comment #1

jucy says ...

first

comment #2

Anonymous says ...

It's killing audiences at the grove.

comment #3

Larry says ...

Maybe you're "not-very-hip crowd" enjoyed the movie, but didn't respond with the self-congratulatory, we're-seeing-it-first-because-we're-cool over-enthusiasm that mars so many film festivals.

Little Miss Sunshine delivers and will do just fine, but think of all those films that knocked out the audience in Sundance and just lay there when put in front of a real crowd.

comment #4

Anonymous says ...

Ha, I know what you mean Jeffrey. I saw it at Century City myself. I don't know how to describe the crowd, except...old and grumpy.

comment #5

Thompson says ...

For the love of god, lets not start that 'first' bullshit here.

comment #6

Anonymous says ...

Let's face it Jeff, you pretty much just HATE movies in general. Why don't you look for a new profession? Maybe gossip columnist?

comment #7

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to Brave Anonymous Poster who said I "pretty much just HATE movies in general." How is feeling dispirited by sitting with a dead crowd during a screening of "Little Miss Sunshine" an indication that I hate movies in general? Help me out here. Oh, and can I have a sip?

comment #8

Anonymous says ...

"Like day-old Wisconsin cheese on the kitchen counter." Help.

comment #9

Anonymous says ...

What a weekend for Warner Bros--yet another movie tanks and the face of their cash cow has signed on to play naked horsies on the West End.

comment #10

arclight moviegoer says ...

The movie is really wonderful. Smart, funny, moving...I inexplicably almost broke out in tears a handful of times. I am recommedning it to everyone I know (unfortunately, everyone I know lives in New York and L.A. and already goes to movies like this!) Hope middle America will see this and realize that RV is not the standard for a road trip movie!

comment #11

Insights 2.0 says ...

I saw it at Century last night too. I thought I was the only person below 50. I had the impression that the audience had a pretty good time though. I was surprised by the demographics though...

comment #12

mark says ...

What was so funny about Mr. Carell's line?

comment #13

Lisa says ...

Not that I've seen the movie but I expect that it was the delivery added to the fact that the family has gone thru "hilarious trials and tribulations" owing to the whole road movie format.

comment #14

sandekat says ...

It just slays me when you declare that an audience is 'unhip'..

.....I rarely use the word anymore because I don''t care for the elitist narrow-mindedness of that term...

..I am looking forward to 'Little Miss Sunshine', but, if I understand the story line correctly, this movie will be rather bittersweet and I, for one, usually don't laugh out loud at bittersweet..I'm too busy pondering the quesy subtext......

......but I am pretty insightful in most of the areas of life that seem to matter.....and, dare I say it?.....i'm pretty sure that I'm hipper than you, Jeffrey.

I just don't brag about it......

.....to anyone but you, Jeffrey.

In other box office new, this weekend was another milestone for 'Dead Man's Chest' becoming Disney's most successful theatrical release ever. I loved this movie and I'm 'hip' enough to know why, and just petty enough to take some satisfaction in the acid indigestion its astounding success gives Jeffrey.

On another note, I was very sorry about your bicycle getting stolen, and I hope you get it back......

Just don't become any more bitter than you already are......please.

comment #15

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to Sandekat: What is it exactly that's distressing you? The low-pulse-raters at last night's showing weren't getting or responding to "Little Miss Sunshine" all that strongly. Not audibly, at least, or even emotionally. (One can usually feel responsive currents in theatres.) Are you saying there's no such thing as a dead audience, or a half-dead one, or a live one? Ask any stage actor or theatrical producer about this. A show always goes better when the audience is in tune with the show...when they're really getting it and on the wavelength. Everybody knows this. And it's no different with movie audiences. What is your perceptual malfunction to take issue with this simple-ass observation? Last night's crowd WAS more than half-dead. I was there and I know. And that irritates you, Pirate man? Well...what can I say except "love that Kraken!"

comment #16

sandekat says ...

I'm not distressed, Jeffrey....just amazed at your over-simplified interpretation on such an unknowable phenomenon. You use the word, 'hip'....are you? Whatever, don't care really....but sophistication you've had lots of time to develop.....an audience response to a live performance is a living, breathing thing....the actors, the play is right in front of you, in your chest, and it/they demand a biological response.....a movie is much more internal, even a wild comedy where everyone is laughing.......most at the same thing, but many at something slightly different....

