Ocean's 12
9:35 PM 12/25
60 ppl in 250 seater

Trailers:

Constantine
Batman Begins (looks good)
Wedding Crashers

The movie is quite a fun ride. I liked Matt Damon's performance. Perfect movie for a fun night after a really bad evening movie (Darkness)

Grade B+

The theater was absolutely jammed tonight; sold out showings for almost everything (Fockers, Ocean's 12, Spanglish, Polar Express, National Treasure, Phantom of the Opera, Aviator, Fat Albert(!), etc.; the only movie I saw that had yet to sell out was, most appropriately, Lemony Snicket).

Went to see Meet the Fockers at 8:30 but was sold out. Instead opted for the 9:15 show, but sold out again. Then decided on the 8:20 Spanglish, but yes, sold out. We also debated a 9:45 showing of The Aviator, but we decided we didn't really feel like sitting for three hours, and once again, it sold out just as we were up to buy our tickets. Had to wait around till 10:00 for Fockers.

Our showing was also sold out (a 600 seater, I believe). Trailers:

Elektra
Cinderella Man
In Good Company
Be Cool
The Pacifier (I wish they wouldn't)
Hitch
Miss Conegeniality 2

I'll write a little blurb on the film later, but (and to quote many of those witty little reviewers over at Rotten Tomatoes), it was pretty focking lame.

Here is my quickie theater report.

Life Aquatic
4:35 (150 seater) - 35% full.
6:40 (200 seater) - 50% full.
7:35 (250 seater) - 57% full.
9:40 (100 seater) - 78% full.
10:40 (250 seater) - 87% full.
12:40 (100 seater) - 89% full.
Overall, this was not very huge for our theater.

Darkness
4:30 (100 seater) - 83% full.
5:35 (100 seater) - Sold Out.
7:15 (100 seater) - Sold Out.
8:25 (100 seater) - Sold Out.
9:55 (200 seater) - Sold Out.
11:10 (100 seater) - Sold Out.
12:30 (200 seater) - Sold Out.
This was much better than we anticipated.

Fat Albert
3:45 (175 seater) - 66% full.
5:05 (175 seater) - Sold Out.
6:25 (175 seater) - 75% full.
6:25 (150 seater) - 50% full.
7:40 (175 seater) - 83% full.
9:05 (150 seater) - 66% full.
10:20 (175 seater) - 59% full.
12:15 (150 seater) - 16% full.
Not Bad, though paled compared to other movies today.

For the others: Phantom of the Opera rose significantly from Wednesday, and Meet the Fockers Sold Out 9 times in 400 and 600 seaters. Oceans Twelve had some Sold Out shows.

Overall, it was extremely busy. We tripled the business from Christmas Eve. We could see huge multipliers.

that is great news to hear 8) I cant wait to check out the numbers latter today 8)

Personally, I think it all depends on the horror film itself. Neither The Grudge or The Ring needed lots of gore (though both had some fairly disturbing parts... how the hell did they both get PG-13 if Ju-On was R?). Now zombie movies or serial killer flicks, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Cabin Fever, or Dawn of teh Dead really needed that R. Half the fun was seeing the buckets of blood and guts. Those films are never as frightening for me, but often times can be more fun.

See??? I knew that this horror movie DARKNESS would be a surprise and do better than expected for a holiday like Christmas.. I think that goes to show that there just really aren't very good movies out this holiday season when a horror movie does better than the holiday movies..

Ocean's Twelve
10:25
193 seater, about 8% full

Trailers (We missed the first few):
Willy Wonka - Looks worse then I expected. I believe this will be the summer bomb of 2006.
Constantine - Looks good.

The Movie - It had a few bright spots, and some funny moments, but generally, I found it to be uninspired, boring, and bland. The twists are all duds, and the film often proves to be predictable. I don't understand whatsoever what some people were raving about in terms of the style. :? The whole effort came across as a halfhearted attempt to cash in on the original. 4.6/10.

I thought Cabin Fever and TCM were horrible, and Dawn of the Dead was only mildly entertaining. I don't really care for blood and guts. Kill Bill was at least funny with the way it handled it, but generally, I'd be more entertained by art class.

Saw a record three movies in theaters today.

