Category Archives: Jack_Poessiger
Jack Goes Confidential:’HORRIBLE BOSSES’— So Wrong. So FUNNY!
Is this what THE HANGOVER 2 could’ve/should’ve been?
HORRIBLE BOSSES is on a laugh out loud level! Let’s just say that if your boss is a slave driving, incompetent, crazy psycho HORRIBLE BOSSES is your kinda movie.
And if your boss is sane, caring and warm, you may appreciate this raunch-filled comedy even more!
New Jack City: Better Get Your Popcorn Refills; Summer Isn’t Done!
At summer movies’ midpoint we’ve pretty well seen what Hollywood considers to be its ‘tentpole’ offerings…
With one exception.
The tentpole season began with Vin Diesel’s FAST FIVE which led into THOR, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES, THE HANGOVER 2, KUNG-FU PANDA 2, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, CARS 2 and TRANSFORMERS: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON.
And let’s not forget producer Judd Apatow‘s bone fide summer sleeper- BRIDESMAIDS, written by and starring Kristen Wigg. It overcame its total chick-flick title to build and sustain by great word-of-mouth.
So is your movie summer all but history?
Not by a long shot! I’ve counted 18 new movies yet to open from the major studios by Labor Day.
And that’s not including independent releases. To my way of thinking 10 of them will have a good to excellent chance to hit at the boxoffice. Two of them in blockbuster fashion.
So here they are:
New Jack City: Jack’s Best (if Questionable) Movie Bets at the Holiday Weekend Boxoffice!
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Thinking of taking in a movie this long holiday weekend?
Here are Two-To-Disappoint!
(Movies that didn’t live up to expectations.)
The first is the new Tom Hanks produced, directed and co-written romantic comedy LARRY CROWNE that has him starring as a mid-level manager who unexpectably gets blown out at a large U-Mart big box store.
WHY?
Jack Goes Confidential: Transformers: Dark of the Moon One Hell of a Popcorn Ride!
A reporter asked director Michael Bay about the budget for TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON.
Was it $350 Million, $400 Million? Bay wouldn’t say. Offering only that the cost of TRANSFORMERS 3 was the price of a movie ticket. Whatever—it’s all UP there now on the big screen!
Welcome to Paramount’s version of a trip through Toys ‘R’ Us
New Jack City: Is 3-D Ripoff To Moviegoers? Michael Bay Takes Stand!
Here’s how that diminishes 3-D!
If the bulb is turned back in its output while darkened 3-D glasses are worn by viewers, the entire 3-D presentation can look faded, limp and far below the standard the filmmakers intented.
Fast forward to TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON opening later this week which was filmed in true 3-D —NOT converted! It’s 3-D is top notch and compares favorably to AVATAR!
Jack Goes Confidential: CARS 2 an Action Packed Journey w/ Potholes & Detours!
Fasten your seatbelts! You’re not in Radiator Springs anymore!
In CARS 2, Disney’s Pixar Animation unleashes a clever and very busy case of mistaken identity as spunky race car Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) and his tow-truck buddy Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) head to capitals around the globe to compete in the World Grand Prix. To once and for all determine who’s the fastest car on the planet.
But the road to the finish line is filled with plenty of potholes—not to mention intrigue and espionage.
Yes folks, director John Lasseter has turned the Cars franchise into a spy thriller on wheels!
Who would’ve seen it coming?
New Jack City: SPICE RADIO Talks Dirty, Strokes Listeners!
SPICE RADIO‘s dubious slogan promises, "Where The Audience Comes First."
They’re not kidding!
The free SiriusXM subscription that came with my new Mercedes expired just a few days before Howard Stern‘s contract ran out. But after he renewed, I renewed.
Then came a notice that there would be a channel shuffle of stations and new ones added. So the other evening I really checked it all out.
That’s when I came upon SPICE RADIO, complete with its adult stories, language and reality & X-rated phone calls, which tops Playboy‘s radio channel by a country mile!
New Jack City: AMC Ends Reserved Seating @ Town Center, Drops Food Req
AMC Theatres is bidding adieu to the reserved seating experiment at its Town Center 20!
Company spokesperson Ryan Noonan confirmed that the Kansas City-based theater circuit will be phasing out the reserved seating-only policy at the South Leawood theater by July 22nd.
"We will be advising our guests of the pending policy change prior to the switchover date through in-theater informational postings," Noonan says.
During the experiment, theater patrons paid a mandatory ticket premium for guaranteed reserved seats, something that many moviegoers enjoyed—especially on busy weekend nights. However, evidently there weren’t enough of them to sustain the policy for the long term causing AMC to kill the program off.
Jack Goes Confidential: ‘Green Lantern’ Delivers Fun, Summer, 3-D Popcorn Ride!
Hollywood’s going green this weekend…
By breathing new life into DC Comics’ good old GREEN LANTERN! The question is, whether Warner Brothers can elevate the film above its geeky fanboy base?
My hunch?
They succeed, even though this comic book action adventure is squarly targeted to male teens and the early 20’s crowd.
New Jack City: Tracy Morgan Rant Fuels Firestorm & Apology!
Did another comedian just crash and burn? Sure sounds like it!
Industry insider Web site Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood reports that about five years after Seinfeld star Michael Richard‘s racist rant at the Laugh Factory, 30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan has come under fire for bashing gay people.
There’s no videoof Morgan’s rant available (yet), but Deadline Hollywood today reported that in his stand-up routine last weekend in Nashville Morgan said, "All this gay shit is crazy and that women are a gift from god and that Born This Way is bullshit."
