Is Bad Boys For Life the last blockbuster?
Thanks to COVID-19, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence's big-screen reunion is the final relic of a time when large crowds of people paid to see movies in theaters
Image: Graphic: Karl Gustafson Film Features Bad Boys For Life
If Bad Boys For Life had come out three weeks earlier, it would’ve been the No. 12 movie at the 2019 box office. Instead, the team of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence happened to return to screens during the tiny sliver of 2020 when movie theaters were open and when people felt good about going to them. Bad Boys For Life was a surprisingly decent popcorn flick; in the dumping ground of January, where anything halfway entertaining stands out amidst leftover Oscar-bait and radioactive studio bombs, the third film in the buddy cop series was a hit. Any typical year, a crowd-pleasing legacy sequel like that would’ve quickly been overshadowed by flashier, noisier franchise fare. But because of the plague that hit the United States two months after its release, Bad Boys For Life stands as The Last Blockbuster—the final relic of a time when large crowds of people paid to see movies in theaters.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. In 2019, movie-theater business was down a bit from the previous year, but the industry was still relatively lucrative. The year 2019 had Avengers: Endgame, which was briefly the highest-grossing film in history. Nine different 2019 motion pictures—all of them franchise entries or reboots or remakes, most of them from Disney—earned upwards of $1 billion at the global box office. It’s hard to imagine when something like that might happen again.
Bad Boys For Life isn’t a small movie by any measure, but it’s not really a big one, either. It’s a self-conscious throwback, a nostalgic good time. In a long-ago era, the Bad Boys franchise had definitely been a big deal. The first Bad Boys came out in 1995, and nobody expected much of this action-comedy from two sitcom stars and a music-video director. Smith and Lawrence had never headlined a movie. Michael Bay had never directed one. Bad Boys did well enough to push everyone toward bigger things—Bay toward expensive blockbusters, Smith toward globally dominant film stardom, Lawrence toward the Big Momma’s House franchise. Seven years later, all three of them reunited for Bad Boys II, which set a whole new bar for overblown action-cinema incoherence.
For years, there was talk of a third Bad Boys. Everyone seemed to be on board, but schedules and budgets made things difficult. Michael Bay was busy, first with the endless Transformers saga and then with the borderline-unwatchable 2019 Netflix escapade 6 Underground, so Bad Boys needed a new director. Joe Carnahan, the dirtbag auteur behind Smokin’ Aces and The Grey, was attached to direct for a while, and he ended up sharing the writing credit with Sally Field’s son Peter Craig and first-time screenwriter Chris Bremner. Eventually, the producers (a group that included Smith) settled on a directing team known as Adil & Bilall.
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are Belgian-Moroccan friends who met in film school and who’d never helmed an American picture before Bad Boys For Life. They got the job thanks to Black and Gangsta, a pair of hyperkinetic crime movies that they’d made back home in Belgium. Their direction on Bad Boys For Life works as an extended tribute to the Michael Bay style—the swooping shots, the expensive cars gleaming in the sun, the nonstop slapstick comic relief. The big difference is that Adil & Bilall’s action scenes are relatively legible, which takes away from Bay’s disorienting excess but also means that it looks a whole lot nastier when a car falls on some guy and crushes him. (Bay gets a quick Bad Boys For Life cameo as a wedding DJ. Before I recognized him, I definitely spent a couple of seconds confused as to why this wedding DJ looked so weird.)
In storyline terms, Bad Boys For Life is absolute nonsense. A Mexican crime-boss witch breaks out of prison and sends her son to Florida to get revenge on all the people who busted up her family’s drug ring decades ago. The kid, a dead-eyed and inhuman killing machine, pumps Smith’s Mike Lowrey full of bullets. Once he heals up, Lowrey wants revenge, while Lawrence’s Marcus Burnett wants to retire and enjoy his new grandbaby. After a whole lot of riffing and a few deeply goofy action set pieces, one of them gets his way.
Occasionally, Bad Boys For Life recalls the Fast & Furious movies, the knowingly over-the-top action franchise that surged in the wake of Bad Boys. Lowrey and Burnett do a little globetrotting, going on a revenge mission to Mexico that makes absolutely zero sense for Miami cops. They work with a team of photogenic young supercops—Alexander Ludwig from The Hunger Games, Charles Melton from Riverdale, Vanessa Hudgens from High School Musical. (Hudgens rocks a hairstyle that I can only describe as “Skrillex but cornrows.” Between Bad Boys For Life and Spring Breakers, she really found an unlikely niche in scummy and sensationalistic Florida crime movies.) But really, Bad Boys For Life works as a dose of low-stakes nostalgia. The film exists simply to show Will Smith and Martin Lawrence back together again.
By 2020, Smith’s movie-star record wasn’t quite as impressive as it had once been. In the months before Bad Boys For Life hit theaters, for instance, he had headlined Ang Lee’s sci-fi flop Gemini Man and the perfectly serviceable animated flick Spies In Disguise. But Bad Boys For Life taps into Smith’s easy charm, something that hadn’t been fully evident onscreen since I don’t even know when. (Focus? I Am Legend?)
In present-day terms, Mike Lowrey should be an absolutely loathsome character—a violent, impulsive, rich cop who treats women thoughtlessly and who stays on the police force, even though he doesn’t need a job, because he loves kicking ass. But Smith’s whole motormouth routine is so charming that he can get away with saying some truly gnarly shit: “Raids are supposed to be fun! They’re like field trips with guns!” It probably also helps that Lowrey’s big police-brutality scene involves beating up DJ Khaled. Nobody has ever felt sorry for DJ Khaled.
Martin Lawrence is a different story. Lawrence was a gifted, energetic stand-up comic and sitcom star, but unlike Smith, he never really became an actor. Lawrence had also had personal issues—including a sexual-harassment lawsuit from his former Martin co-star Tisha Campbell—and he’d mostly disappeared from movies in the years before Bad Boys For Life. Other than a fun extended cameo in Harmony Korine’s The Beach Bum, Lawrence hadn’t even taken a movie role since Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son in 2011. Anytime Bad Boys For Life requires Martin Lawrence to do any emotional heavy lifting, it gets rough.
Fortunately, that rarely happens. Instead, Smith and Lawrence immediately launch into their old Bad Boys dynamic. Smith is the slickly unstoppable prima donna action star, while Lawrence is the pratfalling everyman who’s always in over his head. In the opening scene, Smith speeds a crazy-expensive sports car through crowded streets while Lawrence hammily tries to keep from barfing. (Smith: “That is hand-stitched leather! You better drink it!”) The twist is that they’re not racing off to catch criminals. Instead, they arrive at the delivery room just in time to witness the birth of Burnett’s grandson. There are many more jokes about aging in Bad Boys For Life, and there’s even a half-assed running theme about owning up to old mistakes, but the film is a whole lot more interested in watching Smith and Lawrence relentlessly clowning each other for a couple of hours.
