June 25th, 2020
It is another slow week for limited releases and, like last week, the best film, House of Hummingbird, likely won’t find an audience in theaters due to its genre. On the positive side, while there are not a lot of releases on this week’s list, the hit to miss ratio is better than most weeks.
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June 24th, 2020
Trolls World Tour is easily the biggest release on this week’s list. In fact, it is bigger than the rest of the films combined. That said, while it should entertain kids, it isn’t the best release. The best is a two-way tie between The Ghost of Peter Sellers and Tokyo Olympiad—two documentaries that are worth checking out.
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February 11th, 2015
I can't wait till the winter blockbusters start coming out, because I've run out of ways to say, "It is a slow week on the home market." without repeating myself. There are some releases that are certainly worth picking up, like the Blu-ray debut for 101 Dalmatians, but there are also releases that I would call filler on the first page of Amazon.com's list of new releases. There are a number of releases that are worth picking, including Force Majeure (DVD or Blu-ray); Laggies (DVD or Blu-ray); Nightcrawler (DVD or Blu-ray Combo Pack); and Rosewater (DVD or Blu-ray Combo Pack). However, the only real contender for Pick of the Week was 101 Dalmatians.
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February 9th, 2015
Rosewater is Jon Stewart's directorial debut and it is coming out on the home market the same week John Oliver's show returned to HBO. I wonder if that is a coincidence? As for the movie itself, it opened in a very awkward theater count and it struggled at the box office, but still managed $3 million overall. Is it worth checking out for those interested in Jon Stewart's directorial debut? Is it good regardless of who was behind the camera?
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November 14th, 2014
It's a long list this week, but you could eliminate nearly all of the films and concentrate on just Foxcatcher and Rosewater. These two films are earning the vast majority of the buzz. They are not the only films worth seeing, Red Army looks particularly good, but I worry no other film will thrive.
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October 31st, 2014
October was a better than expected month with the overall box office keeping pace with October of 2013, for the most part. (The last weekend will be terrible, but that's because of Halloween.) We were able to close the gap somewhat in the year-over-year comparison, at least by a little bit. So how will November do compared to October. Let's put it this way. There are only seven films opening wide this month. Of those, Beyond the Lights will likely not make an impact at the box office. Every other film has at least a reasonable shot at $100 million. More than half the of the films opening this month could hit $200 million. Leading the way will be The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1, which could hit $400 million. The only problem is when book franchises split the final installment into two parts, the first part tends to be weaker at the box office. Interstellar is a big question mark. On the low end, it could make just over $100 million, while on the high end, just over $300 million is within reach. That's a wide range of expectations. On the downside, last November, there were two movies to reach $400 million: Catching Fire and Frozen. On the other hand, there was only one other movie to make more than $100 million, Thor: The Dark World, so perhaps the depth this year will help 2014 come out ahead in the year-over-year comparison.
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