"People were really looking forward to it ..."
I think that's an excellent argument against democracy.
If people really look forward to this drivel, how can you trust them with important decisions?
Mine's the asbestos one
Odeon kicks Rambo in the 'nads
Sylvester Stallone's latest outing as trigger-happy action man Rambo has suffered a nasty hit in the wallet thanks to the Odeon cinema chain refusing to screen the movie, the BBC reports. The snub is reflected in the first-weekend box office chart for the UK and Ireland, which shows Rambo in third place on £1.24m, with Jumper …
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 14:49 GMT Mark W
There are some Odeon's left then?
After their shocking lack of investment and their truly untidy screens, along with their extortionate pricing, most people avoided the ones up here in the frozen (windy) north until they all closed.
Oscar Deutche must be turning in his grave.
Saying that - I don't much like their competition either. Vue is awful, with tiny screens and knackered cinemas.
The only decent cinema up here is the Picturehouse 'City Screen' in York, which is the only THX Certified screen for miles around.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 14:49 GMT Red Bren
How many people...
wait until they arrive at the cinema before deciding what film they want to see?
If people really wanted to see Rambo and found their local Odeon wasn't showing it, would they not just go elsewhere? Perhaps there wasn't that many people "really looking forward to it" after all and the marketing people should stop believing their own hype?
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 14:58 GMT Owen Carter
be kind.
Well, the size and power of Sly's weapon no longer intrigues me the way it used to. Guess I've grown up even if 'the Motion Pictire Industry (tm)' has not... Plus Mark Kermode gave it a right royal slagging on the beeb film podcast :-)
The one to watch surely has to be 'Be Kind, Rewind'. J.Ross tried to dismiss it by saying it looked like 'a load of joined together YouTube clips'. But I thought "Cool!", I have seen far more creativity and general entertainment from random Internet video than Hollywood recently.
I just hope that the tireless parade of sequals pasing for the mainstream movies these days are the final fire sale of this not very creative 'industry'.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 15:17 GMT Mark Hewitt
I liked it
"...attracted criticism for failing to adequately explore the inner turmoil of the eponymous hero,..."
Well, it's not quite as good as "Rocky Balboa" but at least it attempt to deal with the turmoil of being a soldier. A friend also said she appreciated that the rape scene was clearly violent and not at all erotic.
"...preferring instead to substitute subtle analysis of Rambo's psyche with heavy-calibre firearm rounds and lots of stuff exploding."
Yup, lots of things going boom. And as typical with Hollywood they get the explosions and wounding wrong, with lots of gasoline fireballs and more blood than a slaughter house. The "Tall Boy' bomb explosion was way too big. (At least, like Chekhov's gun, having shown the bomb in Act 3, they blew it up in Act 4. :)
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 15:17 GMT Tom
@ Red Bren
You just kinda assume that big title movies are going to be on, and if you live near a whomping 30 screener, it's a safe bet you'll have a one starting within 30 mins of arrival. But seen as assumption is the main root of most major misconceptions (edited for daytime use), i guess the point is moot.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 15:46 GMT Naadir Jeewa
Odeon listens to Radio 5
Maybe Odeon's "commercial decision" was based on Mark Kermode's ranting last week:
"It's like watching somebody who is down on their knees saying 'Give me a pile of money and i will do absolutely anything, I have no moral fibre what-so-ever, I have no narrative fibre what-so-ever, I have no political understandong what-so-ever'" and "I can't remember recently being so depressed"
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 15:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Awful cinema??
"Saying that - I don't much like their competition either. Vue is awful, with tiny screens and knackered cinemas."
Mark W
Surely its up to Odeon whether they screen a film or not? But I guess it does restrict your choice.
Luckily in the Bath and Bristol area we have several cinemas to chose from, a Cineworld (I avoid it) 2 Odeons, and would you believe 2 Vues. One of which I worked at for 2 years, so I take offence at the screens being awful, and 'tiny / knackered'. We always kept ours in tip top condition, with tidy seats and carpeting. Sound and picture quality was always excellent.
Mine is the gore tex one with the fleecy lining.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 15:48 GMT paul
Local Independant for me
Having recently ventured into my local independent recently, I was surprised the cost hadn't trebled in the several years since I had last been.
It was pretty empty there , but still cheaper and nearer than the 45mins away odeon. No super surround sound but you cannot have everything. Looks like I will be going back for John J
Tux , cause he is the nearest thing you have to a hippy icon
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 15:48 GMT Jim Lewis
Hollywood Films
I may be slightly behind the ball here, but I heard some Hollywood insider explaining that they regarded their largest target market as 15 to 17 year old boys.