...my perceptual 'malfunction' is no malfunction at all: its not a 'simple-ass' observation.....its is alienating and presumptuous in all the wrong ways.....I thought I'd do you a favor and point that out.....

....and yeah, the Kraken was swell......goodnight, moon.

comment #17

Fielding says ...

Meanwhile, turning to the work of a proper filmmaker, Woody Allen's Scoop - his "worst film ever" - made $3,000,300 from 538 sites. Compare this to Clerks 2, which has made only $3,945,000 after 2 weekends from 2,150 sites.

I echo an earlier comment: time to go, Wells.

comment #18

Anonymous says ...

I love the positive spin on Miami Vice's boxoffice this weekend. Yeah it's Michael Mann's highest opening at $25.1 million, his second highest opening was for Collateral ($24.7 million), but nobody's mentioning that it's also Mann's most expensive film, and cost more than twice what Collateral cost. Plus, from Friday to Saturday there was only a .5% increase in boxoffice. The only other movie in the top 11 that didn't see at least a 15% increase from Fri to Sat was John Tucker Must Die, meaning word of mouth on Vice is terrible.

comment #19

Fielding says ...

Obviously, what I meant was that Clerks 2 made $3.9 million in its second weekend from 2150 sites. A huge drop.

comment #20

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells to Fielding: Obviously "Clerks 2" suffered a huge drop its second weekend. The math is the math. And good for Woody Allen and Focus Features, the distributor of "Scoop," but "Scoop" is, I feel, the worst he's ever made. Because it manages to be deeply annoying. It is unquestionably among his worst ever. It got something like a 30% score on Rotten Tomatoes. And yet because "Clerks 2", which I thought was pretty good easy viewing, didn't make as much as "Scoop" this weekend -- did badly, in fact -- it is therefore time for me to "go"? What do you mean...go away? Wait a minute. Wouldn't it be simpler if YOU did that?

comment #21

Mathew says ...

"Because it manages to be deeply annoying."

You mean it's more annoying than Anything Else? Jason Biggs was the worst Allen stand-in since Branagh in Celebrity. I think it killed Biggs' career and foreshadowed Branagh's decision to do Wild, Wild West. Perhaps there is a curse involved...

comment #22

Anonymous says ...

Miami Vice is the year's most disappointing film not directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Relative DISASTER. It will suffer 65% loss next weekend, and vanish after that. Jeff, PIRATES was better, and that was horrible!

comment #23

Thompson says ...

Vice wasnt that great, but nothing Ive seen the past two years was worse than pirates.

comment #24

Anonymous says ...

clearly, Thompson, you have yet to see Thumbsucker, When a Stranger Calls, or Lady in the Water. Or Napoleon Dynamite. Or Fantastic Four, etc...

comment #25

Anonymous says ...

Miami Vice was....I'm not gonna comment because I dont want Papa Wells screaming at me!

comment #26

Anonymous says ...

Napoleon Dynamite was terrible?
I thought it was pretty daring. It was funny, oddly paced, and ultimately very human story of isolation and finding your place. I didnt like the obvious studio pick-ups like that final horse riding/wedding scene, what the hell was that?

comment #27

Daniel Zelter says ...

Clerks 2 shouldn't have been released across 2,000 theaters, not even for Rosario Dawson. I think the only reason it got that many was because it trashes Lord of the Rings, which Harvey is still pissed off at losing to New Line. To be fair to Clerks 2, though, Scoop has the advantage of being PG 13.

comment #28

nickc says ...

off to see vice for the second time...favorite movie of the year.

comment #29

Chris Willman says ...

I am not a Kevin Smith defender. Haven't seen "Clerks II" and I'm not in any great hurry. But in all fairness... it will probably bring in close to $25 million at the box office. If its budget was indeed $5 million, as boxofficemojo.com claims, it will make a tidy profit, especially after DVD. "Scoop," meanwhile, seems to have the worst word of mouth of the year. Chances are it cost at least $15 million to produce, and its chances of making that much at the box office are slim to none. "Match Point" (which I thought was greatly overrated) was an aberration, but Woody got to ride on the good will that one generated--and the false promise that he might combine that supposed reinvorgation with the spirit of one of "the early, funny ones"--for one weekend. If you had money to invest, would you get into the Kevin Smith business or the Woody Allen business right now? It's not even a contest.

comment #30

Mathew says ...

"If you had money to invest, would you get into the Kevin Smith business or the Woody Allen business right now? It's not even a contest."

