June 3rd, 2008
This was a bad week for big movies, with not a single first run release is even worth rating a solid purchase, never mind being a contender for DVD Pick of the Week. There were a few other contenders for the title, including Dirty Harry Collection on DVD or Blu-ray. However, I found it impossible to decide which format was the better deal. Had the Blu-ray provided anything more than High Definition, or been a more reasonable price compared to the DVD, it would have been an easier choice. One of them is the DVD Pick of the Week, I just don't know which one. On a side note, there is an immense flood of Blu-ray releases, including a few I thought were coming out previously.
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June 26th, 2007
It's a relatively soft week for cream-of-the-crop releases, but what this week's selection it lacks in top quality it sadly more than makes up for with mediocre offerings. None of the first-run releases were of much interest, limited releases only produced a few DVDs worth a second look, and even big name TV on DVD was mostly lacking in the must-have department.
It took an obscure release from the U.K., The New Statesmen to win that coveted honor.
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March 5th, 2006
The
Oscars were handed out tonight and while there were a handful of multiple winners, no single movie stood out.
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February 19th, 2006
With the
Oscars less than a month away and our
contest well under way, there's no better time to take a closer look at some of the nominees. Today we'll look at the Best Acting Awards.
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January 31st, 2006
Brokeback Mountain again led the list of nominees as with 8 Oscar nods. There were three films with six nominations a piece,
Crash,
Good Night and Good Luck, and
Memoirs of a Geisha, (although for that last one, they were all the less prestigious technical awards.
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January 28th, 2006
Lord of War won the weekly race on the rental charts, taking in $7.40 million, or just over 30% of what it earned during its theatrical release.
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January 21st, 2006
It was a busy week for new releases with three newcomers in the top five, but that didn't stop Wedding Crashers from keeping its home market crown.
The DVD was able to top the charts for the second week in a row with $10.29 million, which was down 24% from last week and enough to lift its total to $24.18 million after just two weeks.
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January 9th, 2006
It is a busy week, with about a half-a-dozen special editions, several TV on DVD choices and even four first run releases hitting the home market.
Of those, three of them are contenders for DVD Pick of the Week, The Constant Gardener - Buy from Amazon, Red Eye - Buy from Amazon, and Red Dwarf - Series 7.
While the two movies are better in quality, Red Dwarf - Series 7's overwhelming quantity and quality of special features just lets it squeak ahead of the pack and win the coveted DVD Pick of the Week.
(Although I will be picking up all three tomorrow.)
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January 6th, 2006
Of the 13 awards the Screen Actors Guild will hand out on January 29th, 2006, five will be awarded to theatrical releases. And like past awards nominations,
Brokeback Mountain again led the way, with four in total.
However, this time there were two films close behind as
Crash and
Capote each received three nominations.
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December 13th, 2005
Brokeback Mountain was the big winner today as Golden Globe nominations were announced. With seven nods, it led all films, which is an important Oscar indicator.
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November 30th, 2005
The Independent Spirit Awards announced the nominations today and
The Squid and the Whale led the way with six nominations, including Best Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and nods in three of the four acting categories.
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November 27th, 2005
The Legend of Zorro fell from second to sixth this week and because of that its quest from $100 million internationally took a serious hit. Over the weekend the film pulled in $4.20 million on 4062 screens in 62 markets for a running tally of $80.73 million. In France the film fell 57% to $1.01 million over the weekend and $14.80 million during its four-week run while it had a similar drop-off in Spain where it was down 56% to $475,000 over the weekend and $9.10 million in total. The box office was less kind in Russia, (down 68% to $136,000); Germany, (down 70% to $232,000) and the U.K., (down 83% to $120,000).
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November 20th, 2005
The Corpse Bride missed the top five by the narrowest of narrow margins losing out to
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit $5.50 million to $5.45 million. The film earned its $5.45 million on 2586 screens in 28 markets pushing its total to $53.4 million total at the international box office. In South Korea the film fell 43% to $753,000 on 114 screens, which is better than average for the market. And the film is also doing well in Italy adding $764,000 on 268 screens to its $2.67 million running tally there, $700,000 in France for a $8 million box office, and $462,000 in Japan for a $7.0 million box office.
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July 25th, 2005
I guess analysts got caught up in the recent bit of good news at the box office because nobody was able to predict this weekend's disaster.
Only one film in the top five was able to beat expectations by any real margin and every new film came up short.
Speaking of coming up short, the overall box office fell by 16% from last weekend and 8.8% from last year.
However, strong weekday numbers helped on the year-to-date comparison with 2005 at $4.983 billion, down 7.7% from 2004 while the summer season is 9.6% below last year's pace.
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July 22nd, 2005
It looks like there will be a hard fought contest at the box office this weekend, but Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has a good shot at remaining number one.
That's not to say there's no competition.
In fact, there are two films opening at saturation levels, two more opening semi-wide and a limited release expanding enough that it should reach the top ten.
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July 21st, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire -
Official Site.
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July 7th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Murderball -
Official Site.
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July 1st, 2005
July Starts with a bang, thanks to the long Independence Day weekend, but the rest of the month is solid, with a potential $100 million movie being released practically every weekend.
It is also the first full month where school children are free meaning weekday numbers are almost as important as weekend grosses.
On the other hand, the month isn't as strong as last year and there's a good chance the record breaking slump the box office is in will continue throughout the month.
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June 9th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Stealth -
Official Site.
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May 5th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates. Slow week with most of the sites being merely average or too early in their development to tell if the film is an award winning site or not. So in the end I decided not to hand out the award to any site. Hopefully next week things will pick up.
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