May 7th, 2013
While there are a lot of new releases listed on Amazon.com, it isn't long before you run into filler. Worse still, the top two selling movies, Jack Reacher and Save Haven, are just mediocre movies. The Great Escape is coming out on Blu-ray this week, which would normally be a reason to celebrate. However, a lot of reviewers are complaining about the poor video quality. The film needed, and deserves, a full restoration, but that didn't happen. We need to look further down the list to find a Pick of the Week contender, and we find one in 30 Rock: Season Seven.
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May 7th, 2013
This movie came out during the height of the Bennifer backlash. Gigli did so poorly with critics and moviegoers that a lot of people were prejudging this film as soon as it was announced. It earned three Razzie nominations; however, Raquel Castro won a Young Artist Award for her performance in the film. Now that the mess surrounding the film is nearly a decade in the past, is it worth checking out? Or would it have failed under the best of circumstances?
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November 10th, 2004
It's a rare feat for a non-Hollywood film to top the international charts, but that's just what the German spoof, Seven Dwarfs, did this week. Playing in just three markets the film took in $10.6 million on under 1,000 screens. In its home market of Germany the film eased just 19% to $9.2 million; the result was not quite as good in Austria where it dropped a respectable 30% to $915,000, but it was in Switzerland where it shined -
increasing 4% to $500,000. Overall the film has now made $29.0 million so far but the real test comes with increased competition from holiday fare and the ability to find an audience in non-German speaking markets.
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September 6th, 2004
Every week films get a second chance at success from the home market; or, in some cases, a first chance at success. Here is a list of wide releases, limited releases and a few from the growing TV on DVD section, including the winner of the DVD Pick of the Week, which we will get to shortly. But first I must comment on the sheer number of quality DVDs that are being released this week. It is ridiculous. I would rate more than a dozen DVDs being released tomorrow has must haves, but obviously I can't declare them all the DVD Pick of the Week, so I've narrowed the list to The
Alfred Hitchcock Signature Collection -
Buy from Amazon,
Clerks - 10th Anniversary Edition -
Buy from Amazon and Ginger Snaps Back - The Beginning -
Buy from Amazon. Although my personal shopping list is four times as long.
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April 8th, 2004
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. This week saw a deceptively poor crop of site as there were a lot of movie site launched / updated / released, more than 30 in fact. However, very few of them even came close to the being considered for this week's award. It's so bad I've spent the last 3 hours looking for a gem of movie site that I may have missed in previous weeks. In the end it was
Kill Bill: Volume 2 -
Official Site that won the award with only one or two other that were even briefly considered. If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.
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March 29th, 2004
There were a few of surprises this week, some good and some bad. This bag of mixed blessings helped the box office to a flat week-to-week result, moving up of less than $10,000 or 0.007%. Continued weakness this time last year helped 2004 shoot up by 14% but the year-to-date figurers are still only 6% above 2003. Weak mid-week numbers have prevented 2004 from putting real distance between it and 2003.
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March 26th, 2004
Four movies open wide this weekend, or maybe it would be more accurate to say one and three halves as only one film opens in more than 1,600 theatres. This makes the race for top spot not so tough to predict, but the rest of the top ten is wide open. The three smaller openings are hoping for strong word of mouth, but as last week's soft debut for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind tells us, that's a risky bet.
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March 25th, 2004
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 the winner for the week,
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban -
Official Site . If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.
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February 26th, 2004
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 the winner for the week,
Dawn of the Dead -
Official Site . If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.
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February 20th, 2004
A quiet week for movie release date announcements.
But we do have news on Jersey Girl,
Closer, and a few limited releases.
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January 15th, 2004
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. Here the list of new releases, updated sites, and some upcoming releases that slipped through the cracks, including the winner for the week
Barber Shop 2 -
Official Site . If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.
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January 8th, 2004
During the past week promotional websites for several movies were launched and some older ones added additional content. This week we have a larger list to make up for the holidays, but a winter storm took out my internet access on Tuesday / Wednesday so the column is a little late today. Here the list of new releases, updated sites, and some upcoming releases that slipped through the cracks, including the winner for the week Along Came Polly - Official Site . If you know of any new movie websites not on this list feel free to e-mail me with the details.
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September 3rd, 2003
