Wrapping this week up with yet another Friday edition of the RopeofSilicon podcast where we kick things off with a nearly 30-minute discussion of the screeners we've been watching from documentaries such as Searching for Sugar Man and The Central Park Five to the just-received Les Miserables. Then we transition into reviewing this week's new release Killing Them Softly, answering your questions, a little Over/Under and Buy or Sell as well as a game of True or False graciously submitted by Snicket.
As always, I have broken down this episode on a minute-by-minute basis if you would like to skip ahead and below I have featured the information on how to download the podcast, find us on iTunes or merely just listen in your browser.
- 00:00-1:40 - Introduction
- 1:41-31:22 - Awards Screener Talk
- [Listener Question] Come awards season, how do you determine how to work your way through screeners? Do you start by watching films you have yet to see, or with ones you want to re-watch again, or what? And how often do you opt to not watch a screener? [Jordan B.]
- Documentaries
- Moonrise Kingdom
- [Listener Question] Have you guys given The Dark Knight Rises another watch? [Alex Thomas]
- [Listener Question] What do you guys do with screeners when you're done watching them? I assume it's just a normal quality DVD, so do you often upgrade to the Blu-ray? [G-Man]
- 31:23-36:31 - Killing Them Softly Review (read mine here)
- 36:32-40:10 - Will we be able to go to Cannes in 2013?
- 40:11-48:57 - [Listener Question] Which part of moviemaking (acting, directing, cinematography, production design, etc.) do you think is the most difficult to write about in a review. Or which part of moviemaking do you think you have the least knowledge of? [rafael]
- 48:58-49:39 - [Listener Question] The Oscars will turn 100 in approx. 15 years, to mark the occasion, do you think they should hold a special vote to determine the best of the best based on the past winners in each category? [Christophe]
- 49:40-51:33 - [Listener Question] Really unsure why you guys have jumped off Argo. It's Oscar favourite on betting sites (all be it a slight one) and I still see it as a three horse race between Argo, Lincoln and Les Mis. Argo ticks more boxes when it comes to appealing to a wider audience in my opinion, I'm sure plenty won't like Les Mis, Zero Dark Thirty or Lincoln. Surely a factor? [Alex Thomas]
- 51:34-55:10 - [Listener Question] In the THR roundtable, David O. Russell mentioned he doesn't read reviews of his movies. Isn't this a poor attitude? I realize you don't want to get hung up on one or two bad reviews when most people like your movies, but it's still good to get different perspectives and you should be able to take a little criticism no matter what job you're in. What do you guys think? [G-Man]
- 55:11-1:05:56 - Over / Under
- 6.5 Oscar nominations for The Hobbit. To me, this seems like the biggest dark horse at this point. For reference the nominations and wins for the LOTR movies are: 13 noms with 4 wins for Fellowship, 6 noms with 2 wins for Towers, and 11 noms with 11 wins for Return. [G-Man]
- 2.5 Times a day, on average, Cheetara checks in on her Bradley by looking at RopeOfSilicon [G-Man]
- 5 People on Earth that know the meaning behind the "RopeOfSilicon" name. (Note: 2nd biggest website mystery behind what Brad looks like. I think he's white.) [G-Man]
- 2.5 Christian Bale / Christopher Nolan collaborations in 9 years [Rafael]
- B+ CinemaScore for Killing Them Softly [The Colleague]
- B+ for The Hobbit from Brad/Laremy [Alex Thomas]
- B+ for Zero Dark Thirty from Brad/Laremy [Alex Thomas]
- C- for This Is 40 from Brad/Laremy [Alex Thomas]
- 1.5 Oscar wins from a Judd Apatow movie in his career. [Aleonardis]
- 65 percent of the RopeOfSilicon readership is going to be "wrong" about This is 40 (Loved it.) [Aleonardis]
- 7 years until 48 FPS is the primary over 24 FPS. [Xarnis]
- 6 years until a widely released movie has a runtime of over 210 minutes ( 3 1/2 hours) [Xarnis]
- 75 percent on RT for Promised Land [Xarnis]
- 1:05:57-1:12:02 - Buy or Sell
- Daniel Day-Lewis ends up winning 4 best actor Oscars
- Zero Dark Thirty will not make a profit at the Box Office
- Russell Crowe is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Les Miserables
- Bill Simmons will one day be a guest on the podcast.
