March 10th, 2009
First run releases let us down again, as the best they can offer is a couple of midlevel hits. There are a few more in the limited release category, including some Awards Season players. However, from that list the best is Let the Right One In on Blu-ray. The best release overall, and the winner of the DVD Pick of the Week is Pinocchio on Blu-ray.
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January 23rd, 2007
Business is starting to pick up again for DVD releases. It's still not up to the level of the pre-Christmas boom, or even the yearly average, but at least it's not a desolate wasteland either. There were a couple releases that were contenders for DVD Pick of the Week, but in the end I went with This Film is Not Yet Rated - Buy from Amazon, but since I work in the industry, at least tangentially, my enjoyment of the movie may have been increased somewhat.
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December 19th, 2006
Dreamgirls set a new record per theater average for a live action film over the weekend by pulling in $380,000 in three movie houses for an average of $126,317.
While this is significantly ahead of the previous record holder, Brokeback Mountain, it is important to note that tickets for Dreamgirls were $25, meaning there were 5,000 tickets sold per theater compared to 10,000 for Brokeback.
On a tickets-per-theater average the film is more in line with Sideways or In Good Company, which is still a very good result.
The only other film to crack $10,000 was The Good German at $15,363.
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April 22nd, 2006
Fun with Dick and Jane started its home market run off with a first place, $10.27 million run for the week but was unable to top the DVD sales chart.
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April 16th, 2006
Several films made they international debut this past weekend with even more returning to the charts, but because of the power of
Ice Age: The Meltdown, none of them were able to reach the top five, but a few came close. Leading that list is Jean-Philippe; the
French film debuted in third place in its native home with $3.34 million on 550 screens. It also opened in two other French-speaking markets but was much weaker earning seventh in Switzerland with $62,000 on 12 screens over the weekend and $68,000 in total while in Belgium it managed just ninth with $131,000 on 29 screens over the weekend and $144,000 in total. Add it up and the film pulled in $3.53 million on 591 screens in 3 markets during its first weekend of release.
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April 15th, 2006
Narnia opened in first place on the home market with a lower than expected $8.73 million in rentals, and it did even better on the sales charts. But more on that in a bit.
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April 9th, 2006
With
Ice Age: The Meltdown dominating the international box office, the rest of the charts were weaker than usual with several films in the top 30 this week that would not have charted last week.
Failure to Launch had its best weekend haul on the international scene taking in $4.17 million on 1300 screens in 14 markets for a running tally of $13.61 million. Much of that came from the film's opening in two major markets, the U.K. and Italy. In the former is finished second with $1.88 million on 352 screens while in the latter it managed just fourth with $686,000 on 220 screens. It's best market in total is Germany, despite the fact that it fell out of the top five there; so far the film has pulled in $4.10 million after three weeks there, including $841,000 on 354 screens this weekend.
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April 3rd, 2006
The first Tuesday of the month is usually the busiest when it comes to DVD releases, and while there are certainly more releases coming out tomorrow than there are in the next two weeks, it is not as busy as I would like when it comes to top notch releases. At first glance there are only two that are even contenders for the DVD pick of the week, including
Brokeback Mountain -
Buy from Amazon and
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -
Collector's Edition. But while there are a couple of DVDs that are worth picking up, none make it to the level of DVD Pick of the Week. (And a quick glance at the coming weeks suggest there might not be one till the end of the month.) One last note, if you are interested in picking up
Narnia, check out our
contest first.
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April 2nd, 2006
Two openings in two major markets helped
Hostel climb into sixth place with $4.03 million on 1120 screens in 27 markets for a running tally of $15.42 million. Its best opening was in the U.K. where it debuted in second place with $2.12 million on 304 screens while it struggled in Spain with just $1.01 million on 250. The film has already earned enough to show a profit even after taking into account P&A budget, exhibitor's share, etc. and should be able to double its current international total before its run is over.
