Pause 'n Play - One (Pilot)

Be ready to believe us.

Welcome to Pause ‘n Play! My name is Alec (Large Farva) and I don't much care for Tobey Maguire.

Every week I take a brief pause from playing the Fantasy Movie League to sit down with five of your favorite players and discuss with them FML strategy, films (new and old), movie pop culture, or whether or not Superman is boring. You know, real mind-blowing stuff. A certain troll-haired presidential candidate may even say, “It’s the best stuff. I’ve seen other stuff and I know stuff. But this… this is the stuff I’m talking about. The real good stuff, ya know?”

Each of the five FMLers are asked their thoughts on six movie-related topics and “points” are arbitrarily awarded to those who make good arguments, raise valid points or simply make me laugh. The two players with the highest score at the end will then face off in the Pause ‘n Sway Challenge with a chance to take home… well, nothing actually. Glory, maybe?

Yea, let’s go with glory. That, and the “winner” gets some much needed soapbox time.

Oh, did I mention there is a lightning round? Yes, for some reason there’s a lightning round.

Now that everyone is caught up on the “rules and regulations” portion of the blog, let’s meet this week’s crew!



 

First up is a two-time Top 100 player and a true veteran (started Week 1 of Summer 2015) of FML. Please don’t ask her about Awards Season. 20^th Century Weasel!

Fall Season concluded with this man landing in the prestigious, albeit hoity-toity, Top 20 (16^th) Club and he currently ranks first for Spring. I Aim To Misbehave!

He’s famous, yet tasteful. Top 100 finisher, yet modest. Dan’s Famous (yet Tasteful) Filmhouse!

Starting in just the last week of Summer (Week 15), this FMLer ended his first full season ranked 200 overall. Movie Hack! (Insert lame “he’s no hack” joke here)

 

"Put it this way, I didn't get Krampused."

Rounding out this cast of characters is none other than Mara’s Midnight Movie Madness! Mara was the first ever guest on the official Fantasy Movie League Podcast and with finishes of 22 (Awards) and 115 (Fall), she’s pretty good, too.

I can’t wait to hear what they have to say. Let’s get started!

Week 1 of Spring Season has come and gone. What are your takeaways from the weekend?

Mara: I think this weekend played out pretty much exactly how a lot of people expected it to, at least after Saturday morning. We almost all knew Zootopia was going to steal the show, it just happened to steal the bonus too. I went into the weekend knowing a 7xEddie play was risky but had a high potential pay out. With Zoo winning the bonus, I'm only about $11-12mil out. Ultimately I think anyone who played Zootopia is sitting in a good spot, even if their ranking doesn't currently show it.

Aim: I think this weekend felt a lot like a weekend from the fall season. Everything did what it was "supposed" to do. The weekend wasn't determined by what fluke was created by the schedule but how accurate you were in your assessment of drops. Zoo over performed of course, and by more than I thought it would, but it was still a much more "normal" weekend.

Hack: After Awards Season it was a breath of fresh air. I wish Eddie performed better, but I'm sitting in a good spot to start the season. Put it this way, I didn't get Krampused.

Weasel: Definitely more like the Summer and Fall and not so crazy as the Awards season. I think this weekend illustrates the benefits of both doing your homework and trusting your gut. For me (and seemingly for a lot of other players) it came down to whether to use Eddie or Risen (and to a lesser extent Revenant) along with Zootopia. I think most everyone agreed that Risen would have more raw box office dollars than Eddie, but if Eddie ended up with the bonus, then it was the better choice. In the end, I went with Risen - after I answered the same question a little voice in my head asked me the week I played 8x War Room against Straight Outta Compton - "Do I really want to bet against God?" :D

Dan: I decided it it would be a GOOD idea to bet against the Christian Lord. So while I can say I'm disappointed in going with a hedge bet, I can't say that I'm "surprised" when many people screamed in my face to go with 7x Risen.

Points all around! Except for Mara. She used the restroom without permission and held us up for about 5 minutes.

41 Cloverfield Lane? What are the chances it (10 Cloverfield Lane) surpasses cousin Cloverfield and its 3-day opening weekend of $40 million?

Aim: This movie is a joke. Who asked for this? Cloverfield was a surprise hit, but everyone forgot about it five minutes after they saw it. JJ, no one cares about your [darn] mystery box. Knock that BS off already. Definitely doesn't hit 20M.

Hack: I don't see it going that high, I'm thinking around 30m. But I have started to notice a lot of people talking about the "mystery" of the movie. JJ has always been good about marketing just enough to get the masses interested, I think word of mouth will give this movie good holds for the next few weeks.

Weasel: Not gonna happen. (Though I wish it would. I love JJ!) Cloverfield had much better marketing for a longer period of time. And even though many Star Wars and Star Trek fans were introduced to Abrams when he took over direction of their franchises since Cloverfield was released - I believe for the most part they're still just fans of their franchises. I don't think that translates to "I'll watch anything that guy makes" for most of them if they weren't fans before.
But, as someone who has been a fan since Alias (and *WILL* watch pretty much anything the guy makes), I'm looking forward to it, and I think this will turn out to be the better movie of the two.

