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…whether The Chronicles of Riddick would get its sequels made, this should answer that question: "…Universal [Pictures, which is distributing the movie,] has ... been consistent with their wanting to see how this opening weekend [box office] did, and the second weekend, because the second weekend is a key to them to gauge drop off." (from the SciFi.com article " Twohy: Chronicles 2, 3 Planned ") Judging from the fact that it opened at number 2 (admittedly behind Harry Potter), dropped to #6 in its second weekend and entirely out of the top 10 in its third weekend, (not to mention that it's grossed just over $51 million—less than half of it's budget), it seems unlikely that Universal's buying into any sequels any time soon. It's too bad, too. As clunky as some of the Butcher's Bay stuff was, I really liked the ending and would have liked to see where it was going to go from there. The problem is, I think the "big picture" sto...

Why is it I never talk about the good movies? I mean, we saw Shrek 2 a couple of weeks ago and I loved it… had nearly as much fun as I did during the first one, can't wait to go back and see it again and see what else I catch, Puss 'n Boots is my favorite character of the summer so far… and yet, not one word in all these weeks. But I've got time for rants about The Day After Tomorrow and Van Helsing? What the hell is up with that? Ok, my resolution now is to start writing more about the movies I've LIKED that I've seen instead of just bitching about the ones that have sucked. I know, it's easier—and arguably, more FUN—to write about the bad ones. But maybe that's one of the things that make for good criticism… the ability to speak as eloquently about the good movies as the bad. 'Cause let's face it, anyone can trash a bad movie. So, a quick preview (both in theatres and on DVD): Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. How about...

Things must be getting back to normal! (If I ever get my PC set up in the new place, maybe I'll get back to blogging on a regular basis!) But in the meantime, from today's A.Word.A.Day mailing list: "The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself." —Richard Francis Burton, explorer and writer (1821-1890) A.Word.A.Day

Ok, so I tried to take the high road. Failing that, I opted for "if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything ". But it's June 24th today and as I drove in to work, I STILL saw flags at half-mast. Isn't it time we get over it and move on? What is this, a national month of mourning? Let's face it, the man's been dead a couple of weeks now, we've had the funeral & memorial services & eulogies and he's been buried. Factor in the Alzheimer's, realizing he hasn't known his own name for the better part of the last 10 years, and you've got to admit the guy you're mourning is LONG GONE now. So let's put the flags back where they belong, put away the black armbands and get back to business as usual, huh? (oh god. As Chris points out in her comment to my post, it IS a freaking month of mourning, as per this announcement . I'm back to "no comment". There's just no point....

Like Fox News always taking the rabid, pro-Bush, conservative point of view? Then how do you explain their glowing review of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11? I mean, if THEY'VE Got good things to say about it, I'm thinking I may have to see it now and not wait for the DVD! But don't worry… these morons are more than willing to take on Mike's movie (sight unseen, I'm sure) as the "pro-Al-Queda propaganda" that they're convinced it is. (God, trying to slog through their fervently jingoistic dreck is quite the chore. Almost makes visiting the Fox News site tolerable.) Kinda makes me want to see it even more, you know?

mobile speed bump n. The city of Vancouver is exploring the idea of sanctioning a grass-roots traffic-calming program that enlists the silent majority of reasonable, rational, law-abiding drivers to stop being so silent. Instead they'd slap NEIGHBORHOOD PACE CAR stickers on their vehicles and set a highly visible example by rolling down Vancouver streets at lawful speeds. Try that in LA and it'd be an invitation to either get run off the road or shot… or both! And I'm not sure I wouldn't be one of the ones running these clowns off the road! (I know I wouldn't be one of the ones shooting, however. Sometime in my first month living in LA, after being cut-off one too many times in one day, I caught myself thinking, "if I had a gun, I'd shoot your ass". It wasn't till several minutes later that I realized: a) I'd actually had that thought run through my head, and b) it didn't seem strange at the time. It occurred to me at that point ...

It's kind of fun to watch the hack* director in action. Their career path is interesting, if not all that surprising… after all, one watches a good director's films and hopes—perhaps expects—that each one will get progressively better, meanwhile following the bad director's career with the fear that each film will be worse than the next. So it's probably not too surprising to find that, with each film, the hack director just becomes a bigger hack, latching onto those aspects of their previous works that they feel were the best parts (often mistakenly), blowing them up into bigger and bigger moments all at the service of producing a bigger, glossier and, ultimately, more meaningless (and usually worse) movie than their previous works. And we've got two glorious examples of the hack in action so far this summer. First off, of course, is Van Helsing… a turgid mess that I've already bashed here . But it's a prime example of what I'm talking a...

R. R., 40th President, is Dead No comment.