- Skyfall will end up making more money than Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (Bond is currently at $800 mil., with the vampires at $600 mil.)
- Disney will officially announce the director of Episode VII by the end of the year
- When Quentin Tarantino retires, Death Proof will still be his worst film.
- 1:12:03-1:17:23 - True or False [supplied by Snicket]
- Jennifer Lawrence got kicked out of her apartment for dyeing her bathtub blue during filming of X-Men: First Class.
- During the scene in Lincoln where the House of Representatives are voting for the 13th amendment some of the names of the men who voted "No" were changed as to not embarrass their living descendants.
- Ryan Gosling replaced Chris Evans as the lead actor in Drive.
- Shia LeBeouf and Tobey Maguire were both considered for the role of Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit.
- "Group therapy" was the code title for The Avengers during production.
- In 50 years of Bond movies Skyfall is only the second film where Bond suffers a gunshot wound.
- 1:17:24-1:19:56 - #GoodTweets
- 1:19:57-1:23:33 - Box-Office Challenge (chart below)
- 1:23:34-1:24:44 - [Listener Question] What about a RoS award show where you two determine the nominees for all the categories, announce them on the podcast, then have the listeners vote for the winners. [Bob Phelan]
- 1:24:45-1:27:30 - Closing
Finally, I do have one quick request. If you could give us a review on iTunes it would be greatly appreciated.
You can listen below, on Stitcher, download the audio by right-clicking here and saving it to your computer or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. It's up to you.
NOTE: Apple's iTunes randomly checks for updated episodes, so sometimes the latest episode may not be immediately available in iTunes.
You can find Laremy's writing here on RopeofSilicon.com and also at Film.com and on Twitter at @Laremy.
Fall 2012 Movie Box-Office Draft
Brad vs. Laremy
| Laremy's Picks | ||||
| Movie | Date | Budget | Box-Office | Current Total |
| The Master | Sep 14 | $35m | $17.1m | -$70.3m |
| Looper | Sep 28 | $30m | $163.9m | $88.9m |
| Taken 2 | Oct 5 | $45m | $360.4m | $247.9m |
| Cloud Atlas | Oct 26 | $100m | $52.8m | -$197.1m |
| Wreck-It Ralph | Nov 2 | $165m | $192m | -$220.4m |
| Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 | Nov 16 | $120m | $600.5m | $300.5m |
| Red Dawn | Nov 21 | $65m | $24.1m | -$138.3m |
| Life of Pi | Nov 21 | $120m | $52.5m | -$247.4m |
| Django Unchained | Dec 25 | $0 | ||
| Les Miserables | Dec 25 | $61m | $0 | |
| $1.463b | -$236.4m | |||
| Brad's Picks | ||||
| Movie | Date | Budget | Box-Office | Current Total |
| Resident Evil: Retribution | Sep 14 | $65m | $221.8m | $59.3m |
| Argo | Oct 12 | $44.5m | $148.7m | $37.4m |
| Paranormal Activity 4 | Oct 19 | $5m | $138.1m | $125.6m |
| Alex Cross | Oct 19 | $23m | $30.4m | -$27m |
| Flight | Nov 2 | $31m | $79.8m | $2.3m |
| Skyfall | Nov 9 | $200m | $798.3m | $298.3m |
| Lincoln | Nov 9 | $65m | $68.3m | -$94.1m |
| Anna Karenina | Nov 16 | $50m | $12.9m | -$112m |
| The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey | Dec 14 | $150m | $0 | |
| The Impossible | Dec 21 | $45m | $51.2m | -$61.3m |
| $1.549b | $228.6m | |||
The Fall 2012 Movie Box-Office Draft competition involved both Brad and Laremy "drafting" ten films each in hopes of scoring the largest net total by taking a film's worldwide gross subtracting two-and-a-half-times the reported budget. The film must be released between the months of September-December 2012. The draft took place on August 28 during the RopeofSilicon Podcast which you can listen to right here.
