100 replies to this topic

[SDG]

Peter T Chattaway, on 20 February 2012 - 02:57 PM, said:

FWIW, the live-action 1998 adaptation of The Borrowers opened to $4.5 million in 1,535 theatres for a per-screen average of $2,912. Not sure how 14 years of inflation would affect that. (I know BOM has its adjusting-for-inflation formula, but I don't know how much I trust it.)

Interesting point of comparison. And now that I think about it, Arrietty out-performed Disney's own Winnie the Pooh on opening weekend, both for gross and for per-screen average, and that's a much more familiar property. So I guess Arrietty is doing relatively well, for the kind of ultra-gentle, hand-crafted work that it is. Apparently most families are more comfortable with Smurfs, Chipmunks and The Rock. Damn their eyes.

[Thom Wade]

I would also point out that based on the title, I would have no idea it was connected to the borrowers...kind of like naming your movie John Carter (which sounds like an inspiration sports film) instead of John Carter of Mars (cuz, eeewww...sci-fi).

[Attica]

This afternoon I was thinking about my comments, and If I find out I'm wrong about ARRIETTY when I finally see the film, then I'll happily come on here and eat my shirt.

Meanwhile, the following is a fitting example of what I was trying to convey. The stylization is simple yet beautiful, but the simplicity allows the story to be told almost completely by the characters movement in time. Which is exquisite.

Edited by Attica, 20 February 2012 - 06:33 PM.

[bowen]

Saw it with my daughter. Another simple, beautiful film from the studio. I saw it in an ordinary suburban multiplex (the last Ghibli film I saw was in an urban art theater) and it was well attended, so commercial progress there even if it will not even come close to the most generic imaginable American animation output (and yes, I'm looking at you Madagascar 3) in terms of box office.

SDG hit it pretty dead bang on the head in his review, so I don't know if I have that much to add, beyond that the use of something as simple as weather was just a special delight in terms of sound, picture and atmosphere. I'd watch it again in a heartbeat.

[Tyler]

Fox News thinks Arrietty, and The Lorax, are liberal plots to indoctrinate your children.

[SDG]

Tyler, on 23 February 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

Fox News thinks Arrietty, and The Lorax, are liberal plots to indoctrinate your children.

F*** them.

They said that about The Muppets too.

Well, they have a point regarding The Lorax. But that's in the source material. Dollars to donuts the movie softens the environmentalist message to a nonthreatening pudding.

But Arrietty? F*** them.

P.S. I see it's Fox Business again, just like The Muppets slur. Well, when you look at the world through that particular lens, it's not surprising that that's what you see.

Between The Muppets and Arrietty, it's like Fox Business is a conspiracy to destroy quality family entertainment. (Though again I give them a pass on The Lorax.)

[Timothy Zila]

Tyler, on 23 February 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

Fox News thinks Arrietty, and The Lorax, are liberal plots to indoctrinate your children.

The great irony here is Arrietty is one of Ghibli's least heavy-handed films.

Everything about the environment (which I presume is what Fox is mad about, I don't particularly care to actually watch the clip) in Arrietty is implicit. It's latent in the story - a group of people facing extinction. But there's nothing didactic about any of it. It's certainly not 'indoctrinating' children.

[Tyler]

Timothy Zila, on 23 February 2012 - 01:18 PM, said:

Tyler, on 23 February 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

Fox News thinks Arrietty, and The Lorax, are liberal plots to indoctrinate your children.

The great irony here is Arrietty is one of Ghibli's least heavy-handed films.

Everything about the environment (which I presume is what Fox is mad about, I don't particularly care to actually watch the clip) in Arrietty is implicit. It's latent in the story - a group of people facing extinction. But there's nothing didactic about any of it. It's certainly not 'indoctrinating' children.

The angle they take is that Arrietty and co. borrowing the things they need is a metaphor for Occupy-movement entitlement.

And yeah, I wondered what would happen if they watched Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa, too.

[vjmorton]

SDG, on 23 February 2012 - 12:18 PM, said:

Tyler, on 23 February 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

Fox News thinks Arrietty, and The Lorax, are liberal plots to indoctrinate your children.

F*** them.

They said that about The Muppets too.

Well, they have a point regarding The Lorax. But that's in the source material. Dollars to donuts the movie softens the environmentalist message to a nonthreatening pudding.

But Arrietty? F*** them.

hey hey hey ... watch your fuckin' mouth there

[vjmorton]

Tyler, on 23 February 2012 - 01:48 PM, said:

The angle they take is that Arrietty and co. borrowing the things they need is a metaphor for Occupy-movement entitlement.

Because OF COURSE ... a Japanese movie released 18 months ago in Japan and in production for a year before that would SO have #occupy on its mind.

As of course, would THE 1950s BRITISH BOOK that provides the basic premise for whatever shred of point could justify this effing insane thought (I mean, I guess the Borrowers are people who enter a home and take stuff the Beings won't miss. But ... Come. On.)

::emoticon for "wanting to insert FACEPALM emoticon but lacking that capability on his mobile"::

Edited by vjmorton, 23 February 2012 - 02:33 PM.

[J.A.A. Purves]

SDG, on 23 February 2012 - 12:18 PM, said:

Tyler, on 23 February 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

Fox News thinks Arrietty, and The Lorax, are liberal plots to indoctrinate your children.

... Between The Muppets and Arrietty, it's like Fox Business is a conspiracy to destroy quality family entertainment. (Though again I give them a pass on The Lorax.)

