Bust rating January 29

Fifty Shades of Black

So, this looks awful.  A bunch of predictable jokes about sex, race, and recent popular movies.  I’m putting the over under on big black penis jokes at 6.5, and may be taking the over.  This’ll get poor reviews, cause me to bitch any time I see a trailer for it, and continue to prove that parody movies are complete garbage that Hollywood studios shit out for a quick cash grab.

Yet it almost certainly won’t be a bust, no matter how awful it ends up being.  The budget for this was apparently $5 million, the marketing budget can’t be much more, and “A Haunted House” made $60 million international, with the sequel making $24 million.  People know what the movie is going to be, and it’ll do well enough to make a quick profit.  It’ll likely more than double however much all the expenses end up being, and we’ll get another shitty parody movie in a year or two, maybe about black super heroes or something, with jokes about the Hulk’s penis compared to Black Thor’s.

As a side note, I completely forgot that “A Haunted House” even had a sequel before doing some research.  I actually merged the two films in my head, since they both looked like cheap parodies making awful and obvious jokes.  Say what you want about a lot of shitty looking films, but most of the time you don’t accidently forget about a film’s existence and assume your brief memories of the trailer was actually for another movie.

Bust rating 1/5

 

The Finest Hours

A perfect way to end the January box office, a mediocre looking disaster movie filled with melodrama, patriotism, and attractive people helping others.  More or less the definition of “maybe there won’t be anything else good in theaters?”  Unfortunately, there really isn’t.

The effects in the movie don’t look great, making the film look less exciting than The Perfect Storm despite coming out 16 years later.  They’re also replacing George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg with Chris Pine and Casey Affleck, though it does have Eric Bana who I love for some reason.  It seems to be riding the patriotic angle pretty hard, but I’m of the belief that patriotic movies don’t work without guns or reporters (or maybe sports).

So maybe this will do well.  It’s the only new action type movie in theaters that doesn’t feature Michael Bay’s take on Benghazi (he feels people don’t fully appreciate the explosions).  I’d worry that during the winter, people don’t want to watch a movie about freezing to death in the ocean (or drowning, I’m not sure what the chief concern was for the shipwrecked people).  I’d rather watch a shitty desert movie now, and at least ignore the cold for a bit.  I’m uncertain how this will do, but I’m going to guess it’s box office will be good enough.

The biggest outcome of this will be determining whether Chris Pine is ready to become a true A list celebrity that can carry a movie on his own.  He’s been doing franchise pictures for most of his leads, along with a co-star role with Reese Witherspoon and Tom Hardy in This Means War (which topped $156 million worldwide on a $65 million production budget, so likely a solid outcome depending on the advertising budget).  I can’t say I love Chris Pine, but he’s been funny in his comedic roles, and good enough in the more serious roles he’s done.  I won’t go see a movie just for him, but how well this movie does will be a good indicator of how many people will.

Bust rating 3/5

 

Kung Fu Panda 3

I remember watching the original Kung Fu Panda a few years ago.  I was either still living with my parents or house sitting for them, and decided to get a bit drunk since being alone in your parents’ house gets boring and I love alcohol.  I love a lot of movies that don’t deserve my love when I’m drunk, from Dark Shadows to Grudge Match.  And yet, I didn’t think Kung Fu Panda was a good movie.  The silliness didn’t really get to me, I felt like the story was rushed towards the end, and vodka didn’t make me root for any of the characters.

Flash forward a few years, the first two films went over $600 million worldwide each, there were 3 short films and a television series based on the characters, Wikipedia lists 5 video games for the franchise, and I still don’t get the appeal.  Sure the movies feature a cute panda, karate, a plethora of great actors and actresses, and teach valuable life lessons.  But I just can’t get excited for them.  Maybe I just don’t think Jack Black excels as a voice actor, maybe I have emotional issues and can’t enjoy something so lighthearted, maybe it’s everyone else who is wrong about this.

Regardless of how excited I am, I have plenty of friends who are more excited about this than anything else that’s come out recently besides Star Wars.  And maybe that’s the key, the film can get people who don’t normally like movies to care, but smart, educated, better people like me just couldn’t be bothered.  That’s probably it.

Bust rating, 1/5