Cult of Personality

As a self professed fan of Harry Potter, the subject of which movies are “cult movies” or not is a recurring topic on our show.  My co-host Jesse seems to be under the impression that it includes any movie in which he has no interest that makes lots of money.  LOL.  Let’s take a second to clear up the confusion…

From Wikipedia: A cult film is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but relatively small group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside of the small fanbases Cult films often become the source of a thriving, obsessive, and elaborate subculture of fandom, hence the analogy to cults. However, not every film with a rabid fanbase is necessarily a cult film.

The term cult film is used to describe a film that has had little to no success commercially and critically upon its initial release but has later spawned a small, but devoted and usually obsessive fanbase.

So movies that Jesse considers cult movies
Dark Knight – $158 million opening weekend – $997 million total.
Harry Potter (we’ll just the first movie) – $88 million opening weekend – $878 million total.
Lord of the Rings (again… just the first one) – $47 million opening weekend – $870 million total.
Pirates of the Caribbean (yep… 1st one) $46 million opening weekend – $654 million total.

Movies he digs:
Friday Night Lights – 20 million opening weekend, 61 million total.
Road House – $5.9 million opening weekend – $30 million total.
Animal House – $276 thousand opening weekend.  141 million total.

So, if we are sticking to the definition of what cult films are rather than what is perceived to be cool… I don’t appear to be the one in the cult.  Ha ha ha…

I’ll check in with you next week, I have to go pick up my Hogwarts uniform from the cleaners.  Grif-fin-dor!

Date Night

I’m taking my wife out on a date tonight, just the two of us.  This is the first time we’ve gone out since last summer.  Why has it been so long?  We had a terrific babysitter who went and left for college.  Damn higher education! 

My kids are super easy to babysit.  At 11 and 7, they’re pretty self sufficient.  Not quite old enough to be left alone though… they’d kill each other.  That being said, Amy & I are still very picky – as everyone should be – about who watches our kids.  Also, being relatively new to town, we don’t really know enough people to have a lot of choices.  We’ve got a new sitter we’re trying out tonight for the first time.  She seems like a really nice kid, and she’s still got 3 years of school left, so I hope it goes well.

Our big plans: Dinner & “The Bucket List”

I may have to have a big steak.  I was really good yesterday.  Amy wanted to go to lunch at Taco Bell, so I tried one of the Fresco Chicken Burritos (only 9 grams of fat).  For dinner, my daughters made chef salad with lots of veggies and I had a nectarine for dessert.  This morning… Cheerios.

I did some cardio and crunches yesterday.  Today, back to the gym for circuits.  We haven’t done a weigh-in on the air in a few days, but I’m still hovering right around 200.  This morning – 199.6

Have a great weekend!

Golden Compass

There is a lot of talk these days about the new Nicole Kidman/Daniel Craig movie The Golden Compass which comes out this Friday.  The religious camp is upset because the book was apparently written by an atheist and the atheists are upset because they don’t feel the movie is anti-religious enough.

Here’s the deal.  Unlike most of the people doing the talking… I’ve read the book (the series actually – there’s three books).  The main gist of the books is there is this “dust” that falls from the sky and is less attracted to kids.  It starts collecting on them when they hit puberty.  The church believes it to be evidence of Original Sin.  Nicole Kidman and the Magistrate (the Church) are trying to find a way to destroy this dust.  The story centers around Lyra and Will(who we don’t meet until book two) who have to fall in love to put everything right with the world.

Don’t over think it.  It should be a pretty good young adult action flick and Nicole Kidman looks smokin’ hot.  The second book stunk in my opinion and the third, while still stinking, is pretty good to wrap everything up.