March 11th, 2015
It's a short list this week for two reasons. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1's DVD and Blu-ray Combo Pack came out on Friday and this scared away the competition. This is also partially due to the fact that I'm dealing with what is clearly an alien disease. Friends came over on Saturday and one of them must have been infectious, because on Sunday my mouth tasted like salt. I Googled reasons why that could happen (never a good idea) and it turns out it could be from an infection. I used some Listerine to get rid of whatever bacteria was causing it, but the salty taste overpowered the flavor of the Listerine. That tells you how strong the salty taste was. The next day, the salty taste wasn't as bad, but my throat was killing me. I figured it was Strep throat. The next day, the salty taste was gone, my throat felt fine, but my sinuses were so clogged that the sinus pressure was making my teeth hurt. The next day, the sinus pressure was down dramatically, but I had sneezing attacks ever few minutes, including while I was trying to sleep. Today, the sneezing isn't as bad, but I have a bad cough and it feels like I broke a rib while sneezing. Clearly this isn't a normal cold, but instead I believe I am the subject of an alien experiment. Regardless, the best new release of the week is The Legend of Korra: Book Four: Balance and the DVD or Blu-ray is absolutely worth picking up. However, the best release on this week's list is The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. I finally got to the review of the Blu-ray Combo Pack and it is the Pick of the Week.
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March 9th, 2015
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya earned 100% positive reviews and picked up an Oscar nomination. On the other hand, it only managed $1.5 million in limited release, so it wasn't a big enough film to win on Oscar night. Should the film earn a wider audience? Or is the movie aimed more at critics than the average moviegoer?
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March 8th, 2015
The top four films on this week's Blu-ray sales chart and nine of the top twenty were new releases. The number one release was Game of Thrones: Season Four, which sold 286,000 units and generated $9.98 million in sales. Its opening week Blu-ray share was 54%, which is incredible compared to the average TV on DVD release. Then again, Game of Thrones isn't the average TV show.
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March 4th, 2015
The winners of our You Need to Focus to Win contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for Focus opening weekend were...
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February 23rd, 2015
Big Hero 6 just won the Oscar, which is great timing, as it hits the home market this Tuesday. Many were surprised that the film won. Should they be? Is this really the best animated film of the year?
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February 20th, 2015
Next weekend, Focus will dominate The Lazarus Effect at the box office. As such, it is the only real choice for the target film in this week's box office prediction contest. In order to win, one must simply predict the opening weekend box office number for Focus.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going over, will win a copy of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya on Blu-ray.
Whoever comes the closest to predicting the film's opening 3-day weekend box office (Friday to Sunday), without going under, will also win a copy of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya on Blu-ray.
Entries must be received by 10 a.m., Pacific Time on Friday to be eligible, so don't delay!
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February 19th, 2015
The winners of our Sticky Situation contest were determined and the entrants with the closest predictions for Fifty Shades of Grey opening weekend were...
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February 16th, 2015
This is the best week on the home market in a long time. Game of Thrones is one of the best TV shows on at the moment, if not the best TV show, and its DVD and Blu-ray is Pick of the Week material. Additionally, there are a few potential Oscar winners hitting the home market this week as well. On the down side, there is not a lot of depth. Birdman, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, and The Theory of Everything are all up for Oscars next weekend and all of them are worth picking up. Life Itself was snubbed by Oscar voters, but it too is a must have. However, in the end, I went with Game of Thrones for Pick of the Week.
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February 4th, 2015
With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at Best Feature-Length Animated Film. For a while, it looked like The LEGO Movie would be the favorite to win the Oscar, then it wasn't even nominated. Because of that, it is a little hard to know what will happen going forward. There is one film that looks to be the favorite, but that was true before the nominations and nearly every expert got it wrong before.
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January 17th, 2015
The Oscar nominations were announced early in the morning, when all sensible people were asleep. There were some surprises, as well as some results that would have been surprises had it not been for the previous Awards Season nominations. Seventeen films earned two or more nods, led by Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel, both of which picked up nine nominations, while The Imitation Game was right behind with eight.
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October 21st, 2014
Birdman debuted in first place on the Per Theater Chart with an amazing average of $106,099. This is the best per theater average since The Grand Budapest Hotel opened with just over $200,000 for its per theater average. It wasn't the only film in the $10,000 club, as Dear White People opened with an average of $31,633 in eleven theaters. The Tale of Princess Kaguya was surprisingly strong during its opening weekend earning an average of $18,305 in three theaters. God the Father earned $15,037 in one theater. The final film in the $10,000 club was Listen Up Philip, which earned an average of $11,642 in two theaters. Diplomacy might have made it in the $10,000 club if it opened on Friday. However, it opened on Wednesday earning $8,518 in one theater over the weekend for a total opening of $12,750.
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October 19th, 2014
Fury will top the box office chart this weekend with a solid, but unspectacular, $23.5 million, according to Sony’s Sunday morning estimate. Pre-weekend projections had the film closer to $30 million, and with an $80 million price tag, and Brad Pitt starring, the film is really underperforming at this point. By way of comparison, Gone Girl opened with $37.5 million three weeks ago. Fury will need really good legs, or a really strong performance overseas, to post a profit.
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October 17th, 2014
It's an excellent week for limited releases with several films earning overwhelmingly positive reviews. This includes a couple that are also earning really loud buzz. Of these, Birdman is probably going to win the weekend race on the Per Theater Chart, while Dear White People should also be a hit. Diplomacy, Housebound, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, and others also deserve to find audiences, but not all will do so for various reasons (wrong genre, opening in Video on Demand, etc.).
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