Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Release!!

There are groups like mine and Nancy's who totally do not accept flaming, etc. I pretty much employ the same technique you guys do.  You get a warning or two, maybe three; if you don't get your act together then off you go. 

I am going to see DS again this weekend. It cracks me up that this movie has been out 7 days, came in second last weekend yet it's a flop?  If it only took 60 million to make (of course there are different stories out there) then I am sure it will break even and even make a profit once it's released on DVD. 

I hope they do a directors cut. 

unlike previous tellings of the story where victoria is given this rather nebulous history and backstory here at least it's solid. and it doesn't even hint that she's somehow related to or connected with the collins family or, more importantly, elizabeth. that's out.

her purpose is just the runup to the josette revelation at the end. we don't get to know much about her otherwise. she's prim and rather reserved. that's about it.

funny but bella is not really playing two characters but three. unlike past variations on the story where vicki or maggie is some sort of present day incarnation of josette here the three are linked inextricably. but in the end she's josette. who she really is, or is pretending to be, almost becomes irrelevant in retrospect.

still bella's charming. i wish we had seen more of her. i love the early dinner scene where she's sitting at the dining room table calmly eating her new england boiled dinner while all these crazy people act out around her. and the fact that they gave her this rather girlish, early 1960's fashion sense(which makes sense over time)sets her apart visually in an arresting way. it was an interesting choice on the part of the director and costumer.

good observation about julia coming into breakfast and demanding that the drapes be closed. i wouldn't have picked that up. that's another subplot that needed more time to be properly fleshed out.

in terms of the carolyn "reveal" at the end whether it was "hinted" at our "out of the blue" is for me somewhat beside the point.

it didn't add anything to the film. a competent filmmaker has a responsibility the the audience to provide closure and resolve to the film at hand. not just market a franchise or promote a sequel. that's all this accomplished.

it didn't explain anything about the character we had been watching for two hours. she was sullen and bratty. so what, ALL 15 year olds are sullen and bratty. not just werewolves. it did a tremendous disservice to viewers of this film who wanted to enjoy it on it's own terms and are not seeing it in relation to a hypothetical sequel some two years out who don't know who the heck quentin collins is.

and on a visual level it was unsightly and disturbing to have this pretty 15 year old girl morph into what looks like some sort of dog. it was gross.

so again this monster-mash ending left a sour taste in my mouth.

I went to see DS on the IMAX and my impressions are much more positive. I don't think it was the IMAX experience. Yes, it intensified some of the more dramatic scenes and made them seem almost 3D, but that would not be enough to grant salvation to a movie that's without substance. I went with 2 friends, Ron and Sonja. Ron has almost no exposure to the original DS except for the 4 hour condensation of the Maggie story I showed him. He's seen HODS a few times and watched '91 DS. Sonja watched the original but has few memories of it. They both liked it.  Ron MIGHT buy it on DVD.

I found that I still was annoyed by the "humor" that seemed to pop up at inappropriate moments. That scene of him brushing his teeth, the one that irked me every time I saw it in the trailers, does not bother me much now. It was not in a dramatic place in the film. The montage shows him settling into 20th Century life, so he's broadening his horizons. I wish the scene of him on fire had not broken the tension of his "coming out" to the family. But all in all, I enjoyed it much more the second time around. I still think the sex and vomit scenes were stupid, but I ignore them, grateful that these characters were brought to life at all. After the failure of '91 and the pilot, Burton and Depp might have been the only people who could make this happen. I just hope they do an extended cut. I think that will transform this film the way Star Trek the Motion Picture was when it ran on ABC and was out on VHS. If they don't do the extended cut, I may do my own edit.  I've done this before. I took most of the deleted scenes from Godfather's I and II (I omitted one scene because it was very inconsequential and was the only one that was only available to me on a medicare VHS recording) and edited them into my "Ultimate Cuts". I'll do that with DS if these scenes are available but relegated to a special features section. Once that's done, it'll be fairly simple to save "the Ultimate Cut" and then make a second edit, softening the blow of some of the more silly scenes. It'll be an experiment I'll inflict on people LOL. Sometimes I have WAY too much time on my hands!!!
 
 

i enjoyed it more the second time as well. save for the two plot developments i've already called out.

the humor didn't bother me. not in the least. since the promotional material has lead one to believe it was an all-out farce it was rather underplayed in the end.

the "macrame" scene was actually sort of cute. and the ultra-wierd dining room scenes fun.

visually and in terms of costuming of course it was stunning. the collinwood set was incredible. and only in DS could a story about a vampire and a witch have a backplot about a fish cannery.

the ball scene seemed like alot of buildup and bother for not alot of payoff. and as i knew it would the alice cooper cameo took one "out of the story" so to speak. i get it. but i think it was a misfire.

