How dare you watch a movie inside with the gorgeous spring weather coming around? Shame on you. Take the screening outdoors with that significant other.
2011 was great for… well it depends who you ask. Box office ratings and pre-release analysis may have been WRONG (?!?) or right (!!!) on predictions. So many themes have been revamped, visual specs have advanced sales yet tickets are more expensive in a down economy! So that leaves us to ask, in 2011—who were the overachievers, underachievers and the ones that just met expectations?
So you COULD watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the umpteenth time until you’re hearing bells ring, OR you could try something new. At FilmBuff, we’re all about experimenting…with movies.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go. Chestnuts are roasting, rosy cheeks are cute, not painful, and everyone around you is filled with cheerfulness and glee (both words that we never use outside of the holiday season). The holidays are a time when everything has a higher purpose: terrible weather becomes a white Christmas, distant relatives become close family members and putting on some extra weight turns into “the holiday spirit”. Every year people come together to celebrate. It doesn’t matter if it’s Christmas or Kwanza, it’s about the feeling of togetherness.
Surviving the holidays single can be a challenge and a really awful one at that. But if you’re going to hibernate it away, there’s some damn good movies out there to get you through it.
Drive-ins are one of those institutions that feel like Americana from the days of yore. Yet watching movies outdoors has an undeniable aura of sexy and summer. And we all know sexy and summer should equate into sexy and summer dating.
So if you’re going to watch a movie with a girl on a warm night, which you probably will at some point in the next few weeks because Netflix and HuluPlus are hella cheap, this is how you do it.
PLEASE NOTE: Feel free to go as low key as laptop/iPad (leaning in close together while watching) or as over-the-top as you like (i.e. rent a screen and a projection device). Or if you insist on someone else doing the work, lots of cities do great outdoor screenings throughout the summer.
Feel free to adjust wholesomeness levels as necessary, but you totally can’t credit this post if you somehow wind up at a weird extreme, like watching YouPorn while drinking grape soda in the gravel parking lot of a trailer park.
Be outside. It’s crucial to be outdoors to watch a movie outside. Screened-in porches or rooftops or balconies are ideal. A grassy field is not, because no matter how whimsical and fancy-free that is (damn you, Zooey Deschanel!), your significant other is going to be itchy or sneezing or feel like they have ants crawling up their legs, and none of that is sexy for anyone involved.
Watch it at night. Like, not evening. There will be a breeze and stars, which she’ll love. There are fewer mosquitoes. It will also be slightly cooler (see rule No. 4).
If you must watch during the day, screens should be easy to see outside. Blessed are we, the Old MacBook Keepers, for we do not have a glare on our screens. For you rich folk with the glass-screened laptops, do something, like put it in the shade.
There should be blankets to lie on, not chairs. Chairs and chaise lounges do not fit two people. Blankets do. They fit two people laying down, even. The proper ration of under-body blankets to over-body blankets is 3:1. This is important.
There should be a light beverage. Screw sparkling grape juice (sorry, Nice Boy, I’ve turned 21). Bring out something light and boozy. Like chilled white wine if you’re in graduate school or don’t have elevators in your apartment building. I foresee a lot of chilled white wine in my future.
There should be delicious treats. Like chocolate-dipped strawberries. Your chances of sleeping with the girl go up about 120 percent if they’re the kind that have little tuxedos of white chocolate, which is weird, because why the hell would fruit be wearing a tuxedo? Where is it going that it needs to get all black-tie? Who even thought of putting formal wear on a piece of fruit? Other delicious foods include nuts or bruschetta. Treats that aren’t delicious for eating while watching a movie outside include pot roasts, tacos or your leftover Chef Boyardee.
The movie should be old, or The Artist. There is something about old movies on a summer night. They’re slow and lazy and easy to watch. Also, they get boring about halfway through, which is great timing for really wholesome activities like debating whether the regionally-appropriate slang is “soda” or “pop” or holding hands chastely while talking about what your dream Mini Cooper would have painted on its roof.
Drizzle Drizzle Friday…you know when it’s not really raining but everything gets wet. Yep that’s today, TGIF Buffs! Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively is also getting a steamy roll in Oliver Stone’s new movie coming this Fall (do anticipate!). Oh! and poor Demi Moore she has gone viral in Taiwan. We love creatives and graphic opinion. Check out this video!
