The holiday shopping season seems to be a big one for movie goers. This weekend ended up being rather weak, but Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows lead the way followed by Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Both “Sherlock” and “Alvin” sold far fewer tickets than prerelease audience surveys had projected. Robert Downey Jr.’s detective film brought in a so-so $40 million domestically, according to an estimate from distributor Warner Bros. Heading into the weekend, the studio had estimated the film could make $55 million. And the third animated film about singing chipmunks grossed a weak $23.5 million, about $15 million less than audience polling had indicated the film would collect.

I really enjoyed the first Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock movie,b ut I’m not a big “go to the movies” sort for movies I don’t think are very high quality, or need to be seen on the big screen because of effects. I’d much rather wait and use netflix coupons and get them at home on my home theater system rather than pay through the nose to watch a movie at the theater.

The company that had it all. Knocking out Blockbuster with their mail order DVD services, and being the first real movie streaming service. They were the best gig in town for a long time. Then they decided to start messing with what works.

The surprise reversal, coming three weeks after the plan was disclosed, follows the company’s unpopular 60% price hike in July for subscribers who watch both DVDs and online video.

The changes led the Los Gatos, Calif., company to predict it would lose 600,000 U.S. subscribers for the third quarter, instead of gaining as many as 400,000 as it previously forecasted.

Basically they realized that beating a steel drum with the new ridiculous Qwickster name was stupid, and that people aren’t happy watching movies from the 70s and 80s streaming all the time.

Netflix basically said they screwed up and made the wrong call with the switch. At least they have that going for them.

I pretty much stopped watching American Pie movies, and any knockoffs related to the series after American Pie…ummm 2? The second one whatever that was. Wasn’t even aware of this movie until I saw the reports about how much everyone in the movie made. Basically who has the best agents more or less.
conference call pricing
Jason Biggs, who plays Jim, and Seann William Scott, who plays Stifler, were brought back with a $5 million pay day each and a piece of the box office action.

Next in the salary scale is “How I Met Your Mother” actress Alyson Hannigan, who is taking home $3 million, a salary close to that obtained by Eugene Levy, who plays’ Jim’s dad, per THR.

On the opposite end of the scale, according to THR’s sources was Tara Reid. The mag claimed the actress – arguably one of the biggest names in the cast when the original “American Pie” came out in 1999 — took home around $250,000. That’s gotta hurt. New agent anyone?

Small part characters are all making more than Reid it appears. Chris Klein (Oz), Natasha Lyonne (Jessica), Eddie Kaye Thomas (Finch), Jennifer Coolidge (Stifler’s mom) and Shannon Elisabeth (Nadia) reportedly earned between $500,000 – $750,000 each.

Of course the THR article says their sources were called incorrect by a studio rep so who knows what is what here. I’d imagine the big ones are right. Some of the smaller ones like Reid I have to imagine worked out to more in some fashion. She’s hardly huge now, but that makes little sense. When Shannon Elisabeth is probably getting $500K just to appear naked. (I’m guessing here. She was the nude exchange student).

It seems that most people I talk to about this movie that haven’t seen it think it is some sort of Fast and Furious movie that is nothing except action. Basically the standard action flick that you see things blow up with weak dialogue and not much of a thought-provoking story with people rolling around in scrub tops. So…I pretty much disregarded it right off from what I had heard about it. …

NOW…everyone I know that has seen it thinks it is incredible, and much more than an action flick. Good characters, GREAT soundtrack, good cinematography, and it’s not about a bunch of dudes and racing. It’s actually closer to a mafia flick than it is to an action flick I am told.

I guess word of mouth has changed my mind on this and I will now have to see it.

I’m sure everyone expected Lion Kind 3D to do alright, but it has trampled the competition it seems by taking #1 at the box office this weekend. It is looking as if it may exceed $25 million in it’s first weekend to beat out 3 new releases in “Drive,” “I Don’t Know How She Does It,” and “Straw Dogs.”

Not really surprising that movie goers are more picky with the movies they go to. Lion King is a known quantity, and kids movies, especially animated ones, usually hold up well. Disney movies in particular seem to be timeless. Parents that saw them when they originally came out enjoy taking their kids to see one of their favorites and experience the joy only a set off Off Road Lights bring them now.

Remember when Blockbuster owned the home video and DVD universe? When you had to go out and actually browse shelves to rent a movie? What happened?