Bad Boys For Life is not, strictly speaking, a good movie. Instead, it’s check-cashing fan service in action. Adil & Bilall chase that old Michael Bay feeling by staging their own versions of Bay’s extravagant shootouts and car chases and nightclub montages. The pro-cop propaganda is out of control, the characters’ decisions make no sense, and the plot twists are about as absurd as they could possibly be. As Burnett says at one point, “This is some telenovela shit!”
But if you head into Bad Boys For Life with sufficiently low expectations, there’s a lot to like: The unpretentious eagerness to please, the jarring R-rated brutality of the action scenes, the impressively cold-blooded villains, the operatic John Woo vibes of the climactic gunfight. It’s ambition-free fun, and January is a great time to pump some ambition-free fun out into the world.
Bad Boys For Life turned out to be exactly what audiences wanted. It’s a quick, painless, functional two hours at the movies. In January, a film like that can historically get some traction. Most of the other films that came out in the first few months of 2020 were relative flops. Robert Downey Jr. chattered at CGI animals in Dolittle. Harrison Ford made friends with a CGI dog in The Call Of The Wild. The year’s one superhero film, the slapsticky and hyper-violent Birds Of Prey, wasn’t the blockbuster that DC clearly expected. Bad Boys For Life dunked on all of them.
Even with its unexpected success, though, nobody expected Bad Boys For Life to be the biggest hit of 2020. The tentpoles—F9, No Time To Die, Black Widow, Eternals, Top Gun: Maverick—were all scheduled to arrive later in the year. But none of those films actually came out in 2020. Instead, a pandemic swept its way into the United States with dizzying speed. Movie theaters shut down. For six consecutive weeks, a low-budget horror indie called The Wretched was the highest-grossing movie in North America, mostly thanks to drive-in screens.
So Bad Boys For Life earns its place in the history books through freakish accident. Its success is an asterisk, and it doesn’t really tell us much about American moviegoing taste, beyond our pervading appetite for familiar comforts. Bad Boys For Life did not leave a cultural impact, and it didn’t dominate the planet. In countries that didn’t bungle the pandemic quite so badly, theaters opened sooner, and Hollywood lost its place at the center of global film culture. At the global box office, the year’s biggest hit wasn’t a Hollywood product; it was the hugely popular Japanese anime adventure Demon Slayer: Mugen Train. (After it finally came to American theaters, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train did pretty well over here, too, pulling in an extra $50 million after dominating in Asia.) Two Chinese spectacles, a war drama called The Eight Hundred and a bucolic anthology called My People, My Country, also outgrossed Bad Boys For Life around the world. The balance of power shifted.
That shift might be permanent. In 2021, American movies have not caught up. Right now, the biggest global hit of 2021 is a Chinese comedy called Hi, Mom; Hollywood’s own F9 is a distant second. As I write this, Bad Boys For Life is the last film to earn more than $200 million at the domestic box office. That’ll change. Black Widow came close. Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings might get there. By all indications, Spider-Man: No Way Home is going to be huge. (It’s not a coincidence that all three of those big hopes are Marvel products.) But it’s increasingly clear that the rest of the world doesn’t need our escapist entertainments, especially when they can make their own.
During the pandemic, American media conglomerates focused more and more on pushing their streaming services. Maybe I should’ve written this column about the Disney+ version of Hamilton, reportedly the most-streamed film of 2020. Or maybe I should’ve written about the second season of The Mandalorian, the TV series that dominated conversation the way a traditional theatrical blockbuster might’ve done a couple of years earlier. Maybe that would tell us more about where things are going. (After the success of Bad Boys For Life, Adil & Bilall have lined up a whole lot of franchise-system work, and all of their projects are being made for streaming services. They’re attached to Beverly Hills Cop 4 for Netflix, Batgirl for HBO Max, and the Ms. Marvel TV series for Disney+.)
If we ever get to the point where it feels completely safe to breathe the same air as hundreds of strangers for hours at a time, blockbuster cinema will still face an uphill battle. Maybe we’re witnessing the end of the blockbuster film as an institution. If that’s the case, it had a good run.
The contender: Other than Bad Boys For Life, the only 2020 North American movie that you could really call a hit is Sonic The Hedgehog, which was better than I thought it would be but which still wasn’t any good. Looking at last year’s 10 biggest theatrical successes, one stands out. Leigh Whannell’s Blumhouse adaptation of The Invisible Man is a tense, freaky horror thriller with a great Elisabeth Moss performance at its center. The Invisible Man works just fine at home, but it was a kickass movie-theater experience. I’m grateful that I got to have that experience, and I would like to have more of those.
Next time: That’s it! We’re caught up! Thanks to everyone who’s been keeping up with this journey through the past 60 years of blockbuster movies. It’s been fun.
156 Comments
But Tom! What are next?
He’ll move onto movies that haven’t been released yet and then once those run out, the best films that have yet to be made of future years that haven’t happened yet.
I would love Tom to do a series on the most significant animated films of each year, but I don’t know how far you can go back in film history where there was a significant animated feature per annum.
6 Underground Anti-Appreciation ThreadI watched this movie while high. At this point I remember nothing about it except 1) an interminable car chase and 2) something about magnets?
Everyone is very attractive and it’s well-lit.
I think that’s about it in the pros column.
I didn’t watch it while high, and it’s still almost impossible to remember anything about it, other than it’s funded by a millionaire who wants everyone to go by numbers so he won’t get attached to them when they die.
Oh, and the most hilarious sex scene on record, where the two involved literally rip their own clothes off like they’re wearing breakaway clothes.
No that’s Fast 9 ain’t it?
I saw 6 Underground not too long after a mass shooting (I don’t remember which one, because hey, America!), and it made me realize that America’s gun violence hasn’t made me uncomfortable with gun violence on screen, but it’s made me disinterested in blatantly unrealistic gun violence. In that opening car chase, the bad guys spray hundreds of bullets at the car where all our heroes are jammed in together, and what, two people get hit? What’s the point of showing all those bullets fired, if they’re not going to hit anything?
