Low Budget Successes vs. Big Budget Flops

It’s been a rough summer for Hollywood in terms of big budget losses (the one exception is World War Z, which has made 266 million). Look at The Lone Ranger, After Earth,  R.I.P.D, White House Down and to a lesser degree Pacific Rim. All of these films cost between 100 and 200 million dollars to make. The Lone Ranger alone is estimated to lose 150 to 190 million dollars.

Then comes along The Conjuring, which cost 20 million to make and brought in 41.5  million its first weekend. Compared to R.I.P.D. which brought in only 12.8 million and cost around 130 million to make, The Conjuring is a great success. Why? A compelling story, not built on CGI.

Check out The Conjuring trailer here: http://www.imdb.com/trailers?ref_=nb_mv_6_tr

Heavy CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) isn’t a substitute for a good story. Take a look at John Carter, which from the first trailer had flop written all over it. Same with After Earth. As much as I like Del Toro, I get the same feeling with Pacific Rim.  All of these films are thin on story and thick on CGI. They lack the hooks to draw people to it, in my opinion. That’s where The Conjuring hits the mark. Story is everything.

Check out the trailers here:

The Lone Ranger: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210819/?ref_=sr_1

After Earth: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1815862/?ref_=sr_1

R.I.P.D: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790736/?ref_=sr_1

White House Down: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2334879/?ref_=sr_1

The Sharknado Buzz

I got caught up in the Sharknado buzz and watched the reprise on Thursday night. Sharknado is a true stinker, not only in the implausibility of the plot, but by the bad acting and poorly executed action sequences.

In case you’re not familiar with Sharknado. the plot revolves around a hurricane building off the coast of southern California (Santa Monica Pier, exactly) producing a set of waterspouts sucking up densely populated sharks and spewing them all over Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, consuming people in their trajectories.

Was this the sanitized version? I suspect so since it was placed in the 7-9PM time slot. Here’s a typical action sequence: we see a stock wide angle shot of a surfer gliding across a wave, the surfer tiny and the scene panoramic, then cut to a head and shoulder shot of the actor in front of a green screen, barely wet, pretending to surf. This is pretty much the motif of most of the action sequences, including sharks eating people. We rarely see  any real, raw action. It’s all implied and highly unsatisfying.

The voice over CNN reporter really was the cherry on top of this badness cake. The nervous lady who articulates “attention K Mart shoppers” at our local outlet sounds more professional and polished.

I just read about The Asylum studio that produced Sharknado and countless other low budget science fiction and horror flicks in the latest GQ that came this morning. Apparently their budget per film is $500,000, produce “mockbusters” such as Atlantic Rim from Pacific Rim, American Battleship from Battleship, etc. , and haven’t lost money yet. They have a fanatical following and Sharknado is right up their alley.

Yes, there is a big buzz about Sharknado’s campiness, and a Sharknado 2 is in the works. By all means, go ahead and watch it, but be prepared to be disappointed. I expected to be mildly entertained, but Sharknado missed the mark. I’m sure The Asylum fans love it. If you want to see a good, low budget shark movie, watch The Reef.

Grade: D

Links to trailers:

Sharknado  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwsqFR5bh6Q

The Reef http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UD2gbjB3vw

The Asylum http://www.theasylum.cc/

Bankrupt Detroit

The City of Detroit declared bankruptcy yesterday, the largest municipality in United States history to do so.

Here is a tiny subset of issues that precipitated the filing:

• Detroit has 100,000 creditors
• Detroit has at least 18 billion dollars in accrued obligations
• Detroit experienced a 63% decline from a peak of 1.8 million residents to the current 706,585. To put this in perspective, Detroit has a smaller population than Columbus, Ohio or Austin, Texas.
• Detroit hosts 78,000 abandoned structures.
• More than half of Detroit’s 305,000 properties did not pay their tax bills (2011 statistic)

On the city services level, which directly affects people, Detroiters experience:

• an average police response time of 58 minutes compared to a national average of 11 minutes.
• 8.7% of crimes are solved in Detroit compared to 35.5% statewide. Commit a crime in Detroit and there’s a 91.3% chance you won’t get caught. CRIME PAYS IN DETROIT.
• 40% of Detroit’s street lights don’t work.
• 33% of city ambulances are functional. That’s one out of three.

On the brighter side, the small core of downtown Detroit, emanating from the Renaissance Center is beginning to thrive. Buildings are being purchased, restored and populated with automotive, medical and financial white collar workers. This has little to do with the average citizen of Detroit, with 36% of the population at or below the poverty line and with a 47% literacy rate.

The citizens of Detroit need and deserve the most basic of civil services, those being adequate and reliable:

• police protection and response time
• fire protection and response time
• street lighting
• garbage collection

With the bankruptcy filing these much needed resources can be prioritized and improved. Detroit can move forward from there. As for me, I want to visit the DIA (Detroit Institute of Arts) before the 60,000 paintings, sculptures and other works of art potentially sold off (the Emergency Financial Manager ordered them appraised). More on this later.

The Field

Here’s the final cover for The Field.

The first draft of the outline/screenplay for The Field is complete and I’m about 1000 words into the first draft of the novel. Plan on getting it out by the end of the year.

The Student Loan Debacle

Is there a conspiracy to derail higher education in the United States? It seems like it. Why are student loan rates at 6.8 percent, doubling from 3.4 percent? I make it a policy not to comment on anything political, but this is insane. Society as a whole moves forward on the wheels of education. With student loan rates at 6.8 percent, for many these wheels are coming to a grinding halt and rusting.

The U.S. education system is ranked, from what I’ve read, 17th in a study of 50 countries. Finland and South Korea are number one and two. Will doubling the student loan rate elevate our ranking? Hardly. Forty percent of adults in the United States are either at or below basic reading proficiency and comprehension. In metro Detroit where I live the functional illiteracy rate is 47 percent. That’s almost half the population. With a 6.8 percent student loan rate, where will new teachers come from?

Students preparing to go to college will indeed be forced to re-evaluate their higher education dreams and goals, and we will be worse off for it.

Congress: fix this debacle. Now.

Consider Rescuing a Dog (or Cat)

What is the major cause of death for perfectly healthy dogs and cats? Being hit by cars? Accidentally ingesting something poisonous? Being attacked by another animal? Nope.

Euthanasia.

Five to seven million dogs and cats enter shelters yearly and three to four million are euthanized. That’s nine to ten thousand dogs and cats per day.

We lost our yellow Lab two years ago to cancer. We were dogless since then but something was missing from out lives, so we decided to get a new pooch. We wanted a friendly, gentle little mutt, not barky and low maintenance. Did we go to a breeder? No. We visited three shelters and here’s who we found:

We named him Hank and he adapted to us immediately. He’s sitting on my lap as I am writing this. Hank is two years old, housebroken, happy, sturdy, loves to go for walks, likes people and is very low key for such a little dog. He rarely barks. In fact we thought he might have had his vocal cords removed until we heard him bark the second day he was home.

We went to two shelters, just missing out on two dogs we would have gladly adopted  and almost didn’t go to the third shelter where Hank was kept. I’m so glad we did. He’s not much to look at, but that’s fine with me. I would not trade Hank for any other dog on the planet.

Out of the 78 million dogs and 86 million cats owned in the United States, only 20 to 30 percent are adopted from animal shelters and rescue facilities. If you’re considering getting a dog or cat, please check out your local shelters first. You will find an animal that will enrich your life.