A Fourth (yes, a fourth) New Poster for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (The Man in the Moon)

OK, Walter.  It’s getting a little needy.  Four posters in a week.  Air walking, shark riding, mountain squatting and moon slouching.  Your imagination is awesome.  I understand.  There are limits to how many of these posters I can do (there aren’t but I’m talking to Walter here so mind your own damn business).  They are great posters, Walter.  Movie’s not out for over three months so just sit on a few of them for a couple weeks, ok?  Alright, buddy.

 The Secret Life of Walter Mitty opens Christmas Day and stars Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Sean Penn, Adam Scott and Shirley MacLaine.  Official synopsis below.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is based on James Thurber‘s classic story of a day-dreamer who escapes his anonymous life by disappearing into a world of fantasies filled with heroism, romance and action. When his job along with that of his co-worker (Wiig) are threatened, Walter takes action in the real world embarking on a global journey that turns into an adventure more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined.

 

Killing Time – September 5, 2013

In reality, killing time is only the name for another of the multifarious ways by which Time kills us.  ~Osbert Sitwell

My phone died on me this week in a pathetic attempt to remind me how much I rely upon it.  I’m a tech geek.  I am an early adopter.  I am very VERY fiscally dangerous with a Best Buy and a credit line.  I hate cell phones.  Hate them.  The first one I got was a graduation present….from graduate school.  And I only caved then because I was moving across the country.    It drives me nuts to see people obsessively checking their little screens and if you have one in a movie theater near me, ON; AFTER THE LIGHTS GO OUT….we’re going to rumble.  They’re like little shiny leashes we’ve looped around our own necks.  If Google goes all Skynet on us, this planet would tear itself apart in 36 hours.  However, cell phones have made certain things obsolete.  Like any other kind of phone.  Cameras.  Maps.  Whatever sucking void in the universe’s heart Angry Birds filled, etc.  So I have a phone, but I resent it.  Then it died.  Up and died on me.  Little needy….grrr, ok so you get it.  The end result was that I had to pay more money to a company I’m already paying way more than I want to pay for a phone that is so smart that I cannot use it.  It bleeps and bloops because it’s connected to everything I’m connected to because of evil Google (quick check for drones).  The ring tones are all like nature sounds.  If I hear rain falling, I don’t know my brother is calling me!  That’s not helpful.  I’m slowly figuring it out.  It knows when I’m look at the screen and adjusts brightness for battery life. MY PHONE IS WATCHING ME WATCH IT!  Stop the world; I want off!

Despite having virtually the entire world preparing to unleash seven kinds of hell upon it, Syria stopped by the blog (probably at the invitation of my demon-possessed phone) to bring us to 145 countries or territories with visits.  Also a big KT milestone as we got our 25,000th hit last night and our 150th follower the day before.  Thank you guys for indulging my madness and fondness for all things geeky (except phones).

Books:
Z2135 pt. 2 by Wright & Platt
Cold Days: A Harry Dresden Novel by Jim Butcher

Blu Ray:
Battlestar Galactica: Complete Series Box Set
Boardwalk Empire
The Walking Dead

TV/HULU:
Breaking Bad Season 5.5 or 6, depending on how you look at it
Suits Season Three
Grey’s Anatomy Season Seven
Boardwalk Empire Season Three
The Walking Dead Season Three

Song of the Week: “Little Pieces” by Gomez

Video Game:
Diablo III
Borderlands 2 (Level 38 Gunzerker; Sir Hammerlock DLC)
* XBOX Live, gamertag: sleeplessdave; feel free to friend me!

Comics:
Daredevil Volume 5 by Mark Waid
Saucer Country Volume 2 by Paul Cornell

Final Summer Box Office Report

Summer 2013 Box Office Champ

It’s hard to believe (partly because September is still brutally hot everywhere), but summer has ended.  Movie-wise, this was one of the most disappointing summers I can recall.  Lots of big disappointments and maybe the biggest one ended up being the highest-grossing film of the summer.  Iron Man 3 was the summer’s only worldwide $1 billion film and that and Monsters University can help Disney off-set the financial disaster that was The Lone Ranger.  My favorite films of the summer were Now You See Me, Elysium, Despicable Me 2 and The World’s End.  Kudos for everyone who made the first such a word-of-mouth hit that another installment is forthcoming.  Here are the top ten earners at the summer box office (worldwide gross in parentheses), and let’s hope for a fall like the one we had last year.  Of the top 10, I have seen 8 (I’ll probably eventually see The Heat, but you’d have to put a gun to my head to get me to sit through a regular Great Gatsby adaptation, let alone a Baz Lurhman adaptation).

1. Iron Man 3 : $408.2 million ($1.2 billion)

2. Despicable Me 2 : $347.6 million ($801.3 million)

3. Man of Steel : $289.8 million ($649.3 million)

4. Monsters University: $261.1 million ($658.6 million)

 5. Fast & Furious 6 : $234.5 million ($785.5 million)

6. Star Trek Into Darkness : $227.2 ($453.7 million)

7. World War Z : $198.5 million ($517.8 million)

8. The Heat: $155.8 million ($205.2 million)

9. The Great Gatsby : $144.8 million ($331.0 million)

10. The Conjuring: $129.6 million ($194.9 million)

Top Ten Defining Vin Diesel Movie Moments

With Riddick opening tomorrow, MovieClips.com has put together a retrospective of the ten defining Vin Diesel film moments.  I like Vin, but I’ve never felt he had much more talent than doing the one-note character.  Of course, Arnold and Sly made careers out of that, so it can’t suck.  He’s currently working on Fast and Furious 7 and xXx3.  Doubtlessly a sequel to The Pacifier will follow.  It’s been a long time since he was Caparzo in Saving Private Ryan (oh yeah, that was him).  Chronicles of Riddick might be the biggest bomb to ever get a sequel.  Studios have been pushing this character for a decade now and I wonder if Riddick is the film that’s finally a commercial success.  Riddick opens Friday, September 6th.

Trailer Time: Gravity Trailer #3 (2013)

All I’ll add to the trailer and the plot synopsis is what I heard James Cameron say after he screened the movie.  “Gravity is the best space movie ever made.”

In the sci-fi thriller, opening on October 4, Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone–tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth…and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.