March 30th, 2009
It's a big list this week with nearly 50 DVDs here (including a few that are late reviews). This includes this year's big Oscar winner, Slumdog Millionaire, which is coming out on DVD and Blu-ray. Also coming out this week is two foreign language thrillers: Tell No One on DVD and Blu-ray, and Timecrimes on DVD. All three are worthy picking up. In fact, all three are DVD Picks of the Week. With so many releases, it comes as no surprise that this week's list has to be split into two, with the first part found here.
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March 23rd, 2009
Technical difficulties with Amazon's site meant this column was a lot harder to get done than usual. However, I won't hold that against this week's releases, and there are a number that are worthy of the DVD Pick of the Week from practically every category. TV on DVD has Andy Richter Controls the Universe - The Complete Series, from the classics we have The Odd Couple - Centennial Collection, from new releases we have Bolt - Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack, Blu-ray offers us James Bond Blu-ray Collection - Volume 3. We even have a late entry, as Let the Right One In - Blu-ray arrived. All five are worthy of the DVD Pick of the Week, but if I was forced to chose just one, Bolt - Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack would probably please the most people. After a couple of "slow" weeks, we are back to splitting the column into two parts. The second part can be found here.
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December 23rd, 2007
The Screen Actors Guild nominations were announced this week, but again there were no clear front runners for the six theatrical categories.
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December 13th, 2007
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced their Golden Globe nominations this week, but there were no truly dominate films out of the 14 theatrical categories.
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November 29th, 2007
It's the official start of award season as the Independent Spirit Award nominations were announced. Several films received nods, but I'm Not There and Juno were the big hits.
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October 29th, 2007
There were six new releases on this week's sales chart, including the number one film of the week, The Transformers. That DVD sold 5.09 million units for opening week sales of $117.01 million, which was the best opening on the home market this year in terms of raw dollars. However, 300 sold more units, barely, at 5.10 million.
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October 29th, 2007
The Transformers led a list of six new releases and the overall rental chart this week, but at $9.97 million in rentals, it was a subdued victory compared to its dominance of the sales chart.
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October 16th, 2007
This week we have the first of the summer blockbusters hitting the home market.
But, strangely, it was the last of the four $300 million movies that were released this year.
This signifies the unofficial start of the of the Christmas DVD rush season and I would expect every week massive blockbusters or super-special editions being release from now until the Boxing Day.
As for this week's best bets, I'm torn between two releases: Grindhouse - Planet Terror - Extended and Unrated - Two-Disc Special Edition and The Transformers - HD-DVD Edition.
I've giving both the DVD Pick of the Week honors, but I will add that while Grindhouse is the better movie, The Transformers will appeal to a wider audience.
(On a side note, this is the second time a HD-DVD release has earned the DVD Pick of the Week.
Blu-Ray better catch up to HD-DVD soon.)
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September 30th, 2007
Ratatouille opening in first place in South Africa this weekend earning $298,000 on 40 screens, which is very close to what The Simpsons Movie made in its opening there a few weeks ago. Its best market of the weekend remains France where it was down a mere 4% to $1.67 million on 655 screens over the weekend for a total of $58.63 million. At this pace, the film will reach $60 million by this time next week while topping Finding Nemo's total of nearly $65 million is increasingly in reach. Overall Ratatouille added $4.66 million on 2535 screens in 27 markets for a total of $216.42 million, which is more than Cars managed, and this film still has openings in Germany, U.K., Italy, and Scandinavia.
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September 23rd, 2007
Rush Hour 3 missed spending its fifth week in fifth place by less than $4000 at $5.69 million on 2443 screens in 31 markets for a total of $69.71 million. This weekend the film opened in first place in Russia with $2.28 million on 385 screens while it had to settle for second place in Denmark with $485,000 on 41 screens over the weekend and $517,000 in total.
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July 2nd, 2007
There was some good news over the weekend; the mini-slump ended as the overall box office pulled in $156 million, 1% over the same weekend last year. That's not a big increase, in fact, it is below ticket price inflation, but that's still something to celebrate and focusing on the good news is good for business.
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June 25th, 2007
The box office was off last year's pace, again, this time it is mainly due to the box office struggles of the overall box office leader, Evan Almighty, which missed lowered expectations. Overall the industry added $132 million over the weekend, which was down 9% from last weekend and 6% from the same weekend last year. It is not time to panic, yet, but if we don't see the box office rebound over the next few weeks, industry talk will switch from the big hits to the misses, and that tends to worsen a depressed market even more.
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June 24th, 2007
Evan Almighty made a mediocre debut over the weekend according to studio estimates, earning $32.1 million.
That's about half the opening weekend of Bruce Almighty, and about on par with the debuts of Norbit ($34.2 million) and Blades of Glory ($33 million) earlier in the year.
With a start like this, Evan can still hope for a $100 million run at the US box office, but it's going to be a long, long time before it recoups its $175 million plus production budget.
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June 24th, 2007
One of the most anticipate films of the summer became the best site of the week. The Simpsons Movie - Official Site is finally here and the winner of the Weekly Website Award.
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June 21st, 2007
A trio of new releases this week are led by Evan Almighty, but while that film has a clear shot at first place, the real question is whether the overall box office can avoid falling behind last year's pace. Last year's top 10 pulled in just under $125 million, which is certainly within reach, but far from a sure thing.
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June 1st, 2007
With the irrational exuberance of May over, June promises to be a solid month with a number of big hits opening. In fact, every week there's at least one film being released that has a legitimate shot at $100 million at the box office and two films that should hit $200 million. If both Ratatouille and Evan Almighty make it there, we will have six $200 million films so far this year, just two back of 2005's record. On the other hand, there are also a number of films on this month's list that may or may not open wide, and for most of these becoming a midlevel hit will be a chore.
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May 26th, 2007
Another slow week. If this keeps up I'm going to have to rethink my methodology. Not only were there not as many sites as I would like, there were none that really stood out as award-worthy. The best was Stardust - Official Site, but here I will wait for more of the content to be added before I make a final decision.
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May 6th, 2007
Among the more than two-dozen films on this week's list, there were a few that came very close to winning the Weekly Website Award. Of the three, Spider-Man 3 - Official Site was probably the closest to winning, but in the end was brought down by high expectations.
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January 9th, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains the announcement for Indiana Jones 4 and more.
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