Listed above is all the most recent data as of this post. Budgetary information is not necessarily accurate and will most likely not be accurate until closer to or after each film's release.
'Before Sunrise' Location Map - Celine and Jesse in Vienna
'Blood Ties' (2013) Movie Review - Cannes Film Festival
'Inside Llewyn Davis' (2013) Movie Review - Cannes Film Festival
Two New 'Wolverine' Posters Feature Yukio and Viper
Zod and Jor-El Featured in Four New 'Man of Steel' Posters
'As I Lay Dying' (2013) Movie Review - Cannes Film Festival
'Shield of Straw' (2013) Movie Review - Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Podcast #2: Talking 'Inside Llewyn Davis', 'Monsoon Shootout', 'Seduced and Abandoned' and 'Jimmy P.'
Three New 'Only God Forgives' Clips
Sean Penn Reportedly Circling Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Inherent Vice'
'Blood Ties' International Trailer and Poster
Interview: Simon Pegg, John Cho and Alice Eve Talk 'Star Trek into Darkness'
Listener question:
I know you (Brad) reviewed "Hitchcock" but I haven't heard you talk about it much, and it has seemed to drop of many people's radar. What are its Oscar an other award chances?
Over/Under
77% on RT for "Django Unchained"
7 years until a Disney movie wins Best Picture
$130 million domestic for "Les Miserables"
3.5 new films from Andrew Dominik before the end of the decade
2.5 years until the BnL Podcast is also produced in video form
4 more films in the Transformers franchise before it needs to be rebooted
Buy or Sell
The Master is almost completely forgotten at the Oscars and receives only 2 nominations
Martin Freeman (who plays Bilbo Baggins in "The Hobbit") becomes a contender for Best Actor
Ian Mckellan wins an Oscar
Watch this or watch that... Alfred Hitchcock edition
Rope or The Birds
Rear Window or Psycho
Vertigo or North by Northwest
Dial M for Murder or Strangers on a Train
Would you rather
Watch a movie that provokes your mind to where you spend many sleepless nights in deep thought about it -or- watch a movie that completely scars you emotionally for 2 days
Return of the King is actually 3 1/2 in theaters. I own the theatrical cut.
As a bet, I think if Brad loses, he either has to publicly post a picture of himself or divulge the secret behind the site's name, and if Laremy loses, he has to record a Mystery Science Theater style viewing/commentary of The Lorax. But that's wishful thinking.
Sorry, Mason, don't think I was trying to copy your suggestion, since I didn't see it before starting to write mine. Great minds think alike? ;-)
No worries. The more votes we get in favor of a bet like that, the better. =D Besides, I feel as though all of the RoS community shares some sort of collective unconscious, so I'll let you off on that basis.
Well, the most obvious bet for next box-office challenge: if Brad wins, he chooses the goriest horror movie he can think of and Laremy has to watch it (muahaha!); if Laremy wins, Brad has to post his, at least partial, photo.
But since there's fat chance of either of those two happening, and because I'm not that cruel, how about this? The winner gets to pick the movie for the other one to see (preferably something really bad, like The Lorax), the loser has to watch it, listen to the commentary, and finish it all of by writing an article "X things I learned while watching/listening Y", sort of like what Brad did with Piranha 3DD. Actually, that's pretty cruel, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Meryl_Streep#Academy_Awards
HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY QUEEN MERYL!
Anyway...Pertaining to the Judd Over/Under, I was including acting wins and tech or screenplay. Anything from a Judd movie. The statue doesn't have to have Judd's name on it. Can't wait to read your review Brad. Maybe the wrongness will eek out of me and I'll come over to the dark side. (I doubt it.)
