Wednesday, June 30, 2010

TEAM WHO CARES: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is now officially the highest grossing movie from midnight showings ever, having picked up more than $30 million last night (and another $2.8M from the Twilight and New Moon showings some theatres offered), with attendees including Sen. Amy Klobuchar . With reviews more favorable than the prior two installments and a fanbase comprised in no small part of younger folks who might not have been awake for a midnight showing, this could make a run at the Dark Knight record.

25 comments:

  1. It won't, because teen boys determining moviegoing more than teen girls.  Also, am I correct that while there's an IMAX version, there's no 3-D? 

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  2. Watts4:43 PM

    Not if this guy has anything to say about it: http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12-6-motion-captured/posts/the-m-c-review-the-twilight-saga-eclipse  Love this paragraph:

    "I love women. I love all sorts of women. And because I love real women, actual flesh and blood human being that happen to have a slightly different arrangement of chromosomes than I do, I despise these movies. I hate them for what they offer up as a value system. I hate them because there are girls who mistake their own chemical response to the male leads in the movie as an actual affection for the story that's being told. They invest on the surface level, and in the meantime, there is this poisonous cancer, this vile insidious message that's being sold to them underneath. I hate these movies because they tell girls that this is their value in the world. Who you bang defines you. You are worth your vagina and nothing more. You are who your man is. That
    is all."

    Granted, I haven't seen the movies, but I read enough of the books to agree with his opinion of the basic storyline.

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  3. Team Katniss!

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  4. bill.5:21 PM

    All those late nights hoarding toilet paper and making toast...wasted. Sad face.

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  5. I imagine this record will be shattered when Harry Potter 7 comes out.

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  6. spacewoman5:38 PM

    There's definitely an IMAX version.  I know because I was treated to the trailer, in all its werewolves-killing-vampires-killing-werewolves terrifying glory, as a preview before the kid-friendly IMAX movie Hubble at the San Jose Tech Museum last weekend.  While sitting with a 4 year old astronomy buff.  Thanks for that, IMAX!  PS It sucked. 

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  7. bella wilfer5:40 PM

    I eagerly await the discussion thread that I hope will be posted here as soon as Mockingjay is on shelves!

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  8. GracieGirl6:03 PM

    Seconded! 

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  9. lisased6:08 PM

    Thirded!

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  10. lisased6:08 PM

    I pray.

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  11. So, guessing I need to read these.

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  12. Jenn.6:12 PM

    I flatly refuse to read these books.  I seem to recall a pretty fabulous blog post from Leo (I think?) about them, and frankly, that was plenty for me.

    I think that makes me Team Harry Potter?

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  13. Jenn.6:21 PM

    Just to clarify, I meant Twilight.

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  14. bella wilfer6:31 PM

    Jenn, you should TOTALLY read Hunger Games and the sequel in prep for the third one coming out (and you should too, Matt).  They are as awesome as Twilight is awful.  Though I must say I actually enjoyed Breaking Dawn after hating the first three b/c Bella finally gets vamped (sorry, spoiler) and actually HAS SELF-CONFIDENCE, which is a lovely change from her character in the earlier books. 

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  15. The other thing that's going to help it is that there's literally no competition.  Last Airbender is getting pretty widely reamed, and folks looking for a movie over the holiday weekend don't have a ton of other options (Grown Ups?  Knight And Day?)

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  16. bill.6:57 PM

    Leo's Breaking Dawn: The Worst Ending Since Pretty in Pink. Haven't seen her around in awhile.

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  17. calliekl7:14 PM

    I saw it last night and thought it was the best of the series. So there, Twi-haters! And for the record, I find Harry Potter way scarier than the Twilight movies- way fewer giant spiders, for example.

    It wasn't a midnight showing, but a special pre-screening for Best Buy rewards members. It started at 9, got out at 11, and there was 0 line for the midnight viewing. After that, I was pretty shocked to see it did so well for the midnight viewing overall. I also was not at an IMAX theater, so that prob had something to do with it.

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  18. Stevie7:39 PM

    Fifthed on Mockingjay!

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  19. I'd rather go with Dana Stevens on this one ("<span>But to argue that this passivity makes Bella a weak character or a bad role model for young girl, is to misapprehend the function of the Twilight universe. WhatTwilight has to offer its fans is not the wholesome noonday sun of feminism but the sick, weird moonlight of actual desire.").  </span>

    <span>At least I wouldn't be so condescending as to posit that girls who like Twilight -- something that they do apparently without any adult intervention -- are completely brainwashed and unable to appreciate or negotiate their own desires.  </span>

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  20. And, just to make sure I don't lose any of Jenn.'s esteem (if any), Katniss is the protagonist of The Hunger Games, not anyone from Twilight.  

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  21. See, the problem is the current generation of teenage girls are too young to remember Kelly Taylor's inspirational "I choose me" moment.

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  22. Heather K9:29 AM

    Me too!!  (Although the Team Heathcliff t-shirts are more my style)

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  23. bristlesage9:42 AM

    Like everyone excited for Mockingjay, I'm also thrilled with a series called Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness.  The third one of those is due out late September in the States; I'd love to hear what Thing Throwers think of the series.  First book is The Knife of Never Letting Go, second is The Ask and the Answer.

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  24. The recent New Yorker piece on Young Adult Dystopias cited "...Knife..." as the best of the crop.  I picked it up, and paged through it, and wondered whether I would be able to stomach the dialect in which it's written for a whole book/series.  Does it become less jarring?

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