There’s a lot of anti-theatre sentiment on this site of all places these days, what’s the deal? Are American cinemas that bad? There’s a lot of great indie cinemas/art gallery theatres in the places I’ve lived that curate great and affordable/free programs which highlight movies I’d either never watch usually or be able to access (legally). There’s a fantastic magic and atmosphere to watching, say, the remastered Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Farewell My Concubine in a classic theatre with an enraptured audience/group of friends. I even got to see Lang’s Metropolis with an organ player soundtracking it – for free! I for one think it will be a very sad day when and if theaters ever have to shut down for good. Also, potentially hot take: Demon Slayer sucks ass. Glad Japan chose in the year 2020 to crown a regressive as shit anime where the most notable female character is literally gagged the entire time (aware the manga author is a woman which doesn’t make it any better). Don’t get why people are praising the animation either when it’s a bunch of lazy freeze frames and garish digital effects, especially when there are talented contemporaries like Masaaki Yuasa and Makoto Shinkai around. Also, also: Thanks Tom, such a great column!
I’ve lived in Los Angeles my whole life and have almost always had good experiences in theaters here, especially since the ArcLight chain (RIP) opened in 2002. When I see people bitching about how awful the theater experience is, I don’t know what to say to them except I’m glad I don’t live where they live.
I’ve lived in OC my whole life and my experience is the same. I can’t think of a single terrible movie going experience I’ve ever had.
It’s not that they think cinemas are bad per se, they just seem to think that people will be as afraid of Covid forever as they are. Eventually Covid will lose its potency, things will return to normal and theatres will fill back up.
The COVID factor I totally get, especially with studios/directors not reading the room. What’s confusing to me is a not-insignificant number of articles/comments going ‘who cares the theatre experience was crummy anyway!’ almost wishing for their death knell in favor of home theatre (which I like too don’t get me wrong). There’s definitely some local blockbuster cineplexes I won’t step foot in for fear of screaming teenagers, but there’s still a solid number of places offering a good mix of new, old and obscure films for good prices with a respectful audience and great audio/visuals. I’ll even go to bat for the high end, since seeing films like 1917 and TROS on an IMAX Laser was legitimately jaw dropping.That said, I’ve never lived in a city that had a population under 100k, so perhaps I’m speaking from having the privilege of choice.
I don’t think the issue is that people think covid will last forever. I think it’s that covid pivoted the industry more towards a home release/digital direction and then accelerated it. Even post-covid, there’s still going to be a demand — an expectation — that content be released digital ASAP. People will be willing to wait for it and the time between a theater-only release and its digital debut will likely be truncated. Once upon a time you had to go to the theater to watch a movie because the alternative was waiting for like a year to see it at home. I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing movies streaming a couple months after their release, along with simultaneous release and straight to digital. And that leads to the questions — can a movie dominate the marketplace “block buster” style without an exclusive, extended, theater-only release? In an age where consumers have been trained to expect streaming options immediately or in the near future? And with so many entertainment alternatives to compete with?Regarding any anti-theater bias: I may be one of the folks OP is referring to in regards to frequently arguing for the general preference of in-home vs in-theater movie going. I wouldn’t say I hate going to the theater, and I will gladly admit there are specific kinds of films — and specific kinds of experiences — for which going to a theater is superior. But I’d also argue for the overwhelming majority of films, and for the overwhelming majority of viewers, the benefits of being able to watch a movie in the comfort of one’s own home trumps the cost (financial, time, effort, etc) of going to the movie theater in person. And I find it laughable when directors — who have inherent bias towards movie-going because they may have profit sharing incentive, who have a lifelong fascination with cinema that is so strong it pushed them into that career stream and pushed them to excel within a notoriously competitive industry, who likely rarely if ever have to actually purchase movie tickets or concessions and are probably watching movies in theaters alongside other film industry professionals who would never check their phone in the middle of a screening or start a fight over who is sitting where —make these grand pronouncement about how streaming movies aren’t “real” movies or that the only way to enjoy a movie is in the theater. When I see a director saying these things I can’t help but suspect this is a person who is detached from reality, does not live like the rest of us, and has not for some time.
“I wouldn’t say I hate going to the theater, and I will gladly
admit there are specific kinds of films — and specific kinds of
experiences — for which going to a theater is superior. But I’d also
argue for the overwhelming majority of films, and for the overwhelming
majority of viewers, the benefits of being able to watch a movie in the
comfort of one’s own home trumps the cost (financial, time, effort, etc)
of going to the movie theater in person.”I agree with this 100%. Unfortunately, the films that work best as a group experience are also the ones where it’s the most likely that assholes will be present. Like, I see no benefit to seeing The Father, or Shiva Baby, or films like that on a big screen. But, I also know that movies like that are unlikely to be ruined by assholes.
Precisely. Look how the general public has behaved beginning the second lockdowns are lifted in their state or area.Public Official: “We are pleased to announce that beginning Monday we will begin easing restrictions on…”Public: “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Shang-Chi just eclipsed the labor day BO records and is well on it’s way to earn anywhere from 350 to 500 million world-wide, so I think the death of the theatrical movie going experience for a blaockbuster is likely premature.We’ll see how Bond and Dune does in October.
Shang-Chi just eclipsed the labor day BO records Those weren’t particularly impressive records though. Labor Day is typically a dumping ground holiday – sort of a “BRING OUT YOUR DEAD” for the summer movie season. And while 300-500 mil worldwide sounds great, you gotta remember that studios don’t pull much more than 25% of that international money, and most of these movies were budgeted with an eye towards worldwide totals closer to 750-900 mil.
300-500mil is good if it’s 2001. Not in 2021. Spider-Man may break 250mil domestic. Maybe. But again, that’s a great total for 20 years ago. It’s definitely not what Marvel and Disney wanted when they budgeted and shot the thing.
Basically – everything is flopping, and it can’t NOT flop, because COVID has changed the landscape, and very rapidly accelerated the move to streaming as the primary revenue source. Studios can’t rely on audiences coming back to make good on their budgeting. They need to change how they spend their money, or change their bar for successful return on investment – because spending 300-400 mil to make 1-1.3bil worldwide isn’t going to be viable anytime soon, if ever again.
This is pure speculation as I’ve only rarely seen a movie in a theater outside of NYC, but it sure sounds like the general erosion of the social order that’s occurred all over Trump country extended to movie theaters in the pre-COVID era. Like, I’ve never experienced loud talking in the theater or people on their phones the whole time or silly arguments with the staff and things like that. But given that people commonly cite these complaints as reasons they don’t miss the cinema, I have to assume the same theater norms weren’t respected everywhere in the country, and for a lot of moviegoers the theater experience was like living through an Angry Karen YouTube video.
