As I predicted, Knocked Up retained its Power Rankings crown this past weekend. Although Ocean’s Thirteen ruled the box office and got decent reviews, it was no match for the stellar notices and the strong overall and per-screen performances that buoyed Judd Apatow’s comedy.
In honor of the final episode of The Sopranos, Culture Snob takes a look at five minutes from The Wire – a show that probably wouldn’t exist were it not for that crime family from Jersey. This brief audio commentary – part of the “Five Minutes” series – looks at one scene from The Wire’s first season. In these five minutes, the only dialogue that passes between Baltimore Police detectives Bunk and McNulty are variations on the word “fuck” and one utterance of “pow,” but the audience pieces together how this particular murder went down through visual storytelling and acting devoid of meaningful words.
One reviewer has called Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky the best Eagles record the Eagles didn’t make, and it’s impossible to shake the timeless soft-rock vibe in the sound, the vocals, and the easy pace. “A Ghost Is Born was to me really jagged … abrasive,” bassist John Stirratt said of his band’s last studio album. “And this record has a certain warmth.”
The lyrics that open Low’s Drums and Guns are as forceful as singer/guitarist Alan Sparhawk is tentative.
It was fairly obvious once the reviews started coming in that Knocked Up would top this week’s edition of Culture Snob’s Box Office Power Rankings. What was surprising was that it came within $14 million of a first-ever perfect score.
As expected, the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie dominated the Memorial Day box office, but $142 million was no match for the feisty limited-release Waitress in Culture Snob’s Box Office Power Rankings. Adrienne Shelly’s film used strong reviews and a blockbuster-worthy per-screen average to land atop this week’s ratings, even though it ranked fifth in overall box office.
Most of us know that box-office gross is a largely meaningless number, and many people think that critics are worthless. In an effort to try to better measure a movie’s overall performance, Culture Snob here offers the first of its weekly Box Office Power Rankings.
Is it possible that the failure of the second Star Wars trilogy has nothing to do with plot, character, and storytelling and everything to do with physical space?
Fresh off Culture Snob’s own Misunderstood Blog-a-thon is Edward Copeland’s Star Wars Blog-a-thon on Friday, May 25 – the 30th anniversary of Episode IV’s release in the United States.
In a previous entry, I noted the disconnect between Guillermo del Toro’s assertion that Pan’s Labyrinth is “not about sexual identity” and the movie’s marketing materials and design.