Meet the Fockers: 12:30 PM. 500 seater, looked 80% full. Trailers inlcuded (but weren't limited to, they seemed to go on forever):

Cinderella Man (Yawwwwwn. Looks like a Seabiscuit rip-off, and a poor one at that)
Hitch (HUGE laughs, this is going to be massive)
The Pacificer (See Hitch)
In Good Company (A few laughs early on, then mostly silence, with some buzzing afterwards)
The Longest Yard (Not as strong a reaction as Hitch or Pacifier, but still pretty solid)
The Ring Two (Silence throughout, TONS of talking afterwards)

First off, yeah, the ads really did suck for this one. It was hysterical at times, though it also walked the fine line between funny and groan inducing embarrasment, much like Meet the Parents. Ben Stiller was good as the poor bastard many of us could identify with, and Teri Polo and Blythe Danner were both very charming (I was surprised they were given a fair amount of screen time, from the ads it looked like they were going to be underused). Robert DeNiro essentially has the scowl of disgust down, and both of Stiller's parents were funny, though neither Hoffman of Streisand really amazed. I did love some of Hoffman's antics, but he's always been one of my favorite actors. It's a slightly low, but still decent B.

I then walked into the 2:20 Flight of the Phoenix, albeit 20 minutes late, thus making me miss the trailers and the first 10 minutes. It was about a 200ish seater, and was for the second time, pretty damn full, about 60% so. Maybe Portland just had a lot of interest in seeing the movie. I wrote a little review earlier, but I really liked the movie. I think the marketing just really poorly handled it, it's a cool little flick you guys should all check out. A-

In the evening, I saw a 7:35 showing of... *sigh*, Fat Albert. Hey, I guess someone from the forum needed to see it, right? I arrived a bit late, so the only ad I saw was the second half of Because of Winn-Dixie, which looks absolutely ghastly. The theater was PACKED though. There were barely any seats. Me and my friends had to sit in the very back row (it was one of those stadium seaters where you walked upwards to the seats rather then down them).

Ok, first off, I grew up on the Fat Albert cartoons. That and Kenan Thompson being the funniest thing in SNL in awhile made me end up deciding to check this out (well, that and my friends not having anything better to do). It looked fairly shity, and it was pretty damn bad. But... for some reason, it was really endearing, and the ending was surprisingly touching (SPOILERS: No, it didn't involve any of the cartoon gang, it was Bill Cosby and the people who were the inspiration for the characters putting flowers on the grave of Albert Robinson, the inspiration for the character). No one in the cast stuck out, but no one was particularly annoying either. It's a simple film, but after having seen it it seems far less unnessecary then it did earlier. B-

Well really they should've re-released the cartoon FAT ALBERT on Saturday morning to show the kids today what good cartoons were VS all this Anime bullshit... I'll give Mr.Cosby this much: He did a great job getting a cast to lok exactly like the cartoon characters, everything right down to the clothes they wore and it was funny when they saw themselves on DVD's and were trying to pronounce the word DVD.. It did have soet of a bittersweet, endearing touch to it and even Ebert who reviewed it this morning on his show along with Roeper(Both gave it thumbs down) Ebert said that despite the fact that he gave it thumbs down, it did have an endearing touch to it.. You'd think that if he said that, that maybe he would've given it a marginal thumbs up and I think he was wanting to but probably would've felt embarrased if he did.. That's the way I was reading his reaction reviewing it..

I caught Sideways again, because...The Aviator was sold out, and it's a wonderful movie. It was pretty close to selling out, which didn't surprise me. This theatre (not the one I usually go to) was the most crowded I've ever seen it, and it gets very crowded.

The brunt of the business seemed to be going to Meet the Fockers, which I was told sold out every single show tonight. Even more surprising to me was that Darkness sold out at least twice on large 500-seat theatres. Surprise hit. Also, the theatre greatly underestimated the appeal of Ocean's Twelve, it seemed, considering they had only 4 shows and it looked like people were being turned away from the sold out show. Spanglish also seemed to be selling out. I couldn't tell if anything else was, but it was very crowded.

See?? Even I said that it would be a shocking surprise if a horror movie did better than most of the holiday movies like Lemony Snicket... : Wow, maybe this is the start of a brand new year for me in predicting box office drops for movies??? :wink:

I injoy Anime alot my brother got me hooked on it. I watch Cowboy beebop and a bunch of others.

The Aviator crowd report.

I was going to take my little cousins to see The Polar Express in IMAX today (or maybe drop them off, hehe), but it was sold out all day. We got there around 1pm, and it was sold out until 9pm.

.....whoa.

Well, the Polar Expresses Imax matinees are sold out through mid-January, did you hear about that?

Nope.