December 16th, 2007
This week, the Holiday Gift guide discusses movies as its theme, but not just any movie can get on this list.
This is for smaller movies, ones that might have slipped past most people's attention. The top ten movies of the year would also make great gifts, but you don't need me to tell you about them. (Except to say The Simpsons Movie doesn't come out on DVD and Blu-Ray until Tuesday.)
Here we have independent films, foreign films, and yes, a few Canadian films. ...
Okay, more than a few Canadian films.
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August 26th, 2007
New releases took three of the top five places on the DVD rental chart, including first place.
Wild Hogs was the overall rental leader with $9.94 million, which was in line with Disturbia's opening last week.
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August 26th, 2007
Wild Hogs led a healthy group of new releases to win the race on the DVD sales chart with 2.20 million units sold and $35.16 million in first week sales.
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August 13th, 2007
It's a busy week for first-run releases, with five such films appearing on this week's list.
But even with a couple of them being worth picking up, including Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters for DVD - Buy from Amazon, the cream-of-the-crop were releases of new special editions.
This includes two Jim Henson films, Labyrinth - Anniversay Edition and The Dark Crystal - 25th Anniversary Edition, but the best of the best is Taxi Driver - Two-Disc Collector's Edition.
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April 23rd, 2007
It was a slow weekend at the box office as most of the new releases, and a couple of the holdovers, were unable to live up to expectations.
How slow was it?
The overall box office dropped below $100 million.
It fell 25% from last weekend to just $89 million and that's a severe 19% drop-off from the same weekend last year.
In fact this was the worst weekend since last September.
However, it is important to note that overall 2007 is still ahead of last year's pace by 5% and most analysts expect many, many records to fall this summer.
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April 16th, 2007
The weekend box office numbers were mixed. On the one hand, there was a small drop in the overall box office numbers with the total ticket sales coming in at $119 million, which was 4% lower than last weekend and 1% lower than the same weekend last year. However, while that's hardly a reason to worry, there were six wide releases meaning the merely average box office numbers had to divided up amongst a crowded field and that really hurt a lot of the new releases. In fact, only one of the six had any real reason to celebrate.
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April 14th, 2007
Even with the extra day, it was a slow week for websites. There were a couple films to have their full sites go live this week, but in both cases there was a lack of features. The best of the list is Pathfinder - Official Site, but it's not up to the level of an award winner.
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April 12th, 2007
There's six new wide releases this weekend, but the overwhelming thought I have when checking them out is, "ZZZZZzzzzzzzz." There are two reasons for this. Firstly, there's not much here to get excited about; most are opening in less than 2,000 theaters and most are earning reviews that are terrible.
Because of this, none look to be runaway hits at the box office; in fact, there's talk that Blades of Glory will again win the weekend box office race.
The second reason for the snores above, last night was the start of the NHL playoffs and the Canucks played their first two games.
Or at least that's how long game one lasted.
Four overtime periods.
So tired.
Oh so tired.
At least they won.
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April 7th, 2007
It's the Saturday after Good Friday, which explains why this column was delayed one day. But while the Friday was good, this week's sites were mediocre, at least they were compared to high expectations. If this was January, it would be a great list. However, at this point of the year I'm expecting one potential summer blockbuster to have a major website launch each week, and that didn't happen this time. We still had an award-worthy effort with Grindhouse - Official Site.
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April 1st, 2007
April is an interesting month to open a movie. Interesting, but not a particularly good month. This year it does start with Easter, but that's traditionally not a strong long weekend. Only one movie has topped $40 million over that weekend and only one other has cracked $30 million. Worst still, it's jammed right up against May, the start of the summer blockbusters season.
Ironically, the closer you get to this most lucrative time of year, the tougher it is for films to make a buck.
No movie wants to open the weekend before Spider-man 3, for instance.
Overall, there are a few hits to be found in the month, and a few misses, but nothing that really stands out above the pack.
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March 31st, 2007
Awesome. We are finally getting some major updates to the summer blockbuster movies. The ones people are watching to see if they break records. This includes the first half of the massively interactive website for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - Official Site. And while the site isn't done yet, it is still more than enough to win the Weekly Website Award.
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March 17th, 2007
We are starting to get some serious updates on the websites for the summer blockbusters, however, it will be a few more weeks before this list is dominated by such films. In the meantime, it is a website for a new release, Dead Silence - Official Site, that is the winner of the Weekly Website Award.
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March 2nd, 2007
Just an average week in terms of updates, but there are a couple sites of note including the winner of the Weekly Website Award, Wild Hogs - Official Site.
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February 11th, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Indiana Jones 4, The Mummy 3, Hellboy 2 and more.
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February 4th, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for The Waterhorse, Across the Universe and more.
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February 3rd, 2007
Busy week for limited releases and a busy week for websites, which explains why I'm wrapping things up at midnight. There wasn't a whole lot on this week's list that really attracted my attention, but I'm giving the Weekly Website Award to
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters -
Official Site, mainly for their ... extracurricular activities of the viral marketers in Boston. And remember people, real bombs are meant to be inconspicuous, they won't sing you a song or make rude gestures at you.
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January 9th, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains the announcement for Indiana Jones 4 and more.
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January 6th, 2007
Big list as I try to catch up after the holidays. I think I caught all the updates. Not only are there a lot of sites on this week's list, several of them are potential award winners with the best of the best being
Smokin' Aces -
Official Site.
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