Friday's Numbers

[Darth23]

1) xXx - $17.558 [NEW]
2) Signs - $9.259 [-55%]
3) Spy Kids 2 - $5.192 [NEW]
4) Goldmember - $4.244 [-57%]
5) Blood Work - $2.409 [NEW]
6) Master Of Disguise - $1.684 [-66%]
7) Road to Perdition - $1.106 [-41%]
8) Runteldat - $0.996 [-64]%
9) My Big Fat Greek Wedding - $0.903 [+8%]
10) Stuart Little 2 - $0.737 [-65%]

Signs is dropping almost as much as Austin Powers 3 did in week 2. Everything is dropping BIG except that darn Greek Wedding pic.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Man, I was hoping Signs would hold up better than that, I still think it will make 30 for the weekend, and it will hold up better than AP3 has in the following weeks.

[Quadinaros]

I think Signs will hold up fine after this weekend. C'mon, it made $60 mil. last weekend. A big dump had to be coming. ;)

[JonathanLB]

It is nice to see Signs dropping like the overly preachy disappointment that it was. It has made plenty of money already for what it was. Now there is a much, much, much better film out.

XXX is one of the greatest American action movies ever made, in my opinion. That means pure action, not like Batman or Superman, because those films are far superior still (Superman, Superman II, and Batman that is, not their other sequels).

Everyone I went with thought XXX was a four star film. We were blown away. I will hardly ever give an action movie 4 stars because I simply don't feel that pure action usually deserves 4 stars. 3.5? Sure, yes, but not 4, that is reserved for movies with some level of originality or engaging plot twists or moral dramas or epics like LOTR and Star Wars, or anything like that. Still, when a movie is simply amazing in its execution and quality, I will award it the highest rating as it is of the highest quality for its genre.

XXX is the best action movie of the year and Die Another Day is going to have some serious difficulty trying to show that Bond is still the coolest secret agent.

I'm a huge Bond fan, but, uhh... the old movies certainly cannot compare to XXX in actual thrills. Even the new ones fail to be quite as exciting or well done as XXX, though in general some of the older Bond films have more developed plots and Bond is such a great character, he's so classic.

Vin Diesel is fantastic, though, as I think he always is, and Samuel L. Jackson all but has "BEST ACTOR" of the year locked in after only 7+ months. Nobody else will be in three four star films in the same year. Changing Lanes, XXX, and Star Wars: AOTC for Jackson, and now he also has Formula 51 upcoming and that looks to be a solid 3 star film possibly, which would even further place him into pole position. Not for the Oscars obviously, but I'm talking about the most reliable actor who makes GOOD movies every time, that is Jackson. He's definitely one of my top five favorite actors...

I can't wait to go see XXX again and I'm happy to see its Friday was quite nice. Not AP3 or Signs nice, but certainly awesome nonetheless.

I have made a killing on my Vin Diesel site this month, holy cow!

I have sold $317 worth of posters for AllPosters.com in a mere 9 days (through Friday) and made about a $62 commission from those sales. My previous record month was in fact last month, just a few cents over $40, so that record is TOASTED. I should clear $125 this month, maybe depending on how well XXX holds up, approaching the $200 mark. Not bad for a little site I bought last October for $250. That's my best % investment yet. Probably by the end of this month it will be about a 700% return on my money...

[Darth23]

I sense a conflict of interest....

:p

[Jedi Master Carr]

Yeah Jon that is your opinion, I know a lot of people that would disagree with you.

[Darth23]

I was just making a joke about his glowing xXx review and the fact that that movie as thrown a few bucks his way...... :p

[Jedi Master Carr]

LOL know I see, sorry.

[JonathanLB]

I joked about that myself before the movie even opened! I will probably make an extra $250 or so from XXX I suppose, it's hard to say exactly. Could be up to $400, could be only maybe $150.

Nonetheless, that is what you expect with celebrity sites at the time of a new movie opening for the star. I had it happen with my Jennifer Love Hewitt site too when Heartbreakers opened.

[JonathanLB]

Sadly, I think this is the last impressive weekend we are going to get until November :(

If you think about it, there is nothing else out there left this summer. The big summer blockbusters are all gone now. *sigh* I always hate that, so frustrating. Now we are left with stuff like Blue Crush and all of this other nonsense.

There will be other openings in the $20 million range probably in September and October, but I doubt we see anything else hit $40M+ again until November...

Blah. I don't even like following the box office that much when films are opening at #1 with $12 million, lol.

[Jedi Master Carr]

I think at least one movie will gross over 30 before October, most likely The Red Dragon will in October, hey Hannible made 58 million in Feburary I think the Red Dragon will do at least 35 and could do as much as 50, still other than that there is nothing that stands out, and there isn't much coming out at the end of August, you have Blue Crush which could open over 30 though, maybe, that Eddie Murphy movie looks really bad, and I don't know of anything that opens the two weekends after that.