I also liked the movie a bit better the second time around. I am still bummed out that the classic DS theme and music box weren't used in the movie.
DS performed better on Saturday and should break $50 million this weekend in the U.S. I hope this movie succeeds because I don't want the media to hawk it as one of the biggest flops of the year.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/dictator-off-to-slow-domestic-start-international-box-office-begins-stronger/

Thanks MB for posting that pic for me. It was greatly appreciated.

Gee, with Saturday's numbers I see there's no more mention of DS being on life support. But then, as I pointed out, that comment was just ridiculous on so many levels.    And now that's she's upped her estimate for DS for the weekend, it will be interesting to see if places like Box Office Mojo report a similar estimate once they post the "official" estimates for the weekend later today.

Going off topic briefly, though it's not entirely OT because the continued mega-success of The Avengers is what's affecting practically every other film currently out, but I'm really surprised by the estimated numbers for Battleship and What To Expect When You're Expecting. I didn't think Battleship would open huge, but I was thinking a lot more than what it's supposedly done. But considering it appeals to the same sort of crowd as The Avengers, I suppose that perhaps a lot of people simply went to see The Avengers again rather than see Battleship. And I really thought What To Expect When You're Expecting would come in higher than DS, if only for the fact that it's a new opening. Though I'm certainly not going to complain - particularly considering that both What To Expect When You're Expecting and DS were supposedly tracking well with women but apparently more decided to go to see DS even though some Web sites predicted What To Expect When You're Expecting would be more likely to siphon women away from DS to the point that it would come out ahead of DS. So, about the only major film opening this weekend that seems to have lived up to expectations was The Dictator. But then, expectations weren't high to begin with because Sasha Baron Cohen is such an acquired taste - and a taste that may not be shared all that much with the audience that was likely to see the other top 5 films this weekend...

9 days 11 hours 39 minutes 41 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

I also returned for seconds, this time on not-IMAX, and besides the size of the screen and the picture clarity, I really noticed a difference in the sound.  And this second viewing certainly allowed for catching a lot of little things.  I tried to reconcile a couple of the plot holes noted here involving Vicki changing her name while already on the train, and the size of the family that boarded the ship in Liverpool (also, who helped Mrs. Johnson escape the flames?), but there wasn't any.  Oh well, at least we finally got an appearance by Angelique's mother!

And speaking of Angie, I caught her checking her face before getting out of her car in town, and not in any normal way.  She almost tugs at it to make sure the whole thing is on right-- a foreshadowing that what you see of her is not real, and so her ultimate state at her destruction ("death" doesn't feel quite right) didn't come as far out of the blue.  And hey, she didn't just murder Barnabas' parents-- she killed the family dog!!

My daughter noted that only Roger was made to resemble the original character, and I thought hmm, why was that?

Was that a portrait of Josette that catches fire in the finale?  If so, why would David point out Barnabas' portrait but not Victoria's obvious resemblance to Josette?

yes midnite that was a portrait of josette in the final scene.

they obviously went to alot of trouble having it painted, and i'll bet somewhere on a cutting room floor there is a scene, or scenes, of someone noting the resemblance between it and vicki.

strange she didn't note it herself upon her arrival at collinwood. it would have added another dimension to that scene.

i'm still confused about the scene with barnabas catching fire. it didn't necessarily call out "vampire". just that he was, what?, i'm not sure?

and it seemed to me that not just roger, but also barnabas and julia, were meant to resemble the original actors who played the characters.

but the rest, no. i wonder how those decisions were made?

And now that's she's upped her estimate for DS for the weekend, it will be interesting to see if places like Box Office Mojo report a similar estimate once they post the "official" estimates for the weekend later today.

Her estimates are about the same to within a couple hundred thousand here or there. Though her DS estimate is lower than the "official" one: $12.5 million vs. the official estimate of $12,770,000. And if either of those estimates hold, the cumulative gross for DS' first 10 days in release will cause it to jump up to #28 for the year so far, with, as I said, many more days in release to come.

9 days 12 hours 31 minutes 20 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/ The estimates are in.

I hope they auction off some of the movie props in the near future.

For what it's worth, DS is doing far better than the atrocious Battleship.

When Europe/Asian box office is all tallied up, followed by pay-per-view, premium channels & DVD/blu ray, DS will have made some money.
The question remains: will it make enough money to warrant a sequel or a new TV series?

as it was left dangling...

julia and vicki vampires, carolyn a werewolf, angelique dead, collinwood and the business burnt down, plus the entire town knowing barnabas is a vampire, a sequel seems like a hot mess. and completely implausible.

i vote for a new take on the series.

and even if there are no new movies after this one, DS is hardly dead.
The audio dramas & comic books are doing quite well, as are books by Scott & Parker.