Movie Thread

[tifosi77]

Signs does not stick the landing. Like, at all. I was all in up until the final 5 or 6 minutes, and then it was just comedy.

[eddy]

Signs does not stick the landing. Like, at all. I was all in up until the final 5 or 6 minutes, and then it was just comedy.

I don't disagree, but it didn't ruin the movie for me and I actually didn't mind the ending so much this time after not seeing it for a decade or so

[nocera]

Signs does not stick the landing. Like, at all. I was all in up until the final 5 or 6 minutes, and then it was just comedy.

Agreed. That was M Nights m.o. for a while there. The Village is another movie that is fantastic right up until the climax.

[tifosi77]

Leader: "Hey, here's a planet that's 70% covered in a substance that's toxic to us - like causes us to essentially melt. Mayhaps we should invade? Let's put it to a vote. All in favor say 'aye'!"

Everyone but Simon: "AYE!!!!!"

Simon: "I'm not so sure this is a good...."

Leader: "Shut it, Simon. The ayes clearly have it. Nerd."

Simon: ".................."

[blackjack68]

Watched Signs with the kids over the weekend. Man do I love that movie. From the opening credits, the entire movie feels like a ride. I really could do without the wife storyline and go all in on the alien attack, but whatever, it still gets me choked up.

But the wife is the thread that holds the loss/regain of faith plot together.

[eddy]

Watched Signs with the kids over the weekend. Man do I love that movie. From the opening credits, the entire movie feels like a ride. I really could do without the wife storyline and go all in on the alien attack, but whatever, it still gets me choked up.

But the wife is the thread that holds the loss/regain of faith plot together.

That's completely true and there is some good stuff to come from that, but man, that's a weird heavy scene amongst some intense alien scenes. It's my favorite movie of his. My complaints are minor.

[Dickie Dunn]

Signs does not stick the landing. Like, at all. I was all in up until the final 5 or 6 minutes, and then it was just comedy.

Agreed. That was M Nights m.o. for a while there. The Village is another movie that is fantastic right up until the climax.

Endings of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were on point and then after that his need for a surprise ending because almost farcical. Signs was stupid and The Village
makes the entire movie almost comedic.

[NTP66]

Bob Odenkirk was rushed to the hospital after collapsing on the set of his show "Better Call Saul" ... and is still receiving medical care.

Production sources tell TMZ Odenkirk and cast were shooting in New Mexico Tuesday when the incident happened. We're told Odenkirk went down, and was immediately surrounded by crew members who called an ambulance.

We're told it's unclear if he was conscious when he was transported, but a source close to Odenkirk tells us he is still in the hospital under the care of doctors.

[nocera]

Yikes. Hopefully it's nothing serious but this tweet from David Cross is scary.

[robbiestoupe]

Damn, come on Jimmy!

[DigitalGypsy66]

I had no idea Odenkirk is 58 years old. I know he's playing a younger Saul but didn't know he was pushing 60.

[eddy]

[NTP66]

Hell yeah, that looks awesome.

Related, this is one of my favorite memes:

[tifosi77]

I love that ILM was able to keep him on as the animation guy once they switched to CG. One of the secondary makers on the Tested channel works at his studio, Kayte Sabicer.

[Dickie Dunn]

Fantastic reviews coming in for The Suicide Squad.

[Sam's Drunk Dog]

Signs does not stick the landing. Like, at all. I was all in up until the final 5 or 6 minutes, and then it was just comedy.

Agreed. That was M Nights m.o. for a while there. The Village is another movie that is fantastic right up until the climax.

Endings of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were on point and then after that his need for a surprise ending because almost farcical. Signs was stupid and The Village
makes the entire movie almost comedic.

M.Night related regarding Old

I saw a headline that the movie is good except for a ridiculous twist ending. Personally, I think it has a too out there premise.

[nocera]

Signs does not stick the landing. Like, at all. I was all in up until the final 5 or 6 minutes, and then it was just comedy.

Agreed. That was M Nights m.o. for a while there. The Village is another movie that is fantastic right up until the climax.

Endings of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were on point and then after that his need for a surprise ending because almost farcical. Signs was stupid and The Village
makes the entire movie almost comedic.

M.Night related regarding Old

I saw a headline that the movie is good except for a ridiculous twist ending. Personally, I think it has a too out there premise.

That’s not surprising..

The graphic novel does not have a twist ending. I won’t spoil how that ends but I just don’t see that working in a film. I’m all in on the premise. I just hope the film doesn’t try to give an explanation.

