CRASH looks solid and is from the great studio Lions Gate. But the best thing about it is that in front of it will be the trailer for HIGH TENSION! \:D/ That's almost enough to make me want to see it in theaters.

Eh. Pretty empty theatre for a 4.30 showing of Interpreter. Only 45 people about. It also was spread out, only about 5 veiwing times every three to four hours, rather than Hustle, which I wasn't in the theatre, but did notice a double screen. It was playing closer to every two hours. That means nothing though, as theatres in New York know the per/theatre average is going to be high for Hustle and jumped on the bandwagon. I don't know how many people were actually buying tickets though.

BTW, that was 45 people with bad weather, if that at all makes a difference?

I will be seeing The Interpreter at 9:35 or 9:50 hopefully.

I am not going to see Crash I am seeing House of Wax.

this is typical for this type of movie...the main audience is college and teens..everyone is at school or work, this type of movie never does well friday afternoon

I'll be happy with 3M Friday for Kung Fu Hustle. It should have a fine multiplier as well.

Are you sure? This seems kinda frontloaded to me. That's how Hero was.

Yeah, but Hero sucked.... that's why it had short legs. It also is the third highest grossing import ever...so legs or front-loaded, I'm sure its not complaining.

Hero was definitely a movie that people would rush to.

Kung-Fu Hustle isn't a movie that people are going to rush out to see. Especially since it's rated R.

I think it's like Team America, which people rushed out for. This movie has a limited audience that seems like it would be a Friday movie.

Quite different from Hero, IMO. That's marketed as Tarentino and Jet Li action movie. This is more like House of Flying Daggers, although still has many different aspects, and that had a IM of 3.56. I don't expect Kung Fu Hustle's IM to be that high, since HOFD had more weeks of limited release and thus the rush factor was spreaded out, but Hustle's first two weeks of limited release should help to reduce the frontloadness of today.

But Team America's reviews weren't nearly as solid as this one, and I think that the audience was much more liberal then the film. Not to mention that this has much better WOM, whereas I think some people simply didn't "get" Team America at all.

WOM doesn't usually determine an internal weekend multiplier. I'm not talking about its future legs.

Oh, gotcha. Well I dunno, Team America seemed to be an almost exclusively college movie (it had younger appeal but also a HARD R rating), whereas this seems to have much more appeal to adults thanks to the great reviews.

the only problem with more New York theatres playing Kung Fu Hustle is that, like House of Flying Daggers, the nice per-theatre average of $35-40k in three theatres is going to be spread more thinly and without New York/LA theatres offering the sellouts that helps bring up the per-theatre averages of smaller suburbs/towns where it might not do so well, it's not going to be able to have a per-theatre average close to Hero. (And the point about Hero being PG-13 with Jet Li and Tarantino's name attached is a big deal too)

I want to know what the three target city numbers are like? If they'll be dramatically less than Hustle has performed in LA/NY.

BTW guys, my Interpreter review is up at critics forum. I have to say the response from the crown was decent but not too excited. 4.30 showing though. Mix of youth and adults.

The Interpreter
9:50PM show, 500 seats, 90% Full

Trailers
Must Love Dogs (no reaction)
The Perfect Guy (no reaction)
Bewitched (laughs)
Red Eye (whispering)
Kingdom of Heaven (silence)
Crash (nothin')

Movie
The Interpreter was a solid thriller. Great plot, great performances, great scenes; what else could you ask for? How about a movie that isn't so easy to predict. I was hoping for a thriller that would keep me guessing until the end, and still surprise me. But, no. Into the first twenty minutes of the film, I was able to predict everything that would happen in the end. This was The Interpreter's only flaw. Ironically, it was the only flaw of The Manchurian Candidate as well. But, it was still a good movie. The "bus" scene was literally heart-pounding. There were some tense scenes as well that kept you on the edge of your seat. Kidman's performance was top-notch. Penn's performance was good, but it didn't blow me away. The ending was good, sure, but I do wish I couldn't have guessed it so quickly. A solid film, though. Recommended. B

KUNG FU HUSTLE
7:45pm at Kentucky Theater
60% full

Trailers: Millions, Gunner Palace, Bride & Prejudice

Crowd Reaction: They LOVED it! A lot of laughs from beginning to end. I really liked it as well. Very enjoyable. I'd give it a 7/10 ( B )

Hey Thompson, how big was the crowd for KUNG FU HUSTLE?

I'd say there were about 240 people in a 400 seat theater. It was a sizable crowd. Bigger than the one for BRIDGET JONES 2, which played at this theater.

Kung Fu Hustle
AMC Mission Valley 20
5:10, 500 seater, about 25 people in the theatre... Not very surprising

I missed the trailers, me and my friend just walked in when the movie started. The movie was fun as hell, loved it. I'm very surprised I'm actually giving this an A, but I guess so... The film is a lot funner than Shaolin Soccer which I loved as well.
Most of the audience laughed a lot, they seemed to enjoy it.