How is seeing a movie a investment, Chris? It's entertainment. I don't consider going to a bar to drink a few beers an "investment". Pick your poison basically, Woody or Kevin. I'll take a classy Allen film over a schlock Kevin Smith film.

comment #31

Anonymous says ...

I've always loved Kevin Smith, never cared for his films. That being said, Clerks 2 was fantastic. Miami Vice was PUTRID.

comment #32

Mathew says ...

"I was surprised by the demographics though..."

That doesn't surprise me. It's called 'Little Miss Sunshine" after all.

comment #33

Dixon Steele says ...

Just back from MV, and like so many films this summer, neither good nor bad, and can't recommend it.

They spent $135 million on this?

And is there is a more annoying movie character than Woody Allen's is SCOOP this year? Yeah, Fielding, I know, he's supposed to be annoying, but Jesus. He irritated the hell out of me, and everyone else in the theater. I wanted the serial killer to kill him! Scarlett was luscious and Jackman was charming. But unless Woody can somehow reinvent his persona, he (and we) would be better off with him not acting in his films, like with MATCH POINT. Between this and ANYTHING ELSE...sheesh.

Who cares that it grossed $3 mill. Word of mouth will be deadly on this one.

comment #34

Anonymous says ...

Miami Vice was SO BAD that it can only be classified as the cinematic equivalent of the Hindenburg. Gong Li should have played Tubbs.

comment #35

Anonymous says ...

Miami Vice was SO BAD that it can only be classified as the cinematic equivalent of the Hindenburg. Gong Li should have played Tubbs. Jeff, quit drinking the Mann kool-aid.

comment #36

Daniel Zelter says ...

Chris: The problem with Clerks 2's "profit" is that most of it goes to theaters and advertising. (Plus MGM's distributing it.) Maybe Harvey actually was hoping it was gonna be another Dogma, because it was the "last" of the Jersey "trilogy", but that's obviously not the case.

comment #37

Chris Willman says ...

Daniel: If Harvey hoped "Clerks II" was going to be another "Dogma," then I would say he was more or less right. "Dogma" opened with $8.7 million and topped out at $30 million. "Clerks" opened with $10 million and will probably top out between $25-30 million. In the overall scheme of things, that's pretty comparable. And we ARE talking about a sequel to a film that grossed less than $3.2 million at the box office in its original run. Subsequent DVD exposure of part I aside, did anyone really expect "II," with its R rating and well publicized donkey sex antics, to be a blockbuster?

Matthew: I was talking about "investments," not "entertainment," because I was responding to Fielding comparing the b.o. of "Scoop" and "Clerks II" and implying that the former looks to be a bigger hit than the latter. That's all. Yes, Woody has brought us 50 times the artistry and entertainment that Kevin ever will in his lifetiime (and, personally, "Dogma" is one of my least favorite movies of the last 10 years)... but any sane person reading the reviews or hearing the w.o.m. on these two pictures would surely take his chances with "Clerks."

comment #38

Valerie Cherish says ...

Three things:

1) I also saw "Little Miss Sunshine" in Century City the other night. I was really looking forward to seeing it after hearing for months how good it was. It wasn't terrible but the pacing was awfully sluggish -- so far it's a shoo-in to be 2006's inductee into the Academy of the Overrated. I'm predicting Oscar nominations.

If people like you keep overpraising it, I'm gonna start to hate it.

2) "Scoop" wasn't great, but it wasn't as tedious as "Little Miss Sunshine".

3) Lastly, Wells, you'd be doing your readers a big favor if you'd stop citing Rotten Tomatoes. Too many fifth tier critics are polled and collated, and the thumbs-up/thumbs-down approach to gauging reviews is misleading. Metacritic.com does the same service as RT but eliminates the Palo Alto Weekly Gazette-type sources and better still, assigns the individual reviews with a 0-100 score and then computes an average -- much more reliable than Rotten Tomatoes. Your readers should check it out.

comment #39

Brendan H. says ...

My movie round-up:

- Caught "Little Miss Sunshine" with a near sold-out crowd in NYC and it played incredibly well. I enjoyed it, but thought a lot of the laughs and character quirks it went for were easy/overdone. It's good, but I get where the "overrated" claims are coming from. And if this movie is "too hip" for anyone... wow. This movie's about as "hip" as Huey Lewis.

