we be talking about it?
 |
| Unbelievably, his most lasting legacy is those shirts |
1) The Nature of Charlie Sheen's Departure. This wasn't a long time coming, or a sudden, sympathetic leave. Charlie Sheen, in his own words, told his boss to "fuck off" and was kicked off the show after being the Highest-paid Television Actor Ever. Not only that, after his pink slip he went on a glorious tour both through New Media and live Stand-Up stops so in case anyone was out there still believing that he wasn't crazy they could come around. There's no sympathy here, no reason to give Sheen's Character any decent burial or long afterthought. Ashton is rushed in as soon as possible (literally immediately after some kind words by Alan Harper (Jon Cryer) Ashton appears and startles him, causing him to spill Charlie's ashes everywhere, unceremoniously. He is later sucked into a dustbuster and not mentioned again - true symbolism of Ashton's supplanting Sheen).
 |
| Anyone else hope this is all just an elaborate Punk'D on Charle Sheen? |
So what's next? Charlie Sheen is off to bigger and worse things, if his last six months are any indication. As for Two and a Half Men, that reality works. It had one of the biggest premieres in recent memory and surely isn't worried about leaving anytime soon, even if they eventually need to change the title to just Three Men, which is really the most basic title for a show ever.
21 September 2011
Undisputed: Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star - Worst Movie of All Time
RATED RRRR!!!
I used to really enjoy Nick Swardson. He was like Dane Cook in the mid-2000s, a stand-up that seemed to have a very clear entertainment career ahead of him. They both had very original acts that were hilarious and seemed to usher in this refreshing new age of Big Stand-Up Comedy. Then of course, they both got those careers that seemed so perfectly laid out for them and turned in crap after crap until everyone worth a squirt hated them.
So we come now to Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (2011). I think these commercials started about a week before the flick hit theaters a dozen days ago. It wasn't long. It's been some of the most bizarre marketing for a terrible film, but also some of the most honest. Actually I've been kind of enjoying it. It's so blatant in its excessive low brow nature. It rolls and glorifies it. Buck Larson: Born to Be a Star may be awful but it's also a movie so devoid of pretension that it comes off as a very genuine experience. Look for yourself:
It's a simple message: "Happy Madison is catering to people who want to get really drunk and watch something really stupid." I don't really understand Happy Madison - it's like the exact opposite of Pixar's Critical and Commercial streak (Cars 2 [2011] aside). There is such an unbelievable conveyor belt of crap that the studio puts out. Bucky Larson is shameful enough not only to not warrant a Sandler cameo, but to not warrant a Schneider cameo. This movie was too awful for Rob Schneider. Holy shit.
But look at these commercials. I've never seen a film so desperate. First of all, how do you pin the marketing of a film on Peter Dante? It's a direct plea to the audience and not only that - it's focuses explicitly on back-to-school kids. It knows its demographics very well and without any other distractions.
So with all this wackiness how has it fared in Theaters? Incredibly with only a $10 million budget it appears as though this will turn into a flop. It has only a $2 million right now, including a second week that included a 71% drop to total $380,000. It seems as if this flick was thrown together at the last second and that's how people are treating it. Still, I will always remember what I was doing when Bucky Larson was in theaters. I was out doing anything else.
DID YOU EAT ONE OF MY GRAPES?!
I used to really enjoy Nick Swardson. He was like Dane Cook in the mid-2000s, a stand-up that seemed to have a very clear entertainment career ahead of him. They both had very original acts that were hilarious and seemed to usher in this refreshing new age of Big Stand-Up Comedy. Then of course, they both got those careers that seemed so perfectly laid out for them and turned in crap after crap until everyone worth a squirt hated them.
So we come now to Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (2011). I think these commercials started about a week before the flick hit theaters a dozen days ago. It wasn't long. It's been some of the most bizarre marketing for a terrible film, but also some of the most honest. Actually I've been kind of enjoying it. It's so blatant in its excessive low brow nature. It rolls and glorifies it. Buck Larson: Born to Be a Star may be awful but it's also a movie so devoid of pretension that it comes off as a very genuine experience. Look for yourself:
It's a simple message: "Happy Madison is catering to people who want to get really drunk and watch something really stupid." I don't really understand Happy Madison - it's like the exact opposite of Pixar's Critical and Commercial streak (Cars 2 [2011] aside). There is such an unbelievable conveyor belt of crap that the studio puts out. Bucky Larson is shameful enough not only to not warrant a Sandler cameo, but to not warrant a Schneider cameo. This movie was too awful for Rob Schneider. Holy shit.
But look at these commercials. I've never seen a film so desperate. First of all, how do you pin the marketing of a film on Peter Dante? It's a direct plea to the audience and not only that - it's focuses explicitly on back-to-school kids. It knows its demographics very well and without any other distractions.
So with all this wackiness how has it fared in Theaters? Incredibly with only a $10 million budget it appears as though this will turn into a flop. It has only a $2 million right now, including a second week that included a 71% drop to total $380,000. It seems as if this flick was thrown together at the last second and that's how people are treating it. Still, I will always remember what I was doing when Bucky Larson was in theaters. I was out doing anything else.
DID YOU EAT ONE OF MY GRAPES?!
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