March 30th, 2009
It's a big list this week with nearly 50 DVDs here (including a few that are late reviews). This includes this year's big Oscar winner, Slumdog Millionaire, which is coming out on DVD and Blu-ray. Also coming out this week is two foreign language thrillers: Tell No One on DVD and Blu-ray, and Timecrimes on DVD. All three are worthy picking up. In fact, all three are DVD Picks of the Week. With so many releases, it comes as no surprise that this week's list has to be split into two, with the first part found here.
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March 23rd, 2009
Technical difficulties with Amazon's site meant this column was a lot harder to get done than usual. However, I won't hold that against this week's releases, and there are a number that are worthy of the DVD Pick of the Week from practically every category. TV on DVD has Andy Richter Controls the Universe - The Complete Series, from the classics we have The Odd Couple - Centennial Collection, from new releases we have Bolt - Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack, Blu-ray offers us James Bond Blu-ray Collection - Volume 3. We even have a late entry, as Let the Right One In - Blu-ray arrived. All five are worthy of the DVD Pick of the Week, but if I was forced to chose just one, Bolt - Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack would probably please the most people. After a couple of "slow" weeks, we are back to splitting the column into two parts. The second part can be found here.
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March 17th, 2008
New releases were again plentiful this week with nine reaching the top 30 and three of them sweeping the top few spots. The best of the best was 101 Dalmatians, which sold 1.36 million units during its first week for $21.64 million in revenue.
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March 17th, 2008
There were only four new releases to chart this week, and only one made it into the top five. This left Beowulf with an easy road to first place as it added $9.02 million in rentals for the week and $19.94 million after two.
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March 4th, 2008
The first week of the month, but it's not very strong both in terms of raw numbers and in terms of high-profile releases. (There are a surprising number of spotlight reviews, on the other hand.) There are a few releases worth picking up, like 101 Dalmatians - Two-Disc Platinum Edition - Buy from Amazon and My Kid Could Paint That - Buy from Amazon, but none that screamed to be DVD Pick of the Week.
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October 29th, 2007
We finally had a massive box office hit at the box office this week as Saw IV lived up to expectations. This helped the overall box office grow to $102 million, which is 6% more than last weekend. However, it was weaker than the same weekend last year by 3%, which stretches the losing streak to 6 weeks.
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October 22nd, 2007
It's been more than a month since we've seen the weekend box office numbers top last year's figures. This time around the overall box office was $97 million, which was down 2% from last weekend and 8% from the same weekend last year. So far this fall is behind lasts year's pace by more than 6%, 10% if you are using tickets sold and not dollars. Year to date, on the other hand, is still showing a 6% growth, and up more than $400 million on last year's pace. Even ticket sales are still up a strong 1.4%, so there's no reason to panic just yet, but the recent weakness is still a cause for concern.
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October 21st, 2007
Busy week in terms of wide and limited releases with well over a dozen sites on this week's list. Although most struggled to stand out, there were a couple that helped sell their respective movies very well, including the winner of the Weekly Website Award, 30 Days of Night - Official Site.
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October 18th, 2007
I miss September. Sure, the box office was weak, but everyone expected it to be weak so it wasn't depressing like it is now. The overall box office has been in a slump the past few weeks, and so has my prediction record. To make matters worse, there are six films opening wide, or semi-wide, which complicates matters when you are trying to predict opening weekends. This level of competition will also hurt the individual films and it is very likely that at least four of them will fail to live up to potential.
Which four those are is the question.
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October 6th, 2007
We are starting to get full websites for some of the massive holiday season releases, which should mean there will be at least one award worthy website on each week's list. As for this week, there were a few that have potential assuming the sections marked coming soon live up to the rest of the site. But just one site, The Seeker: The Dark is Rising - Official Site, that was worthy of the Weekly Website Award.
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October 1st, 2007
October means one thing: Free candy. ... Oh yeah, and the unofficial start of Award Season.
And Halloween brings us a few horror films as well.
Unfortunately, this year October is rather weak, with no film looking like a strong contender for $100 million and most of the films with early Oscar buzz having performed poorly with the critics.
The only good news is last October was also weak at the box office, meaning there's at least a reasonable shot at 2007 maintaining its box office lead over 2006.
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September 16th, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for John Rambo, Smart People, Sex and the City and more!
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September 9th, 2007
Another week without any top-notch websites, at least one that hasn't previously won the award. At least there are a few with possibilities and the fall blockbusters should start coming launching their sites shortly so the pace should pickup soon.
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July 29th, 2007
Server upgrades went... less smoothly than anticipated, which delayed this column, but at least there are a huge number of sites to check out. Many of these sites are making their first appearance on the list while quite a few are making their last appearance. Unfortunately, while it's a big list, there are not many that are even close to being award worthy at the moment. 30 Days of Night - Official Site comes the closest, but I'm waiting for the missing features to be added before I make that decision.
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June 23rd, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Michael Clayton, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Love Guru and more.
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April 22nd, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Things We Lost in the Fire, Mama's Boy, Pride and Glory and more.
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February 18th, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for Miss Potter, DOA: Dead or Alive, Lions for Lambs and more.
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January 21st, 2007
This week's round of new movie release information contains release dates for I am Legend, Angels & Demons and more.
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