by Shane “Slim Packaging” Hnetka
With X-Men and Captain America winding down their theatrical runs and the fun-looking Guardians of the Galaxy still a month away, director Michael Bay easily raked in a ton of money with Transformers: Age of Extinction. Bay’s giant robot sequel had the biggest opening of 2014, just a hair over $100 million. That, however, is only the second-highest opening for a Transformers movie. The fact this year’s top opener didn’t beat Transformers 2 shows what a weak summer blockbuster season we’ve had so far.
Nothing Can Stop The Train
Speaking of blockbusters… I’ve ranted before about evil producer Harvey “Scissorhands” Weinstein’s plan to re-edit the science fiction epic Snowpiercer, much to the chagrin of the film’s director Joon-ho Bong, the movie’s cast, and the critics who saw and liked the original cut. Thanks to that pressure, Weinstein finally relented — but because he’s a sore loser, he’s punished the movie’s fans with a puny eight-theatre June 27 release.
There’s no guarantee that Snowpiercer will expand to wide release.
This stinks, because Snowpiercer — based on a French comic about a giant train that transports the last humans around a post-apocalyptic Earth — looks great. The stuff I’ve read says it’s a strange and cool mix of action, comedy and class-war politics. It’s already been a hit in South Korea and France, and it has an 84 out of 100 rating on Metacritic and a 93 per cent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, so the critics have clearly enjoyed it.
I want to see Snowpiercer at the Galaxy. You suck, Weinstein.
Space: The Final Frontier
I finally got around to building new shelves for my DVD/Blu-ray collection and figured out why people like the whole digital download thing: space. DVD cases take up a lot of it. What’s a person who still wants a physical movie library to do? Well, Warner Bros. has just announced a new line of Blu-rays that could help solve my problem. The Diamond Luxe line packages some of Warner’s more popular catalog titles in slim, half-inch thick cases. Woo hoo!
Now all I need to do is transfer everything into that size packaging.
Shane Hnetka is a Regina film and comic book nerd. He also writes Dog Blog’s weekly “Sunday Matinee” column at prairiedogmag.com.