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March 22nd, 2006
The Pink Panther repeated on top of the international charts with $12.55 million on 3616 screens in 37 markets and now has $46.68 million in total. This film's biggest market of the weekend was the U.K. where it opened in first place with $3.41 million on 403 screens. It also opened first in Russia with $1.64 million on 265 screens over the weekend and $1.88 million in total and second in New Zealand with $125,000 on 40 screens. Meanwhile, the film was down 39% in Germany to $1.29 million for the weekend and $3.82 million in total.
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March 15th, 2006
A trio of openings in major markets helped
The Pink Panther climb into first place on the international charts with $10.29 million on 3351 screens in 34 markets for a running tally of $31.89 million. That helped the film become only the second film of 2006 to cross $100 million on the worldwide scene. It opened in second place in Germany with $2.05 million on 540 screens while it finished first in Australia with $979,000 on 244 and in Switzerland with $446,000 on 66. The film debuted with $1.4 million on 504 screens in France, while it made $1.16 million on 349 screens during its third weekend in Spain for a total of $6.73 million so far.
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March 14th, 2006
Famed Oscar Bounce failed to materialize this year partially because the
awards were spread out over many difference films and partially because many winners were well into their releases.
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March 8th, 2006
Narnia jumped back into first place with $9.76 million on 1887 screens in 35 markets for an international total of $388.34 million. It was able to top the charts thanks to a first place, $8.92 million debut on 780 screens in Japan, including $2.26 million in previews. The film is now 19th on the all time international charts and 23rd on the
worldwide charts with China left to go.
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March 5th, 2006
The
Oscars were handed out tonight and while there were a handful of multiple winners, no single movie stood out.
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March 5th, 2006
On the weekend before the Oscars are announced,
Brokeback Mountain climbed a couple of spots to sixth with $4.44 million on 1368 screens in 30 markets for an international total of $53.89 million. New openings include Belgium where the filmed debuted in second place with $312,000 on a mere 27 screens for the best per screen average in the market. It wasn't as potent in Poland where it had to settle for fourth place with $194,000 on 40 screens over the weekend and $217,000 in total. The film also benefited from soft in the U.K. where it slipped just 5% to $442,000 on 245 screens for a very impressive total of $15.83 million so far. It was even better during its second weekend in Holland where it rose 1% to $210,000 for the weekend and $562,000 in total.
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March 4th, 2006
There were no big winner at today's
Independent Spirit Awards with several films sharing the awards.
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March 1st, 2006
With the
Oscars less than a week away and our
contest well under way, there's no better time to take a closer look at some of the nominees. Today we'll look at the most prestigious award, Best Picture.
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February 26th, 2006
Casanova opened in several major markets more than doubling its screen count, and that helped it climb to sixth place over the weekend. Its best market was Italy where the film came in third place with $1.05 million on 243 screens over the weekend and $1.14 million in total while it also managed a third place finish during a very close race in Spain with $919,000 on 250 screens. Its other major market debut was the U.K., but there it had to settle for fifth with $959,000 on 351 screens. Overall the film made $5.17 million on 1699 screens in 18 markets for an international total of just $11.68 million so far.
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February 25th, 2006
With the
Oscars just over a week away and our
contest well under way, there's no better time to take a closer look at some of the nominees. Today we'll look at the Best Achievement in
Directing.
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February 19th, 2006
Fun with Dick and Jane added an handful of new markets this week and that allowed the film to remain in sixth place with $6.00 million on 2645 screens in 49 markets for a running tally of $63.30 million. The film opened in first place in Spain with $1.54 million on 316 screens and in the Netherlands with $475,000 on 75 screens over the weekend and $520,000 in total. It took first place in Argentina as well with $136,000 on 48. On the other hand, it had to settle for second place during its debut in Denmark with $319,000 on 45 screens over the weekend and $335,000 in total. Holdovers include the U.K. where the film was down 56% to $699,000 over the weekend and $10.44 million in total and Italy with a 55% decline to $594,000 over the weekend and $4.83 million in total.