If posters could honestly tell you what the movie was about… Oscars edition. UPROXX
2011 was great for… well it depends who you ask. Box office ratings and pre-release analysis may have been WRONG (?!?) or right (!!!) on predictions. So many themes have been revamped, visual specs have advanced sales yet tickets are more expensive in a down economy! So that leaves us to ask, in 2011—who were the overachievers, underachievers and the ones that just met expectations?
Met Expectations
Super 8 Expectation: $130 Million Actual (worldwide): $260 Million WHAT DOES THIS MEAN: Targeting audiences from teenagers to young adults with nostalgia works when done effectively. But we should be worrisome for the future imitators.
Pirates of the Carribbean: On Stranger Tides Expectation: $500 Million Actual (worldwide): $1 Billion WHAT DOES THIS MEAN: Jack Sparrow fans weren’t expected to anchor ship on stranger tides, it being the 4th sequel. Pirates may be sooo ’04 but sequels are now trending in 3D. We’re a bit scared to see how long this can go on.
Underachieved
Green Lantern Expectation (domestic): $160 Million Actual (worldwide): $220 Million WHAT DOES THIS MEAN: No more SUPERHEOROES! Well at least non-Marvel… the market of comics on screen is saturated. It is all about remaking heroes not inventing a story for an extra. There is barely any room for Batman!
Scream 4 Expectation: $95 Million Actual (worldwide): $97 Million WHAT DOES THIS MEAN: Late ’90’s upscale slasher lampoon genres don’t Saw well into 2011. The screams are old and the paranormal activity psyches everyone out. Masks are not scary anymore.
Overachieved
The Help Expectation: $70 Million Actual (worldwide): $203 Million WHAT DOES THIS MEAN: Civil rights and bridging racial barriers are great themes for books into big screen. Female led films are getting more and more traction. Analysts should really learn from this.
Bridesmaids Expectation: $120 Million Actual (worldwide): $288 Million WHAT DOES THIS MEAN: Oh yeah! Chicks getting dirty like the boys. Female-led comedies may become imitated more often than not—which may actually be a bad thing. It will be hard to recreate the magic.
Can Johnny do more pirating or is it a Dead Man’s Chest? What do you think?
So you COULD watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the umpteenth time until you’re hearing bells ring, OR you could try something new. At FilmBuff, we’re all about experimenting…with movies. We scoured the great plains of VOD-world to bring you the most alternative films to give you some holiday cheer. Skip the theater and save some cash, throw a yule log on the fire, and cuddle up with your fellow FilmBuff after you’ve narrowed down your next holiday movie tradition.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go. Chestnuts are roasting, rosy cheeks are cute, not painful, and everyone around you is filled with cheerfulness and glee (both words that we never use outside of the holiday season). The holidays are a time when everything has a higher purpose: terrible weather becomes a white Christmas, distant relatives become close family members and putting on some extra weight turns into “the holiday spirit.” Every year people come together to celebrate; it doesn’t matter if it’s Christmas or Kwanzaa. Really, it’s about the feeling of togetherness. And so in the spirit of the holidays, we take a moment to reflect on the holiday films that you said bring your family together year after year, after year….
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (9% of your votes)
If you can make it to ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas block, you’ve got a pretty good shot at making this year’s list. In the third installment of the National Lampoon’s franchise, The Griswolds are back at it with the standard National Lampoon’s hijinks and shenanigans. The hunt for the Griswold family Christmas Tree, coupled with a way over the top light display and sledding fiasco all combine to truly bring together the important parts of any Christmas film. It’s crazy to think that Chevy Chase was the face of this franchise and countless other movies throughout the ’80s and ’90s and is still on TV during NBC’s Thursday night prime-time lineup on Community. Just goes to show you that while actors get old, comedy never dies.
Love, Actually (12% of your votes)
We’re actually pretty surprised this one isn’t higher up on the list. Maybe we didn’t poll enough of the emotionally damaged Hugh Grant fan base, but frankly speaking, this is a perfect holiday movie. It has everything you could ever want for Christmas: love, tragedy, heartache, heartbreak, grandiose displays of affection, comedy, calamity, children and its multi-cultural enough so that everyone can find a reason to smile. Not to mention there are some solid musical numbers by young and old alike, and an even bigger bonus is some lovely narration by Hugh Grant to remind us that “love, actually, is all around.” Sold.
