In the opening of 28 Weeks Later, Don (Robert Carlyle) faces a dilemma: He can leave his wife to die and run like hell on the off chance that he might outrun the “infected,” or he can stay with her and face a gruesome end. He runs like hell, and looks back to see his wife attacked. This is the movie writ small, laying the groundwork for more impossible choices.
We have our first perfect score in Culture Snob’s Box Office Power Rankings. Pixar’s and Disney’s Ratatouille (directed and co-written by Brad Bird) was certainly expected to top the rankings, but this is a bit of a surprise.
Why? Because to achieve the maximum score of 40, a movie needs to top the box office (in this case, over Live Free Or Die Hard); perform better per-screen than both its “big” competitors (Live Free Or Die Hard again) and limited-release prestige pictures (Sicko); and score better with critics than everything else in the box-office top ten (particularly Sicko and Knocked Up).
That’s a tall order, but the computer-animated rats were up to the task.
Continue reading for the full rankings and the methodology.
My predictive powers have again proved to be less than stellar. (Anxiety over imminent surgery is my excuse.)
Last week, I predicted that a steady Ocean’s Thirteen would displace Knocked Up at the top of Culture Snob’s Box Office Power Rankings.
Not only did that not happen, but 1408 – an adaptation of a Stephen King story – came out of nowhere to tie Knocked Up for the top spot in this week’s rankings. It placed second to Evan Almighty in box office and per-screen average and was shockingly well-received by critics.
I won’t get burned again. This weekend, I’m taking the easy money and saying that Pixar’s Ratatouille will top our rankings, barring stellar notices for Live Free or Die Hard. See how I hedged?
Continue reading for the full rankings and the methodology.
Knocked Up once again triumphed in Culture Snob’s Box Office Power Rankings, with no serious threat posed by Fantastic Four (fourth, of course!) or Nancy Drew (sixth).
Have you calmed down yet? Are you over the orgasmic delight you felt at the way David Chase defied all predictions about the end of his beloved series, The Sopranos? Have you recovered from your rage about ambiguity, a lack of closure, and Journey? Good. Now let’s clear a few things up.
As I predicted, Knocked Up retained its Power Rankings crown this past weekend. Although Ocean’s Thirteen ruled the box office and got decent reviews, it was no match for the stellar notices and the strong overall and per-screen performances that buoyed Judd Apatow’s comedy.
In honor of the final episode of The Sopranos, Culture Snob takes a look at five minutes from The Wire – a show that probably wouldn’t exist were it not for that crime family from Jersey. This brief audio commentary – part of the “Five Minutes” series – looks at one scene from The Wire’s first season. In these five minutes, the only dialogue that passes between Baltimore Police detectives Bunk and McNulty are variations on the word “fuck” and one utterance of “pow,” but the audience pieces together how this particular murder went down through visual storytelling and acting devoid of meaningful words.
It was fairly obvious once the reviews started coming in that Knocked Up would top this week’s edition of Culture Snob’s Box Office Power Rankings. What was surprising was that it came within $14 million of a first-ever perfect score.
As expected, the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie dominated the Memorial Day box office, but $142 million was no match for the feisty limited-release Waitress in Culture Snob’s Box Office Power Rankings. Adrienne Shelly’s film used strong reviews and a blockbuster-worthy per-screen average to land atop this week’s ratings, even though it ranked fifth in overall box office.
Most of us know that box-office gross is a largely meaningless number, and many people think that critics are worthless. In an effort to try to better measure a movie’s overall performance, Culture Snob here offers the first of its weekly Box Office Power Rankings.