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February 19th, 2006
With the
Oscars less than a month away and our
contest well under way, there's no better time to take a closer look at some of the nominees. Today we'll look at the Best Acting Awards.
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February 15th, 2006
With the
Oscars less than a month away and our
contest well under way, there's no better time to take a closer look at some of the nominees. Today we'll look at the Best Supporting Roles for both Actor and Actress.
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February 12th, 2006
Fun with Dick and Jane fell to sixth place with $6.45 million on 2487 screens in 43 markets for an running international total of $53.27 million so far, which is less than half of what it earned domestically. The film opened in Singapore with $450,000 from 30 screens and managed to repeat in first place in Italy with $1.33 million on 314 screens over the weekend and a $3.96 million total after two weeks. Meanwhile in the U.K. the film fell from first to third, but it still earned $1.59 million on 374 screens for a three-week total of $9.34 million.
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February 7th, 2006
With most of the nominations in the more prestigious categories going to smaller films, the famed Oscar bounce is very important this year. However, the first weekend's results were mixed.
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February 7th, 2006
The Writers Guild of America announced its winners over the weekend with Crash taken home the Best Original Screenplay while Brokeback Mountain added yet another win with Best Adapted Screenplay. Finally, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room won for best Documentary.
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February 6th, 2006
For the second weekend a row a critically panned film was able to beat expectations while topping the box office chart.
While most of the rest of the top five missed expectations, it was still a good weekend at the box office.
Granted, at $105 million, the overall box office was down 16.6% from last week, but that can be explained by the Super Bowl weekend.
However, it was up 2.7% from last year, which is much more important.
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February 5th, 2006
Jey Li's latest
Hong Kong production, Fearless, (a.k.a. Huo Yuan Jia) started its international run in sixth place with $7.35 million on 596 screens in 6 markets. The film finished first in four Asian markets including China with $1.39 million, Taiwan with $630,000, Singapore with $605,000 and Malaysia with $590,000. Paradoxically, the film's best market was its home market of Hong Kong, where it had to settle for a close second place with $2.03 million on just 48 screens over the full week. So far there is still no North American release date, but with this start, that should change soon.
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February 3rd, 2006
January saw 2006 start on a positive note and everyone hopes February can continue the winning streak. While the two films opening this weekend don't have box office smash written all over them, and no one film seems as strong as Boogeyman, the overall box office could still top last year's, but it will be a close race.
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January 31st, 2006
Brokeback Mountain again led the list of nominees as with 8 Oscar nods. There were three films with six nominations a piece,
Crash,
Good Night and Good Luck, and
Memoirs of a Geisha, (although for that last one, they were all the less prestigious technical awards.
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January 30th, 2006
Practically every film in the top five was able to beat, or at least meet expectations, and that helped the month end on a strong note.
Overall the weekend box office take was $126 million, up 5.1% from last weekend and more importantly, up 2.2% from last year.
So far 2006 has brought in $662 million, which 1.4% ahead of last year's pace.
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January 29th, 2006
Ang Lee won Best Director at the
Directors Guild of America Awards for his work on
Brokeback Mountain, while
Grizzly Man won for Best
Documentary. Neither award is considered a surprise, which itself is becoming almost a cliche, as there have been almost no surprises this award season so far.
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January 29th, 2006
Producers Guild of America handed out its awards last weekend with
Brokeback Mountain taking Best Theatrical Motion Picture while Animation Motion Picture went to
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Neither result could be described as a shock.
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January 29th, 2006
Late updates have changed some of the results on in
International Top Five this week as My Boss, My Student crushed the competition in
South Korea with $7.59 million on 450 screens over the weekend and $9.31 million in total. This meant that despite
Brokeback Mountain earning a better than initially reported $7.39 million, it was pushed out of the top five and into sixth place.
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January 27th, 2006
Three more films open wide this weekend, but only one of them will crack the 2,000 theater mark.