Jack Goes Confidential: J.J. Abrams Serves Up Spielberg Magic in ‘SUPER 8’
Here’s a movie quiz!
What does BRIDESMAIDS have in common with SUPER 8?
Answer: An unremarkable title that could work against the film’s success, that’s what.
Case-in-point, BRIDESMAIDS advance tracking by Hollywood research firms was pretty unimpressive. The title sounded total chick flick and the want-to-see factor by males was almost non-existent. It wasn’t until after the movie opened and received great word-of-mouth that it became a major hit!
The same could hold true for SUPER 8.
New Jack City: The Sorry State of Movie Funding in Hollywood
With much of movie production financing sources dried up, Hollywood’s been turning increasingly to sure bets.
In other words SEQUELS!
Network television by comparison has cut way back on filmed entertainment shows which can cost up to $2.5 million per episode. Opting instead for those cheap-to-produce, dreadful reality, amateur talent and cheesy dance shows with price tags at a mere fraction.
Think in the neighborhood of $250K for today’s TV reality fluff.
Jack Goes Confidential: New X-MEN Movie Reboots and Surprises!
Naysayers who’d all but written off the X-Men series will be re-evaluating it after 20th Centry-Fox’s newest entry in the franchise!
Producer/writer Bryan Singer wisely followed J.J. Abram’s STAR TREK example by taking the storyline to its beginning– the turbulant 60’s, the Cuban missle crisis and Cold War paranoia!
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS is set against those global events at a time before Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr took the names of Professor X and Magneto—and to when they first discovered their powers!
New Jack City: ‘HANGOVER II’ Steamrolls Into Holiday Weekend!
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I know you’re getting tired of me bringing up THE HANGOVER PART II, but allow me one more fascinating stat that just came to my attention.
Yesterday’s total North American opening day boxoffice gross for the comedy—including the 12:01 a.m. midnight shows—was an amazing $31.7 million.
The film now ranks as the # 3 ‘Thursday opening’ of ALL time!
"HANGOVER II" was only beaten by two previous Thursday-opening blockbusters; STAR WARS—EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH which produced an initial $50 million and THE MATRIX RELOADED that sold $42.5 worth of tickets its first Thursday.
Not bad company to be in!
New Jack City: Wild Bangkok Sidetrip Sets New Record At Midnight!
Just out of the gate, THE HANGOVER PART II has already broken all records with its FIRST showings!
The anxiously awaited sequel premiered with midnight showings at some 2600 north American theatre locations to an incredible $10.4 million!
And that my friends is a new all time midnight show record for an R-rated film!
The previous R-rated midnight record holder was last year’s PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 which collected $6 million at the bewitching hour.
Jack Goes Confidential: ‘HANGOVER’ Reboot Sticks To Formula—Delivers Basics!
I’m going to be totally honest!
There’s no way they could’ve improved on the original HANGOVER which became the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time! Who would’ve foreseen a worldwide theatrical gross of $467 million back in 2009? After all, any follow-up would lose some its freshness, originality and unexpected shock factor.
But I’m here to tell you that HANGOVER PART II comes surprisingly close!
NEW JACK CITY: The End of the Line for Newspaper Movie Ads in the Star?
With the recent dismissal of longtime Kansas City Star movie critic Robert Butler, it got me thinking about the newspaper’s glory days with the film industry…
After all, Kansas City is one of the best per capita moviegoing markets in the country.
Industry insiders claim it’s about 25% above the national average. And up until a few years ago the Star’s movie ad pages were a feast for entertainment seeking eyes! Especially beginning in early May when the summer blockbusters began to open.
No mas…
Jack Goes Confidential: ‘PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4’ Exceeds Expectations!
I’ve got to be honest and admit I approached # 4 in Disney’s ‘PIRATES’ franchise with apprehension.
It’s no secret that Johnny Depp’s 3rd outing PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END four years back disappointed many fans. Though financially it was hugely successful.
So how to rectify the sitation?
Jack Goes Confidential: Crude and Raunchy ‘BRIDESMAIDS’—A BLAST!
Most comedies headlined by Saturday Night Live cast members might have made a good seven minute sketch.
But streched into a 2 hour-long movie they’ve often faded into a drawn-out abyss of failure, the laughs giving way to embarassingly long jibberish.
That’s NOT the case with BRIDESMAIDS!
Thanks to its producer Judd Apatow ( 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up) this one doesn’t fall into the SNL trap.
The comedy’s opening scene alone is a wild and dirty romp between the sheets that had me craving a cigarette by the time it was over.
You’d swear it came straight from one of Craig Glazer’s fabled adventures…
NEW JACK CITY: Five Artsy Alternatives to Early Summer Tentpole Movies
With Hollywood’s recent onslaught of summer blockbusters and major tentpole productions, you’d think serious moviegoers were just plain out of luck…
Face it, FAST FIVE, THOR, this week’s BRIDESMAIDS, next week’s PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES, HANGOVER 2 on May 26 and X-MEN: FIRST CLASS set for June 3 aren’t exactly shooting for Oscars!
But several smaller films of interest will be filling the void for those seeking more than the annual early summer popcorn onslaught.
Like this weekend when Will Ferrell steps out of his usual laff-a-minute schtick in favor of the more bittersweet side of life. It’s called EVERYTHING MUST GO and has him playing an alcoholic salesman who gets fired from his job and locked out of his home by his wife only to find his possessions dumped on the front lawn—where he now proceeds to live.
