The studio is now going to be releasing Mamma Mia sing alongs to theaters. This insanity has to stop. Mamma Mia is perhaps the poorest excuse for a movie musical since the release of The Producers remake. But it's worse than that. Almost all of the acting is cringe worthy (including the great Meryl Streep, the choreography is childlike (I'm no dancer and I could have done that shit in my sleep), the script is horribly cliche, ABBA's songs barely fit into any kind of plot within the film and often times are there just to have another song, Pierce Brosnan sounds like he's dying when he sings, the ending is beyond ludicrous, and for the first time ever during a musical I just wanted everyone to shut the hell up before my ears started to bleed. This is a bad bad movie and the last thing we need is a sing along version. You know why this is selling tickets? Because old folks love ABBA and Meryl Streep. The two together are golden to them. You know what? I dont give a shit. This is a big step backwards for movie musicals. If you all miss ABBA so much release a concert of them. Get a reunion going, film it and release it. But please spare us musical lovers from complete shit like this. I'm begging you studio heads. PLEASE!
It's official. The Dark Knight has surpassed Star Wars to become the 2nd highest grossing domestic film of all time. The question now remains how much more money can The Dark Knight make? Can it break Titanic's box office all time dominance, or come in just below? Right now I'm thinking it's going to come in just below Titanic, but don't count The Dark Knight out. It has already broken almost every other record set before it. After four straight weeks atop the Box Office it has finally fallen to the number two spot with Tropic Thunder reigning supreme this weekend. What's really ironic is that the same weekend that The Dark Knight outgrosses Star Wars to become the second highest grossing film, it also comes out on top of the new Star Wars animated film at the box office. Oh, how Lucas must be hating Christopher Nolan at the moment. Bravo! Dark Knight. And keep on truckin'.
The Dark Knight is destroying all of it's competition at the Box Office this summer, as it rightfully should be considering it is one of the greatest and smartest summer blockbusters ever made. Yep, I said it. But believe it or not there are also some other films that have come out this year or are coming out this year that are believed to generate some serious revenue... and a lot of them are comedies. The Judd Apatow crew has, for better or for worse, changed the face of modern movie comedies and they keep having hit after hit. I loved last years surprise hits Knocked Up and Super Bad and I was looking forward to seeing what the team could come up with this year. They have already released the critically acclaimed mini-hit Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I have yet to see. And this weekend they have opened the stoner violent comedy Pineapple Express to some mixed reviews, but the box office will be great (though reports indicate that The Dark Knight looks like it will come on top again bringing its domestic haul to 441 million dollars...JESUS!). I'm not sure if the Apatow gang has another other films up it's sleeve for the rest of the year (I haven't done that much research as of yet), but its safe to say that they will continue to be able to make pretty much anything that they want for a long time to come. Even though their films are filled with goofy pot loving morons, they are sweet and honest and at times so much more intelligent and in touch with the current generation than other dreck that passes for comedy these days.
But we don't just have Apatow comedies to look forward to this year. No, by summers end two more certain to be hits will have landed. The first being the Ben Stiller directed war movie send up comedy Tropic Thunder. Tropic Thunder's early buzz has been mostly positive with some even going as far as saying that Robert Downey Jr. deserves an Oscar nomination for his role as an Australian actor who undergoes a pigmentation surgery in order to play a black soldier. The premise for that character alone is enough to get me to buy a ticket (I plan on going to the midnight screening, something I mostly only do for huge event films, Like the Dark Knight).
The other film that hits late this August is the Sundance hit Hamlet 2. This is the film I am really looking forward to. It looks hysterical and it has been a while since a good film has come out that mocks theater in a loving fashion. And since this one is so obviously mocking musical theater, my personal passion, you can bet that I will be there on opening night to take it all in. With a song like "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" how could you not want to see this film?
I love that these films are coming out just before Oscar season really hits. It will be a great comedic prelude to all the seriousness we will have to sit through this fall and early winter. So my question remains... is this the year of the comedy? If we take the Dark Knight out of the equation could these films become the top money makers for the year? Certainly not individually, but when pooled together it might become clear that the comedy is back in considerably late fashion. Or I could just be full of shit. We shall see once the box office receipts come in.
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