Movies then and now

Again with the boingboing archives...

Came across some articles which heralded the release of trailers for Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and War of the Worlds near the end of last year.

In case you didn't see them, both movies were all flash, no substance. The oompa loompa (sp? whatever...) segments were virtually unwatchable, thanks in no small part to the utterly talentless Deep Roy and the manner in which Burton decided to shoot the bits (see painful DVD extras).

Funny to think how blockbusters can seem so amazing when the trailers come out but the movies themselves can be so ridiculously disappointing.

By the way, Aeon Flux is NOT being screened for critics. No points for guessing what that means...

Don't worry: it'll still make undeserved millions.

Oh, and if you lament the number of remakes and books-to-movies or tv shows-to-movies out there, you can blame some of that on Mr. Doctorow and his downloading buddies. As the profit margin for movies shrinks, only two types of movies will be made with increasing frequency: sure-fire recognizable "brand" movies and el-cheapo bare-bones snore-fests. Yay.

p.s. if you don't know it, check out rottentomatoes.com. It's a great movie review site that gathers reviews from a multitude of critics and gives the movie a percentile rating based on thumbs up vs. down. Movies over 60% are "fresh", under makes them "rotten". What's sad is that the top 10 grossing films are usually made up of no more than 3 or 4 "fresh" flicks. If that. Blockbusters will always find the lowest common denominator.