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Box Office Power Rankings: March 20-29, 2009

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monsters-aliens.jpgThe $59.3-million opening-weekend domestic take for Monsters Vs. Aliens is being touted as proof that 3D is a viable way to pry people off their couches and get them into the damned movie theater. Nearly 56 percent of that amount came from 3D theaters, even though 3D projection accounted for only 28 percent of the movie’s screens. That all sounds impressive, but consider that WALL·E took in $63.1 million its first weekend, Kung Fu Panda $60.2 million, and Cars $60.1 million. Yes, those were all summer movies, but they didn’t benefit from the higher ticket prices for 3D that inflated the take of Monsters Vs. Aliens.

Tagged: 3D, Animation, Box Office, Box Office Power Rankings, Monsters Vs. Aliens, Technology
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Movies

Feeling Blu, Ray?

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blu-ray.jpgUp to six times the resolution of DVD! Perfect picture and sound! Sparkling high definition! The marketing push for Blu-ray players and discs has been full of these and similar pronouncements, trying in a shitty economy to get you to upgrade your DVD player and (ideally) replace your current movie collection with this relatively new format. Concurrent with that has been the debate about whether Blu-ray will “survive” after winning the “format war” with HD DVD in February 2008. Concurrent with that have been silly partisan arguments using adoption rates and sales figures to show that Blu-ray reigns victorious! or that Blu-ray is already dead!

Tagged: Blu-ray, Technology
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Movies

How We Like to Watch

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In an aimless, nearly endless essay (more than 3,000 words), Wagstaff brings up some fascinating questions in what mostly functions as a personal remembrance of the circumstances of watching movies: “Most film criticism is rightly focused on the movie itself. The purpose of this essay is to clear a little spot of ground for the circumstances that surround watching a movie, the things that affect so strongly how we see it.”

Tagged: Critics, Technology, Ways of Watching
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Movies

The Magic’s in the Details

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Film Rotation pointed me toward an article that does an excellent job of explaining and demonstrating how motion-capture technology itself (as used in computer-animated movies) is only the means to an end, not the end itself. In the case of The Polar Express, the author argues (and shows), the animators botched the detail work, resulting in bizarre-looking, seemingly possessed characters. By way of comparison, he offers Gollum and the decidedly unrealistic CGI of The Incredibles.

Tagged: CGI, Computer Generated Imagery, Motion Capture, Technology, The Incredibles, The Lord of the Rings, The Polar Express
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