Confessions of a Teenage Movie Geek

Okay, time for a personal, self-indulgent post - one that'll probably portray me as a kid who didn't have much of a childhood other than watching movies 24-7. But surely some of you out there did this too, right? RIGHT??

I was clearing out my closet last night and stumbled onto my old film log book which I kept when I was 15-16. I'd been looking for it for a long time now, and I thought I threw it out years ago so was pretty stoked to have found it. It's utterly embarrassing and cringey stuff of course but an indispensable find for the nostalgist in me. I get a weird thrill from knowing that on Saturday November 26 1995 1:35pm I went to see The Specialist. And in the same year I snuck into see the very-R18 Color of Night in which you get see Bruce Willis' willy!!

I'm amused by the fact that I was obsessive/anal enough - at that age - to denote the format I watched the film on, whether it was on VHS, Laser Disc or SKY (!), and more bizarrely, religiously wrote down the Top 10 Films of the week after watching Box Office America. Who knows what I was thinking really. Anyway here are a few pages from the scrapbook for the world to gawk at. I know, I know, shut up.

Harry Potter Weaves Box Office Magic

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which opened last Thursday, has broken opening weekend box office records in New Zealand. Grossing a hefty $2.4 million, the film now stands only behind Lord of the Rings: Return of the King as the highest opening weekend earner ever in the country (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a close third). It's also doing great business around the world, globally reaping around $600 million in its first 5 days, and the critics are generally singing praises too (its current Metacritic rating is sitting at 78). All great news for Warner of course, who announced soon after the film's release that the studio has passed the $1.5 billion box office mark in the US, and that they're the only studio to have done so for nine consecutive years. The mind boggles.

The Mighty Bay

Michael Bay cannot be stopped. And he knows this. Industry watchers are now observing that his box office-demolishing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen maybe the worst-reviewed $400 million hit ever. ROTF is packing theatres like nobody's business, and while box office results and critical consensus have rarely been on the same page, the disconnect in this case is larger than ever before. I love this L.A. Times interview with Bay where he addresses the negative reception his film's been getting. Favourite quote: "I am convinced that they are born with the anti-fun gene." Yes, Michael, that's the one...