Dan: Cloverfield hit 40 million on the wheels of a speeding Hype-Train the likes of which had never been seen. All you have to do is look at the 60%+ drops in it's following 2 weekends to see that fan disappointment in the monster spread quickly.

I give this a generous ceiling of 25 million.

Mara: I honestly don't know anything about Cloverfield, except that people were freaking out all over Facebook when the new trailer was released, then almost immediate radio silence. The trailer looked moderately interesting to me, but I thought Cloverfield was about giant monsters or something??? So I don't know if this will resonate with fans of the original. I will be listening to other people on this one.

Two points for every mention of "mystery" and one point for every "monster".

“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.” Which movie-related cliché do you wish to see retired?

Hack: I'm getting bored with horror movies, specifically slasher films. Feels like movie makers are going back to more of the building the suspense until the end type movie (which I love). I can only handle so much "psychopath killing teenagers while they're boinking". I think that's why I loved Scream, it did a great job exploiting that cliché.

Weasel: Firefights with 3 bazillion rounds fired by the bad guys using automatic weapons, yet every shot misses. During which, the hero, armed with only a pistol, picks off the enemy one by one with one shot each. (Exception: Stormtroopers are just notoriously bad shots, so it's OK for this to continue in the Star Wars universe.)

Dan: While it certainly is already on the way out, a more thorough abandon of Guy-Gets-the-Girl-As-A-Reward-for-Saving-the-Day would be well received.

Mara: The trope where the guy constantly pursues the girl until she finally gives in out of exhaustion/annoyance/whatever and it's seen as romantic. Nah man, that's creepy. Leave her the heck alone.

Aim: I'm going to say none. I think anything can work if the writing is there. The oldest cliché can work with the right writer. The freshest idea can flop if you give it to Orci and Kurtzman (more on that if I make the bonus round).

I'm sorry. We were looking for "the book was better." That's, "the book was better." No points. Except for Aim. He gets many points.

LIGHTNING ROUND!

Did you see the rebooted Ghostbusters trailer? If so, thumbs up or down?

Weasel: Saw it. Thumbs up. They seem to have captured the spirit [pun intended] of the original.

(Ghost puns: +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1)

Dan: Thumbs way up! That is a fine cast of very funny ladies! They have great chemistry with each other, and many of them have good chemistry with the director. I think the trailer hit all the right notes of the original, and is poised to make me a very happy person.

Full disclaimer that will surely lose me points: I do not much care for the original Ghostbusters.

Points deducted for blatantly ignoring LIGHTNING ROUND RULES and disrespecting Harold Ramis!

Mara: I did. Sadly, thumbs down.

Aim: I really want to like this but I have a feeling I'm going to end up hate-watching it.

Hack: I've wanted to avoid this movie, but the trailer wasn't horrible. I'll have to go with thumbs up.

 

Which Ghostbuster are you gonna call? Or text?

Weasel: Egon Spengler. He's the brains of the outfit.

Dan: Kate McKinnon!

Mara: Bill Murray!

Aim: Definitely Kate McKinnon.

Hack: Ray was always my favorite, he was kind of the underrated guy of the group.

True or False: The Ghostbusters are, in reality, a hate group?

Weasel: FALSE. (At least no more than Orkin is.)

Dan: FALSE.

Mara: FALSE.

Aim: False: Ghosts are not a protected class under the EEOC.

Hack: True, ghosts have feelings too.

All points awarded to Harold Ramis. Of note: Dan was almost exiled for his anti-Ghostbusters stance.

At first glance, which Week 2 movie has the most enticing of pricing, and why?

Dan: Young Messiah, on account of my new found faith.

Mara: I don't pre-run numbers so I'm kinda shooting in the dark for now. Off the bat with like super vague 30 second calculations, I'm thinking Deadpool and Risen are looking pretty good. I wouldn't be surprised to see Zootopia in the mix too.

Aim: My quick math gives GoE the bonus and having another week where the BP is not part of the perfect cinema. I'll give you another hint, it doesn't look like the PC will include any of the new movies.

Hack: Gods of Egypt is priced low, but I think it's going to take a dump again this weekend. I'm going with Deadpool, it's priced well and it's not going away anytime soon.

Weasel: A Perfect Match intrigues me. Much like a wounded bird intrigues a cat. It's pretty much an unknown wild card dark horse. (How many more metaphors can I mix in there?) I couldn't find out much about it, but if it makes 4.5 M it should snag the bonus. (Todd M. Thatcher - of toddmthatcher.com & more recently of FML - predicts 4.1 million, on "a reported 850 screens" I think the screen count is the big factor here. 850 was NOT a good number for The Other Side of the Door. But if that screen count has increased significantly since that report, then it's in the mix.)

Following up on Dan's mention of The Young Messiah. Is this seriously on any one's radar or are we desperately trying to turn every faith-based movie into War Room?

Aim: The latter. YM is no War Room.