Well Netflix happened for one, and Blockbuster dropped the ball when it came to competing with them right out of the gate. Left probalby a lot of their people looking for part-time Waiter/Waitress Jobs. In fact they considered it a failing business model and wanted nothing to do with it. Netflix went on to basically gain a monopoly on the mail order DVD rental market as well as the streaming movie market by getting there firs and staying there.

Netflix has a bit more competition now from all the broadcast and cable stations streaming their own TV online as well as the Hulu platform that generally does the same, but Netflix still had the moves. Hulu was junk for movies, and honestly I haven’t looked at it in months considering that they started to charge for a lot of content.

Dish Network bought Blockbuster for some $300 million a while back and is ready to jump into the streaming movie market themselves. Something that should be a growing market for at least the better part of the next decade.

Blockbuster hasn’t completely disappeared though before this. Obviously if you have cable you notice that they are renting on demand movies for $4.99 to whatever ceiling they can find right at home. OF course I don’t “rent” movies at all anymore and get them via torrents so unless they make these services extremely accessible there isn’t much reason for me to look at them.

While I personally think Harry is my favorite character, I’ve always known that most don’t see it that way. I think his depth and him being a hero through even his abusive childhood is a good role model type and like him the best. Of course I am pretty certain that most people like Ron the best, or Hermione. I also am a pretty big fan of Fred and George for comedy relief.

Always something Potter to talk about. MTV.com has been running the Harry Potter World Cup running up to the premiere of Deathly Hallows 2. It is now down to 4, and I am a little surprised by the results.

Not by Ron and Hermione being in the top 4 of course, but the other 2 are Severus Snape and Sirius Black after his escape from the steel buildings wizard prison, Azkaban. Good characters mind you, but surprising none the less. If it were the books I’d probably take the trio and Dumbeldore, but the movies don’t portray Dumbeldore the same way so I don’t like him as much.

The Finals will likely include Ron and Hermione as they are not matched up against each other this round since they were #1 seeds. Harry got knocked off by his most hated teacher Severus Snape and likely one of the most surprising character turns in the second half of DH.

Stupid summer action flicks. That’s what the Transformer movies are, and that is why they tend to do well. Loaded with action and special effects, when movie goers don’t want to think during the summer these are the types of movies that show up at the top of the box office charts in America.

How horrible the Transformer movies are aside, I am surprised how many fans of these there really are. I remember them growing up, but they were never one of he major toys, or cartoons that I was into. They were definitely something I was aware of, and were usually the top tier compared to G-bots (however you spell that), but I was just not buying it.

Also, without Megan Fox in it I really don’t care. That dirty sexpot was the only reason I watched the first one. Too skinny for weight loss pills, but well formed thanks to medical miracles I must say.

“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” easily held on to first place, firing up an optimal $47 million. That number represents a 52% decline from last weekend and gives “Dark of the Moon” a 12-day total of $261 million. The original “Transformers” had earned $212.3 million at the same point, while “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” had pulled in a stronger $293.4 million.

“Horrible Bosses” finished the weekend in second place with a robust $28.1 million debut, continuing this summer’s streak of successful R-rated comedies.

The Warner Brothers film had a healthy $9,247 per-theater average, and it opened within the range of “Bridesmaids” and “Bad Teacher,” which started with $26.3 million and $31.6 million, respectively.

At last the Harry Potter movie version of the stories have finished. Early reviews seem to love the film. Why not? It was probably action packed all the way through considering what was left to cover.

I’ll just preface by saying that I have read the books quite a few times. Well…listened to Stephen Frye read them to me on my iPod as I did other things several times which is like listening to a play. If you are a fan of the books I can’t recommend the audiobooks with Frye reading highly enough. His ability to voice every character is astounding, and I think he does better with the material than anything else that has been released.

I have also seen all the movies. Except for DH2. As many of you that read the books have found the movies are I guess you could say HP-lite. There just isn’t enough time to cover everything in the movies that are in the books. So we have to give them some leeway in that regard. To me as someone that has read the books a few times the movies just feel insanely rushed and a lot of the moments that were my favorites were omitted, or changed in the films. Dobby=Neville being one of the major turns I wasn’t in favor of.

That doesn’t mean the movies are bad, but they do feel a bit light in content. Things move along so fast, but I think the characters and the actors selected in all the films are very good. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have basically sunk into my mind while reading the books as the characters. Dumbeldore of the movies I consider a bit off, however. He’s too stern and serious in the movies, while in the books he is quite comical to goofy, and much more laid back. Completely different than the films, which I find to be a bad interpretation.

