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In Wide Release This Weekend: Abduction, Moneyball, Killer Elite, Dolphin Tale

This weekend actually has a little something for everyone, so chances are if you’re in the mood for a movie, then you’ll find something you like. Unless you’re a soccer-loving, socialist thalassophobe, in which case you’re SOL. Go rent Bridesmaids or something. Me, I’ll be at Pearl Jam 20 pretending like I’m a teen again.

Abduction

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 0%

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

“This laughable yarn is intended simply as a vehicle to draw teen audiences eager to feast their eyes upon Twilight heartthrob Taylor Lautner. And, yes girls, he does take off his shirt and expose his muscled physique rather quickly into the proceedings.” – Claudia Puig, USA Today

“But Abduction is as uninterested in psychological unease as it is in innovative action, and simply shuffles together explosions, bloodless fight scenes and incongruous romantic interludes with little regard for orchestrating tension.” – Andrew Barker, Variety

Armchair Analysis: A few weeks ago, Vince asked me on the Frotcast what my top awkward movie laugh moment was, and I know that if I saw this movie in the theater, it would be when Lautner says, “Not if I find you first.” I laugh hysterically every time the commercial airs. This movie could be the funniest of the year.

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Yesterday, The Hollywood Reporter, um, reported that the web site BoxOffice.com was on the verge of releasing an exclusive new study that would blow our minds. With Brad Pitt’s latest film, Moneyball, set to release tomorrow, BoxOffice.com was going to tell us late yesterday that the film is tracking nearly twice as well as The Social Network did.

Unfortunately, the exclusive study has still not been released, but you simply can’t deny the site’s rock solid statistics.

BoxOffice.com editor Phil Contrino tells me that the site has been tracking Facebook and Twitter activity since May 2010, and based its conclusions — which he says are statistically significant — on stats gathered from monitoring the two sites over the weekend before the films opened. On Facebook, The Social Network received 34,645 “likes” within that period, whereas Moneyball received 64,073. On Twitter, meanwhile, the former was the subject of 4,120 Tweets, whereas the latter was mentioned in 5,264.

Look, I’m no expert in movie tracking by any means, but it seems like predicting a movie’s success based on how many people liked it on Facebook or mentioned it on Twitter is like looking out a window and guessing the temperature. People mention all sorts of crazy sh*t on Twitter, and only 10% of it is spelled right. I’d be more concerned that people were trying to buy tickets for “Mun3bal.”

But if we really want to play the prediction game, I’d say a good indicator would be that 8 of Pitt’s last 13 movies have grossed more than $100 million and Moneyball is about baseball, stars Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, has been promoted religiously by Sony, and stars Brad Pitt. Predicting that it will be a success is too easy. Unless they change the name to Babel 2.

I’m on the fence when it comes to posting set videos from films in production. On the one hand I think it’s pretty stupid to watch unedited footage from a weird angle of a scene that might not even end up in the finished product and draw conclusions about the film based on it. On the other hand, it’s already out there, and my site isn’t the only one on the internet (thank God for that). Suffice to say, I ain’t allergic to cash money SKEET SKEET, so the video is after the jump. Watch it if you want, you’re a grown-ass blog reader.  Here’s the word from the source:

A friend of ours was lucky enough to bag himself a gig as an extra on the set of Brad Pitt’s new film World War Z, based on the best selling book by Max Brooks, while it was being shot in Glasgow.
He also advised us to ignore all the fanboy chatter over the alleged plot changes from the book, he assured us that from the scenes he took part in and watched this movie will definitely be worth the wait. [HMSFriday]

It must be really hard being an extra in Glasgow. (*pulls out bullhorn*) “AWRRAI, YA COONTZ! THERE COOMES A TAIME, WHEN, IT’S RREASSURE… THE BLIND KIDS, ‘E FAIRRLY DEED AN ECHIDNA! GOO! GOO!”  What? What did he say? Jesus Christ, I thought these people spoke English.

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I don’t know why you’d want to do this, but I’ve seen enough Brazilian fart fetish porno to know that there’s no accounting for taste, so I’m here to report, for any interested parties, that you can watch the shooting of Brad Pitt’s World War Z movie (which is kind of based on the book but not really) today via the Glasgow City Council’s helpful webcams. They’ll be filming all week in Glasgow, which will be playing the part of Philadelphia for some reason. Which I assume will be accomplished by having a team of extras chuck D-batteries at Brad Pitt, and by building an art museum that no one will know is there until they put a statue of Rocky next to it. ZING!

Here’s the webcam link again. Thanks to Bryce for the tip and banner picture.

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It was only a matter of time before we got this news, and since Vince refuses to put down his Cormac S. Thompson novels and read “World War Z” like I’ve told him to, I get to bring you all the bad news. Currently filming in Malta, World War Z will not follow the plot of the Max Brooks “Oral History of the Zombie War.” Instead, it will tell the story of Brad Pitt, ‘dude who does stuff.’

The story revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop the Zombie pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself. Enos plays Gerry’s wife Karen Lane; Kertesz is his comrade in arms, Segen. (Via Slash Film)

*deep sigh, wraps tape around eyeglasses, inserts pocket protector, pours glass of YooHoo, hits inhaler*

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR NERD RANT!!!

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