Wednesday, April 8, 2020 at 3:00PM by Nathaniel R
During quarantine my roommate and I spent hours doing this 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle from Dreamworks. Part of some swag box for their anniversary I believe...
Friday, April 11, 2014 at 11:11AM The Film Experience does not endorse tattoos. That shit is crazy permanent and who wants to wear the same thing every day of one's life? But tattoos can sometimes look good in a photo shoot, with the right body, or work well in dramatic or comic context. Two current magazine covers remind us of the ink fad which shows no signs of abating. (When I was a wee bairn the only tattoos I ever saw were on bikers and Popeye the Sailor Man. Now every third person on the street is sporting them.)
Ass dimples forever!
You guys. I got the best swag in the mail yesterday. A copy of Veep Season 2 along with Vice President Selena Meyer's book "Some New Beginnings - Our Next American Journey" which I hope is a plot point on Season 3. The jacket is very funny, with choice pull quotes, and a lot of vague meaningless inspirational double speak.
Here is just one excerpt...
In "Some New Beginnings - Our Next American Journey", Selina Meyer sets out her vision for a journey that could start now, or in the not-too-distant future, with a single step, taken by us all, together. America, she says, is "both a nation of journeys and a journey in itself."
This is an invitation to be a part of that journey. A journey from an old New World to a new New World. A journey from USA to "USA Plus." "
The book, like the content of Meyer's brain, is blank inside.
Those are some ugly tats but "ugly" is not a good word to use in a sentence with Tom Hardy. So glad he's slimmed down. I'm glad Esquire saw fit to add the question mark after "The Greatest Actor of His Generation" because, really, as much as I love him and he's impressed on a few occasions. He hasn't yet come close to proving that. He even has tough competition within his birth year alone which also brought us Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Édgar Ramirez, and Matthias Schoenaerts. 1977 was an extraordinary vintage.
JA has a comment about an interesting quote from Hardy in the cover story. Hardy is currently headlining the solo act film Locke and soon we'll see two gritty crime dramas The Drop and Child 44. In 2015: the long delayed if not necessarily long awaited Mad Max reboot, Mad Max: Fury Road. And then a possible Oscar grab in 2015 or 2016 as Elton John in the biopic Rocket Man.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013 at 9:00AM 
They do right by the first scene at least trimming the interminable opening of the Pulitzer and Tony wi. Beginning with the opening, Nathaniel, really? Do you groan audibly when someone says "That scene was so much better in the play / book / original source material" which is the culture snob's version of "FIRST!" ok you'll need to discuss that effect but awkwwwward... EXT. Weston Family Home, Oklahoma. A car pulls int NO. Violet Weston is a piece of work. But then, so it August: Ohmygod.. this is so not going to work.
"Eat your fish, bitch. Eat your fish.
... tempting, but where are you going to go from there if you start with Tracy Letts muscular punchy words and move on to your own dumpier nudgy ones? STOP.
You see where I'm going with this? Each time I've attempted to write about John Wells' adaptation of Tracy Lett's stage masterwork August: Osage County, barring a few brief stabs at some element of my discontent or, more likely, some reaction to its Oscar campaign and release strategy no review emergies. Obstacles of time, desire, interest, or non-diegetic usually awards season related materials surge up and scatter my thoughts when I sit down.
Take this clever piece of FYC swag, a glorified envelope in the shape of a cardboard house.... [more]
Sunday, March 10, 2013 at 10:00PM 
Somewhere over a different rainbow: Gael García Bernal's NO is a deserved hit in platform releaseObviously the oxygen-hogging story this weekend was the release of a new Oz movie. Pre-sold films are Hollywood's favorite thing for a reason. Familiarity and branding goes a long long long long long long long way toward automatic ticket sales. But Somewhere over another rainbow (logo) NO is a more deserved success story. Let's discuss.
WIDE
01 Oz: The Great and Powerful $80.2 Review
02 Jack the Giant Slayer $28 (cum. $43.8) Review
03 Identity Thief $9.7 (cum. $116.5)
PLATFORM
01 The Gatekeepers $.2
(cum. $1 now on 67 screens & holding)
02 No $.1 Review
(cum. $.5 now on 35 screens & building)
03 Stoker $.1 Review
(cum. $.3 now on 17 screens & dwindling)
Word of mouth can be your best friend or your worst enemy in movie theaters. The big corporate movie studios are generally very consistent with their strategies though I'd argue too consistent. The would be blockbusters are released on so many screens that people sometimes buy tickets just because it's "the big movie opening" rather than from genuine I Must See This interest. I mean, imagine the financial bloodbath if Jack the Giant Slayer had opened on 10 screens and tried to build trusting that people would be recommending it to others? At least it made some money last weekend before a terrible 63% drop this week.
Meanwhile smaller titles are nearly always platformed in the same way even if that's a mistake for them. I mean, it makes total sense for a movie like Chile's Oscar nominee No which will have a distinctly limited audience proportionately the exact size of its word of mouth. In these cases platforming is wise since the movie is EXCELLENT (seriously, go see it) and people will tell their friends just that. But riskier polarizing movies like Stoker the studios treat in the exact same way, throwing all their chips on reviews and word of mouth even though that clearly won't work as well. I confess that I don't really understand the strategy. When you have a way to hook bigger audiences without word of mouth (i.e. the serial killer genre, some stars, and violent horror which has the most faithful audience ever) why aren't you using it?
the latest "mystery swag" from Stoker -- a creepy box of sharpened pencils with Mia Wasikowska's face staring back at you when you pull them out of the box.
I mean, I know I didn't exactly give Stoker a positive review but I'm glad I saw it. Stoker is, at the very least, a great curio discussion topic. But here's the catch. When they hide the weirdos they even lose their cachet as curios because nobody has anything to discuss having not seen it. I guess Stoker will have to wait for DVD to find its audience.
What did you watch this weekend?
I skipped the movies and went to see Sigourney Weaver on Broadway. (More on that tomorrow night)
Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at 1:56PM Brave archery set. It's safe for ages 3 and up...
...unless one of your children is named Kevin. In which case We Need To Talk About Him.
Brave, animated films, swag 