Weasel: I think it's worth asking if every religious movie is the next War Room. But in the case of The young Messiah, I will say the answer is NO.

Hack: Young Messiah looks horrible.

Mara: I think you hit on it Farva - War Room was SO successful that we've been politely fearful of every religious movie since then. Woodlawn and Risen are the only ones so far that seem to have done even moderately well, though.

Dan: In all seriousness, I think when we're looking for the next "War Room"; theater count, distributor, and marketing are all larger factors than being "faith-based" alone.

Aim: What Dan said. Guess it was good we didn't kick him out for that Ghostbusters comment.

Dan: I ain't scared of no kick.

^ This is a playful reference to the classic film "Ghostbusters", which is among my favorite of the films.

Dan and Weasel get all the points this round.

According to The Wrap, the Spidey spin-off Venom has “new life” at Sony with the hiring of screenwriter, Dante Harper. So the question remains… just how dreadful was Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker?

Mara: I actually really liked the Spiderman movies when I was a kid, but watching them now is so painful. Peter Parker is supposed to have a witty, sarcastic, kinda self-depreciating sense of humor, but Tobey Maguire was just awkward.

Aim: Let me jump on my soapbox. Tobey Maguire sucked as Spiderman! It was totally miscast. I don't want a weepy Spiderman! Maguire can cry, but he's not funny (look what happened when they tried funny in S3) so that's what they went with. Raimi took out the jokes and witty one-liners and replaced it with Spiderman being melancholy. I hated everything about those movies (don't even get me started on the special effects).

Hack: I tolerated him in the first one, I think the acting overall wasn't great(or the writing?). The third one just pissed me off. I think Toby is "Too nerdy" to be Spiderman.

Weasel: I LIKE Tobey Maguire as Spiderman! That being said, I have not seen any of the remakes since he had the role.

Dan: Whew boy, good bye my precious points.

I really like Tobey Maguire in the Spiderman trilogy. Because I don't want to actually be kicked, I'll keep my SM3 opinions to myself, but I think if I had to peg one flaw on the performance, it's that I never fully "bought" that Tobey was under that mask. I.E, he nailed Peter Parker, but maybe not so much The Man of Spiders (2018 gritty reboot).

Buh-bye Dan's points.

What advice do you have for your fellow FMLers going into Week 2?

Aim: I've heard people say "it's early, take chances". Those people are stupid. Come up with a strategy and stick with it (unless it [stinks], then do something else). How you make decisions should not change based on when you are in the season or what place you're in. You saw a lot of people try that and fall apart last season. Make a plan and stick with it.

Hack: Don't panic, trust your numbers and your gut feeling.

Weasel: If you had a bad week, don't give up! There's so much more season left - it's still any one's game to win (or to lose. Looking at you, Ari … um I mean, "Your Number One-ness")

Dan: Simple.

8 x Young Messiah.

Mara: I really enjoyed Andrew Garfield in the first Amazing Spiderman. I think he captured the dorky-nerdy-funny Peter Parker really well. Tobey was too bookish-awkward-nerdy.

Whoa we moved on fast...

Play Star Wars x8. Trust me, it'll work out. ;) But seriously, do what you normally do, make your best educated guesses, and don't give in to peer pressure if you think you have the right play!

1.5 points to Mara. Mucho points to Weasel for calling out fellow FMLer, Ari.

Tallying up my points I see that I Aim To Misbehave and 20th Century Weasel are heading to the Pause ‘n Sway Challenge! What an honor. You both sort of deserve it. Now, your final question...

When it comes to armrest etiquette at the theater, which side are you on? To share, or not to share?

Weasel: Depends if I'm sitting next to a friend or a stranger. Friend - depends on how good a friend ... and whether they share their Junior Mints with me. Stranger - first come, first serve. Oh, who am I kidding - most of the time I wait until the theaters aren't so crowded to see a film so I don't actually ever have to sit by a stranger!

Aim: If it's two guys, no one gets it and someone moves a seat. If it's a woman, …. [dang], I hate that we can't work blue in here…. Next question.

Yep. Definitely need to re-evaluate how I award "points".

And the winner is... 20th Century Weasel!

Weasel, the soapbox is yours.

Weasel: I don't typically do rants. My personality type is "mediator" according to some test we all took at the last place I worked. Which means I can see both sides of an argument, which usually keeps me from going off on a rant. Though don't get me started on people who park their carts sideways in the grocery store aisle and then hold family reunions right in front of the cheese when I'm in a hurry to get my Gruyere and go home for fondue.... But I digress. What I'd like to use this time to say is that FML is a fun game that more importantly is turning out to be a really wonderful community and I'm looking forward to seeing how it grows in the future. And in winning the spring season to become the next tyrannical ruler of FML. (Hey, just because you can see both sides of an issue doesn't mean you can't talk smack.)

Thank you, Weasel! And a BIG "thank you" to Mara, Dan, Hack and Aim!

Join us next week as I chat with more of your favorite Fantasy Movie League competitors.

+Your feedback is very important to us+

Resume play.