Saturday, July 11, 2009

My favourite Sound of Music amongst top 5 grossing films of all time

Woo Hoo... Sound of Music in the top five grossing movies of all time (keeping inflation in mind)

How Scarlett O'Hara Stole Titanic's All-Time Box-Office Crown

Even before he directed the box-office record holder Titanic, James Cameron worked with the impunity and swagger of a man who knew someday he would rise to the top of his craft. Today, with a new batch of adjusted numbers culled from the Hollywood record books, he can return to that underdog position — at least until Avatar arrives this fall to restore his crown. But it has a long, long way to go to catch up with the Southern belle who surpassed him.

Bloomberg reports today that Gone With the Wind is the No. 1 domestic-grossing film of all time when adjusting for inflation, which lifts its 1939 total of $198.7 million to a mindblowing $1.46 billion in 2009 dollars. Star Wars trails it in second place ($1.28bn), followed by The Sound of Music ($1.02bn), E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial ($1.01bn) and even The Ten Freaking Commandments ($940mm). Titanic doesn’t even rank in the top five, with its adjusted $600 million gross ($921.5mm in 2009 dollars) earning it a measly sixth-place finish just ahead of Jaws. The Dark Knight slumps somewhere out of the top 25, idling pretty much where it ended last year at $533 million.

Cameron is no doubt brushing off the revised numbers this morning, arguing that you can’t adjust 11 Oscars (versus GWTW’s eight) for inflation and trash-talking director Victor Fleming’s notably downmarket visual effects. I think we can all give him that, as long as we can recalibrate Avatar’s eventual billion-dollar-plus windfall for its 30-percent 3D/IMAX premium. In any case, let’s not even think of the angry e-mail Michael Bay is probably sending Paramount right now.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Michael eBay

Not a big fan of Michael Bay but loved this email he sent to Paramount when he came to know that it was nearly a tie between box-office collections of his Transformers 2 and Ice Age 3. It was obnoxious, self-loathing but funny and commanding. Read on...

Irate Michael Bay Blasts Paramount Over Unacceptable Tie With Ice Age 3

In early May, panic-stricken director Michael Bay fired off an angry e-mail to Paramount, accusing the studio of not providing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with the kind of marketing campaign worthy of the most explosive, least-comprehensible summer event movie of all time. After receiving the bad news that his movie had merely tied the debuting Ice Age: Rise of the Dinosaurs in its second weekend after the release of the initial box office figures, a livid Bay once again communicated his thoughts to the Paramount brass. Movieline has exclusively obtained this latest angry missive, reprinted below in full.

From: mbbay
Sent: 05 July 2009 10:09
To: Grey, Brad - Paramount; Weston, Brad - Paramount; Moore, Rob - Paramount; DiBonaventura, Lorenzo - Paramount; Colligan, Megan - Paramount; Vahradian, Mark - Paramount; Lesher, John - Paramount; Greenstein, Josh - Paramount; Cripps, Andrew - Paramount
Subject: New Super-Urgent NOTE FROM BAY

Hello everyone, Bay here. Again.

OK, now I KNOW I’m missing something. I’ve been locked away in the Real World suite at the Palms for the last six days with fifteen Hungarian supermodels and a gimp manservant named Bad Boy to drown the misery of not setting the all-time box-office record for Transformers five-day opening weekend. (By the way, I blame each and every one of you, even those of you no longer working at Paramount—hi Jon and Brad, call me!—for not helping me take that record from The Dark Knight, which I’m not even sure is an actual movie due to the lack of giant f’ing robots.) But now I’m really upset. My assistant just delivered me the second weekend box office numbers (he is now dead, btw. OK, not dead, but the gaping head wound’s gonna make it hard to remember how he got tied up in the back of my tangerine Hummer), and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I see that something called Ice Age 3 has SOMEHOW TIED Transformers this weekend? That is posed as a question because this result cannot possibly be reflective of reality, as it’s just NOT POSSIBLE that a movie about a f*cking learning disabled elephant that sounds like Everybody Loves Raymond could even TIE one where a sh*tload of giant robots form a SUPER-GIANT ROBOT with enormous wrecking-ball testicles. That tie thing didn’t happen, right?

Accept [sic] it did. It happened because for all your talk about making this “an EVENT second weekend,” I see the same trailers, the same billboards, the same 30-second TV spots as we had last week, but maybe with some cheesy voiceover saying “The Number One movie in America,” and that’s it. The anticipation for our second weekend has not gotten to the public. I know this because just yesterday I was threatening to have a cabana boy castrated with hot BBQ tongs for taking FOREVER with my margarita, when he asked me, “Hey, is your movie even still in the theater?” I said back to him, EXACTLY. It is exactly the ignorance of this idiot kid that we find ourselves TIED with the cold, wooly elephant thing instead of enjoying the victory you could have delivered if you’d put in a proper push for TRANSFORMERS 2: THE GREATEST SECOND WEEKEND SUMMER MOVIE EVENT OF ALL-TIME. (The caps indicate I am shouting at you with my e-mail megaphone, because you are incompetent.)

