Axelrod

People be claiming credit for stuff they didn't do since the beginning of people.

I will see this because it is the only game in town, but I can't say I'm "excited" about it.  I will confess to getting a bit tired of watching giant CGI pixels smashing into each other again and again and again. 

I will be pleasantly surprised if there is an actual decent story that goes along with it. 

The very concept of a 9.9 "pre-screen" makes no sense (is that really something they are going to be offering?) given the historically comically low numbers of 9.9s (and 10s) given.

Unless what they are tacitly admitting/saying is that their 9.9 grading has been too stingy in the past and they are now going to be a bit more generous with that grading going forward.

On 3/28/2024 at 11:31 AM, Stefan_W said:

If you believe that the largest dealers are submitting roughly the same amount of books as, or less than, anyone else then we probably dont have a starting point for a rational discussion. 

Well, I don't know now, do I?  The point is, I'm not making assumptions based on nothing except it "feeling" correct to me.  

(untrue, I am making an assumption based on it feeling correct to me, which is that CGC gives special consideration - including more favorable grading - to their biggest customers)  

The book has been submitted over 13,000 times across the years.  My suspicion - again, not based on personal knowledge - is that the number of these copies submitted by "not the largest dealers" greatly outnumbers the number of copies submitted by "the largest dealers."  

But who really knows?  

On 3/28/2024 at 10:53 AM, Stefan_W said:

It is an even smaller wonder when using math and stuff instead of conspiracies. Here is a quick rundown:

From the point that CGC opened its doors up until now CGC had never awarded a 9.9 for a GSX 1, so this is the first. Through that entire time only 239 managed to get to 9.8. 

Mega dealers are the ones who submit the largest volume of high value books. 

So up until now, and just like anyone else, these massive dealers like Metropolis/Comic Connect etc had 9.8s for the best copies without a single 9.9. 

Since these big dealers submit the most books of this type (i.e., the highest grade of GSX) the probability is that one of the dealers will hit 9.9 first. To put it another way, if these folks submit 90% of the copies that are at least a 9.8 they are 90% likely to be the first to hit 9.9. 

So nothing even remotely "off" is happening here, at least so far. 

Conspiracy theories make my head hurt, especially when Occam's Razor applies. 

These are just completely made up facts, right?  

On 3/24/2024 at 8:04 PM, Buzzetta said:

I am optimistic. 

All jokes aside, the last time a big budget movie had total plotlines cut out and was completely reworked this way I believe it was Star Wars: Rogue One and Star Wars: Solo. 

Rogue One is actually one of the better SW movies out of all the live action theatrical releases in my opinion.   Star Wars Solo is highly under-appreciated and has gotten a better reputation since its release.   I reserve judgement until after I have seen it. 

I have no idea about the history of these movies and how much re-shooting/re-working was done from their original versions, but to me they are case studies in the "right" way and the "wrong" way to do it. 

Rogue One is amazing.  Great story, and they way they made that film fit seamlessly into the overall Star Wars universe was incredible.  

Solo, on the other hand, was truly a ham-fisted effort.  All their "easter eggs" and callbacks to the larger Star Wars universe were clunky and either way too obvious or just dumb.  Plus, the story was pretty lame as well.  

I have no idea if this new Captain America film will be good.  I would have said that extensive re-shoots have never saved a bad film ever, but given you say this happened with Rogue One I will also reserve judgment,  
 

On 3/24/2024 at 8:13 AM, chrisco37 said:

I hope it’s not  a direct prequel to Aliens (ie. Not about what happened to the LV426 colonists.  We already know that story even if we didn’t see it).

Ah ha!  See, you THINK you know the story, but here's the REAL story....

It could be just like the Thing prequel they did about what happened in the Norwegian camp before the first movie!  (which, in all honesty, was not in fact the worst film ever, just completely unoriginal and unnecessary)

On the one hand, sure, it's possible to make a good "closed ship" Alien/Monster film.  We've seen it done.  

But, on the other, given we've seen it done, I would actually prefer they try and do something different.  Something new and hopefully more interesting?  

This is why Cameron's Aliens remains one of the greatest sequels of all time - because it didn't simply ape what Scott did before.  As opposed to the abomination that was Alien3.  

You can't really tell from this preview being only a minute, but they sure make it look like it's just aliens chasing people around.  

I'm also concerned about the time frame, in that I think I remember reading this film was supposed to take place between the first two Alien movies?  That just seems like a bad idea to me.  Talk about wheel spinning.  

On 3/20/2024 at 2:22 PM, DocGo said:

I imagine there’s no way these would be given a yellow label.

If it's not going to be a yellow label, then, what's the point at all?  

