Movie News & Miscellany

Eriol

Eriol

People like to find a way to shut off their brains and "outsource" their decision-making to others. Then they can blame the "other" if things go wrong too. Rotten Tomatoes is just a popular way to do it for movies.

For myself, I'll admit it's a factor, but "trusted" reviewers (people that you find agree with your own preferences more often than not) are the best IMO. I have about 3 people I check and see what they think. They MOSTLY agree, and they MOSTLY agree with me, but I need to go through the effort to see why they don't agree with me. There's a few specific movies that 1 or 2 of them hate, but I think are great, or at the least it's a "It's fine, nothing wrong with it, and entertaining, but glad I didn't pay the money to see it in theatres, but not a bad movie either."
 
Celt Z

Celt Z

I'm pretty sure Brett Ratner kills movies just fine on his own, even before Rotten Tomatoes was a thing.

And what the hell is with the "Middle America" thing? It's like he's saying "hey, the dumbest and most gullible people in America now listen to Rotten Tomatoes, and even I can't figure out what their ratings mean!". Lemme spell it out for you, Brettie: ticket prices have doubled in the last 10-15 years, and when you guys went over that $10 threshold, people got a lot pickier about the financial commitment. Those "yokels" you depend on don't want to spend half a paycheck on a shitty movie.

EDIT: Not to mention there are now tons of options to not have to see things in the theater, both legally, and less-so. And most of those are cheaper.
 
Tress

Tress

Celt Z said:
I'm pretty sure Brett Ratner kills movies just fine on his own, even before Rotten Tomatoes was a thing.

And what the hell is with the "Middle America" thing? It's like he's saying "hey, the dumbest and most gullible people in America now listen to Rotten Tomatoes, and even I can't figure out what their ratings mean!". Lemme spell it out for you, Brettie: ticket prices have doubled in the last 10-15 years, and when you guys went over that $10 threshold, people got a lot pickier about the financial commitment. Those "yokels" you depend on don't want to spend half a paycheck on a shitty movie.

EDIT: Not to mention there are now tons of options to not have to see things in the theater, both legally, and less-so. And most of those are cheaper.
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Also, we folks out on the coasts look at RT ratings too. Practically EVERYONE does. It's not a "Middle America" thing, you pretentious dick.
 
Gruebeard

Gruebeard

"Middle America" looks like a phrase that just insults everyone, both the rural hicks it refers to and the pompous urbanites it implies exist.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Zero Esc said:
Mmmm ... The Mummy at 17 % on Rotten Tomatoes ... ooh that's some bad movie there. Video reviews online are gonna make this weekend niiiice.
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Holy shit, this is better than I thought. Universal's attempt at their "Dark Universe" puts The Mummy as Iron Man 2. Dr. Jekyll shows up here and there to drop hints at other monsters, essentially being the Nick Fury of Monster SHIELD. Maybe I'm just tired, but
:rofl:


And here I thought Sony looked desperate.
 
evilmike

evilmike

Ravenpoe said:
Because everything needs to be a shared universe
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The problem isn't that Universal wanted to put the monsters in a shared universe. (After all, they had one before.) The problem is that they made a $125 Million Dark Universe setup movie starring Tom Cruise that also occasionally has a mummy in it. And the truly absurd thing is all of the monsters they want to use are already in popular culture -- they could have flipped the Marvel script and started with a multi-monster movie and everyone would understand it anyway.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

evilmike said:
The problem isn't that Universal wanted to put the monsters in a shared universe. (After all, they had one before.) The problem is that they made a $125 Million Dark Universe setup movie starring Tom Cruise that also occasionally has a mummy in it. And the truly absurd thing is all of the monsters they want to use are already in popular culture -- they could have flipped the Marvel script and started with a multi-monster movie and everyone would understand it anyway.
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It's pretty crazy how stupid they've gone about this. There's no problem with them doing another Universal Monsters franchise, but there was no reason to make it a Marvel movie.

And then what are the monsters going to be later, the heroes that fight ... what? Cthulhu?

I'd say they could salvage this by having it all lead into a remake of Monster Squad, but that would end up too tame. And worse, at this point they may have invested too much money to back down, since they're current standing is to do The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein. The only thing standing in their way, besides likelihood of lost profit, is that Warner Bros is considering suing them since they were intending to title their Justice League Dark movie as Dark Universe--you know, a movie that would've benefited from the Snyder color palette :p.

What really grates is that Universal was willing to pump so much money into this shit Mummy movie, but couldn't spend the same for Guillermo del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness. I know del Toro's film wouldn't have been much of a money-raker, but at least domestically I have a hard time seeing Mummy recovering its losses.
 
Gryfter

Gryfter

Wasn't that Luke Evans Dracula movie supposed to be the launch for the Universal Monster Universe (UMU from now on)? I guess when it bombed they decided to start over from scratch.

So, now that the Mummy is a bomb does that mean we will get a Frankenstein movie next year with the tag line "No seriously, this time we are launching our shared universe."?
 
filmfanatic

filmfanatic

Gryfter said:
Wasn't that Luke Evans Dracula movie supposed to be the launch for the Universal Monster Universe (UMU from now on)? I guess when it bombed they decided to start over from scratch.

So, now that the Mummy is a bomb does that mean we will get a Frankenstein movie next year with the tag line "No seriously, this time we are launching our shared universe."?
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The Luke Evans Dracula movie got a last-minute post-credits scene that was supposed to set things up.

