Wela's Blog

Day before yesterday couple of us went to watch Hunger Games. We had very high expectations when we decided to go because of the off the roof ratings this movie has. I mean the movie grossed 150 million USD in the opening weekend and that is twice as much what Avatar made. Also way more than what most great movies have made on the opening weekend. Anyways after watching almost all of us had one thing in mind … WE WANT OUR MONEY BACK. . Everybody felt the same … its utter crap. What I don’t understand is that this movie has already made over 365 mil and seems like its going to pass the half bil within the next few days.

This explains only one thing to me. The world is filled with Psychos who want to see people killing each other. WTF!

Saturday went to watch Kusa Paba at Savoy. The show time was 7.00PM. But they actually started at 7.25. what the hell happened during that 25 minutes … F#&%&#g advertisements. Well! 2-3 movie trailers and the rest of the time ads. Also after the intermission another 15 minutes on ads. It was so annoying. We are paying and getting a ticket and these idiots are showing us ads. I got really pissed and complained the manager. His simple answer was ‘Cant maintain these theaters otherwise’ … now! what kind of a messed up answer is that.

No wonder people don’t go to watch Sinhala movies much … which explains why the local show business is in such a crap stage. I will never go to see a movie in a EAP theater until they stop this nonsense.

P.S. After renovating the theater and building the new theaters Majestic Cinemas have stopped playing ads. Thanks!

I just checked IMDB after a long time and woo! hoo! Toy Story 3 has grossed over a billion dollars. Too bad I still haven’t had time to watch it.

So all in all there are seven movies who has done this. Avatar is leading the bunch while Titanic is in the second place. Lord of the Rings: Return of the king, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Alice in Wonderland and The Dark Knight are the rest in the group.

What do you think the next one in line to make this big number? I think the upcoming Harry Potter, Transformers III and Avatar II etc will be good candidates.

Just checked the IMDB All-Time Box Office: World-wide page and I'm surprised. Earlier I have written about the movies that generated a total sum of over a billion dollars. Since my last note on this couple of movies came so close to the big number and Avatar by James Cameron kicked ass on all existing records. So far Avatar has grossed over 2.7 billion dollars. Good heavens! that's a sh*t load of money.

Right now I'm surprised to see Alice in Wonderland is only 5 million below the big number. Without a doubt this is one of the most popular fairy tales and this is not the this story was taken to a movie, probably its like the millionth time :). But this is the first time it grossed so much money. So what the deal? I think its the 3D.

Now! when on earth are we; poor movie fans in Sri Lanka going to be able to watch a movie in 3D.

James Cameron had done it again. Previously it was Titanic which stayed the top of the box office for a very long time with a whooping 1.8 billion dollar.

And now it is Avatar … already grossed over 1.8 billion dollars, and already on the top of the list as the highest ever grossed movie and well on the way to become the first ever movie to gross over 2 billion dollars.

Haven’t you watched it yet? I have already watched it thrice and will be watching it for the 4th time soon.

Just watched a making the movie short video about how it was made and its amazing. The new technologies, concepts and tools created for this movie takes the arena of movie making to a new height.

Well! If you haven't watched it yet … go now!

Just checked the apple movie trailers section after a long time. And It's going to be an action pack couple of months ahead as several awsome movies are in line to come.

Among them ... Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen, Terminator - Salvation, G. I. Joe, Harry Potter - Half Blood Prince, StarTrek etc. I'm sure at least one of these will make it to the billion doller list as all these are either the second part of previously very successful movies or are based on legendary stories, cartoons we all enjoyed years ago.

Also couple of good cartoons are also in the line ... i'm looking forwrad for UP and Astroboy.

Couple of month ago I wrote about the movie Dark Knight mentioning that it is almost about to total a billion dollars. Few minutes ago I checked the IMDB site and guess what! .... Dark Knight had made it to the billion dollar movies club.