With Zero Dark Thirty being the last film to release theatrically and wide, does that impact it's Best Picture race as far as a win goes? It's opening nationwide on the 11th of January and by that time, movies like Les Mis and Django will have been talked about and seen for the most part.
Over/Under
- 5.5 Oscar nominations for Wally Pfister's Transcendence.
- 12.5 years till Nolan shoots on digital
Buy/Sell
-Nolan won't direct another movie till his D.P. Wally Pfister is finished with his film, Transcendence
-Zero Dark Thirty has the biggest Box Office of the Best Picture nominees, if nominated of course.
Hey Brad, I recently got a blu ray player on black friday and the visuals are stunning on my HDTV. I love buying movies and TV shows (physical media copy and not just digital like iTunes.) While I am sure DVD's will die out in the next few years, do you think blu rays or physical discs in general for movies is going to eventually die? or do you think physical discs for movies will always be available regardless of the future of technology? Where do you think its headed.
Because we all love movies, I was thinking this would be relevant for a quick discussion about this. As for me, I would be very sad if physical discs die.
Oh and do you think re-buying movies on blu-ray (for the movies I own in DVD right now) worth it? I would like to see certain movies that I own on DVD, on blu ray like The Prestige, Gladiator, I Robot, Lord of the Rings etc., but is it really worth re-buying?
Over/Under:
1.5 Oscars for Megan Ellison
10 years until a foreign film wins Best Picture
3 years until Dolby ATMOS is featured in advertisements as a selling point for seeing movies.
Buy or Sell:
James Franco, Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Ryan Gosling will receive an Oscar nomination for Best Director.
The Coen Brothers' next film will be shot digitally (Deakins has sworn off film).
Tom Tykwer will collaborate with the Wachowskis again.
The Academy will combine Sound Mixing and Sound Editing into a single Sound Design category.
Watch This or Watch That (Director Swap):
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo directed by Christopher Nolan, or Inception directed by David Fincher.
Drive directed by Joe Wright, or Hanna directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Magnolia directed by Andrew Dominik, or Killing Them Softly directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Hugo directed by Lynn Ramsey, or We Need to Talk About Kevin directed by Martin Scorsese
A Serious Man directed by Danny Boyle, or Slumdog Millionaire directed by the Coen Brothers.
Question: Was inception based off of Edgar Allan Poe's 'A Dream Within a Dream' (they have very coincidental elements)?
"Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?"
Over/Under
3.5 Years till Chris Nolan's next directorial effort
1.5 Oscar Directing wins for Wally Pfister
10 Years till Johnny Depp wins a Oscar
8 Years till Twilight gets Rebooted/Spin-off/Sequel
Also Brad I'm a young Indie filmmaker and I'm curious if I could send you some of my work sometime
Yeah, others have looking into the correlation between that poem and Inception. Click here for one such article.
If You Had an Oscar Ballot Lightning Round! Yes or No
-Lavant (Holy Motors)...............Best Actor
-Cruise (Rock of Ages).............Best Supporting Actor
-Fassbender (Prometheus)......Best Supporting Actor
-Ted.........................................Best Visual Effects
-Side By Side...........................Best Documentary
-Sinister...................................Best Sound Editing and Mixing
-Bae (Cloud Atlas)...................Best Actress
-On The Road.........................Best Adapted Screenplay
-Miller (Perks)..........................Best Supporting Actor
-V/H/S......................................Best Makeup
-Chbosky (Perks).....................Best Director
-Ayer (End of Watch)................Best Director
You don't have to do all of them if you do this. I just hate how the oscars don't really choose the best in their perspective categories but choose to fill up the categories with films that are big horses in the bigger races.
I definitely agree on Ted (Visuals). Still need to see a lot of those you mentioned but like to see "End of Watch" in there - easily one of my favorites in 2012.
