We can do like General Questions, by numbers, but would all probably say Wedding Crashers – breaking the 200million mark and earning the 4th spot for the year is the biggest positive shock for Hollywood
Really though in Café Society, maybe taking bigger than expected box office as one facet (or not), what do you see as the biggest good surprise in Movies this year?
For me it was the 40year Old Virgin. Sure Steve Carrell is funny. But a lead movie star? And the Title sounded like and SNL skit. Well I was wrong. Loud wrong. It was funny and sensitive and it was great. I know partially it was that I went in shaking my head in a “I know I’m going to regret this” way, sure that no matter what anyone said it was a mistake to pay $$ to see this sucker — and the movie far exceeded my expectations – that dynamic for sure is going on here & coloring my opinion. Still, I thought it was a really fun movie. It Really was my biggest pleasent surprise.
My no.2 is Are We There Yet? With Ice Cube and Nia long. I went for my the 6 year old’s sake. I had really low expectations. But it was funny and a kids movie – with realistic kids who weren’t smarter than the adults and , yes there were too many crotch hits and low brow stuff, and went a bit to far stretching my credulity at points, but it was also very funny in places. It was made for 32 mill. and it earned 82 million domestically and I get why… it wasn’t Cinderellaman or Walk the Line or Brokeback and didn’t try to be – hell it wasn’t even Narnia or Harry Potter for the kids. But it didn’t advertise itself as anything other than what it was – a movie to keep a kid and his Dad entertained in a theater for 90 minutes and share a few laughs without either going out of his gourd or shaking his head in disgust at the end. It delivered that and pleasantly surprised me.
40-Year-Old Virgin did come out of a sketch. It was a character Carrell created, but it’s from Second City, not SNL (which probably explains why it’s funny). And that would’ve been my choice. I thought he was okay on the Daily Show and heard it was good, but I didn’t expect it to be anything but dumb.
Let’s say I was “surprised” by Cinderella Man. How can I be surprised by a massively budgeted, Ron Howard movie, with a huge promotion behind it?
Well, because of that exactly.
I can’t stand Ron Howard. You know you’re going to get ham-handedly manipulated, and it’s going to be clichèd. But, I bought it. I found the characters believable. I really felt the tension during the key fights. Paul Giamatti was a great character and did a great job acting. The fight scenes were as good as any boxing movie. The story was well-paced.
I was also suprised by Hitchhikers Guide. That just kept me in a state of perma-giggle. That robot was one of my favorite characters from whole year.
I didn’t get to see a lot of movies this year, but the only one that I can think of that was “surprisingly good” was Sky High. The cast was perfect. The writing was top notch. This is the best disney movie since Emperors New Groove.
As I already mentioned, The Ringer was waaay better than expected.
40-Year-Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers were both funnier and smarter (and much less sexist) than expected.
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang wasn’t as clever as the writer/director thought, but it was still very enjoyable and deserved much more promotion and a decent trailer (rather than that dreck that had wacky music and everyone going “Uhhh, which one’s the funny one?”)