Summer Doldrums

The ReelFan is back!  Spent some time visiting elderly relatives and found it oddly difficult to get internet access in retirement homes and a place called Wisconsin. Fortunately, it's been a boring summer at the movies, so not much to report.

But let's talk anyway. Expendables took the weekend box office -- no big surprise, early "polling" showed enormous interest in the 80's throwback action picture. Julia Roberts did pretty well with her Eat Pray Love debut, but distributor Sony is already talking about needing a strong showing overseas to get production costs covered. Seems that there wasn't enough love in the audience to assure steady domestic box office in the next few weeks (audiences gave the film a "B" on Cinemascore -- not a good sign from an opening weekend crowd). Scott Pilgrim pretty much tanked, which shouldn't surprise me since my hipster twenty-something daughters had no interest in going. "I'm sick of that guy," my oldest said of Michael Cera, and that was that.