Films have a very good dark feel to them, and a lot of cool magic effects. Acting is average I guess, but the dialog is a bit meh. Really it all comes down to time available to the movies and they characters aren’t as fleshed out as the books. I know a lot of people say the books are full of filler, but they are a tremendous story of character development for the main characters. Something the movies can’t possibly stick with. We have to get a lot of info out in little time. Condensing 10 hours, or 20+ in the longer books of material into 2 hours just isn’t possible. The films are still OK, but as films I don’t necessarily see them as “great”.

The films themselves are a bit too cheeseball at times and the dialogue is just out of context at times, or plain odd. The script is basically the most low end of the movies I’d have to say. They look great, but the stories and dialogue leave a lot to be desired for me as a movie. These are more or less big budget movies with big budget dumbed down dialogue IMO. Overall as movies they are average to good. Something like a 6-7/10 based solely on being a movie.

Deathly Hallows 1 I didn’t expect much out of. The first half of the book moves rather slow so I figured the movie would be pretty slow paced and it was. That just meant that Part 2 would be an action packed finish.

According to most of the reviews I have read fans are happy with it. Of course they are. It’s an action film totally I would guess compared to Part 1. Meaningless I know because “HP fans” doesn’t distinguish between fans that have a “read the books” plaques, and people that have only seen the movies.

We don’t need to read reviews of this if we are HP fans, however. We are either going to watch it, or we won’t. Part 1 I wanted to stop watching when Harry and Hermione decided to have a dance together which was ridiculous.

Reviews I don’t want to read because I hear nonsense like this:

Justin Chang for Variety “surges ahead with tremendous urgency, superb spectacle and powerful, even overwhelming emotion, only to falter with a hasty sendoff that seems to buckle under the weight of audience expectations. Tears will be shed as fans bid farewell to Hogwarts, but catharsis remains just out of reach.”

“perhaps the greatest triumph of this final film is its ability to overcome the deficiencies of J. K. Rowling’s writing.” He adds, “But Yates here transmutes it into a genuinely terrifying spectacle, as bloodied students fight desperately against a horde of screaming black-robed Death Eaters.”

Now she may not be the greatest writer ever, but this is the kind of thing that bugs me about critics of the books. Their lack of patience and ability to see the importance of the character development that the books hold. They call it filler, while I find most of these moments to be some of the best of the books. The movies are the Cliff’s Notes of the books, and even less detailed than that.

they can both be good in their own ways. The books to me are infinitely better as most of the time they are, but the movies aren’t “great” movies to me either. Less to do with the content too. It’s that they are just a rush of information and poor dialogue with a lot of pretty magical effects. I want more from a movie than that.

While I did enjoy ‘The Hangover’, I didn’t find it nearly as funny, or entertaining as the critics seemed to. I guess I am finding a lot of the recent comedies rather shallow lately, and not as clever as I used to. Of course I don’t get drunk, or stoned before I watch them anymore either so that plays a significant role in it.

Still, these comedies while better than most of the day aren’t exactly on the level of say something like Office Space, or even Wedding Crashers for that matter IMO. They are made as the big summer comedies, but just don’t offer a level of continuous comedy I want from these college humor movies. They play in a day of overrating anything that is somewhat good, and why not? It’s not like we are given high quality comedy on a regular basis anymore are we? Find more humor in free online dating profiles.

As for The hangover 2, I really wasn’t looking forward to it as much as most so critics panning it doesn’t really surprise me. If they used the same formula as before, or the same weak comedy routines in a recycling effort I am pretty sure my laughs wouldn’t be all that frequent. I expected to watch this on video, and the critics seem to give me no reason to think otherwise.

Times critic Betsy Sharkey, accusing the film of existing purely as a crass cash-grab without any good comedy to justify itself. She writes, “Me, I’m left with morning-after regrets. Lost is the fresh, perverse, painfully politically incorrect R-rated pleasure that came when ‘The Hangover’ ate up the summer of 2009.”

Manohla Dargis of the New York Times qualifies my positions quite well: “If you superimposed a diagram that mapped out all the narrative beats, characters and jokes in ‘The Hangover Part II’ over one for ‘The Hangover,’ the two would align almost perfectly.”