November 22nd, 2016
It’s Thanksgiving weekend, which means Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and of course the first installment of our Holiday Gift Guide. This week we will tackle first run releases, as well as franchise box sets, although there aren’t many of the latter to talk about. In fact, the best movie box set of the year includes more TV shows than movies in its running time and I’ve decided to include it in our second part, which deals with TV on DVD releases. There are still a number of big first-run releases this year that are definitely worthy gifts. We are going to start with the biggest domestic hit of the year...
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November 7th, 2016
As we recently reported, Finding Dory reached $1 billion this year, becoming the third film released in 2016 to reach that milestone. Is it as good as its box office numbers would indicate? Well, it is from Pixar, so the chances of that are excellent.
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June 1st, 2016
May was great, as long as you don't compare it to last May. Captain America: Civil War was a monster hit and is closing in on $400 million, while both X-Men: Apocalypse and The Angry Birds Movie will earn over $100 million. Looking ahead, every week in June, there is one movie that should top $100 million; however, only Finding Dory is expected to make more than $200 million. In fact, that film is expected to make close to $400 million domestically and over $1 billion worldwide. Last June, there were two monster hits, Inside Out and Jurassic World, plus one $100 million hit, Spy. I don't see how 2016 will top that. Even if every film with a shot at $100 million gets to that milestone, 2016 still might not top last year's pace. Fortunately, 2016 does have a large lead and that could be enough to keep 2016 ahead of 2015's pace in the year-over-year competition. It could be really close at the end of the month, on the other hand.
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May 19th, 2014
It's that time of year, the weakest time of year on the home market. This week there are four first-run releases, but only one of them earned overall positive reviews and only one of them did well at the box office. Fortunately, it was the same film, About Last Night. If you are a fan of romantic comedies, then the DVD or Blu-ray is worth picking up, but it is not Pick of the Week material. For Pick of the Week, I went with Nosferatu the Vampyre on Blu-ray.
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December 3rd, 2012
Finding Nemo came out nearly a decade ago and earned nearly perfect reviews. This fall, it became the latest Pixar film to earn a 3D re-release. Is it as good as most critics said it was? And does the 3D add anything to the film?
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