People have been bitching about theatres since well before Trump and, similarly, I’ve never really experienced any of the apparently-common shenanigans in the wild. Generally when people bring it up, it tends to be when they’re bragging about their totally-just-as-good-as-a-cinema* home theatres and they need an antagonist. *The fuck it is.
They got a 300 65inch 4k tv from Walmart on Black Friday and not just that but they picked up a store brand 30 dollar soundbar. I like to see theaters beat that. They even hooked up their DVD players and sprung for that 480p Netflix package.
Uh, no. Kindly keep to your own bubble, please. I have no idea what you’re talking about equating theater norms and Trump country, and my moviegoing experiences have been spread across rural Indiana, Chicago, Denver, and Southern California. If anything the decorum has been worse in more liberal areas. But, hey, please tell us more about how our lives work, oh great NYC oracle.
Why do you flyover folks get so touchy whenever someone mentions they’re from NYC? Sounds like @egerz’s comments hit a little too close to the truth for your liking 😉
It couldn’t be that they act like smug twerps, deeply convinced of their own relevancy and everyone else’s meaninglessness. Naw, it must be their cutting insight that rubs people the wrong way, that’s the ticket!
Proudly a smug twerp who has never yelled at a waiter, punched a flight attendant, or sent death threats to the school board over mask mandates – all of which seem to have become the official state sports of the middle and south of this country. It seems you know EXACTLY what the OP is talking about when he says “erosion of social order”, your defensiveness proves it.
Is your serious argument right now that the coasts don’t have anti-vaxxers? Don’t be such an obvious troll, bruh.
I appreciate you doing my work for me.
Eh, I’ve lived my entire life in the south and can count the number of annoying theater experiences I’ve had on one hand. The only really bad one involved a gaggle of middle-school aged girls all looking at their phones and comparing notes. I don’t think they were influenced by Trump, since it was probably 2015.
I worked in an AMC in the mid-90s. Minus the cell phones, people didn’t exactly always bring their best behavior to theaters back then either. The 1990s proto-Karens were just as quick to call for the managers when the concession stand temporarily ran out of Pretzel Bites as they probably are now.
Worked at a theater when Lost World came out. The movie sold out when 2 old people came up to buy tickets. Told them sold out and they where like how and I explained 300 people came before you to buy tickets. Then cried that the monitors did not say sold out, it was a separate system and the other box office person was changing right than so I was like that is about to change. Finally they start to demand to speak to the manager.
The thought of flying again makes me shudder — I can’t help but think it’s going to get even worse.
But I honestly thought the overall experience of watching a movie in a theater bottomed out a while ago and had started inching back up to a somewhat better state in recent years. I feel theaters started trying harder to keep customers. Concessions were still overpriced but the quality was a bit better, screens seemed better, and seats were better. Maybe it was related to the collapse of traditional malls over the past decade and the closing of some awful multiplexes.
I can’t blame anyone with a serious home theater for preferring to stay home, but I’m hoping we can get back to good movies in theaters again.
I find theatre sucks a bit for arthouse movies because outside of the biggest cities you’re generally in a tiny room (and often one not really designed for the purpose), the picture’s no better than Bluray, sometimes you can’t read the subtitles for the guy in front’s head, and audiences still can’t behave or shut up. But for blockbuster movies in a big room, it’s a different story: that’s the unique big screen experience, the noise, the visuals, and for a big dumb movie it doesn’t matter as much if the audience can’t sit still.
They’re overexpensive and overrated. “Muh smell of popcorn! Muh audience cheering!”
I get that some people just never liked big, crowded public places but otherwise I don’t see how anyone can claim a home viewing experience (unless you have a full-on media room) comes close to watching in a theater. It’d especially odd on a site that celebrates movies, and feels a lot like the group of commenters over at Jalopnik who seem to hate the entire concept of cars.
If you want to have a real discussion about theaters, we need to stop pretending that they have some sort of inherit “magic” to them or that seeing a film anyplace else is automatically an inferior experience. We need to acknowledge that movie theaters exist because of technological limitations that existed when movies were still a new medium, not because watching a movie in a big room with lots of strangers is automatically better.
That’s not to say that theaters are bad. It’s a lot of fun to see something on a big screen! It’s also a lot of fun to see something on a normal screen with just your friends in your own home. So maybe it’s time to stop acting as though theaters are automatically the best way to watch a film. They’re just one option out of many. They’re not better than streaming or blu-rays or what have you. They’re just different. And movie nerds need to get over this and stop fetishizing theaters if they’re serious about saving them.
We need to stop pretending that they have some sort of inherit “magic” to them or that seeing a film anyplace else is automatically an inferior experience. I was talking about this yesterday in a different thread, but it’s bizarre to see so many writers/directors/moviegoers talking about the primacy/supremacy of the movie theater as not so much the idealized moviegoing experience but the BASELINE in order to get the most out of the film – when the large, large percentage of people’s favorite films became their favorite films on home video. Whether they discovered them there, whether they reinforced them there. The notion that you can’t get the most out of a movie unless you’re in a movie theater is proven bullshit by dint of how many current filmmakers were inspired to BE filmmakers thanks to watching bonafide classics on VHS/Laserdisc/DVD. If the theatrical experience was so sacrosanct to understanding and appreciating film, then we – as both audience and larger film industry – wouldn’t have been so quick to abandon theatrical exhibition to its being amusement park ride gimmickry the way that we did, and still do. How many times have you, or someone you know, basically blown off seeing something that might be legitimately great at the theater because “I don’t need to see it on the big screen, really.”
At some point we culturally equated “going to the movies” to “going to the explosions” and I have a hard time bridging the pleas to recognize “The magic of the cinema” with how we’ve devalued it voluntarily.
It’s not quite the same thing but there is an echo of music nerds telling you why you have to listen to vinyl. I understand there are those who just love going to the theater and I’m glad they have something they enjoy but I really don’t care… When I go to a movie theater it’s almost always because I’m on a date or I’m home with my family for a week in the suburbs and we’re desperate to get out of the house.
There’s a lot of anti-theatre sentiment on this site of all places these days, what’s the deal? Are American cinemas that bad? The independents and repertory theaters are often very cool experiences, but they’re also sort of boutique and not readily accessible in a lot of places. If you had to compare them to anything, you could compare them to whatever local record stores might still be around in larger cities – places that still care about presentation, making vinyl available, employing folks who care about the experience, etc. etc.