It’s a Wonderful Life (15% of your votes)
No holiday movie list would be complete without this film. It’s a Wonderful Life served as a precursor for the modern holiday movie classic and gave birth to countless, and we do mean countless, spin offs. On everything from sitcoms to cartoons to movies, we’ve seen beloved characters contemplate whether the world would be better off without them. Nice try The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Night Court, but there will only be one original, and that, our friends, is what makes this film a classic.
The Nightmare before Christmas (27% of your vote)
Despite the nightmare in the title, this film will give you that warm feeling inside: amazing music coupled with old school stop motion animation and a truly unique take on a common tale. It’s Danny Elfman before he was composer extraordinaire Danny Elfman, and boy is he good because here he takes on the voicing of Jack Skellington. Okay, okay despite our praise, this is a solid holiday film, and clearly all of you who answered our poll agreed. Jack the Pumpkin King means well, but living in Halloween town will twist anyone’s sense of goodwill. So his holiday cheer is a little misguided; you can’t blame the guy for trying. Like we said before, it’s more than just the story, it’s the music; less little drummer boy, more Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack.
Other (a wopping 38% of your votes)
Right, we get it, not a huge fan of the options on the poll. We’re willing to acknowledge that the “Other” movies are everyone’s favorite, but we’ll spill the beans on what the most frequently input answer was: Home Alone. And honestly, we can’t blame you—it’s a good one. Sure, Macaulay has kind of gone off the deep end since, but at the time he was lovable, mischievous and wild enough to make anyone a believer. And there are some serious holiday spirit tones throughout this movie, even though it seems to be more about him kicking bad guy butt than hanging stockings by the chimney with care.
There you have it, folks; Your classic holiday movies. May your days be filled with happiness, cheer and chestnuts. Yours, not ours.
There are two awful things about being single during the holidays.
1. Seeing your family.
2. Not being able to see your family.
It’s basically a crapshoot. In the first situation, you see your family, and they vaguely reference/hint/comment/interrogate you on a sliding scale of vague hinty tiptoeing to outright rebukes about wedding bells/girlfriends/seeing anyone/maybe a pet rock?, OR you don’t get to see your family due to work/weather/transportation issues, all your friends are out of town, and you’re at home alone over the holidays, still single. And just to top things off, your heat probably isn’t working.
Holy Devil-Mother of Scrooge, this sucks. Suddenly, dangerously, you’re finding all sorts of ways to rationalize your ex’s crazy obsession with argyle socks, and some non-existent intruder is drinking all your Scotch.
Now.
MAN UP.
Throw away the socks.
Surviving the holidays single can be a challenge and a really awful one at that. But if you’re going to hibernate it away, there’s some damn good movies out there to get you through it.
1. It’s a Wonderful Life
So it’s like that, is it? You’ve hit a low, sir. You’re looking for an escape away from your (forgive me) dreary life that involves a wood-laminate desk and rather conservative suit, and somehow you’ve wound up drinking at the diviest of dive bars by yourself and getting just absolutely trashed to the point where you think you’re seeing a plump, bald Renaissance angel, black out and then come to, standing on the edge of a bridge (I’m convinced that’s what really happened).
Wait. You’re still in your living room?
Good. Stay there.
And no, another glass of Scotch couldn’t hurt. After all, you’ve got it a lot better than George Bailey does.
Except for the dance/swimming pool scene. Everyone’s prom should have been like that.
2. Lord of the Rings Trilogy
The trilogy is incredibly long (we’re talking like, full-day-investment long), which means that you can hibernate for a full 24 hours, and it’s totally justifiable since you’re reliving your adolescence. And man, it’s a lifter-upper; Your life cannot possibly be any worse than having to carry a mind-controlling, soul-sucking ring that gradually weighs you down about 400 million miles over the worst terrain imagined by someone not in the video game industry while being chased by armies of orcs and a writhing Gollum.
Also, just like Sam and Frodo, you can make yourself a second breakfast (and no one’s going to judge you for those three extra strips of bacon).
3. 300
SWORDS TROY EXPLOSIONS ARMOR MEN BEING MEN SLO-MO FIGHT SCENES BATTLE HONOR WOMEN GOD-KINGS WAR SPECIAL EFFECTS BLOODSHED THIS IS SPARTAAAAAA!
(You might feel like you’re dining in hell whenever you sit down to eat over the holidays, but let’s be real: Movies don’t get much more manly than this. This can get you through a lot.)
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