As Zero Esc pointed out, my biggest issue is that I can't think of what they would build up to. The only things I can think of are that idea of a Monster Squad remake, or something in the vein of Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.
 
Gryfter

Gryfter

filmfanatic said:
The Luke Evans Dracula movie got a last-minute post-credits scene that was supposed to set things up.

As Zero Esc pointed out, my biggest issue is that I can't think of what they would build up to. The only things I can think of are that idea of a Monster Squad remake, or something in the vein of Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.
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Yeah, I think it's mostly... " Hey guys, we should do a shared cinematic universe too! But ours will have monsters and blow!'
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

They should've taken the hint with that Dracula one a few years back.

The fact that I refer to it as "that Dracula one" shows how memorable it was.
 
blotsfan

blotsfan

Youtube was completely spammed with commercials for it for a solid month. I must've seen the first 5 seconds of that ad over 1000 times. I don't remember its name at all.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

You could totally do a "Game of Thrones with vampires" series and have it be good. They could've just made a mummy movie. But Universal wanted to set up shared universe crap.

They seem to be set on this with Russel Crowe as Dr. Nick Jekyll/Mr. Fury Hyde pulling a team together.

This feels like how one Youtuber described Amazing Spider-man 2: a bunch of executives in a boardroom saying "we don't need talented writers and directors; we can do this ourselves!"
 
Null

Null

It's worse than that. The Benecio Del Toro "Wolfman" movie was supposed to the spark to set off the Universal Creatures Dark Universe.

But it bombed.

Then "Dracula Untold" was the relaunch of the Universal Creatures Dark Universe.

But it bombed.

"Tom Cruise Running From A Creepy-Hot Goth Chick In Bandages" is the third attempt to launch this bullshit.

And it's bombing.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

I had no idea Wolfman was supposed to tie-in, too. The first I'd personally heard about the Universal shared universe was with the Dracula one.
 
Null

Null

I mean, maybe it wasn't, but The Wolfman was one of their classic creatures so I just assumed it was part of this whole nonsense.
 
filmfanatic

filmfanatic

The Wolf Man with Benicio del Toro wasn't supposed to be part of a cinematic universe. In fact, some of these remake projects were being planned for a while already. It's only in the wake of Marvel's success that Universal has decided to put them all together in one cinematic universe.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Honestly, I feel like the end game of the Dark Universe would have had to be something like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; basically a group of skilled monster hunters teaming up to fight these horrific threats when they organize against humanity. The problem with that though is who do you put on the team?

- Dr. Van Helsing
- Mina Harper
- Whoever the fuck Tom Cruise is supposed to be?
- Maybe we get Brendan Fraiser back? Though his character would be in his 80's-90's by now. Maybe he's immortal now due to shit with the Book of Life.

And then you're stuck, because no one else involved with fighting these things is iconic enough for such a team-up to matter. You could maybe get the Phantom of the Opera, but he's essentially a gas-lighting rapist so why would he be heroic again? Adam, Frankenstein's Monster? He's a victim in his story, but he's also just as bad as Victor Frankenstein!

There just isn't enough meat on this bone.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

AshburnerX said:
Honestly, I feel like the end game of the Dark Universe would have had to be something like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; basically a group of skilled monster hunters teaming up to fight these horrific threats when they organize against humanity. The problem with that though is who do you put on the team?

- Dr. Van Helsing
- Mina Harper
- Whoever the fuck Tom Cruise is supposed to be?
- Maybe we get Brendan Fraiser back? Though his character would be in his 80's-90's by now. Maybe he's immortal now due to shit with the Book of Life.

And then you're stuck, because no one else involved with fighting these things is iconic enough for such a team-up to matter. You could maybe get the Phantom of the Opera, but he's essentially a gas-lighting rapist so why would he be heroic again? Adam, Frankenstein's Monster? He's a victim in his story, but he's also just as bad as Victor Frankenstein!

There just isn't enough meat on this bone.
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Time for the Creature from the Black Lagoon to reveal he's not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

The Nostalgia Critic reviewed Transformers: The Last night...WITHOUT seeing the movie. To paraphrase his opening, he thinks the movies follow the exact same formula so much that he can correctly predict how the movie will play out. It's like a creative experiment. Though I won't see the movie to see if he's right, I'm curious to see how much he nails based on what others say.

 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

ThatNickGuy said:
The Nostalgia Critic reviewed Transformers: The Last night...WITHOUT seeing the movie. To paraphrase his opening, he thinks the movies follow the exact same formula so much that he can correctly predict how the movie will play out. It's like a creative experiment. Though I won't see the movie to see if he's right, I'm curious to see how much he nails based on what others say.

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This is pretty interesting. And that's the first time I've said that about anything relating to Bay's Transformers movies.


In other, less mirthful news:

Fox going ahead with X-Men movie 'Dark Phoenix' with several reprising their roles

Yay, Jennifer Lawrence gets to phone it in again. Thirty years have surely passed since First Class! Also, Jessica Chastain in talks to become the Shi'ar Empress, which is weird because I'm surprised they're going with aliens in this movie, but also funny because some articles are mislabeling the character as the villain in the story, probably solely because she might be played by Jessica Chastain.
 
Denbrought

Denbrought

ThatNickGuy said:
The Nostalgia Critic reviewed Transformers: The Last night...WITHOUT seeing the movie. To paraphrase his opening, he thinks the movies follow the exact same formula so much that he can correctly predict how the movie will play out. It's like a creative experiment. Though I won't see the movie to see if he's right, I'm curious to see how much he nails based on what others say.

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The concept reminds me of what RLM did a while back

 
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