- Watched "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" and now have seen the worst movie of the year. Even worse than Pirates 2 and When A Stranger Calls.

- Saw "Miami Vice" with a completely sold-out, opening night crowd and enjoyed it thoroughly...while I was in the theater. I was wrapped up in it and found the whole flick thrilling. As soon as I walked out though, I couldn't help but think how empty the movie was. There could've been real depth to the movie, on the themes of sacrifice and the price of undercover work, but there isn't. Still, the movie looks, moves and feels great. Few do shootouts as well as Mann. Though like someone above said, the dude totally has a man-crush on Chris Cornell.

comment #40

Spinning Away says ...

The Clerks 2 "will make tens of millions in profits" spin is pretty hilarious.

It won't make 25 at the box office. The P&A budget was at least fifteen, not the ten that people are reporting. And the five million production budget is probably low as well -- reported budgets always are. Kevin has been suspiciously vague about how much it cost to market -- just that they didn't spend as much as others usually do. After theater owners take their chunk, this flick will definitely still be in the red.

Everyone seems to think it's going to be a DVD juggarnaut. Based on what? The DVD sales of Jay and Bob Strike Back? That was years ago, when DVDS were selling like mad. Kevin Smith fans like to buy his DVDS, but there will still be a big dropoff.

Don't get me wrong -- Clerks 2 will still be profitable at the end of the day. Well, maybe. But "tens of millions of dollars"? Please.

comment #41

Anonymous says ...

Movie Vice is the most pointless piece of art of the new century.

comment #42

Daniel Zelter says ...

Chris: You have to take into account higher ticket prices and inflation since Dogma-not to mention the lower screen count. And if no one expected Clerks 2 to be a blockbuster, why give it 2,000 theaters? At least Jay and Silent Bob had more celebrities to justify it getting that kind of release.

comment #43

mitch says ...

Jeff, what kind of elitist bullshit is it to expect any paying crowd to react in a manner for which you feel you have 'paid??

When I 'paid' to see Bad Lieutenant way back when, I found it riotously funny. My favorite scene is when Harvey is working over the girls in the car. At this I could not stop howling. However, I was the only one in the theater laughing so hard, and I'm sure that some of them were pissed at my attitude. Well, I didn?t expect them to react as I did, nor did they expect me to react as they did (I hope). However, I never base my movie going experience on what other people are doing around me. I pay for the experience, and enjoy it for me.

Wait: I took extreme exception with a couple of kids that laughed and clapped during the end credits of United 93 this past spring. Yeah, now I remember. Something about nameless graves and wearing a neckless made of their teeth?

comment #44

NYCBusybody says ...

I don't know. I really admire people who have their own offbeat, march-to-a-different drum attitude, but don't need to couple that mentality with a better-than-thou attitude because of it.

I sometimes wonder what makes people like Jeffrey Wells so hostile, as to think/feel/and say that if something makes him chuckle or laugh, and other people don't, that they're dumb/not-hip (VERY subjective term)/hopeless people, etc. If I laugh at something in Life Aquatic, and Wells didn't, it doesn't make me automatically think his sense of humor or intelligence is lower than mine. People have different senses of humor. That hostility is weird, and really just an imperiously negative way to look at the world.

comment #45

Tony says ...

Man, is this board bouncing all over the place. Also caught LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Have to say I was not impressed. It's an enjoyable enough little comedy. It is one of the funnier movies I've seen this summer but I find it shallow, mainstream and not the least bit edgy or indie as it has been sold and embraced as. I was at an LA screening and everyone around me was laughing all the way through it. You know how a disproportionate audience reaction can rebound your irritation with a movie two-fold and it made me not like the movie. And probably a little more than the movie deserves. But I felt the movie played into the standard-blue state mentality towards "normal people" and coddled their sense of superiority by make many great actors into cyphers and cartoons.

It wants to be a dramady and that confusion kept me from laughing for most of the first hour. The story wants us to accept this oddball assortment of people and their internal "pain". Despite of the hard work of the actors, these characters don't seem to exist outside of the movie (Arkin and Abigal Breslin are exceptions to this) and the more you think about the artificial construct of the storytelling, the more the inherent logic falls apart.

However there's a point where the movie abandons reality and becomes a broad satire. The movie then becoming stunningly funny and ends on an enjoyable if unbelievable high point, though many of the subplots and consequences are tossed of and outright abandoned.

In the end, I imagine it will do well enough, but I also suspect there will be a backlash.