This means that, while January will likely end on a soft note, there could be an interesting race or two in the top five.
On a side note, this column was unfortunately delayed because I am really, really sick.
How sick am I?
Too sick to come up with a punch line for that joke.
But I am starting to like the taste of NyQuil, if you can imagine.
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January 25th, 2006
Narnia took another tumble this weekend, but without much in the way of competition it was still able to win the international box office race with $13.3 million on 7,067 screens in 48 markets.
So far the film has amassed $342.6 million at the international box office with openings in Hong Kong (this weekend) and Japan (Match 4th), yet to come.
Its best market of the weekend was France where the film added $1.8 million on 820 screens to take its total to $31.6 million after five weeks.
Its best market overall continues to be the U.K. where the film has $73.50 million, including $1.66 million this past weekend.
Worldwide the film now has $615 million, just ahead of The Passion of the Christ's final tally and into 26th place on the All-Time Charts.
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January 24th, 2006
The weekend after the Golden Globe Awards proved to profitable for several of the winners.
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January 24th, 2006
Not one film could reach the $10,000 per theatre average mark this weekend, with Why We Fight coming the closest with $8,929.
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January 23rd, 2006
Nearly every film in the top five beat expectations over the weekend, which helped soften the post-holiday drop-off to just 3.9%, and push the overall box office to $121 million. The weekend was up a massive 23.2% over the same weekend last year.
Year-to-date, 2006 has overtaken 2005 by 2%, which is even more impressive when you remember that 2005 got off to a strong start.
However, as history shows us, it is far too soon to tell how well this year will go.
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January 22nd, 2006
A few more markets helped Fun with Dick and Jane remain flat last weekend at the international box office with $5.25 million on 1,458 screens in 18 markets for an early total of $18.09 million.
Its best market was Mexico where it opened in first place with $1.87 million on 418 screens while in Germany the film added $1.47 million on 478 screens for a two-week total of $4.39 million.
The film's biggest running total still came from Australia, where the film has managed $7.39 million after three weeks, including $710,000 over this past weekend.
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January 20th, 2006
Just the one real wide release this weekend, but there are three other films either opening or expanding into what some might consider a wide release. Only the one film has any shot at the number one spot, and two might not even make the top ten.
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January 18th, 2006
There were three films that topped $10,000 on the Per Theatre Charts this week, and not one of them was a new release.
Cache (Hidden) continued to lead the way earning nearly $120,000 in 10 theatres for a $11,732 average. Not far behind was
Fateless, which dropped less than 15% to $10,805 in its lone theatre. Rounding out the list was
Transamerica, which dropped less than 1% to $10,108 despite increasing its theatre count from 6 to 9.
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January 16th, 2006
Brokeback Mountain was the big winner today at the Golden Globes taking home four of the seven statuettes it was up for. The film is still expanding into more and more theatres, so these awards couldn't have come at a better time.
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January 15th, 2006
The King and the Clown did something most films in
South Korea can't, it showed strong legs. In fact, in grew by 22% to $5.76 million on 369 screens over the weekend and $16.82 million in total.
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January 10th, 2006
Cache (Hidden) shot back to the top of the per theatre charts thanks to a tiny 4.68% decline, as the film earned an average of $13,851 in its 5 theatres.
Second place went to Fateless with $12,680 in its lone theatre, while Brokeback Mountain maintained is per theatre average with $11,856 despite a very healthy growth in its theatre count.
Word of mouth is helping Transamerica, as the film climbed above the $10,000 mark for the first time in a few weeks.
It saw its average grow to $10,191.
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January 6th, 2006
It's guild day today as the
Producers Guild of America nominations were announced this week.
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January 6th, 2006
The
Writers Guild of America announced its nominations this week, and while there are plenty of awards, only three are for theatrical releases.
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January 6th, 2006
Of the 13 awards the Screen Actors Guild will hand out on January 29th, 2006, five will be awarded to theatrical releases. And like past awards nominations,
Brokeback Mountain again led the way, with four in total.
