Back in the spring of 1997, it was starting to become clear that Titanic, then the most expensive movie ever made at an estimated $200 million, was going to miss it’s July 2nd release date and get pushed back to December. And everyone in Hollywood was going all apesh*t, especially Fox and Paramount, because they’re the ones who paid for it.
They had already spent a ton of money on promotion but that was the least of their problems. It might have been a blessing actually since the tagline on the poster was “Collide With Destiny.” You know, just like those people did, right before they “Sank Into The Freezing Water With Destiny” and “Collided With The Ocean Floor.” Jesus Christ. Whoever approved that should have been fired and then had their pinky cut off so other companies would know who it was. Considering that over 100,000 people died on that ship (note: I’m not great with numbers) that tagline couldn’t be any more inappropriate unless it was, “Ice To See You.”
But, no, the worst part was that this fueled endless rumors that the movie was a mess and director James Cameron was scrambling to salvage things before it sent the studios into bankruptcy.
This, of course, wasn’t true. Cameron simply needed a few more months because the movie was an unprecedented challenge and he was doing things that had never been done before. At the time he was quoted as saying something along the lines of, “No one has ever left a theater and thought, ‘well that movie sucked but at least it made its release date’.”
Long story short: Cameron was given the time he needed, Titanic made 2.2 billion dollars and won 11 Oscars, and everyone learned that making the worlds biggest movie is really f*cking hard.
Everyone except Bob Iger, the current CEO of Disney, who last week refused, for the second time, to push the release date of Star Wars VII from December of 2015 to May of 2016. This despite the fact that Harrison Ford just broke his leg and can’t film for 6 months, which is even worse than it might initially sound because he’s the movie’s central character if the rumors about the plot are true (POTENTIAL SPOILERS: Han Solo and a small crew, including his son, go searching for Luke Skywalker, who has been missing for several years).
Yesterday it was reported that the cast and crew have taken a two week break while producers weigh their options, seemingly between…
– flipping the production schedule while praying the 71-year-old Ford has a quick recovery. You know, as 71-year-olds are prone to do.
– a massive re-write during production.
– invent adamantium.
– have Han Solo scoot around on a Rascal.
All this because, in a story first broken three weeks ago in a Filmdrunk World Exclusive, Disney sucks. It’s more than obvious by now that making good movies is the least important part of the process to them. If it happens, fine, it’s great if you go see Star Wars or Ant Man in a theater, but their real goal is to make sure you see them a hundred times on every aisle of every store.
Why would you buy those products if the movie sucked and you hated it? Um, I don’t know. But Bob Iger would probably tell you to stop being a smartass, then have some of his guards bring your wife into the office so he can punch her in the stomach in front of you.
LIFEHACKS
We were already assured of a fifth Transformers movie, but now that the fourth one just had a $300 million dollar opening weekend, we might never see the end of them in our lifetime. Here are some tricks to make sure you never have to watch one.
– Find Ehren Kruger, the guy who writes these. Follow him around. Wait for him to touch something like a glass that would hold his fingerprints. Get a police scanner and wait for them to find a dead body, then plant the glass on the scene.
– There should be a fire alarm in the hallway right outside the theater. Pull it.
– Tell your girlfriend your plan for the night is, “Transformers 5 and then givin’ you a nice, painful ass-f*cking.”
UNDERRATED/OVERRATED
UNDERRATED: Gareth Evans
I’ve watched parts of The Raid 1 and 2 a hundred times now and I simply have no idea how director Gareth Evans is doing this. Anyone can look like a badass in a movie fight when a 30-second scene has 60 edits and is taken from 2 hours of footage shot with a shaky-cam and then sped up.
But Evans holds his shots so unbelievably long, and focuses on the action instead of hiding it, these might just be snuff films. Maybe that’s why he films in Indonesia, because he has to have stuntmen who believe in reincarnation. He should either win an Oscar or be arrested. Both movies focus on just one guy mostly fighting with his bare hands yet he still kills more bad guys than France did in World War II.
OVERRATED: Mythbusters
There’s no possible way I’m the only one who hates this show. I should love it, the premise is great, the problem is the girl, the Asian guy, and the other guy so dull I’m not even sure how to describe him. They take up half the show, yet don’t have a single interesting thing to say or a sliver of personality between them. After about two minutes, all their boring words start to lull me into a daze until I’m so uninvolved it’s like I’m not even watching a show in English anymore.
MASHUP OF THE WEEK
Only a pretentious jackass would try to recommend music to total strangers. And so here I go; Blur vs Icona Pop – ‘I Love Song 2’. I actually had something else in mind this week but someone made this a few days ago and I’ve listened to it a billion times since. Because yes, I’m just as annoying in real life as I am online.
MOVIE REVIEW FOR A MOVIE I DIDN’T ACTUALLY WATCH BUT JUST SORTA SKIPPED THROUGH
This Week: 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE
Okay so it’s starting, and I was making some pop-tarts so I missed like the first minute but now the pretty lady who plays Sersei Lannister on ‘Game of Thrones’ is standing in the middle of some soldiers and telling a story. And she doesn’t look very happy. She needs to lighten up, she’s gonna lose this crowd.
So is this the set-up, Cirsei Lannister tells the story about the war and stuff? For 2 hours?
If so than the movie does accurately represent how long it takes for a girl to tell a story, I’ll give them that. And if the girl is really pretty and single like Sirsee Lannister the guy just has to stand there and take it no matter how long she talks. Pretty sure you women do it on purpose.
Anyway her story is about another soldier guy from earlier. Is this him? Is this guy our new Gerrard Butler? Oh geez. Oh that’s not good.
Wait did Cersee Lannister say this takes place ten years ago? Because those soldiers probably all know this story. In fact that guy with the eye patch was part of it. They’re soldiers, and it’s about a famous soldier. Who lived down the road. And no one had invented football or Reddit gone wild yet so it’s not like they had a bunch of other stuff to do or talk about. It would be like if you made the Lakers stand around while you spent 2 hours explaining who Shaq was.
Anyway, the new Gerard Butler just killed some king, and the kings son is the giant effeminate gold king from the first movie. But he’s not a giant effeminate gold king yet, he’s just normal.
Mmmmmm, and now Eva Green just showed up. She’s so great. She’s telling the kings son who is just normal for now that he should be a god. So he went to some spa or something and now is covered in gold and diamonds and anyone who might try to reason or disagree with him has been banished or killed. It’s pretty much the exact same way people like Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey live their life.
On a side note, the giant effeminate gold kings dad was dead for like two days before he started to sashay around in glitter. I think someone had a secret!
There is a shit ton of capes in this movie by the way. I would be so happy if I saw someone just walking around in a cape. I wonder what the cape budget was for this? It has to hold the record.
This movie is surprisingly boring considering how much stuff is going on. I might watch the rest later.
VERDICT: 300: Rise of an Empire gets 5 stars out of 4 because Eva Green plays a gorgeous D-cup with a scene where she takes her clothes off and you can see her tits and she likes getting choked during rough sex (NSFW gif = here). It’s a classic but winning formula for any movie and life in general. Don’t be surprised if this sweeps the Oscars.