So far only 4 movies have ever made it there ... Lets see how the upcoming movies Terminator Salvation, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, StarTrek etc will do.

Well! it's not me. So far in the movie industry there has been only 3 movies that has exceeded a total revenue of billion dollars. Those are Titanic, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Actually both pirates and lord movies have just exceeded a billion wheres Titanic have reached a whooping 1.8 billion. Amazing!

There are many other movies who have made it very close to get the membership in the billion dollar club. Among them Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Jurassic Park are there. But there is another one ... The Dark Knight ... which is still in theaters and have already toppled up 992 million ... just a tiny bit short. Hope it'll get there because it is a fantastic movie.

You can find the list of top 100 revenue generated movies here
http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide

It's a very popular saying that 'no business is like show business'. You spent many millions of dollars over couple of months making a movie and the moment it hit the theaters if it is a good movie you end up making many millions of dollars within the first weekend itself and the total stack up over hundreds of millions within couple of days. I don't think there is any other industry in the world which has a similar nature in terms of $$$. Well! In some other cases you spend millions making the movie and end up in a nasty loss. Hey! that's show business.

If somebody asks what is my favorite movie, without hesitation the answer is Star Wars ... all 6 films. Not because it's a great movie, but there is a whole lot more than just the movie. There is a virtual world around it. If you are a Star Wars fan you know that the website describes every single element you can find in the film. Every planet, every species, every alien character, every space ship .... including it's origin, type, size, relationship etc etc. In a way this is nuts. You have thousands of pages of reading material. Some times it's way more interesting than reading a Si-Fi book. Also it's truly amazing that George Lucas actually dedicated over 30 years of his life on this 6 films. Hats off to him. Recently I re-watched the entire Star Wars series ... for the 10th time I think. Still I can watch is once again in couple of months time just like watching for the first time. If you are not a Star Wars fan ... just forget it ... you won't be able to understand this :)

Another very interesting Si-Fi, which is another one of my favorites is the StarGate TV series. Originally this was started with a movie and then extended to a TV series and as of this moment there has been a whooping 214 episodes. This also has a similar virtual world around it. Check out Wikipedia and you'll see what I mean. I'm still in the process of watching the episodes one by one ... Yup I have all the episodes. Amazing thing is almost all of the episodes are very interesting. Ohh! Yeah! battles with aliens and big ass alien ships ...

During the past several years there has been many great scientific fiction movies and TV series's. At the time it goes on those dominates the arena, but with time it fades off. I think the reason is there is no 'virtual world' around it. This is where Star Wars and StarGate stands out. I think these two has gone several extra miles on this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_SG-1

Guys! have ya'll watched this movie named 'Super Size Me' ... well! it's actually a documentary. It's about the effect of eating Fast Food, Junk Food or whatever you call it. If you are a regular fast food eater, after you watch this movie, you might really think twice before eating any fast food next time. It is pointing it's finger mostly towards McDonalds.

And documentary talks about some people sued McDonalds because they gained weight and got sick because of eating there. Personally I think it is a stupid joke. Because I'm sure McDonalds never begged those guys to come there and eat. Just because McDon is there in the corner of the street why on earth they went and ate without any control.

In my personal experience, about an year back I was on a dead tight schedule where I didn't at least have time to properly eat. it was basically like a 14 hours a day tight schedule and this continued for about 4 months. During this time McDonalds was my savior. I use to have all three meals of the day from there. This documentary says if you have three meals a day @ Mc you'll be taking in more than double the amount of calories you need for a day. May be I worked too hard and those calories were enough. Because I never got fat or sick because of eating there.

Anyways, comments from medical professionals who are interviewed in the documentary are giving some good messages and facts. So decision is ours. Next time when you see a fast food restaurant ... go there ... nope .... go there ... don't ... go there ... no way ... go there ... can't ... go there ... no no no ... go ..... hmmmm... .

Yum! Yum! Yum!