Chain theaters, on the other hand, are often not very good experiences. And the ones that are good experiences are premium priced. And even then, you’re often dealing with problems w/r/t projection quality, sound quality, other people, etc. etc.There’s frequently a false dichotomy where people talk about the blockbuster era going away as if theaters can’t survive without big-budget blockbusters. And it sounds accurate if only because the past 20-30 years of moviegoing has more and more centered on making “going to the movies” more about theme park-esque blockbuster rides than about… you know… GOING TO THE MOVIES. But much like there are still honest to god RECORD STORES flourishing in the 21st century, there will still be movie theaters worth going to in the streaming age. Some of them will be boutique experiences for movie lovers, and others will be more like (to shift analogies) visiting a Dave & Busters to play arcade games when you feel like having the arcade experience instead of just enjoying a great game at home on your PS4/PS5/XboxWhatever/NintendoThingy, etc.
But basically, the tradeoff here is “I think it’s worth it to have a nicer picture on a smaller screen in my living room where a bunch of inconsiderate dickheads can’t wander in” vs. “I would prefer to see this as big as possible for a premium price with a bunch of other people.” And streaming services and home video tech have made the latter seem a lot more attractive lately than simply heading to your local AMC.
I loved the theaters near me, big reclining seats that you reserves your seat. one even had a call button for wait staff. It was movies that just no longer drew me into the theater. I want movies I need to see in the theater, disaster porn, superhero sequel 7, supernatural trope fest, torture porn, domestic divorce dramas, nope not my thing. I have seen lots of movies in the theater since the mid 1970s and look forward to going back.
I also enjoy going to the movies, but they are a bit of a hassle. You have to get everyone to the same spot at the same time, there’s a crowd to get through, you get no choice on who is watching with you, they might like talking through the movie, they might chew loudly, they might bring kids who cry.And now that you can get movie quality sound and large TVs, where you have the power to pause, rewind, rewatch whenever you want, I can understand people who prefer that to going to a theater. And while Covid will eventually go away, or be relegated to a seasonal thing like the flu, this pandemic has made people reevaluate what they want. I’ve gone out to eat a few times, and I realize I don’t miss it. So I do think theaters are going to have a tough time filling up every showing all weekend long. They might get crowds for big tent-pole premiers, but it will probably drop off quickly. But what do I know, I’m just a nobody posting in the greys?
I finally watched Birds of Prey this year and wow, what a misfire. It had some great bit and casting (Huntress, Montoya and Black Mask) yet spent way the fuck too much time on the two least-interesting characters – Cassandra and Harley.The latter particularly was a problem by putting a character who works best in small doses front and centre, and the dialling her quirk factor up to 11.
I think the action scenes are good, but the plot was messy and unengaging, and at the end it seems to set up a Birds of Prey vs Harley Quinn film which seems to me like what they should have done all along and probably won’t happen now.
Cassandra is especially terrible.
Misfire is so the right way to describe that mess… Harely Quinn in Suicide Squad was the highlight character, and Margot Robbie is hot as hell but somehow her constant exaggerated expressions became unbearably grating after a while which I wouldn’t have thought.The balance between fun and violence and likable anti-heroes is hard to strike, in this case the basic story wasn’t up for it.
Her fake New York accent is insanely thick (and very terrible) in Birds of Prey.It was a pleasant surprise that it was dialled way back in The Suicide Squad.
that’s a gotham accent.
A competent director can work wonders.
Margot Robbie was fantastic in The Suicide Squad.
I watched 30 minutes and gave up. Everyone loves this movie (and the same people loved Into the Spider-Verse, which I also enjoyed), but it just seemed to take forever to get going into anything. It is still on my queue for resume watching and I just have no desire to see it through to the end.
As much as it hurts me to admit it, Ewen McGregor was not great, either. It was like Halston became a Gotham villain, and not in any kind of interesting way.
The first half-hour or so is straight terrible. I was watching on a plane and my wife kept looking over, finally asking “what the fuck are you watching??” It really did feel like it was written by a hyperactive child.
Thank you, finally someone else agrees that Harley Quinn is not an interesting character. She’s a hot psychopath that murders people… and that’s it.
I thought Montoya was pretty miscast. Stephanie Beatriz or Michelle Rodriquez or probably half a dozen others would have been better.
I didn’t … hate it?I streamed it one day when I was home with a blasting headache and kind of had fun with it. I’m not sure I can adequately explain the plot or really any character’s motivations, other than Harley wanted to survive b/c she had a price on her head and something about a big ass diamond or some crap. I thought it was an interesting watch style-wise, and I do kinda get a kick out of Margot Robbie turning the crazy up to 28. It gets a big shrug from me.
I enjoyed it even though it was messy, but if it had been like 70% Birds and 30% Harley instead of the reverse it would have been way better. More Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress please! Harley in the first Suicide Squad sucked (as did the whole movie), Harley in Birds… was better but still occasionally grating and way overused, and then the new Suicide Squad finally hit the Harley characterization I wanted and made her part of the ensemble with a brief subplot to shine in instead of constant overexposure.
Yes if we’d had far more Huntress, that would have helped. She had, by far, the most interesting arc and she’s barely in the movie.The stupidly long subtitle of the film also didn’t help. It made it sound shockingly twee.
Honestly, I’m not a big fan of the way Harley Quinn has been overexposed generally in recent years. She’s always been a character who works best in small doses IMO.
I don’t dip into the DC books as often as I used to but as someone who was very DC through much of the 90s and 2000s, it’s weird to see her how dramatically her presence in the DC Universe has changed in that time.
No.
Tom, you are the man. Six decades worth of cinema and you made each article such a captivating read. I can’t wait to see what series you come up with next for A.V. Club- will definitely be in it for the long run.
This has been a great series, and it’s kept me coming back to the AV Club for each update. And now that the series is over….well, that’s probably it for me around here. Here’s to a genuinely great series of essays, and here’s to what was once one of the finest websites around. And finally, here’s a hearty fuck you to Herb Spanfeller.
I keep coming here because I’m old and out of touch, and it’s the only way I get news of things in the entertainment world. So I’ll probably be here until the site inevitably dies. But I’m not happy about it.To be fair, it’s not ALL G/O Media’s fault. Kinja did more to damage this place than Spanfeller ever could.
I think Kinja was awful but Herb was worse.
who?
Did Kinja come in before the G/O takeover? I feel like it did but after three minutes searching I haven’t really figured it out and I’m not going to bother. Anyway the culling of writers and decline of quality was very much a feature of the Univision/GMG era that has of course continued. But it was Kinja that destroyed the commentariat (for years I thought Disqus was the absolute nadir of online conversation tools… little did I know). Anyway the movie stuff here is still worth reading. But who am I kidding? No one will ever see this comment. Thanks Kinja
Whatever happened to the AV Club anyway? What it is the Kinjapocalypse?
