JoBlo does Sundance - final report

Six incredibly bad clips from Steve Martin's upcoming disaster, The Pink Panther

• Check out "I would like to buy a hamburger." This should be used in classes as a teaching aid for "how to be unfunny." Here's today's lesson, pick an idea that it is so trite and unoriginal that it would not be funny even as a one-liner. Then be sure to drag it out for ... ever. Be sure to repeat everything over and over again until it is totally irritating!

Conan O'Brien interviews the ghost of Col. Sanders

• After the interview, a serious PSA comes on and says "we all love comedy, but it should not be at the expense of the feelings of others"
• I take this to mean that Conan will no longer make fun of anyone in his monologues or on his show, thus making it easier for him to conform to his new two-minute format.

The teaser for the remake of The Omen

• Worst trailer ever?
• "Fear the date 6/6/06 when 'The Omen 666 opens in theaters nationwide. A remake of the 1976 horror classic, the new film takes the tale of the coming of the antichrist personified as a young boy named Damien to an even more thrilling and visceral level."

Here's the trailer for The Notorious Bettie Page

• "The most successful pin-up of the 1950s, Bettie Page's legendary photographs made her the target of a Senate investigation into pornography, and turned her into one of the first sex icons."
• Not a very good trailer. I have been looking forward to this movie, but the trailer left me thinking, "What is the point of this film?" Is it just one of those "entire life compressed into 90 minutes" biopics like the ones they used to make in the fifties, or does it have other reasons to exist?

This week's movies - update: Big Momma's House 2 - 7% positive reviews. Are you surprised by the low score?

This week's movies: Bubble - 70% positive reviews

• This is Soderbergh's experimental movie which is opening in theaters at the same time it comes to home video and cable.
• Critics were sharply divided. That's no surprise for a low budget, arty movie. Roger Ebert summed up the positives: "The characters are so closely observed and played with such exacting accuracy and conviction that Bubble becomes quietly, inexorably, hypnotic." The negatives said things like.
  • "At times it's so mind-numbingly dull, it becomes funny. But it's not a feature film. I'm not really sure what it is."
  • "An embarrassment to all concerned, the film was written, directed and produced by Soderbergh for reasons that are not readily apparent."

This week's movies - update: Annapolis - 9% positive reviews

• You can see why critics were not allowed an advance look at this one The word most used in the reviews is "cliche," and I was not the only one to note that it seems too similar to An Officer and a Gentleman.

Daily Box Office - Friday, January 27, 2006

• As expected, Big Momma's House dominated the numbers, but its numbers were higher than expected. Most experts predicted the high teens, and it seems sure to crack 20.
• I have been looking at these result for a couple of years now, and I've realized that the experts always underpredict comedies. That includes everything from modest efforts liek Waiting ... to strong hits like Wedding Crashers, all the way to box office bonanzas like Shrek 2.
• The only real surprise on Friday was the powerful Friday showing of Nanny McPhee, which snuck into the #2 slot despite being on about half as many theaters as #3 (last week's champ, Underworld). The experts predicted that McPhee would finish third or even fourth.