I had a lot of fun drawing Tom’s wild mood swings in today’s comic. Always fun to do a little cartoon-y over exaggeration.
Cami and I didn’t see Valentine’s Day over the weekend and our lives were no less the richer for it. But I must admit that I was surprised by it’s $52 million haul at the box office.
This goes back to what I was talking about on Friday. I think people were pre-disposed to seeing this movie by virtue of it’s branding. They felt compelled to see a movie CALLED Valentine’s Day ON Valentine’s Day. It’s the laziest, easiest response to “Hey, we need something to do for our Valentine’s Day together. I know what we should do!”
I’m certain the large cast had something to do with it as well. The producers basically played the odds and gambled that at least ONE of those actors would get you to buy a ticket. It looks like their gamble paid off.
I hope the success of Valentine’s Day doesn’t spur a bunch of copycat movies that stack the deck with 2 dozen different well-known actors. Having so many big names to feature makes it sound like the story doesn’t support them. I mean, you can’t really develop that many characters at once and be successful. Even Love, Actually – which has built up a lot of good will over the years – falls down on this point.
My sister-in-law saw Valentine’s Day with friends and my wife asked her a lot of questions about it. I think it reflects the “car crash” interest in this movie. People want to watch it because they want to see if they can pull it off. According to my sister-in-law, they don’t.
I won’t spoil anything for you in case you want to see it, but she referenced two different points in the script where the audience audibly groaned at the contrivance on screen. So, buyer beware.
I will say this… For those of you thinking about going to see this movie for Julia Roberts, my sister-in-law warns that she is on screen for about 6 minutes. But, again, considering there are 19 different actors in this thing and the movie is 125 minutes long… an appearance of about 6 minutes is pretty much on the nose. Do the math. It shakes out right.
I’m curious if anyone here saw Valentine’s Day this weekend. If so, what were your thoughts? Feel free to leave your comments below!
It was great!
Cami and I spent the day reading love sonnets to each other and eating chocolate covered strawberries!
Being in love with her makes me feel like I could love the WHOLE WORLD!
Wow. I'm really surprised you guys didn't see the movie Valentine's Day this weekend. It made, like, $52 million at the box office.
...aaaaaand NOW I hate humanity again
We went to see Valentine’s Day on saturday and enjoyed it. I went in without having seen a preview and not even knowing who was in; we were looking for something to do out of town, and we had heard decent things about it on the radio. It was a perfectly fine light movie and surprisingly didn’t even feel too long at just over two hours. Ashton Kutcher is one of the central actors in this movie and he does a very good job.
But of course, this is the type of movie that people just LOVEEEEEEEEE to hate. 😉
I bucked the trend and saw it on Feb. 12. Overall, my date loved the movie, but she loves everything romantic comedy. It did strike me as distracting what with the sheer number of well known stars in it. However, it did keep some suspenseful things, and as said above Ashton Kutcher actually performed in a way that didn’t make me want to see him hit by a truck. I was pretty shocked.
Ocean’s 11 2001 does a pretty good job of bucking your thesis about lots of stars in the same film, Tom. Admittedly, the drivers didn’t really get that much screen time, but you got the jest of their personalities and relationships from their small bits. But, that was a pretty star-studded cast in there, and everybody seemed to be featured to some extent.
Yeah, the massive opening gross is a surprise and yet, not really. Interestingly enough, Dear John took a massive dive this past weekend.
Anyway, it appears Theater Hopper managed to hit Internet notority this past weekend. Somebody made a video tribute to it: http://thatfellowinthecoat.com/fellowhopper.php
I’m normally fairly cynical about movies like V-Day, but this one’s actually really good. There are several twists you probably won’t see coming, some genuine laugh out loud moments, and Anne Hathaway is hot.
“Valentine’s Day” surprisingly did not suck. I was a very lightweight romcom, but they were very careful to make sure that there were no major characters that did NOT deserve a decent ending. The large cast and multiple storyline meant that there was very very little padding in the individual stories and performances, and given their fluffy nature, they didn’t need extra time.
There were even a few surprises at the end for the audience that went very well. Two of them involved Julia Roberts, by the way – one of those is in the end credits. Oh, and somebody needs to get on that Jessica Biel / Jennifer Garner action movie RIGHT NOW, they both looked fantastic.
I thought that spending a day in Los Angeles was going to be a proper drag, but I was pleasantly surprised.
Hmm. I’m kind of surprised by the feedback. Sounds like you guys really liked Valentine’s Day. Maybe my instincts and my sister-in-law were wrong!
Or, more likely, we’re just cold-hearted, cynical bastards.
I’m automatically skeptical of any kind of remake, especially of a movie as good as Love Actually. I highly doubt it was as good as the original, which makes me sad. Why does Hollywood insist on refilming movies for an American audience? Can a movie with British actors not make $52 million?
I expect the new Death at a Funeral to be just as bad.
Ha ha ha ha, it’s so true. Whenever I get some confidence in society, they go and do something like this and my hopes are dashed.
My girlfriend and I saw it last night after dinner. It was enjoyable. We both enjoyed it. It’s definitely one of those “turn-off-your-brain-and-enjoy-it” kind of movies. What surprised us the most was the fact that so many people in the audience didn’t see certain moments coming, even though it was obvious. We were both like, “Really?! Are you serious?! How could you NOT see that coming?!” Just don’t go in expecting the awesomeness of THE DARK KNIGHT, IRONMAN, or THE MUPPET MOVIE.
See? If you release a holiday-themed movie on the weekend of the holiday, it can do well. The producers of the Halloween movies should learn from that. I mean, really, August? For a Halloween movie? Really?
Seems like everyone who saw it says it is at least decent. Probably not something I’d ever watch in a theatre, but maybe I’ll pick it up on DVD eventually (as a rental of course)