Box Office Battle - July 15th

As I mentioned in last week's post, where I almost completely nailed the opening numbers for Horrible Bosses, by the way, I am going to be going to Chicago from July 14th through July 18th for this year's Pitchfork Music Festival, which means that Processed Grass is going to be contentless for the next few days. Also as a result of this trip, my weekly box office prognostication column is coming a couple of days earlier than it would normally be posted. And this week is a big one with two beloved franchises going head to head for all the affections of children and adults the nation over. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two attempts to conclude the long running franchise with a thrilling, emotionally satisfying conclusion, while Disney's Winnie the Pooh brings back a much older literary figure for a completely new adventure that targets the heartstrings of all the people who have ever been familiar with the honey loving stuffed animal. So is the marketplace going to be split, or does one have the sheer strength to out power the other?

Come On Pops, I Need A Little More Speed

Cars 2 (Lasseter and Lewis, 2011)

When I searched Cars 2 on imdb.com, it was the first result, but right below it was (somewhat inexplicably) Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, another sequel that was lambasted by critics who apparently felt scorned. Prior to the release of Pixar's latest film Cars 2, there was a brouhaha regarding the movie's existence as nothing more than a mindless cash grab. It seemed like far before the movie was even screened for critics that it was practically destined to be shredded by the critical community. Now in the past I have had my share of problems with Pixar, as it always seems to me that since Wall*E the studio has done its best to artificially manufacture emotion for the sake of seeming profound. This notion was incredibly clear both in Up's sectioned off sections of emotion that were jarringly inserted alongside its broad comedy, and the same could be said of many of the scenes in Toy Story 3. So I entered Cars 2, a sequel to what I consider one of the worst of a catalog of mostly lackluster entries, expecting to come out, as many other critics were, completely furious. But in the end, I was mostly left wondering one thing: why?