WTF is STARZ lol
Who?
When you someone Kinja it…
“here’s to what was once one of the finest websites around”The A.V. Club
There’s still When Romance Met Comedy
Tom, all three of these series of columns have been appointment reading for me the last few years. I really hope you’ve got another one in the works. Otherwise, I’ll have to go back and start Age of Violence over again.
Oh, absolutely. The Friday columns (“When Romance Met Comedy” is really equally great, even though its subject speaks a little less to me) have been one of best, if not the best thing on the AV Club for a while. Also one of the rare places left with consistently interesting and active comment threads.
I really hope that Tom finds another one to write about. (I honestly don’t care what it’s about, I’ll read along either way.) I guess there’s always his “Number 1″-column on Stereogum, if that’s really where he’s parting ways with the AV Club. But honestly, I hope that’s not it.
After the Ellie Kemper fiasco, Tom’s column is literally the only thing I read on this site.
The end of Age of Heroes had an announcement for Popcorn Champs, but this column says nothing about a followup, which is sad.I think the stupid management theory is that short bits are somehow better than longer essays, but these dolts only want to see the data that confirms their preconceived ideas. And then they see falling readership and double down.Fingers crossed it’s just a short breather, anyways.
By the way, the main text doesn’t include the slug “The Popcorn Champs”, although I realized early on that this is what it is.
Seconding everything here.
I know you’re grouping the film columns, but these are especially reminiscent of series like Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation?, which IMO remains the best thing I’ve ever read on this site. I do wish they’d bring back Who Charted? because that gave everyone an excuse to talk about broadly different eras and genres of music.
I agree about Alternative Nation, but My Year of Flops will always be my go to for favorite columns. We do have Rabin to thank for making “manic pixie dream girl” a thing. Geez do I miss the old AVC. The days of classic recaps are long over. They gave me a solid reason to re-watch ST:TNG and X-Files all over again.
I just found the number one column. Sooooo good. Soooo much fun. Well researched too.
Agreed completely. These columns – and their predecessors – have been the absolute highlight of the site for the past few years, showcasing the sort of intelligent, knowledgeable articles on pop culture – with the right mixture of facts, analysis and personal opinion (that never fell into feeling like someone’s personal blog like so many other For Our Considerations and the like) – that made The AV Club such a great site to begin with (When Romance Met Comedy is also great). The discussions in the comments has backed up the quality of the articles too. I hope there’s more to come to but, if this is it, a sincere thanks for the hard work in watching, researching and writing the columns. They’ll always be something I look forward to coming back to after watching films covered in any of the series.
.. showcasing the sort of intelligent, knowledgeable articles on pop culture – with the right mixture of facts, analysis and personal opinion (that never fell into feeling like someone’s personal blog like so many other For Our Considerations and the like) ..
This, right here. I’d love to add to it, but that sums it up perfectly. It’s either pleasantly impressive writing, or borderline offensive slag.
Tom does a thrice-weekly column over at Stereogum looking at the history of Billboard number ones, which is definitely worth a read if you’re into that kind of thing. https://www.stereogum.com/category/the-number-ones/
Thank you for the link!! Definately was looking for something else pop-culture to read that wasn’t mindless “wokeness.” and reporting on whatever sewage is being spilled on Twitter today.
Glad I saw this, definitely going to read through those. These columns, like others have said, are one of the last threads tying current AV Club to what it used to be.
Thanks for that link. I had no idea about that column and from the singular one that I read (“Nothing Compares 2 U”) he’s killing it. That he’s already up to 1990 from 1958 tells me I have a lot of reading to do over the next four days. Luckily I’m off until Friday.
After Popcorn Champs, History Of Violence, and Age Of Heroes, the three best columns on this site, I’m down for more Tom. Maybe “Terror In The Aisles”? Start at Night Of The Living Dead? Or a sci-fi column starting at 2001?
To be a fly on the wall in the purported 1964 meeting where Kubrick, Arthur C Clarke, and Carl Sagan discussed what the aliens should look like and decided on “we shouldn’t show the aliens”
He added new entries for History of Violence on subsequent years, so he might also tell us about the top grossing film of 2021, whatever that will be.
Same. I’ve loved every minute of every installment.
Agreed on all counts
well ‘when romance met comedy’ is right there and quite good, too.
Seconded. I’m hoping you’ll turn some or all of these into a book. If so, I’m buying.
I agree. I live for these columns, they are top notch!
I’d love a 50 year look at the movies that were expected to be great and critically bombed, and why. Love a deep dive into Godfather III, Ishtar, Justice League, Suicide Squad…
Can we please stop acting like we won’t be past this in a few years. This is not the first pandemic, they happen all the time
lol
That’s true, but technology changes. People returned to theaters in the past, but they also didn’t have the same home options we do now. Theaters have been sick for a while, and the pandemic has made them sicker. They may indeed bounce back, but I don’t think it’s a sure thing at all.
I mean the greatest film of last year was easily OK Madam.
Thanks for another great read. I would definitely buy any one of these series as a coffee table book.
I’m going to recycle my post from the previous time Bad Boys for Life was mentioned here if that’s OK:On the subject of Bad Boys For Life, I would love to see an interview with the actor who played Reggie. He only has two credits, these two films about 17 years apart.To start with, how did he get the role, what led up to it and then as it seems his primary career isn’t acting, what was it like to get the call for this all these years later, what he’s been doing in the meantime and what he thought about doing the role so far apart and returning to it and so on.(Also to add to my original post, what it was like meeting these famous actors the first time and then again after all these years.)
“Lowrey and Burnett do a little globetrotting, going on a revenge mission to Mexico that makes absolutely zero sense for Miami cops.”Just a reminder that at the end of Bad Boys 2, their police department invade Cuba.(Could have just ended the film with a siege of the villain’s mansion Mr Bay but nooooooo ….)
… AND drove Hummers or some other vehicle, like, straight through a shanty town, killing lord knows how many. “Well they make drugs in there…” they said, or, perhaps the poor folks who lived there did the only thing they could do to make it in Castro’s Cuba. And now they’re all run over and dead and stuff.