This is due to the fact that in most households, 15 to 17 year olds are obnoxious and the other family members wish them to be elsewhere, (and indeed the youths themselves no doubt wish to be out exploring their nascent adulthood).
As a consequence a large proportion of Hollywood films are designed to appeal to this group.
I can't remember the last time I saw a Hollywood film that was anything other than vacuous garbage, oh I just did, fight club, and that's cutting it fine.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 15:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
@Red Bren
Unless you live in a big city, you don't generally have a choice about which Cinema to go to. I live in a small town and, before it was closed and turned into a bad nightclub, the only cinema in it was an Odeon.
It wasn't as good as the out of town, 30 screen places, it was small, it was scruffy, but given the choice of a 5-10 min walk or a 30 min drive, it was always packed.
A lot of people don't actually havea a choice about what cinema they go to, there is generally only one within an easily travellable distance.
Ah well, after it closed i got a projector off ebay and now pirate cinema releases. Its not ideal, but as there's no other option...
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 16:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
@Naadir Jeewa
"It's like watching somebody who is down on their knees saying 'Give me a pile of money and i will do absolutely anything, I have no moral fibre what-so-ever, I have no narrative fibre what-so-ever, I have no political understanding what-so-ever'"
Oh, I didn't know it was full of politicians.
Bugger!
I'd have paid twice to see a pile of them shot & blown up & garrotted & drowned & pulled limb from limb & burned & impaled & eaten alive by heat maddened slugs &... &...
Sorry, I've got to go and lie down now.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 16:20 GMT Daniel Wilkie
Generic Comment #4432
We've got Odeons down here, they took over UCI. I also want to go and see Rambo, its nice to be able to watch something you don't have to concentrate on every now and then ;)
As for Be Kind Rewind - if you thought the trailer looked awesome like I did, don't go and see the film because the bits from the trailer were pretty much the only funny bits in the entire film. Dissappointed wasn't the word :(
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 16:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
RE: "People were really looking forward to it ..."
According to the first poster, my mind would melt if I had to watch something that actually has more of a Plot than Rambo. I really like Rambo, Rocky, Terminator, Commando, Predator, Die Hard etc.
Having an Engineering diploma, Software Engineering Degree and starting a OU Maths Degree next year,most people wouldn't consider me a thicko, (though I admit my English is far from perfect).
My mind is tired at the end of the day. I want to go home, workout a bit at the gym, go out and not have to think too hard.
Some Mindless Violence or a crappy US Police Drama/Sci fi usually fits the bill quite nicely usually before or after a pint down the pub.
So you can sod off.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 16:47 GMT Andy Worth
Re:"People were really looking forward to it ..."
Sorry.....are you sure she meant the plural "people"? I think they'd struggle to find a singular "person" who was looking forward to that drivel.
What's next?
Rambo goes on a Rampage when he discovers the Post Office queue to collect his pension is too long?
Rambo - Attack of the bus pass?
Honestly - Stallone was pushing a franchise a bit when he released Rocky Balboa, but at least that character had some sort of "life" to build on. I don't see how the new Rambo can be seen as anything but an old bloke shooting and goring people.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 17:00 GMT Ross
Competition
Just goes to show you how much clout Odious^H^H^H^Heon have these days. Pity 'cause I don't like their cinemas. I go every week to one, but only because the Odeon took it over (was a UCI) and they sold their crappy cinema in town to Empire who don't do the Orange 241 promotion :o( Yes, I'm cheap. ~£7 a ticket my arse.
Ah well, I guess the P2Pers will be out in force on this one.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 17:00 GMT Graham Bartlett
No Rambo? Great!
I just saw "First Blood" for the first time. And wondered how they got from a fairly decent film about PTSD meeting small-town petty-dictator attitudes, with a bodycount of zero (inflicted by Rambo anyway), to that kind of max-massacre kill-em-all rubbish. Not that I can guarantee Rambo 4 will be like that, but on past showing I know which way the odds are stacked. :-(
The dead vulture because, hell, this is a Rambo film and anything that moves gets shot...
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 19:01 GMT Huw
N/a
This new rambo has to be Stallones latest list to get some more funds for whatever the moron spends it on! He can't act for shite, and his films have absoloutly no plot line! Ooo im a boxer and I win, oo im an army man who goes round killing shite!
He needed money and went ot his agent - "Mumble mumble mumble" his agent assumed he said "lets make another Rambo film"
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 19:01 GMT Luther Blissett
You'll just have to go see Brokeback Mountain now after all
Who cares? writes Dimitrov. Guys like big boom, writes Jason Harvey. Precisely.
Apart from the rearranging of the hyperreal that is likely to be the result, the prospective rearrangement of reality that is definitely on the agenda of many is the abolision of the right to bear arms in the USA.