[Pavel Bure]

M. Shamalamadingdong related,

I did like the devil in the elevator movie

[nocera]

Odenkirk is stable after suffering a “heart related incident”

We can confirm Bob is in stable condition after experiencing a heart-related incident. He and his family would like to express gratitude for the incredible doctors and nurses looking after him, as well as his cast, crew and producers who have stayed by his side. The Odenkirks would also like to thank everyone for the outpouring of well wishes and ask for their privacy at this time as Bob works on his recovery.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv ... 234989892/

[nocera]

Scarlett Johansson Sues Disney Over ‘Black Widow’ Streaming Release
https://www.wsj.com/articles/scarlett-j ... 1627579278

Ms. Johansson said in the suit that her agreement with Disney’s Marvel Entertainment guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release, and her salary was based in large part on the box-office performance of the film.

“Disney intentionally induced Marvel’s breach of the agreement, without justification, in order to prevent Ms. Johansson from realizing the full benefit of her bargain with Marvel,” the suit said.

[...]WarnerMedia chose to renegotiate many of its talent contracts that, like Ms. Johansson’s deal with Marvel, were tied to box-office performance. Warner Bros. paid more than $200 million to talent as part of the amended agreements.

Get paid, Scarlett.

[tifosi77]

Yeah, this has been a looming issue all through the pandemic. We talked about it a few months ago (iirc in the context of the next Bond film), how there might be a dozen or more people on a big film whose financial consideration is directly - and specifically - tied to theatrical boxoffice take, especially in the first couple weeks of release. Black Widow began filming halfway through 2019, so there's no way any of this COVID stuff would've been contemplated in talent agreements. Some studios have said they have data that suggests simultaneous release on a streaming platform is not cannibalistic to boxoffice, which I find hard to believe.

Most work-for-hire agreements contain force majeure language applicable to certain provisions in the agreement; that might provide for an 'out' for Disney/Marvel, in terms of negating the 'exclusive theatrical release' obligation. But at the very least, Disney/Marvel is now in a legal action against an A-list woman in a tentpole franchise over pay.

[nocera]

It might be a little different had WarnerMedia not renegotiated their contracts to account for on demand releases. Well, actually it'd just be that two companies are being **** heads instead of just one. Can Disney really argue that their $30 "premium access" fee is different from box office? With HBO Max, it's a little tougher as those are free with subscription but Disney hopefully **** themselves here by charging the premium fee.

I hope she gets paid. And I hope others with similar contracts see her get paid and sue them as well.

[tifosi77]

The difference is a $12 ticket for a movie in a theater is 100% directly accountable to that one specific movie. It's hard to account for that revenue on a streaming platform, especially considering subs have unlimited access to the content while it's available. (For example, I've watched Hamilton approximately 235 times; how do you account for that in terms of what chunk of my sub fee to split out for Lin Miranda vs how much goes to all the times I've watched Star Wars stuff? Especially when those numbers will change in the next 30-day billing cycle. How is a one-time viewing in a theater worth 1/235 of a viewing at home?)

[nocera]

Well in Black Widow's case it's very easy to see how much revenue it brought in. I agree with you on the other examples, it's going to be tough. What's likely the case is any movie that's set for on-demand release will not be able to tie salary to box office. The talent and the company will need to agree to a flat rate. Or it'll work similar to residuals.

[tifosi77]

I don't think a residuals kind of model works, either.

The whole point of tying consideration to boxoffice is that you can make a clear connection to putting butts in seats. Residuals are more akin to a re-use fee in music licensing. When a sound recording is used for some other purpose than commercial distribution of it as an audio-only piece of media, all the artists involved in creating that recording get a small fee - usually pennies on the dollar as a function of the total license fee - and that fee is paid by the record company. Residuals work in a similar fashion, in that the talent all get a small amount of money when a movie/TV show is re-aired after its initial distribution. But the reason why that fee is considerably less money, proportionally, than what they were paid for the initial performance is because you can't really correlate that later exploitation to the specific artist's involvement. Going back to Black Widow, is someone in 2023 going to watch the movie on D+ because "hey why not", or on some other outlet because they channel surfed into it, or because they want to watch ScarJo do the knee landing thing? Well, her initial pay for doing the movie was directly tied to the notion that when people went to the theater to see it on initial release in 2021 many of them did so because they wanted to see ScarJo doing the knee landing thing.

It's a really complicated problem imo, and there's no easy solution. WB did the right thing by re-negotiating their talent agreements, but there's really no way to quantify if their solution was equitable (either for them or for talent). But it's certainly better than the path Disney/Marvel chose; they chose poorly.