I imagine they will give these yellow labels.  Possibly with some kind of notation to distinguish whether it was a "witnessed" sig. vs an "authenticated" sig.

It's probably in Lucas' deal when he sold the IP.  They can't release the "original" versions. 

Might have to wait until he dies.

Used to have them, on VHS.  

Would be surprised if they actually ever made this movie.  Second book just not very good - truly a fumbling attempt to recapture the magic of the first book - and it's not like the first movie was such a huge smash to begin with. 

They would have to seriously cut down the budget, I'm thinking, to make it even conceivable (from a money-making standpoint, at least).   I guess Spielberg not directing would be a start to that.  

Problem with adapting Narnia is every book after the first one.

I give credit to the last effort which petered out after three books for giving it the old college try and making what I thought were mostly above average films.  But the story is just tough.

My brother made a humorous observation comparing these Dune films to David Lynch's 1984 adaptation, which was basically that the part of the story Dennis Villeneuve took 2 1/2 hours to tell in this film David Lynch crammed into about 24 minutes.  

This movie was excellent!  

So did John Mulaney!

On 3/6/2024 at 1:39 PM, Number 6 said:

I can't even imagine what it would be like to have film versions of Jaws and Planet of the Apes that were exactly like the books instead of the versions we have.

omg, I remember the first time I actually read Jaws and was stunned by the amount of time that was spent on the subplot of Brody's wife having an affair with Hooper.  

I was like, wtf is this?

On 3/6/2024 at 7:48 PM, Chip Cataldo said:

What opportunity? Just the fact that they chose these characters to make a movie out of means it was doomed from before the start.

Want to know the ONLY thing that will "right the live films ship" here?  A Spider-Man movie.

That's it.

Nah.  It is more than possible to make a decent, or even great, film using any character.  Provided you have a good story to tell.  

The problem with the Sony Spider-U-Verse is that they have put the horse before the cart.  Which is to say, someone went "Hey! Spider-Man is popular.  We have the rights to all these Spider-Man adjacent characters.  We need to go make a movies out of all of them and just wait for the cash to come rolling in!"

And then Venom happened and it was a big hit and thus they determined that this strategy was obviously correct. 

So we got Morbius. And Madam Web. And soon-to-come Kraven the Hunter. With no one actually giving a **** about the story (or, if I'm being generous, only giving the barest of *****.  Someone probably cared, but didn't have the ability to make it good on the schedule the studio pre-determined)
 

Can't see this until 3/10 'cause that's the earliest I can get good seats at the IMAX screen I want to see it on.  Normally if I start looking to buy seats on Monday for the upcoming weekend that's plenty of time, but not for this one.  

I'm sure everyone has eagerly been waiting for my reaction to this movie.  Here it is:

I fell asleep during the final climactic fight sequence.

On 2/20/2024 at 12:36 PM, SOTIcollector said:

3) What the market will bear.  They know people will pay more, so they have a business model that is built on charging more for the more expensive books.  The same thing happens in many service industries.  Why does an airline charge different prices to different people at different times?  Because they know they can, and they built a business model around it.  Why do hotels charge different prices for the same room depending on the night of the week and the season?  The list could go on and on.

I mean, in the end it's just this.  As long as a graded book will sell for a premium over an ungraded one, then they can impose a surcharge on the service because the book will still be "worth" more than what you paid to get it graded, and people will pay it.

Now, should the market decide that for some I-can't-imagine-what-this-could-possibly-be reason, a graded CGC book is no longer worth the premium it costs to get it graded, then, suddenly, that premium goes away.

Will the market decide this?  Probably not, but one can at least imagine it.  

Is this one of those "they give the award to the person who agrees to show up to the award show" awards?  

In fairness, looks like they are the (co)creators and writers of the Lost in Space reboot on Netflix, which was pretty good.  So, maybe when they're doing their own stuff they're okay.  

Probably still getting some business off residual goodwill from that series as well, as I don't see any of those other shows being particularly anything to brag about on one's resume.

On 2/18/2024 at 11:15 AM, paperheart said:

it's amazing that MW is trailing Morbius by nearly $20M after 6 days but it is even more amazing that over 2M people paid to see this move

Morbius Madame Web    $        17,300,000  $            6,100,000  $ (11,200,000)  $        30,500,000  $            8,200,000  $ (22,300,000)  $        39,000,000  $          12,500,000  $ (26,500,000)  $        41,100,000  $          18,900,000  $ (22,200,000)  $        43,800,000  $          23,400,000  $ (20,400,000)  $        45,500,000  $          25,800,000  $ (19,700,000)

I will pay to see this movie!  Probably this week even! 

I do this fully knowing it is going to be bad. 

I will probably enjoy it more that way.