Someone tell Jason Bateman he's not allowed to do any more movies until we see at least one new Arrested Development episode.

I saw Warm Bodies yesterday and In Between today. Both were good but WB made me laugh a bunch and IB was simply a kind of fun thriller.

I'd recommend both depending on your mood.

I also heard Identity Thief sucks. I watched about 10 minutes today while waiting for my movie and saw nothing to indicate otherwise.

People that go see Identity Thief are the same kind of people who watch Jack & Jill.  In other words, they should DIAF.  In the theater... like this:

I saw the new Die Hard, it's a brainless action movie, as expected, and thusly enjoyed.

Mugato: 5-Day Holiday $36.4M

That's pretty poor actually.

USA doesn't matter for action flicks anymore.  You posted this before the 1PM update that says It earned $61.5M from 9,595 screens in 63 markets and held the #1 market position in 32 out of 37 new openers.

12349876: USA doesn't matter for action flicks anymore.

And to add another example, if you look at the domestic numbers for "Battleship" and see 65 million you say that's a flop, but if you look at the international number that says 237 million for a total of 300 million, you have to say that's a mild success.

Don't care, still enjoyed Beautiful Creatures.

NuttierThanEver: Donnchadha: I don't understand why Beautiful Creatures bombed. Its message of "a high school romance will save the world" seems like it should be a blockbuster hit.

Then again, I probably saw the whole movie since I saw a trailer for it.

Plus it has Emmy Rossum who I would do terrible things to

My wife took me to it.  Emmy Rossum did not have a large presence.

The movie was kind of a mess.  They didn't bother much with backstory so it was never very clear why the female protagonist turning to the dark side would be such a terrible thing, and Christopher Lloyd's character was both the most interesting character and a complete cipher.

falcon176: I saw the new Die Hard, it's a brainless action movie, as expected, and thusly enjoyed.

I saw Zero Dark Thirty this weekend, and I found the scene at the end way more exciting than just about any recent dumb action movie, despite knowing how it ends. I watched Battleship last night just to see how bad it was and was bored silly.

Mad_Radhu: falcon176: I saw the new Die Hard, it's a brainless action movie, as expected, and thusly enjoyed.

I saw Zero Dark Thirty this weekend, and I found the scene at the end way more exciting than just about any recent dumb action movie, despite knowing how it ends. I watched Battleship last night just to see how bad it was and was bored silly.

damn.  I DVRd it just to see the badness.

Kurmudgeon: Don't care, still enjoyed Beautiful Creatures.

I thought it was one of Peter Jackson's weaker films, myself

thecpt: damn.  I DVRd it just to see the badness.

It's got some stupid fun at the end, but the first hour or so is just really dull because they are trying to take the characters seriously and develop them. I think some script writers and filmmakers take the "show don't tell" mantra a little to seriously and drag down their movies with scenes that unnecessarily go over the life story of their characters, when a little quick exposition to establish the characters before moving on to the action that we really want to see. For example, Die Hard didn't need a prologue showing John as a cop in NYC and his marriage falling apart. A little bit of exposition and few small scenes with his wife set up the situation nicely.

Meanwhile, Side Effects is still really good, but even people I know that like Soderbergh's movies didn't realize it's playing. Did this movie get no publicity at all, or what?

Jeremy Jahns gave "the new Twilight clone" a "A good time, no alcohol required" rating, so probably it's a lot better than the ads make it look.

He gave DH5 "You're not going to remember it in T-10 minutes".

/Yes that's his scale

The new Die Hard is already out? I thought that was in the summer. fark, where have I been?

I saw Die Hard on Thursday. I enjoyed it. I think the plot/dialog could have been a little better, but overall I thought it was good. I think the real reason they made this movie though was to set his kid up as the new John McClain.

Donnchadha: I don't understand why Beautiful Creatures bombed. Its message of "a high school romance will save the world" seems like it should be a blockbuster hit.

Then again, I probably saw the whole movie since I saw a trailer for it.

When I saw the trailer, I was absolutely 100% convinced that it was for a comedic parody of the Twilight / True Blood vampire dramas.  The trailer was so over the top ridiculous that I couldn't imagine that they expected anyone to take it seriously.

But it turns out they were serious.

Obviously the quality of a film usually has little or nothing to do with the opening weekend gross. Absolutely terrible films routinely do well. But this was a teen drama vampire film with fair reviews; the only way it could do as poorly as it did is because the marketing team really messed up.

Saw side effects with the wife today and thought it was not bad. Well made film with good acting.

Mugato: falcon176: I saw the new Die Hard, it's a brainless action movie, as expected, and thusly enjoyed.

That's just it, a Die Hard movie shouldn't be brainless.

For example... Hey did you see the watch??? Rolex... This represents holly wanting to move on from John and of course at the end John unclasps the watch sending Hans to his doom and holly calling herself McLain not gennero... Let it snow let it snow let it snow... The last 2 die hard movies were incomprehensible...

if_i_really_have_to: Jeremy Jahns gave "the new Twilight clone" a "A good time, no alcohol required" rating, so probably it's a lot better than the ads make it look.

He gave DH5 "You're not going to remember it in T-10 minutes".

/Yes that's his scale

Well, that was a waste of several hours.  I like his reviews.

The Larch: Donnchadha: I don't understand why Beautiful Creatures bombed. Its message of "a high school romance will save the world" seems like it should be a blockbuster hit.

Then again, I probably saw the whole movie since I saw a trailer for it.

