Both articles linked below make excellent points about how indifferent the public was to this year’s nine Best Picture picks. Other than “The Help,” which was a smash, none came close to reaching $100 million at the domestic box office. So unlike the last two years, where the nominations contained more than a single film people had actually seen, we have eight films practically no one did.

Yes, that’s a problem.

But here’s the bigger problem: 29 films topped the $100 million mark last year, but how many of those are worthy of an Oscar? “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and ”X-Men: First Class”  were certainly good movies, but they’re not Best Picture material.

The problem isn’t so much that the Academy is out of touch (which it is), it’s that the product the industry created was so lousy last year, there really are no crowd-pleasers good enough to add to the list of nominations. And as someone who has seen the middling “Midnight in Paris,” the pretentious and impossibly dull “Tree of Life,” and the just pretty good “War Horse” — none of which is better than “Rise of the Apes,” “X-Men,” or “Resident Evil 4,” for that matter – the Academy is still guilty of stacking the deck with brand-tarnishing mediocrities.

Box Office Mojo:

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Hollywood’s a little shell-shocked this morning. Not only was this the worst weekend of the year, it was worse than the post-September 11th Christmas season. The year-to-date news isn’t much better either. With only a few weeks left in 2011, revenues are down a total of 4% over last year. “Sherlock Holmes 2,” “MI:4,” and “Chipmunks 3,” “Tintin,” and “War Horse,”  should help, but they will have to keep up with “True Grit” ($171M), “Little Fockers” ($148), and “Tron Legacy” ($172M).

On paper, this year’s closers might look more formidable, but who knows anymore? No one predicted the bottom falling out of the sequels to “Valentine’s Day” and “Happy Feet.”

Here are the numbers:

1. New Year’s Eve: $13.7M — This is director Garry Marshall’s sequel to his “Valentine’s Day,” which opened in 2010 to a mammoth $56M. The concept seemed fool-proof: place a ton of stars around a beloved holiday and knit them together with a loosely plotted romantic comedy.

There are, however, five very good reasons “New Years Eve” flopped.

1. After his breakup with Demi Moore, women aren’t finding Ashton Kutcher all that adorable anymore, though you have to wonder what they saw in the marginally-talented metrosexual in the first place.

2. The sequel is populated with a whole lot more celebrities than stars.

3. “Valentine’s Day” wasn’t a big hit. Granted, the opening was  spectacular, but so was the subsequent drop off. In the end, it only ended up grossing $110M. Which brings me to…

4. “Valentine’s Day” was awful. Hollywood might have been able to put a dozen famous faces in the trailer to fool enough people into 3600 theatres on opening weekend, but after word got out, it crashed and became an advertisement for why no one should see the sequel.

5. Even if “New Year’s Eve” starred someone people care about like Halle Berry or Robert DeNiro, they also know from their “Valentine’s Day” experience that other than Kutcher, everyone else only shows up for a few scenes.

2. The Sitter: $10M — Jonah Hill is nothing close to a star and what made Hollywood think they could release an R-rated comedy into the middle of the Christmas season? Especially one with a trailer proud of the fact that the comedy revolves around a babysitter stripping young kids of their innocence? “Adventures in Babysitting” and “Uncle Buck” this ain’t.

3. Breaking Dawn Part 1: $7.9M — With a total haul of $260M, there’s no doubt this is a hit. However, with the closing chapter set for release next year, “Breaking Dawn” is not keeping pace with its predecessor. Summit Entertainment might be disappointed, but that’s what you call a luxury problem.

4. The Muppets: $7M — Kermit and company had enough problems without the left-wing entertainment media piling on. More about that here.

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Ed. Note: Please welcome Lee Stranahan to Big Hollywood. This is actually his second piece for us, but things were a little hectic last time and things got away from me. It’s an honor to have him as part of the BH family and I very much encourage you to seek out his superb work ast the other BIG sites. –JN

No, I still haven’t seen it but the business side of Atlas Shrugged is of interest to me as a filmmaker, political writer and former Objectivist. Plus my friend Andrew Breitbart and my ex-wife Kat are both in movie – in the same scene. (Kat is wearing pink, Breitbart isn’t.)

Some people – like liberal blogger and (former?) friend Bob Cesca – want to say it’s doing very badly. This is from his subtly titled post Nobody Likes Atlas Shrugged.

Did you know there’s a movie version of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged?

No? Well, you’re not alone. The first part of a trilogy (!!!) based on Ayn Rand’s libertarian bible was released in limited theaters on Friday and it currently has an 8 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s really awful.

And the reviews are generally bad. Some are sort of mixed, like this one by Kyle Smith from the New York Post…

Though a bit stiff in the joints and acted by an undistinguished cast amid TV-movie trappings, this low-budget adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novel nevertheless contains a fire and a fury that makes it more compelling than the average mass-produced studio item.

The low-budget / casting angle comes up in many reviews and I certainly raised them myself. But the original reviews of Atlas Shrugged were…well, awful. Really awful. And not all the data is that negative. On IMDB right now it has a kind of okay 6.8 rating. And on Box Office Mojo, it’s got a solid B with 74% giving it an A.

Criticism is all opinion, however. How did it do business wise?

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So an Adam Sandler family comedy is released … during summer … with co-stars Kevin James, Rob Schneider, David Spade, and Chris Rock  … and the L.A. Times is sincerely confused over why it’s such a huge hit. Here’s their headline: Just how did Adam Sandler’s ‘Grown Ups’ become a hit?

Below that headline are nearly 700 confused and curious words digging into the strange, exotic phenomenon of American moviegoers flocking to an unpretentious, family comedy starring one of America’s few remaining bankable actors who co-stars with 4 guys who have spent 15 years building audience goodwill.

The author of the piece is Steven Zeitchik, and while my confusion with his confusion remains, let’s at least give him points for not pulling a Patrick Goldstein. Rather than speculate until he reached his own conclusion, Zeitchik actually practiced a little journalism: (more…)

Everyone seems to have an opinion as to why DVD sales have cratered since hitting their peak in 2006, but no one’s looking at the obvious answer. Plunging sales have been blamed on piracy, competing technologies such as video games and low-priced rental outlets like Redbox … everything but the quality of the actual films.

First and foremost, I’m a movie lover. Nothing competes for my attention in this regard, including dollar rentals and the like. But I’m just not buying anywhere near the number of new releases I did just ten years ago. Obviously, this is anecdotal evidence, so make your own comparisons:

1998  – I purchased 15 of the top 20 money makers…

1999 — 18 of the top 20.

2000 — 16 of the top 20.

2001 — 14 of the top 20. (more…)