[JonathanLB]

I think the Eddie Murphy movie looks good. It has definite potential. Won't be great, but should be good.

Blue Crush will NOT make anywhere near $30 million I don't think, but I sure hope so! LOL, I have a lot of HSX.com stock in it. I bet on it doing better than their traders had, anyway, I think it'll do fairly well...

[Jedi Master Carr]

Its got a couple hot girls in it so who knows ;) As far as the Murphy movie, well it has been pushed back twice and was suppose to come out over a year ago, that is usually not a good sign.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

I dunno it looks sort of funny. :) The Adventures of Pluto Nash...c'mon it has such a ring to it ;)

[Quadinaros]

Blue Crush looks awful. But it will be hard to resist all those cute butts. I'll probably see it. :evil

[Lilaena De'Ville]

If you want to see a good surfing movie, watch "In God's Hands"

Awesome movie. :)

[JonathanLB]

To be honest, I don't want to see a good surfing movie, I just want to see a lot of T&A, so bring on Blue Crush! I can smell the Best Screenplay Oscar already. This film has it locked up so tight, they may as well just start the awards early. BOOYA!

I am not dreading Blue Crush at all, though, I guess as a critic you start to get new definitions of what is truly bad. I mean, jesus, I have had to sit through Ya-Ya Stupidhood (I have the copyright on that name now too, haha, j/k), Country Bears (2nd worst movie of the year), and Master of Disguise this summer. Plus this year had Crossroads and The Sweetest Thing (#1 worst) in it too, so Blue Crush is NOT the type of movie I dread. I dread the idiotic kiddie films that I know are going to suck hard, I dread the Juwanna Mann's of the world. Blue Crush may be pretty stupid, silly, and moronic, but I bet it still is worthy of at least a solid 1.5 to 2 stars, which ain't too bad. Sad thing is, that won'd even make my top 20 worst of the year. Probably not even 30. Looks like to qualify for the top ten worst, a movie is going to have to have a 0 star rating because I've already given six this year.

Hey I have a funny story about Pluto Nash, LOL. Oh my god... I was sitting down to watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding Monday (this movie was very good, btw, though perhaps more of a chicks movie, it was still hilarious and the screenplay is fantastic as is the acting), and I saw this ad for Pluto Nash. I was like, "Whoa this looks kinda tight," then I realized what it was, but it was just a trailer I hadn't seen before. It kept saying, "This April, Pluto Nash conquers blah blah" or whatever and I was like, "WTF?!?!?! I thought it was August..." and so I kept thinking perhaps it has been pushed back to April 2003 or something, LOL, oh my god. Boy was I in for a surprise. The trailer said, "COMING TO THEATERS APRIL 2001!" I was cracking so hard!!! I have never seen an ad that is so far off in my entire life. I've seen ones where it announced the movie coming out at so and so date and it was 5 months off, but jesus, nearly 1.5 years?! That is hilarious. I hope this movie doesn't suck.

So far, my average rating for the summer season is incredibly high. I don't know what the critics are talking about, this is absolutely the best time of the year! January - April I hand out probably my worst ratings, then late August - October is pretty sorry too for the most part, hard to reach above mediocrity during that season, but November and December ratings are also super high generally. I just did some math on the 17 films in the top 20 that I have seen (I will have seen 18 by the end of tomorrow, 19 by the end of the week, just trying to catch up) and my average rating is about 2.75 stars, which is pretty darn high given that it includes two films that earned 0 stars. Road to Perdition, XXX, and Minority Report really drive the rating up. Then a solid mix of films keeps it there basically.

I usually only give one four star rating per month at most, and some months are lucky to get one, but I gave two in May (Spidey and AOTC), one in June (Minority Report), one in July (Road to Perdition) and already one in August (XXX), probably that is it for the summer though. The rest of the movies coming out are going to lower the average I imagine.

For the year I think it is more like 2.55. I have never thought that it should be exactly 2 either, though, that is silly. I had a few interesting arguments about that where someone said basically that if you saw every movie ever made, your average rating should be 2 stars. See, I totally disagree with that. What you rate one movie is entirely independent of what you rate another. There is no connection or harmony between every movie released, so it is quite possible for the average of all films ever to be either 1.7 stars or 2.5 stars or whatever else. My *guess* is that it would come in around 2 stars if I saw everything ever made, but it would certainly not be exact. After all, 2.5 stars *either* means "better than average" OR "pretty good," and it would even be possible for almost every movie to be pretty good, to someone maybe. Like my best friend, haha, I swear he likes everything he sees. No he really doesn't, but he does like a huge number of them. He thought Freddy Got Fingered was an absolute comedy classic and he LOVES Kung Pow. Well, Kung Pow is quite funny, don't let the critics fool you, it is so incredibly terrible (intentionally, though!) that it just is too funny to miss. I am giving it 2.5 stars after seeing it about 2 and a half times (long story, lol).