End of Watch completely knocked me over. I did not expect something as good as what I got with that movie. I wasn't really expecting anything at all. It looked like a generic cop movie. Boy was I wrong. Packed an emotional wallop for sure.
I absolutely loved that movie! Michael Peña was so good I was completely blown by his honesty and raw emotion. I was pleasently surprised that it wasn't a standard cop movie, though some scenes left me a little bit dizzy... I hope it gets some buzz for Peña
His total snub in "The Shining" aside, Jack Nicholson won 3 acting Oscars (1 leading, 2 supporting), as did Walter Brennan (3 supporting).
I don't think it's hard to say DDL gets 4 given that he's only 55, is pretty much guaranteed to get his third this year, and only takes roles guaranteed to put him in Oscar contention.
Thanks for answering all my questions guys, I love this December season, so many films to be watched and being released.
Some other Oscar odds markets are up, some interesting ones:
Director: Speilberg $3.75 (Affleck $1.72)
Acress: Chastain $7 (Lawrence $1.25)
Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones $3.50 (Hoffman $1.72)
Might just jump on the Tommy Lee Jones bandwagon, not sure on Spielberg but tempting too.
Fact check please...
Daniel Day LEwis has two Oscars, he's been nominated a total of four times:
Best Actor in a Leading Role for: My Left Foot (1989). WON
Best Actor in a Leading Role for: In the Name of the Father (1993) NOMINATED
Best Actor in a Leading Role for: Gangs of New York (2002). NOMINATED
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for: There Will Be Blood (2007) WON
I don't know what this comment means, but thanks.
Question:
What is the most artful use of violence in a movie for you?
Stay golden, boys
Word
By the way, if you enjoyed Andrew Dominik's KILLING THEM SOFTLY, you mos def need to check out his first movie CHOPPER!
Absolutely authentic performance by Eric Bana as an Australian gangster. I still can't believe he wasn't nominated for a best actor Oscar. One of the great misses by the academy. The movie itself is very stylish yet never for the sake of it.
Over / Under
$500M worldwide for Les Misérables (hint: The King’s Speech = $415M / Mamma Mia = $610M; US only: The King's Speech = $140M / Mamma Mia = $145M)
Hmm...I posted this earlier but I guess it didn't save...
I got my True/False Q's from the IMDB trivia page, which I suppose is questionable. I will definitely dig a bit more when I do another batch for Tuesday.
RE: The Bond gunshot wound, Thunderball was the other film listed.
I think you guys seriously underrate Judd Apatow. Saying the Academy 'will never forgive him for his earlier movies' makes it sound like 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up were nothing but trashy gross out films when clearly they're much more. Both those films were amongst the best of the year in general and are very widely appreciated.
Funny People might have fallen apart in the final third but it's an ambitious film and marked a big change for him which I'm sure This Is 40 builds on. I could see him getting an Oscar nod in the fairly near future. Bear in mind he's only made four films at this point.
Listener Question
What is considered a flop? 1. According to hollywood and 2. according to you? Is it the amount of money it makes vs. budget. Is a movie like Cloud Atlas considered a flop? I ask this because it's hard for me to comprehend when some people say Cloud Atlas is a flop and they say a movie like PA 4 is a hit because it made more money vs. budget. Cloud Atlas having a great IMDb user rating of 8.2/10 and A RT user ration of 3.9/10 surely cannot be considered a flop. You gave Cloud Atlas a B+ which is a very good grade for a movie.
P.S. Cloud Atlas made 25.9 million domesticall and a total of 52.8 mill worldwide. I hear the budget was around 100 mill. Regardless of how much it made, this movie is one of a kind and a good one. Surely it will get couple oscar nominations.
..... [Nav]
* RT rating of 3.9/5 not 3.9/10. my bad.
Katherine Hepburn won 4 best actress oscars so i can see ddl winning,i mean he's just that good how could you not.