It would matter more if a majority of people took them seriously, but they've made themselves into a joke. Matt Patrick (whoever he is) starts talking about how the film is creating "Occu-toddlers" and then recommends protesting the movie by buying ... wait, what? ... yes, buying movie tickets and junk food and then leaving all your trash on the floor of the movie theater (as a protest) on your way out. He's a moron. There's no reason to think that Fox News hurt any box office results for The Muppets.

Edited by Persiflage, 23 February 2012 - 02:29 PM.

[Overstreet]

[opus]

Tyler, on 23 February 2012 - 01:48 PM, said:

And yeah, I wondered what would happen if they watched Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa, too.

My guess?

Edited by opus, 23 February 2012 - 04:04 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

vjmorton wrote:
: Because OF COURSE ... a Japanese movie released 18 months ago in Japan and in production for a year before that would SO have #occupy on its mind.

Hey, have YOU checked to see how faithful the English dub is to the original Japanese dialogue? I'm not saying Disney pulled a What's Up Tiger Lily? here, but you never know.

Persiflage wrote:
: There's no reason to think that Fox [Business] hurt any box office results for The Muppets.

I dunno, I think it's widely agreed that The Muppets underperformed, especially for a movie that had such good reviews, so presumably SOMETHING hurt it. Big Hollywood has a theory that it wasn't Fox Business, per se, that hurt the film, but rather it was the mainstream media drawing so much attention to the Fox Business report that hurt the film. Make of that what you will.

[Benchwarmer]

Peter T Chattaway, on 24 February 2012 - 12:02 AM, said:

Big Hollywood has a theory that it wasn't Fox Business, per se, that hurt the film, but rather it was the mainstream media drawing so much attention to the Fox Business report that hurt the film. Make of that what you will.

I suppose I could agree with this.....the Fox business report deserved much less attention than it clearly got!

[Thom Wade]

It seems like Fox News/Fox Business invite this ridicule (much like Movieguide). Arts and Faith has plenty of conservative reviewers as regulars...and it seems rare that any of you guys think they are making good points. In my mind, the "outrage" reviewers who focus on "Hollywood's Evil Agendas to Destroy Our Children" make it harder for conservative reviewers when they try and raise a thoughtful point. But then what makes better press? Concern about the possible nihlism in Watchmen or paranoid claims that they aimed the movie at kids because their were collectable action figures made for the (grown up) direct comics market?

[SDG]

Nezpop, on 24 February 2012 - 09:06 AM, said:

It seems like Fox News/Fox Business invite this ridicule (much like Movieguide). Arts and Faith has plenty of conservative reviewers as regulars...and it seems rare that any of you guys think they are making good points.

To be fair, even on MovieGuide one can find angles and opinions worth taking seriously. I expect the same is true of Fox News, although film commentary isn't exactly their stock in trade. Likely if one watched a range of Fox programming one would find some shows, hosts, guests etc. offering angles worth taking seriously (sometimes from a rightward angle, sometimes perhaps from a leftward angle). Fox Business commenting on family films seems like a recipe for self-parody.

Which elements on Fox get reported in the wider media, like which reviews at MovieGuide get commented on here, may have as much to do with outside opinions of Fox/MovieGuide and perpetuating a particular emphasis on their foibles as with the foibles themselves. For example, if some Fox commentator said that Arrietty was a lovely film, would we have heard about it here?

Edited by SDG, 24 February 2012 - 09:38 AM.

[Thom Wade]

SDG, on 24 February 2012 - 09:35 AM, said:

To be fair, even on MovieGuide one can find angles and opinions worth taking seriously. I expect the same is true of Fox News, although film commentary isn't exactly their stock in trade. Likely if one watched a range of Fox programming one would find some shows, hosts, guests etc. offering angles worth taking seriously (sometimes from a rightward angle, sometimes perhaps from a leftward angle). Fox Business commenting on family films seems like a recipe for self-parody.

Yeah, I am thinking more of the film review angle. Is a business news network really suited to give commentary on films beyond what...I did not mean to say Fox hosts and guests never offer thoughtful or intelligent commentary on anything. They just seem to stumble a lot more in film and seem to find fault and odd connections in movies...they seem to have perfected "scare quote" pitches for upcoming stories (Are the _______ making kids _____?! And I am not a big fan of "Think of the Children!" media criticism, because I think it tends to fall into the hysterical, rather than reasoned discussion. This is true of such commentary from either side of the aisle.

SDG, on 24 February 2012 - 09:35 AM, said:

Which elements on Fox get reported in the wider media, like which reviews at MovieGuide get commented on here, may have as much to do with outside opinions of Fox/MovieGuide and perpetuating a particular emphasis on their foibles as with the foibles themselves. For example, if some Fox commentator said that Arrietty was a lovely film, would we have heard about it here?

True...and I would suspect this is human nature rearing it's head. I mean, Big Hollywood is quick to pounce on absurdities from the left, but you don't really see them check up and find positive agreement on a subject with, say, MSNBC. The absurd stands out and is more memorable than calm reasoned discussion. It's easier (and admittedly more fun) to just point and laugh at the ridiculous.

Edited by Nezpop, 24 February 2012 - 11:20 AM.

[David Smedberg]

SDG, on 23 February 2012 - 12:18 PM, said:

F*** them.

I was gonna say, "How to tell when SDG is fasting"... but then I realized that this post was on Thursday, so he really hasn't got that excuse.

[SDG]

David Smedberg, on 24 February 2012 - 01:09 PM, said:

I was gonna say, "How to tell when SDG is fasting"... but then I realized that this post was on Thursday, so he really hasn't got that excuse.

Perhaps, perhaps not. (Prescinding from the odd notion that obscenity is more excusable during special times of prayerful penitence.)