WEEKEND AT THE MOVIES

This was my first movie binge weekend in many years.  Before the pandemic, I've seen up to five films in a three-day period.  But in a 26-hour period from Friday night, I actually watched five of them.

We are entering the second half of the year, and this weekend is #27.  I'm looking at all the Box Office Mojo #1 films of the past 26 weekends, and not one appeals to me.

• Weeks 24, 25 and 26 were dominated by the animated Inside Out 2.  Mind you, Rotten Tomatoes loved it, with 90 reviewers and 96 audiences ratings.  But it's for kids with their parents.

• 
  Worldwide Box Office Revenues this year.
• Inside Out 2  $1.1 billion
• Dune:  Part 2  $712 million
• Godzilla x Kong:  The New Empire  $568 million
• The last films I saw in a movie theater were when Barbenheimer opened the weekend of July 21-23 a year ago.  Raked in $511 million worldwide during those days.

• 
  However, in 2019 Avengers: Endgame had a world opening weekend of $1.2 billion.  I don't go to comic-book movies anymore.
• The highest-grossing films worldwide are:
• Avatar  2009  $2.9 billion
• Avengers Endgame  2019  $2.8 billion
• Avatar:  The Way of Water  2022  $2.3 billion
• Titanic  1997  $2.26 billion
• Star Wars:  The Force Awakens  2025  $2.1 billion
• Avengers Infinity War  2018  $2.05 billion
• Spider-Man No Way Home  2021  $1.9 billion
• Jurassic World  2015  $1.7 billion

• 
  However, adjusted to 2022 inflation:
• Gone With the Wind 1939  $4.3 billion
• Avatar  2009  $4.0 billion
• Titanic  1997  $3.7 billion
• Star Wars  1977  $3.6 billion
• Highest grossing films by year:

• 
  During the silent era, war themes were popular
• Birth of a Nation  1915  $5.2 million
• All Quiet on the Western Front  1930  $3 million
• With the advent of sound, musicals took over as the most popular.

• 
  Calvalcade  1933  $4 million
• The Merry Widow  1934  $2.6 million
• World War II brought back war stories
• Sergeant York  1941  $7.8 billion
• This is the Army  1943  $9.6 million

• 
  After WWII, biblical dramas
• Samson and Delilah  1949  $14.2 million
• Quo Vadis  1951  $26.7 million
• The Robe  1953  $26 million
• The Ten Commandments  1956  $90 million

• 
  Then musicals returned
• South Pacific 1958  $30 million
• West Side Story  1961  $105 million
• My Fair Lady  1964  $55 million
• The Sound of Music  1965  $286 million

• 
  "High concept" productions gained in popularity
• 2001:  A Space Odyssey  1968  $190 million
• Diamonds are Forever  1971  $116 million
• The Godfather  1972  $287 million
• Jaws  1975  $477 million

• 
  Star Wars  1977  $775 million
• Raiders of the Lost Ark  1081  $390 million
• ET  1982  $797 billion
• Jurassic Park  1993  $1 billion
• Titanic 1997  $2.3 billion

So about my binge, it started with two on Netflix.

• 1922 (released in 2017), which got 92/57 scores from Rotten Tomatoes.  I sided with the audience rating of 57, for was boring.
• Reptile (2023), 45/70 scores from RT.  Benicio Del Toro and Justin Timberlake, who was not only the villain, but soon thereafter got a DUI.  That's his mugshot.  Not much of a film.

Then I switched to Prime for The Beekeeper.  71/92 scores from RT.  Standard Jason Statham fare.  Enjoyed it, very much.

The final two were last night on Netflix:

• Dark Waters starred Mark Ruffalo, Tim Robbins and Anne Hathaway.  Was made in 2019 and I don't remember the title at all.  However, RT gave scores of 89/95, and I certainly agree with those numbers.
• First time I remember seeing Tim Robbins since his Shawshank Redemption in 1994, two decades ago.  That was a great film:  RT ratings of 89/98.

• 
  Essentially, in 1998 an obscure West Virginia farmer complains that his cows are dying, and DuPont, which has a chemical plant there, is to blame.  
• Robert Bilott, a corporate defense lawyer in Cincinnati is asked by his grandmother who lives in Parkersburg, WV, to please talk to this farmer.

• 
  Of course, DuPont is too large, having huge influence on the Feds and too important for jobs in that town, to be seriously concerned.
• The polluting chemical was perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), which is used to manufacture Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene), and causes a wide variety of cancers.

• 
  Teflon itself is a cancer-agent, but remains widespread in cookware, for it is easier to clean, and the danger has successfully been neutralized by DuPont and spun-off companies that continue to manufacture this product.

• 
  Nonstick cookware is affordable to buy, convenient to use and a cinch to clean, but many still wonder if Teflon and other nonstick cooking materials are safe to use. The answer is yes. Well, mostly.

• 
  In a nutshell, against all odds, requiring two decades of legal battles, Bilott prevails, DuPont loses, and their stock value today is not where it would be if they had won the suits. 

• 
  Apparently, as a teflon-coated pan gets older, some of the PFOA returns, and only one in a billion of this molecule can hurt you.  
• Europe banned this in 2008 and the USA only in 2013.
• First, if you have any teflon pan bought a decade ago and longer, discard it.

• 
  If you still want to purchase non-sticking pans, don't use them for more than a few years.  Don't buy these pans from China.  If there is a big sale on...watch out.

• 
  There are other options today, such as ceramic cookware.  Then, of course, cast iron is safe.  They're both, though, heavy.
• Knowing the above, Healthline says there is NO evidence that teflon-coated pans manufacture after 2013 will cause cancer.
• 
  There is also a second Neflix show on this same subject, The Devil We Know, 2018, a documentary involving the original Erin Brockovich.  
• Remember her?  Role played in the 2000 movie of that title by Julia Roberts, where she won the Oscar for Best Actress.  
• Erin herself is back in TDWK, about that same Parksburg, WV PFOA incident. 
• This I've got to see soon, for Rotten Tomatoes bestowed 100/88 ratings.

My fifth film was produced in 2014, The Equalizer, with Denzel Washington.  Chloë Grace Moretz has matured.  

• Only got 61/77 scores from Rotten Tomatoes, but this is your standard Denzel film.  He has a heart and saves people from harm, doing this effortlessly because of his early training.  
• Exactly the same situation as The Beekeeper.  Washington killed 19 people, only 9 in the sequel and 26 in The Equalizer 3 (RT 76/94).  Stratham in Beekeeper?  41.  What about John Wick in his four films?  439.

• 
  There are three Equalizers.
• A CBS TV series from 1985 to 1989 staring Robert McCall as a benevolent equalizer.
• Another CBS series starring Queen Latifah, from 2021, with fifth year to come in 2025.
• The Denzel Washington films.
• The Equalizer 4?

Beryl will soon re-attain hurricane strength and make landfall between Corpus Christi and Galveston.  The eye will pass just west of Houston.

-