However, this time there were two films close behind as
Crash and
Capote each received three nominations.
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January 3rd, 2006
Match Point was the clear winner on this week's per theatre average charts, as it earned nearly $400,000 in just 8 theatres for an average of $49,824.
The second placed film, The New World, was well back with an average of $19,383 during its first full weekend of release. The Matador, which was the only other new film of the weekend, earned $69,000 in 4 theatres for a per theatre average of $17,275.
Last week's number one film, Cache (Hidden), slipped to fourth place with a still healthy $14,532.
Brokeback Mountain climbed back above the $10,000 market with $3.6 million in 269 theatres for an amazing average of $13,455 during its fourth week of release.
Lastly, Casanova made $400,000 in 37 theatres during its first full weekend of release for an average of $10,963.
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December 28th, 2005
There was just one film in the $10,000 club this was weekend as Cache (Hidden) opened with $57,000 in 5 theatres for a $11,402 per theatre average.
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December 27th, 2005
Christmas wishes went unanswered this year as almost every film missed expectations, some by large margins.
This led to a 14.4% drop-off from last weekend, but more importantly, a 18.0% drop-off from last year.
Granted, the fact that Christmas fell on a Saturday helps explain some of that, but not all. Year-to-date, 2005 is still down 6% from last year and with less than one week left, that's roughly where it will end up.
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December 21st, 2005
Over the next five days a total of eight movies will either open wide or expand wide. With that much competition, there is literally zero chance that all the films will succeed. In fact, chances are none will be able to unseat King Kong as the box office champ. Further complicating the prediction process, there are three groups of releases with two movies opening wide tonight, three more on Friday and three on Sunday. This column will deal with all of them.
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December 20th, 2005
Brokeback Mountain remained in top spot on the per theatre charts despite a massive expansion in its theatre count.
It went from five theatres to 69 while its per theatre average remained amazing at $36,355.
Second place went to The Producers with an average of $25,765 in five theatres, which is a good start, but perhaps not as good as Universal was hoping for.
Memoirs of a Geisha slipped to third with $25,045 in 52 theatres; it's not holding up as well as Brokeback Mountain did, but that's hardly a reason for Sony to be upset.
The overall box office champ, King Kong, came in fourth with an average of $14,050 in its 3,568 theatres.
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December 13th, 2005
Brokeback Mountain was the big winner today as Golden Globe nominations were announced. With seven nods, it led all films, which is an important Oscar indicator.
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December 13th, 2005
Brokeback Mountain had the best per theatre average of the year, and the best for a Live Action film of all time.
The film earned an unbelievable $547,425 in 5 theatres for an average of $109,485.
If that was the only film on this week's chart it would have been an impressive week; however, Memoirs of a Geisha also had a stellar start, earning nearly $700,000 in 8 theatres for an average of $85,313.
Other members of the $10,000 club include the overall box office leader, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with $18,130 and Transamerica, which just manage to earn a spot with $10,686, which was more than 50% lower than last weekend.
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December 9th, 2005
Oscar is clearly the word of the day as four of the seven limited releases on this week's list are obvious Oscar bait. It is unlikely that all will be winners, but all could earn at least one nomination and more than a dozen in total.
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December 8th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Despite being there being two weeks between updates, this was not a very strong week. Sure, there were plenty of websites updated, but not a lot that really stood out as being award worthy. In the end it was
Clerks 2: The Passion of the Clerks -
Official Site that was the best of the bunch and hopefully it will continue to grow and earn that award.
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November 30th, 2005
The Independent Spirit Awards announced the nominations today and
The Squid and the Whale led the way with six nominations, including Best Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and nods in three of the four acting categories.
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November 24th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
The Producers -
Official Site.
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September 15th, 2005
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of this week's releases, a couple of new sites and few updates, including this week's winner,
Cry Wolf -
Official Site.
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