I streamed Bad Boys and just thought, “Meh, it was there”. I wouldn’t have enjoyed it if I saw it in cinemas because I don’t think it was worth the money. But that’s just me. I know where I stand when it comes to watching movies. But I don’t agree that it has to get tribal. Commenters and writers like Tom enjoy the movie cinema experience. Awesome more power to you. I don’t look down or go out of my way to make fun of people that want to do something on their own personal time. I’ve commented before on this issue whenever an actor or a director talks about it like it’s the better experience for everyone. Or the fact that I never saw movies like T2 or The Matrix in cinemas and people say you missed out. Which I disagree. I know there’s plenty of people and I have friends and family that do prefer the cinemas. And I hope they get back what they personally feel is worth it within their lifetimes. I guess in comparison to enjoy the movie experience I just wish this site or the other sites would also make more articles or discuss more with actors and directors about how other people feel of skipping cinemas for very valid reasons even without the pandemic. There were always be a large percentage of audiences that are willing to go to the cinemas. But there’s at least an equal amount of people who happily enjoy their movie experiences without going there. To each their own when it comes to movies.
I’d say it’s more of an issue when it’s actors/directors weighing in, for two reasons:1) Their takes tend to read as trying to prop up their own/their peers’ work as more “legitimate” than films that aren’t readily available in cinemas, which spits on indies and imports that are harder to see on the big screen.2) It’s a wildly irresponsible take for celebrities to promote during an ongoing pandemic, and will continue to be until either the dust settles on Covid or the antivax movement dies.They aren’t just individuals stating their own preference, they’re public figures using that platform to try and prop up an industry. That’s a whole different can of worms.
Well, as the Johansson lawsuit (and I think the whole Tenet debacle) shows, there is also a big financial incentive for actors/directors under current contract structures for their movies to screen theatrically. When they don’t, they don’t get as much money and the theaters obviously don’t get as much money. The people who continue to get a lot of money are the studios/streaming services, who now have an even easier way of coming up with sketchy viewing numbers as well. Wanting more theatrical screenings props up legs of an industry that otherwise is consolidating to one monolith.
Oh god, Tenet feels like it came out about 17 years ago now…
Why are you commenting on this site? Asshole.
It’s okay we all know you’re better than us. Can u go somewhere else to assert superiority. We don’t care, thanks.
Get over urself
I like sitting in a theatre watching a movie on a big-ass screen with a good sound system. I hate going to the movies. It’s too damn expensive, people are obnoxious, and I swear movie theatre butter is getting nastier.
The original Bad Boys is a fairly decent if generic 80’s buddy cop movie that came out half a decade late. It’s USP was seeing two characters that looked me in both roles, rather than just one who invariably has a less significant role across the film (unless they’re saving their partner’s life in the third act).If the first had had a better cast and more memorable villain I think it would been more fondly remembered outside of black film goers/the 90’s twenty year olds (or those of us who were both).The sequel was loud and mostly forgettable, apart from the inclusion of Gabrielle Union as Marcus’s sister. That’s what makes Bad Boys For Life frustrating in that she’s nowhere to be and is completely forgotten about, unless folks have seen LA’s Finest (which I haven’t). BB4L was okay but I don’t think it’s better than the original.The quirk of fate meaning it ended up being the highest grossing film of 2020 feels like a nice win for the cast. Hopefully that will give Hollywood studios more confidence to back the next Bad Boys or Shang Chi or mid budget action film.
That’s something I do miss about the nineties-black film didn’t need white approval to be successful, nor did its creators think so.
It would have been nice if LA’s Finest tied into Bad Boys a lot more than it did. You didn’t miss anything.
Tom thanks for these columns, they’ve been a pleasure to read each Friday morning.
Well good movie at all. Visit this site for online certification course http://www.eduanalytix.com
Really enjoyed this series just as much as the previous two. Great work.I wondered if this article might get into the whole Tenet situation given that it was the big swing at getting people back into cinemas before the second wave hit.
Tom, have to say, it’s been a pleasure following this column. I’ve been looking forward to it every second week. It’s gonna be hard to find something equally interesting to fill the gap that this’ll leave.
You know, if Bad Boys for Life really is the last Hollywood cinema blockbuster, it’s a fitting one. A charming enough movie with solid stars and action scenes, that didn’t just earn the throne of ‘highest-grossing of the year’ by pure franchise rite and studio brute-force… but is still a major studio production that wouldn’t have gotten anywhere were it not for being part of a franchise.Maybe not a good movie, but it’s hard to think of a more appropriate ending for Hollywood blockbusters if it ends up being that.
“Skrillex but cornrows.”so Phil Anselmo?
Vanessa Hudgens cover of “Walk” WHEN
Walk When?
Yes, I want it!
Tom, I’m a huge fan of your columns (here and the Number Ones) so I really hope you’ve got a new AV Club column ready to kick off in two weeks. Age of Horror starting with Psycho maybe?
I don’t know if that will exceed Bad Boys For Life’s total, though I hope so. But I definitely don’t think BBfL is the last blockbuster. COVID will not be permanent and people will still want to see movies in theatres.
Good riddance.
Even though I’ve fallen into the greys for some reason so my comments are “vox clamantis in deserto”, allow me to add my gratitude to you for this series. I’ve caught up on all the blockbusters I had never seen, even when there were way too many explosions. Some great movies, a lot I wouldn’t have watched if they hadn’t been in your column, and excellent analysis of what lay behind the making, marketing, and success of each one. Keep up the good work!
I saw it in the theaters on a date. Had no interest in seeing it but all in all it was an enjoyable disconnect for a couple hours.
Say what you want, I still loved Will Smith in Bright. It was so different (appealing to that ancient nerd in side me, that rerolls for a 18/99).
this film was released already?
i took an impromptu trip to LA in january of 2020 for a few days and saw this at the arclight. it was definitely the weed pen, the fact that i was on vacation and the nostalgia (the first bad boys in particular was huge for me as a kid) but i was basically crying the whole time this movie made me so happy.it really was the closest thing i’d seen to a 90s action comedy in a long time and seeing will and martin having fun was so nice. in fact it even elevates bad boys 2, because that scene where will and martin terrorize martin’s daughter’s date is evened out a little by the fact that he actually married and had a kid with her. the theatre had a mild cheer when he showed up!
Popcorn Champs is incredible, and will be sorely missed, but at least we’ll still have a bunch of quality long-form content to read every week, like “When Romance Met Comedy” and…um…er…at least we’ll still have “When Romance Met Comedy.” For now.
Keep writing about movies, Breihan. We’ll keep reading.
The Invisible Man was the last movie I saw in theaters and it was a lot of fun, Whannell uses the whole screen well so seeing that big made it creepier. And my audience wasn’t big but it still enhanced things, particularly at the restaurant scene. The fighting sequences toward the end worked better in Upgrade, though.