Just remember the carapaces of the Nu Insect Overlards are not impervious to bullets. And they know it.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 19:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Cinema shortcuts
My local cinema (Wimbledon Odeon) charges what I thought was an eye-watering £7.80. That was, until I went to the Vue in Fulham Broadway where it was £8.50 or so.
The way around it? Orange Wednesdays for Odeon and 1300 Nectar points for Vue.
The alternative is a schweet broadband connection (properly uncapped or shaped) for those films you don't really want to watch, but sort of do, but definitely WON'T pay a bollock to watch (Fantastic Four, Deja Vú, that kind of thing).
Actually, that's provoked some images of Jessica Alba. I need to go and lie down for a while.
Paris, coz, well... just coz.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 21:27 GMT StopthePropaganda
b*tch, b*tch b*tch
"oh noes! it's not another boring love piece about gay fruitflies! there's scary guns and violence in it!"
Tho when it's got a lot of violence and gore, and is an anti-American "anti-war" piece, then it's all good.
Hmm. Is violence in film bad or not? Or does it matter? It's all about the Politics with media distribution.
One independent chain of a half dozen sites decides not to show a (really boring) gay cowboy movie and it's "Burn the Intolerant heretic!". A major chain decides not to show a cheesy war flick and the celebration abounds. Maybe if Rambo was out killing eeevil Global Warmin' Deniers the violence would be all acceptable.
As one real individual pointed out to the pretentious w@nkers, many of us *like* over the top action flicks. Most of ushave real lives with real issues, real drama, real relationships-our lives are not so empty that we need to live vicariously on screen for these day to day things that "film critics" and nasally elevated snobs drool over. What we *can't* do (legally) is blow stuff up, kill our enemies and sack their villages. Nor can we slay dragons, play around with magic rings, dogfight in spaceships, shag a bevy of bisexual female supermodels, or travel thru time. *That's* the sort of thing we want movies for, and that's the sort of movie that sells, whether "film critics" and milquetoast pansies agree or not.
So, Mr. TimNevis, would you be happier if the movies slaughtered more "white" people? Any other races you want tossed into "your" movie? I mean, dozens of war movies and TV serials slaughtered plenty of Germans, many more WWII movies than vietnam or desert storm ones. And don't forget zombie flicks-plenty of Americans gettin' gunned down there. You just gotta look and quit hiding under your coffee table.
I'd love to see a "what if" sci fi (something Harry Turtledove would write maybe) where the tensions between Britain and America over sea rights and the battleship arms race (an early Cold War after WWI) escalated into a "hot" war before 1940. No or limited nukes of course cuz that's too cliche. Who would the Russians support? What support could they offer under the Czars? Would Britain become a split country and proxy battlefield like Korea and Vietnam did in the real history?
Plenty of your "white" folks getting killed in that scenario. Happier now?
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 21:27 GMT Steve
Re: At least Rambo has a plot...
So I'm not the only one that thought Jumper was only the first half of a film.
As for the new Rambo, I thought it was pretty good. But I was comparing it to Rambo III and most things look good compared to that. People forget that Rambo is about gunfights and death - on both fronts it delivers admirably.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 21:27 GMT Alan Potter
Odeons and Blockheads
The last time I went to an Odeon was in Gants Hill when Ian Dury and the Blockheads were performing. I dread to think how many decades ago that was...
It nearly ended in disaster too because the boarding erected over the organ pit (yes, yes, organ, erection... ho, ho, ho) hadn't been designed to withstand the repetitive impact of several hundred people pogoing at the front of the theatre. The floor gave way and it was only the carpet that stopped people plummeting thirty or forty feet!
It was a good gig, though.
Tom Robinson also performed there - "2-4-6-8 Motorway" and "Sing if you're gad to be gay" were two of the songs he sang. Hence the happy face.
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Tuesday 26th February 2008 21:30 GMT Dick Emery
Too expensive. Too shoddy.
The local UCI multi-screen cinema in Greenwich has been going downhill since Odeon took over. It's also gone up in price recently. £8 something. An effin ripoff!
I was hoping that with the advent of digital projection and 3D there would be more IMAX like experiences on standard sized screens appearing. It's something they are doing a lot more in the US. Yet even our 'big' cinemas in the city don't offer it (Apart from Leicester square for the occasional digital and the one at Portaloo for IMAX & 3D).
3D like that you cannot replicate at home. They should play on that advantage and start upgrading some of the cinemas. Sadly I don't think there is enough investment money available for it over here (At least from the cinemas themselves). Studios shoudl invest in cinemas to help update them instead of just blowing all their budget on Mr Stallone's paycheck. And they wonder why people download and watch at home on their shiny new home cinema systems. Especially people with families where it costs a small fortune and inconvenience to take their kids to the piccies.