In honor of Killing Them Softly's CinemaScore, here is a pretty random Watch This or Watch That:
- (A+) Argo or The Avengers
- (A) Here Comes the Boom or The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2
- (A-) Zookeper or Just Go With It
- (B+) Taken 2 or Salt
- (B) Dredd or Red Dawn
- (B-) Children of Men or Contagion
- (C+) Cloud Atlas or Hanna
- (C) Paranormal Activity 4 or Cabin in the Woods
- (C-) Drive or The Royal Tenenbaums
- (D+) Haywire or Chernobyl Diaries
- (D) The Last Exorcism or Splice
- (D-) The American or Skyline
- (F) Solaris (2002) or Killing Them Softly
Buy/Sell
-Steven Spielberg has already made his Top 5 films
-David O. Russell is in the top tier of working American directors
-The light seeping into every dark room in Lincoln (which was in almost every scene) was a deliberate and artistic choice-- that of a metaphor on America's journey out of the Dark Ages (slavery) and into a more enlightened period in its history
Over/Under
5.5 years until Andrew Dominik makes another movie (Jesse James was in '07 and Chopper was in 2000. Apparently his films are not commercial)
1.5 films after Django until Tarantino write/directs a movie that is less homagey and exploitationy. For example, his first three (RD, PF and JB are homages but less cartoony and stylized-- at least relative to his later efforts)
Watch This or That (New Hollywood Directors edition):
any Spielberg movie vs any Scorcese movie
Ashby vs Altman
Friedkin vs Lumet
De Palma vs Bogdanovich
how much will the box office for silver linings affect it's oscar chances (in all categories) in such a strong year,especially with django screening to such positive reviews and than with les mis,and the hobbit i feel like audiences are "hibernating" until the next big wave of releases.
Also fact check Jack Nicholson has the most acting oscars for men 2 lead,1 supporting while ingrid bergman and meryl streep have 2 lead and 1 supporting. I can see denzel added to this list of three if he decides to act again. But in all honesty I can see daniel day lewis winning five oscars I mean he's only 55 two years younger than denzel.
Ok new batch of True/False questions.
Jamie Foxx's and Kerry Washington's characters in Django are meant to be the great great great grandparents of John Shaft in the Shaft movies.
Life of Pi is the second film of 2012 to feature actor Irrfan Khan with a character named Richard Parker.
The role of Lisbeth Salander was at first offered to Rooney Mara's sister Kate Mara.
All of the female villains in the modern Batman films (from 1990 to present) have been Oscar nominated.
Daniel Day Lewis was offered the role of Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Over/Under
4.5 billion box office gross for 2015 summer movies
7 Best Picture nominees
1.5 Military films for Kathryn Bigelow
.5 out-of-left field Best Picture nominee (i.e. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)
65% RT score for Hyde Park on Hudson
Buy or Sell
- The Master gets more Oscar noms than Argo
- Exhaustion from LOTR trilogy results in more negative reviews for The Hobbit
- Genre awards being added to the Oscars e.g Best Sci-Fi film
Here's my suggestion for the stakes of the next Box Office Challenge:
-If Brad wins, Laremy has to send out his copy of Couples Retreat (signed) to a listener.
-If Laremy wins, Brad has to come up with his own #goodtweets for a week's worth of podcasts so Laremy can criticize him. (Alternate suggestion: Brad has to sing to Laremy at the end of an episode, though I doubt he'll do this)
Also have a quick Over/Under:
-20 number of comments for Brad's "This is 40 Review"
Over/Under:
10 years before Annapurna Pictures no longer exists
Buy/Sell:
Kathryn Bigelow teams up with Mark Boal again to make another war film
Listener Question
Do you think a lot of the movie making (not all, just a lot) is driven by making money vs. passion for the movie? I read an article this morning about 1 or 2 more terminator movies as it got a new producer. An average person like me would look at this and say that its ridiculous and only money driven. Initial reviews for the hobbit seems to point at money driven than passion. While certainly movie makers like Nolan, Affleck, Tarantino are clearly passion driven, seems like most other movies are not like another terminator movie, or god forbid another Indiana jones movie. [Nav]