I missed it in theatres but when I watched it on streaming I sincerely regretted that. It was just fantastic, one of the best movies I’d seen in a long time.
Can I disagree with the title of this piece? I saw Shang-Chi in a completely sold out theatre this month…. so debunked!
Martin Lawrence struggling not to vomit in an expensive car does sound like an apt metaphor for his entire career.
“But it’s increasingly clear that the rest of the world doesn’t need our
escapist entertainments, especially when they can make their own.”From your keyboard to Hollywood’s ears…it would be great for major filmmakers to be able to think a bit less about sucking China’s dick every time out.
So, this was written before Shabg Chi had a bigger opening than BBfL?
I didn’t see Call of the Wild because even with Harrison Ford I couldn’t get past the CGI dog. But! There’s good news: the film Togo exists. It has Willem Dafoe and a REAL DOG and it was an emotional fucking roller coaster (but a fun one).
Harrison Ford? More like Fall of the Mild! Amiright guys?
Togo is amazing and I’ve been trying to spread the gospel since it came out. Future family movie classic IMO.Plus “Good dogs all.”, always makes me feel like I’m cutting onions
Tom, here’s your next column: Figure out what the LEAST successful major film (that is to say, the movie that lost the most money when accounting for budget vs gross) of each year is since whatever year those records are easily available for. Call the column Bombs Away or something like that. Give Av Club readers the real insight on disasterpieces like Ishtar, The Lone Ranger and Mars Needs Moms. Force the world to acknowledge that Cutthroat Island deserved better. It’s time.
Gina Davis as basically Anne Bonny in a pirate adventure indeed deserved better.
Heres hoping for a follow-up project, I can’t believe I’ve been reading this one for more than two years.
Well every empire has its moment in the sun then get dragged kicking and screaming onto the dust pile of history, we had a good run and like many empires, we did it to ourselves.
I feel the need to reiterate: my showing of “Shang-Chi” in Toronto on opening night at Yonge & Eglinton was sold out. This article is nonsense. I was literally sitting in a packed theatre with 600 other people a couple weeks ago….
We went for the 7pm show and that one was sold out so we got one of the last few tickets for the 9:40pm showing.
Just in case any Americans refuse to believe me, I did see a movie recently in a totally packed theatre. Idk if that’s something to be proud of or brag about or whatever, but I’m not out here to pretend the world’s not still spinning.
Bad Boys For Life was not the last blockbuster and to presume so is ridiculous.
Is it weird to me that it feels like this movie came out several years ago?
Bad Boys For Life… Woof. Talk about going out on a whimper. Given the circumstances, I would just disqualify the whole year. But there’s one movie that deserved a deep dive… In keeping with the narrative about theater’s demise in 2020, “Why Didn’t Tenet Save Cinema?” is the article I would have gone with.
The last movie I saw in the theater was when I took the kids to see Sonic. Not a horrible movie, but if I had know the pandemic was coming and it would be the last movie in person for a long time, I would have made different choices.Mr. Breihan, what is the next column? Whatever it is, I am here for it!
Awesome series! Great restrospective of movies and entertainment over the last few decades. I have nothing to say about BBFL … I hated hated hated Bad Boys 2 and just really never felt like watching this one. But I might give it a shot now. Expectations are everything!
Obligatory Top 10 Highest Grossing Movies Of 2020 Post:The Numbers1. Bad Boys For Life, Sony/Columbia, $204,417,855 2. 1917, Universal, $157,901,466 3. Sonic The Hedgehog, Paramount, $146,066,470 4. Jumanji: The Next Level, Sony/Columbia, $124,736,710 5. Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, Disney, $124,496,308 6. Birds Of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn), Warner Bros., $84,158,461 7. Dolittle, Universal, $77,047,065 8. The Invisible Man, Universal, $64,914,050 9. The Call Of The Wild, 20th Century Studios, $62,342,368 10. Onward, Disney, $61,555,145Wikipedia1. Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, Toho/Aniplex (Sony Music Japan), $503,048,4712. The Eight Hundred, CMC Pictures Holdings, $461,421,5593. Bad Boys For Life, Sony/Columbia, $426,505,2444. My People, My Homeland, China Lion Film Distribution, $422,390,8205. Tenet, Warner Bros., $363,656,6246. Sonic The Hedgehog, Paramount, $319,715,6837. Dolittle, Universal, $245,521,0628. Jiang Ziya, Beijing Enlight Pictures, $240,663,1499. A Little Red Flower, HG Entertainment, $216,000,00010. The Croods: A New Age, Universal, $215,905,815
Obligatory Every Movie Featured In These Articles Ranked From Best To Worst Post:The Godfather (1972)2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)The Exorcist (1973)Jaws (1975)Saving Private Ryan (1998)The Dark Knight (2008)Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)Blazing Saddles (1974)Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)Rocky (1976)Jurassic Park (1993)The Graduate (1967)West Side Story (1961)The Avengers (2012)Toy Story 3 (2010)Beverly Hills Cop (1984)Back To The Future (1985)Batman (1989)Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King (2003)Spider-Man (2002)Toy Story (1995)Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi (1983)Spartacus (1960)Titanic (1997)Rain Man (1988)Kramer VS Kramer (1979)Avengers: Infinity War (2018)Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011)Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)Top Gun (1986)The Longest Day (1962)Aladdin (1992)Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)Independence Day (1996)The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)Three Men And A Baby (1987)Billy Jack (1971)My Fair Lady (1964)Cleopatra (1963)The Sound Of Music (1965)Avatar (2009)Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith (2005)Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999)Spider-Man 3 (2007)Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)Forrest Gump (1994)American Sniper (2014)Home Alone (1990)Grease (1978)Shrek 2 (2004)Bad Boys For Life (2020)The Lion King (2019)The Bible: In The Beginning… (1966)Love Story (1970)How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
6 Underground is awesome. The whole movie is basically the ecstasies of destruction (thx: Saul Bellow). It’s a stag film where the subject is violence.
Just waiting for the hardback: Breihan, collected.(With both your writing here and for stereogum fnxxx)
Interesting revisiting this now, after the latest Spider-Man absolutely dominated 2021, even in the midst of the Omicron outbreak. Tom was smart to make note of that possibility towards the end. It’s even more interesting that NWH pulled in about a billion dollars without China, though. Just as China seems to be doing fine now without Hollywood, hopefully Hollywood will realize they don’t need to pander & grovel to Chinese censors & sensibilities.Looks like there’s life in the blockbuster yet. The fate of just about every other type of theatrical movies seems more precarious than ever, though.