New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Welcome to How to Spend $20, BOP’s look at the latest Blu-ray discs and DVDs to hit stores nationwide. This week: Late 2010 flicks like Little Fockers and Tron: Legacy hit the shelves. Also: Friday Night Lights’ final season.

Pick of the Week

Little Fockers

I don’t know that there was ever a moment when the idea of a third Meet the Parents movie filled me with anything near the anticipation that must have been there to drive whatever the number of Greg Focker fanboys it takes to do Little Fockers $45 million worth of business in five days. That, truly, is a great deal of money earned for a “comedy” that looked about as entertaining as watching Dick Cheney eat a tuna fish sandwich in a big chair.

What I can’t wrap my head around sometimes is how much thought (or, I guess, the opposite of that) moviegoers put into what they want to see. When the trailer failed to make you laugh and when you actually sighed (sighed!) at Ben Stiller shoving a needle into Robert De Niro’s erect penis, why did you still neglect what could have been quality family time over the winter holidays in favor of seeing yet another Hollywood sequel that never should have happened?





Granted, my excitement for Scream 4 increases by the day, but my reasons for forking over 10 bucks to see what might be a bad movie - and I’m at peace with that! - are totally opposite those that helped drive the $100 million budgeted Little Fockers to profit in 12 days. Basically, I discovered a theater about a mile to my north that totally looks like it’s straight out of 1992. I want to see Scream 4 to re-remember what it would have been like to see a Scream movie in theaters as a ‘90s teen. Why? Well, I love nostalgia, and will sometimes do things that are, among other minds, totally insane in order to attain it.

Little Fockers, as well, scored a 4% with top critics on Rotten Tomatoes. And that, my friends, doesn’t exactly scream winner to me.

Disc includes: N/A

The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of Dawn Treader

Now in its third incarnation, The Chronicles of Narnia film series is looking more and more like a bastardization of C.S. Lewis’ literary masterwork. And it has nothing to do with quality. Perhaps the films are good; I haven’t gotten around to seeing them. I speak more to the fact that each new release makes significantly less money than the flick that preceded it. So much so that the latest movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, made but a third as much (domestically) as the first movie. A third! What other film franchise can get away with this and still get the go ahead for a fourth feature? No, seriously, as of last week or so, Fox wants to make The Magician’s Nephew next.

What I’m getting at here is that the two other movie franchises worth raising here - Harry Potter and Twilight - either make more money with each release (Twilight) or, domestically, do at minimum $250 million worth of business (Harry Potter). Harry’s international totals are even more impressive: four out of seven movies have eclipsed $900 million.

Continued:       1       2