"You all say the second weekend doesn’t matter. Everything matters."
You all say the second weekend doesn’t matter. Everything matters. The first time any studio said this very thing to me was on a commercial shoot for Crystal Pepsi (with Rachel Hunter, when she was still young and hot). We all know what happened to Crystal Pepsi, which SHOULD HAVE been the highest-grossing clear soft-drink ever.

Over the years Jerry Bruckheimer mentored me on Event Second Weekends - he had a mantra - “A studio that does not make it an event second weekend, will it into an event second weekend, thinks the audience will just show up a second weekend in a row, will always be boned in the ass.” Besides my good friend Steven, Jerry has made a lot more successful movies than all of us, accept [sic] for me.

And yes, I know that after they’re done counting the receipts tomorrow, we very may pull ahead of The Ice Ages by a few dollars, and this e-mail will seem unnecessary and hot-headed. Except it’s not, because if your studio had taken care of business, I would never have had Bad Boy clear my suite of all lingering Hungarian models because I was too agitated to enjoy their company. We would all be celebrating a HUGE second weekend, with about a $400 million domestic take, because that is twice as much as the opening. The math is undeniable. What is also undeniable is this sick feeling that won’t go away because I’ve had to share my throne with Ray Romano’s totally annoying, nasal voice for even one day.

I would really like us all to have a meeting about this so we can discuss and generate more ideas for the third weekend EVENT. Maybe we can have Optimus Prime host a day at the MTV Beach House? They still do that? Just spitballing, but that’s the kind of thing we should be kicking around together. Because I WILL NOT be beaten by the foreign gay with the lederhosen hot pants.

Thank you,

Michael Bay

PS—Oh, congratulations to whoever’s in charge now. Goodman? Yeah, Goodman. That sounds right. Just remember what happened to the guys who didn’t listen to me last time. LOL.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Kambakth Quote

Really funny quote on facebook mobile from Raj while he was watching Kambakth Ishq:

Raj Dev Sharma says... 'DUMB'AKHT ISHQ of a movie... its full of just crap.

Raj Dev Sharma says... watching KAMBAKHT ISHQ is KAMBAKHT TORTURE... the Movie Sucks big time :-/

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Shoot on Site

Have attached some pictures from shoot. Couldn't add more as the look of some actors would have been revealed.

My First Day of Shoot Ever- 29 May 2009, Location- Dongri


Keith and I pretending to work


Fired!!

Jugheads- Malad:The most OBNOXIOUS place in Mumbai

This is my first posting which is not movie related but I had to put it up. The article was published on www.burrp.com which I must say is a very good website to find out about eateries in India.

You can check the same article out here:
http://mumbai.burrp.com/listing/bar-restaurant/115279594_jugheads-pop-tates#reviews

I'm not a regular foodie... I limit myself to certain restaurants and pubs that I had a good experiences in and become a regular there. No, am not snobbish but just prefer quietrer places with respectful service.

I live just a couple of minutes away from the Malad Jughead's yet I must have visited the place maybe 3 times in my life. I am a big fan of the Pop Tates at Saki Naka and Jugheads being formerly Pop Tates, my girlfriend and I decided to go there for a drink (dont ask me why now).

We reached there at 6:35pm and there were still about 25 minutes for the Smiley Hours to get over. We order a Beer tower. The waiter's next words just took my belief in hearing the unheard to an all new level. I was bluntly told that I will have to finish the Tower as well as the free one by 8:00pm (an hour after the Smiley Hours gets over) or else I would be charged extra. It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard in my life. Despite being completely sober it was difficult for me to find words for this. The waiter sensing my newly found dumbfoundedness then tried to reason saying that people stay a long time beyond the Happy hours that's why this rule was made.

2 things came into my mind:
Why does a themed restaurant and bar want to drive out people quickly?

Why the hell should I be watched over whether I finish my drink on time or not?

And imagine the waiter's audacity when he suggests that we have the Pitcher instead of the tower as we probably will be able to finish it on time.

We go to places like this for the ambience, the food, the overall experience and I just cannot believe that someone gives me a time limit to finish my drink. It really is beyond my understanding. The management must have been picked up from a local desi bar from the inner gullies of Screwyouabad. It goes without saying that in a competitive world it's about retaining customers not getting rid of them but these dimwits have other things in mind.

Service was bad. I ordered French Fries and there wasn't a plate for us to pour the ketchup. Imagine asking the waiter at a restaurant t give us plates.

On the food front, it was pretty good. No complains there. But as I'm never going to visit this 70s Indian government behaving excuse for a food place, I won't really get to check out the rest of the menu. Traffic might be a problem for you but the Saki Naka Pop Tates is simply much better. Avoid the step-sister please.