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Wednesday 27th February 2008 02:58 GMT Steve Roper
@ StopThe Propaganda
"What we *can't* do (legally) is blow stuff up, kill our enemies and sack their villages. Nor can we slay dragons, play around with magic rings, dogfight in spaceships, shag a bevy of bisexual female supermodels, or travel thru time. *That's* the sort of thing we want movies for, and that's the sort of movie that sells, whether "film critics" and milquetoast pansies agree or not."
That's exactly why I go to the movies too - well said that man! I went to see Rambo IV last week, and I thought it was great. No brain-strain required, just loads of nice de-stressing brutal and gratuitous violence - just what the doctor ordered.
What I also like about Rambo is that it doesn't pull any punches in depicting war as a bloody, soul-destroying horror. The character of Rambo shows exactly what war does to people, how it turns them into misanthropic, burned-out zombies inured to the worst horrors and unable to live in "normal" society. It's also one few American franchises that does not glorify the US with all the usual flag-waving patriotic bullshit that commonly spews out of Yank war flicks. It merely shows that war is not something we'd ever personally want to experience; there's no honour or glory, only needless suffering and death.
So I really enjoyed it, on both fronts - I get to see lotsa blood'n'guts and vent some steam, and I get reminded that I don't ever want to see a battlefield in real life. And I have no regrets about spending the money to go and see it.
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Wednesday 27th February 2008 03:00 GMT E_Nigma
@StopthePropaganda
While films like Rambo have a purpose, and I've enjoyed some similar ones (or the ones about a magic ring, evil killer-robot-governor from the future, etc), your understanding of art as something for the snobs and a real-life replacement is really sad.
Even cavemen liked to paint something on their walls once in awhile and appreciated such things that added beauty to their lives. But modern man often wants nothing but to be entertained, to get something that would help pass the time (the ultimate non-renewable resource one has, but that is an another matter), discarding and despising anything that requires some mental effort to be enjoyed.
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Wednesday 27th February 2008 08:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Odious
The only cinema accessible to me is an Odeon. Even when it was UCI it refused to show 18 cert. films any more than one Wednesday at midnight the week after the film's release.
I don't think they even bother with that these days. If its not a chick flick, kids film, 12 rated (or less) or mainstream award nomination material they won't show it.
Still, at least it saves me £20 every time I don't go.
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Wednesday 27th February 2008 09:51 GMT Ryan Greenaway
Alternatively
You could save your £8 (if you complain about paying £8 to go see a film, you evidently should be spending your money on something else), do something else with your 2 hours like take a walk, see 3 dimensional people and interact with them (I'm sorry but anyone who says sitting in a large room staring silently at a screen, in the dark for6a couple of hours is socialising, is sorely mistaken).
You could then donate your £8 to worthwhile cause, perhaps Warchild, therefore helping the people who's lives are actually affected by war, rather than going to watch Sly attempt to "raise awareness of the trauma of war" (his words not mine), but not actually achieve anything, other than add another million to his pension fund.
On a lighter note, I watched Quantum Leap for the first time in years (Ironic considering it was when Jumper came out and Dr Sam Beckett was in Vietnam). Now, if that is not the greatest TV theme tune of all time, I don't know what is!!! Forget you A-team, MacGyver and Airwolf. God was a TV theme tune writer, the day that music ot written.
Mines the Anorak with Ziggy in the pocket, can you hear it beeping???
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Wednesday 27th February 2008 16:32 GMT Ryan Greenaway
@Aram
Fair Point, I wouldn't want to be near an exploding oil barrel, which would blast me several feet. Luckily, you would never hear, nor see me ever again, and can only assume I lived.
You had to feel sorry for the guy who became, the only person EVER to die on the A-team!!!
However, the A-team theme tune is far too mainstream now, I think it's time for Dr Sam Beckett to take one last leap, hopefully, it'll be his leap home.
Helicopter icon,cos Sam Beckett never had a problem getting on no plane fool!!!
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Wednesday 5th March 2008 23:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
@ "people still visit Odeon"
Yeah, they do. Especially in Exeter, where our "not overly glamourous" odeon was shafted by Vue, who opened a rubbish alternative, charging *even more* than Odeon, but got the crowds flooding in as they're supposedly better
I'm not sure how, (ignoring the horrid cord carpet, seating, OVERLY LOUD CENTRE SPEECH SOUND and poor audio imaging) that you exit via the unpainted, unfinished fire exit says it all.
Oh, and then Odeon dropped pricing to £4.50/movie. Thanks Vue, you just boosted the amount of time I go to cinemas, and guess what, you're not on my list. Utter rubbish.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