FEVER PITCH - 7/10 (B-)

It was "cute." Nothing more, nothing less. Really solid and enjoyable, but not original or anything. I had a nice time. I was thinking about maybe giving it a B, but was closer to the B- and that was what I originally planned on giving it during the movie and after it. It didn't deserve the A it got from Entertainment Weekly. It's hardly one of the best romantic comedies. This is not Kissing Jessica Stein or When Harry Met Sally. Those are some of the best examples of the genre for me.

Anyway, like 15 minutes into the movie it fucked up and froze and they had to shut it down so we sat and waited for a half an hour. My brother wanted to go but I said just wait since they didn't come in and say to go home yet because they couldn't fix it. This is like the only theater I've ever been to where a movie has screwed up. It's happened at least three times, and it happened three times during BLACK HAWK DOWN alone . That's my local junk theater for ya, which is why I hardly go there. Two people did end up leaving right before the movie ended up coming back on though. And then after they fixed it they forgot to shut the lights off so the lights were on during for most of the movie then.

We had to miss the trailers because they only had one person working concessions and there were lines on each side so he had to do one person and then go to the other side and do one of those people and then come back, etc... So, my brother got his pop, then the guy went to the other side and waited on someone over there. Then he came back to me. Well, we waited in line like 15 fucking minutes. By the time we got to go in it was 10 minutes after it was scheduled to start. We came in at the end of that short cartoon thing and then the movie started. I wanted to see trailers damn it! They should have given us a discount :razz:.

There was like 10 people at the 9:00 of Fever Pitch. That's not horrible for the third weekend of a movie at this theater. It's not in a big city or town, it's in a smaller town that has three movies playing at a time, so you can't expect much. There was an annoying group of teens in front of us who kept rocking their seats. Actually, we got there and nobody was sitting in front of us. But during the movie a couple comes in and sits in front of us and their heads were in the way. So I had my brother move down a couple of seats and then there was nobody in front of us. Then two more people come and sit in front of us there so we had to move again :razz:. He actually could see the second time but the person in front of me had big hair so I couldn't .

Anyway, the teens were loud and talking and playing with their cell phones and stuff. When the movie messed up the one girl was like, "Let's just leave" and I was thinking, "Please, please do!" They didn't though, sadly.


Anyway, the movie was "nice." The ending was the best part of it. I thought that was cute. Drew helps make the movie as good as it can be. She's cute as always.

I love reading you theater stories Mike :wink:

Thanks

Mind if I say "I told ya so?" :wink: Anyways, I saw the Interpreter tonight at 8:45 PM at the Century Cedar Hills 16. We got in just as the trailers were starting, and man, it was PACKED. I was only with my girlfriend but we had to sit all the way up in the fourth row. I think it was a 400-500 seater, and by the end there were some people that were sitting in the empty wheelchair spots. Totally different then the Yahoo reports indicated before I left (afterwards, well major spin zone, saved my derby). Anyway, the trailers were:

Cinderella Man (Silence)
The Perfect Man (Some chuckling at the end line, but a lot of people were saying "That's NOT funny, it's homophobic stereotyping." and it shut the crowd up realll fast. Since I was out in my gf's very liberal part of town, it's not surprising though)
Bewitched (Decent laughing, but a lot less then I expected. I thought the dog bit was by far the funniest part, but it was the scene that got the least laughter. :???:)
War of the Worlds (Chatter, but nothing amazing)
Kingdom of Heaven (The music worked a lot better in the theater then on my computer, and the crowd really seemed to eat it up, I heard tons of excited talking afterwards)

Anyways, the movie was very well made, by and large most political thrillers are (xXx: State of the Union miiiight not continue that trend though... ). However, I thought the dialogue between Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman was rather stagy, and the ending... well, I won't get into details for obvious reasons, (EXTREMELY mild spoilers) but there were more plot holes then a piece of swiss cheese (which the ending also had a lot of too)[/end mild spoilers]. Penn was very good and subdued, and for once I thought that Kidman wasn't terribly annoying. Don't get me wrong, she can be a fine actress when she wants to be, but I still have yet to see what all the fuss is about, and she always seems to just play the same two roles. If she doesn't cry throughout the movie, she's very cold emotionally. Though technically one could argue this role doesn't entirely branch out from her usual ones, as said it was a solid role.
While the movie was well shot, and like most any political thriller very suspenseful with the build up to the eventual climax in a number of scenes, I also felt it was rather handicapped by a trailer that's essentially a cliff notes version of the film. Every little scene up till the ending I knew almost exactly what would happen, and that's not a plus for a politcal thriller. But overall, despite considerable flaws in the plot, a crummy ending post-climax, and a nasty case of predictability, the film's pros outweighed the cons, and I'd agree with Zingaling that it's a solid, if unspectactular, B.