Assorted movies

Pacific Rim is awesome. Why did nobody go see this movie? -- Well, of course they did, at least most every geek I know did, and most of the ones that did loved it. (Except for a couple who hated it, as I recall. It would be weird if everybody liked it.) (This paragraph brought to you because I'm watching it on On Demand at the moment.) (To finish my original thought: geeks aside, it didn't exactly make money, given what it cost. The marketing didn't work, I think - and I'm inclined to think that later they'll say it was a movie that was ahead of its time.)

Another movie I watched over the long weekend was The Dark Knight Rises, which I had somehow managed not to see until now. And man, I expected dark, but it is dark. In a way it bothered me more than the one before it (although that one bothered me so much that I have only ever watched it that one time). It was certainly interesting, and I liked a lot about it, but man.

As far as things I've seen in a movie theater: I did not totally love Catching Fire. It wasn't bad - in fact it's a really well-made, interesting movie. But I didn't love it. I didn't really love the first one either. I don't know why they don't engage me emotionally as well as I feel like they should, but they don't. The books did a much better job there. (For me. I'm fully aware that most everybody else seems to love the movies just fine.)

Before that we saw the 2nd Thor movie, and there my expectations were pretty low - I liked the first one, but objectively, it's not really a great movie. And I liked this one more than I thought I would. I would kind of like to see it again, even. I do have to say that we paid to see it in 3D, which we don't often do, and I think we wasted our money there. Once it got rolling I never even noticed the 3D at all.

(One thing: Natalie Portman has never really been one of my favorite actresses, but I liked her in Thor 1 more than I expected to. I think it had to do with it being more of a love story than Thor 2. In Thor 2, I really felt like she was phoning it in. Do you think she thinks she's slumming?)

Added: I looked up Pacific Rim's final totals (here - scroll down to "Toss-ups") and it made $400 million worldwide, on a budget of about $200m. They say that's pretty good for an original story. But it's not fabulous compared to what it cost. However, it IS in the black, so not bad.


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