(UPDATED TILL 5 JULY 2020) Here's how the coronavirus aka COVID-19 has impacted Hollywood and the entertainment industry.
Buckle up, because this is going to be a long one. Like many Singaporeans last week, I watched Crazy Rich Asians to see how well Singapore comes off in the movie. I'll try to corral my many thoughts into a manageable puddle here, rather than an uncontrolled torrent of words.
This summer has been absolutely terrible for the movie industry in general -- the worst since 2006. Cinema chain stocks even suffered a huge decline because moviegoing attendance was so low. I'm sure they'll bounce back eventually, because people won't stop watching movies in cinemas, and huge movie hits like Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Thor: Ragnarok will bring in the crowds again; but for now, it looks like cinema stockholders won't be getting their dividends this year.
I just finished this book called Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, and it is mind-blowing. I'll avoid spoilers, so you can enjoy it yourself, but basically, it's a story of a college physics professor who gets abducted one night, taken to an abandoned location and drugged. When he wakes up, he finds himself in a different world where he's a genius atomic physicist living a successful but career-oriented life, his wife never married him and his son was never born.
Disney held its D23 Expo this past weekend. For the uninitiated, it is their biennial fan event in Anaheim showcasing exclusive sneak peeks at what's happening in the entertainment brands under Disney, including star-studded presentations for their animation and live-action series and films, parks and resorts, and more.
I read an article in The Straits Times a few days ago, which talked about how local cinema attendance in the first three months of this year dropped 10.4 percent from the same period last year. A few reasons were attributed to it, including slowing economic growth affecting all industries, lack of good movies, and competing sources of entertainment such as Netflix.
Before I start on this review proper, buckle up for a not-so-brief history of how Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (from now on referred to as BVS) came to be. It'll help you understand why BVS rubbed me wrongly from the get-go, and why I went into it with derisive feelings. My friend accused me of being biased against the film, and so even if it was good, I wouldn't say so, but that's not true. *If* it was good, I would admit it -- in tones of absolute surprise, yes, but I would.
This post is more than a month late, because I'm a procrastinator of the highest order. I'm the archbishop of the priesthood of procrastinators. My inertia got so bad that I finally decided if I wanted to get it out at all, I should just buckle down and do it, so here it is.
Many people went to watch Jurassic World last weekend; and by many, I mean the whole world. It had the biggest global opening weekend ever at US$511.8 million -- though I'm pretty sure the Avengers would have come out tops if Disney hadn't staggered the global rollout of The Avengers and Age of Ultron, whereas Universal Pictures released Jurassic World in all territories at once except Japan.
Here's a roundup of what happened in 2014 at the movies: My favourites, surprises and disappointments, plus the things that made me mad and sad.
