101 Dalmatians beats Avatar at box office

While the movie world is trumpetting Avatar as the highest grossing movie of all time, many are missing the fact that it was actually beaten at the box office by a 1961 animated Disney classic about dalmations.

It also still lags behind movies like Star Wars, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Sting, The Sound of Music and Doctor Zhivago.

Of course it all depends on what you’re using to determine the biggest movies of all time. Avatar certainly is the highest grossing movie of all time. That means it’s taken the most money of any movie ever produced but it’s only at number 26 (so far) as far as tickets sold. I have no doubt that it will continue to climb but it may never even reach the top ten.

The Hollywood Reporter has pulished an article titled Why ‘Avatar’ is actually the 26th biggest movie. It lists the biggest movies by ticket sales rather than income.

There are so many factors that will have an effect on the statistics such as price of tickets over the years, the introduction of things like television, video, DVD, Blu-ray, internet and a range of other entertainment alternatives. I suppose it’s easier to simply quote the dollar amounts that a movie is making.

So which movie has put the most backsides on seats at the cinema? It’s still the 1939 classic Gone With the Wind, selling 202,044,600 tickets.

Just for the record, here are the top 20 movies in order of tickets sold.

1 “Gone With the Wind” (1939) 202,044,600
2 “Star Wars” (1977) 178,119,600
3 “The Sound of Music” (1965) 142,415,400
4 “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) 141,854,300
5 “The Ten Commandments” (1956) 131,000,000
6 “Titanic” (1997) 128,345,900
7 “Jaws” (1975) 128,078,800
8 “Doctor Zhivago” (1965) 124,135,500
9 “The Exorcist” (1973) 110,568,700
10 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) 109,000,000
11 “101 Dalmatians” (1961) 99,917,300
12 “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) 98,180,600
13 “Ben-Hur” (1959) 98,000,000
14 “Return of the Jedi” (1983) 94,059,400
15 “The Sting” (1973) 89,142,900
16 “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) 88,141,900
17 “Jurassic Park” (1993) 86,205,800
18 “The Graduate” (1967) 85,571,400
19 “Star Wars: Episode I” (1999) 84,825,800
20 “Fantasia” (1941) 83,043,500



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Cats in the Cradle

Phone.jpgDo you remember the song Cats in the Cradle by Harry Chapin? It tells the story of a father who is too busy to spend time with his son and when his son gets older he becomes just like his dad. He becomes too busy to spend time with his father.

I was reminded of that song while I was at the movies with Emily and James on the weekend. We went to see Monsters vs Aliens. A great animated flick.

A guy with a son aged around 6 or 7 sat next to us. While it was nice to see that he was taking him to the movies on a Saturday morning it was disheartening to see that he was on the phone at least three times during the movie. Admittedly he kept his voice very low and wasn’t really disturbing those around him but it made me so sad to think that he couldn’t switch his phone off for just a couple of hours to totally enter into spending time with his boy.

I wonder what kind of message that was giving the boy. Dad’s willing to take him to the movies but he’s not really interested in the things that interest his son. Dad will sit next to his son but he’d rather be talking to someone else.

The shocking truth is that I’m not the perfect parent. In fact I’m nowhere near being the perfect parent but some things are fairly obvious. If we want our children to feel loved and accepted we need to spend time with them. We need to give them our undivided attention. We need them to know that they are vitally important to us and that there are few things that are more important than spending time focussed on building relationship.

Just as in the song, a day will come when we want to know that we’re important to our children. When that day comes they’re likely to treat us as we’ve treated them. That’s either a frightening or comforting thought depending on the messages we give our children when they’re young.



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Reviewing Watchmen

watchmen_movie.jpgOne of the segments on my morning radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM is a fortnightly look at what’s on at the movies.

Aaron Kamp has been reviewing movies for quite some time and he posts his reviews at Cinemaniac. Every couple of weeks we look at what’s in the cinemas and what’s new on DVD.

Today we talked about the much anticipated super hero movie Watchmen.

Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” – which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union – is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion – a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers – Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity… but who is watching the Watchmen?” – T-Hen

Aaron warns that there is gratuitous violence and sex scenes and that at two hours forty minutes, the film failed to hold his attention. By the comments he heard when leaving the cinema he wasn’t the only one disappointed.

You might want to check out a little more of what Aaron says before heading to the cinema. Listen to Aaron’s review by clicking play on the audio player at the bottom of this post.



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Drillbit Taylor

DrillbitTaylor.jpgOne of the segments on my morning radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM is a fortnightly look at what’s on at the movies.

Aaron Kamp has been reviewing movies for some time and he posts his reviews at Cinemaniac. Every couple of weeks we look at what’s in the cinemas and what’s new on DVD.

Today we talked about Owen Wilson’s latest movie, Drillbit Taylor.

It’s a movie for anyone who’s suffered at the hands of bullies. I haven’t seen it but it sounds like it’s one of those predictable stories where the good guys win in the end. Of course predictable doesn’t mean that it’s not enjoyable. Sometimes it’s nice to get lost in a movie that rambles along just as you imagine it will.

Drillbit Taylor is about three kids who hire a low-budget bodyguard to protect them from the playground bully. The bodyguard is played by Owen Wilson.

Aaron warns that there is some of the crudity and occasional bad language we’ve come to expect from teen flicks, but thankfully this one’s aimed for a slightly younger teen audience so it’s not as bad as some. Overall Aaron says that the film presents some very positive messages.

You might want to check out a little more of what Aaron says before sending the kids off to the cinema. Listen to Aaron’s review by clicking play on the audio player at the bottom of this post.



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