When I saw the trailer, I was absolutely 100% convinced that it was for a comedic parody of the Twilight / True Blood vampire dramas.  The trailer was so over the top ridiculous that I couldn't imagine that they expected anyone to take it seriously.

But it turns out they were serious.

Obviously the quality of a film usually has little or nothing to do with the opening weekend gross. Absolutely terrible films routinely do well. But this was a teen drama vampire film with fair reviews; the only way it could do as poorly as it did is because the marketing team really messed up.

...this wasn't a teen drama vampire film.  This was a teen drama witch film.  Get it right.

/The real reason it bombed is because Jeremy Irons is in it.
//He's been box office poison ever since...ironically...Die Hard 3.

if_i_really_have_to: Jeremy Jahns gave "the new Twilight clone" a "A good time, no alcohol required" rating, so probably it's a lot better than the ads make it look.

He gave DH5 "You're not going to remember it in T-10 minutes".

/Yes that's his scale

I love him.

Anyway, this is a really piss poor time for new releases. I've seen Django Unchained 3 times in theaters because (A) it's awesome and (B) there's so little else.

Saw it a couple hours ago.

Yeah, definitely the worst Die Hard by far.  Too short, the villains were all aggressively one-dimensional, not enough focus was paid to the relationship between John and Jack.  And Jai Courtney definitely has a career ahead of him (to be fair, I liked him a lot in Jack Reacher), but Christ, it won't be playing John McClane's son.  All that being said, a lot of my problems have to do with the way the movie was scripted and shot.

For all those who don't know, John Moore is the same guy who farked Max Payne up so unceremoniously.  He really hasn't done anything truly right since Behind Enemy Lines, and it shows - for instance, there's one scene early on where John gets hit by a Mercedes shortly before stealing it.  Now, without really knowing what the details were behind shooting that bit, one would think they could make getting hit with a car look...real.  Nope.The rest of that scene is weirdly shot and edited, too - one second the giant MRAP (I assume that's what it was) is dead behind whatever van Jack was driving, and the next, it's crashing through a concrete barrier and messing up some cab driver's day while the van's about a quarter mile ahead.  It doesn't get much better from there - a lot of slow-motion, for instance.  TOO MUCH slow motion, although they probably had to do that, lest they end up with a 60-minute pilot for a Die Hard TV series instead of a feature film.  As for the script, I could call it an off day for Skip Woods, but he has X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Hitman on his resume.  Then again, Hitman showed more effort than this did.

So what was good about it?  Well, I could think of worse ways to spend $13.50.  Bruce Willis, with no help from the script whatsoever, still managed to put enough John McClane into the movie to not completely lose me.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead's still hot...even if she's in this for all of a minute and a half.  And for the series die-hards (sue me) and attentive gun aficionados, it's nice to see McClane still has a love or appreciation for Beretta 92s.

TL;DR?  A meh action movie.  A terrible Die Hard.

I read Beautiful Creatures for the same reason I read Twilight. My teen/tween nieces told me to read them so we could have something to talk about.

The Twilight conversation started like this:

I kind of get what you like about it. It must seem wildly romantic, and, at the same time, I can see why you might want to read something where the girl gets to give into her passions and press for things to go further and further, and it's the boy who's in charge of putting the brakes on. I was a teenage girl, and it really stinks that in real world, we're the ones who have to stop doing what our bodies are telling us to go for. It's hard, and it's nice to see the other side have to take over that duty because, even though it's got to be done, why is it us?

That said, let's take a look at some of the dialogue. Do you think this is good?

The Beautiful Creatures talk went started something like this:

I enjoyed this book a lot more than Twilight. If you like this book, I think you're really going to like Southern Gothic fiction. The dialog and sense of atmosphere are a lot stronger than Twilight, So what's your favorite thing about the book?

I won't be seeing the movie, though, because:

1) The movie turned the family into Casters, and that is really different in the book.
2) They got rid of the Marian, the Librarian.

blue_2501: People that go see Identity Thief are the same kind of people who watch Jack & Jill.

The difference is that Identity Thief is actually a movie and while nothing stellar, it does have a few good laughs and some decent acting in it

While Jack & Jill is a pile of shiat

falcon176: I saw the new Die Hard, it's a brainless action movie, as expected, and thusly enjoyed.

Yup. Of course, Bruce Willis is going to play the same character in every movie. You know what they say about old habits.

I just realized that the last film I saw in a theater was the Star Trek reboot, and that's only because I took my dad to see it on his birthday (dad's a bit Star Trek geek, I could care less).

99% of movies are drivel that look just as good (or better) on my 60" TV at home. No annoying kids with cell phones, and I can watch with no pants on.

falcon176: I saw the new Die Hard, it's a brainless action movie, as expected, and thusly enjoyed.

But that's one of its problems. It is a brainless action movie - DIe Hard wasn't and shouldn't be.

Practically all the elements that made the series great/ good are non-existent. It's one of the worst written films I've seen in a very long time. It actually gets dull after a while - action exists only for the sheer hell of it. The human/ emotional content is nil.

At any point in the film you expect the McClane kid to start swinging on vines along with some CGI monkeys.

One word review: Shiat.

robsul82: TheManofPA: Anyone see Die Hard? The reviews said it was downright terrible so I chickened out and avoided. Would like to see thoughts through a non-critic lens? Mind you, when I see "This is the Superman 4 of the series", I tend to take that seriously



/sad that the above is repeatedly appropriate like this

Run, don't mosey, to The Tea Cosey