talbotlucas.org: a word to the wise is sufficient

Ha! We here at talbotlucas.org feel vindicated. It's a lovely feeling. And it's not often that my preferences are reflected in box office data.

Then this: The box office champ was March of the Penguins, at least from one point of view. According to an article in today's Los Angeles Times (free registration required*), "[o]n a per-screen basis, ticket sales for "March of the Penguins" were far more than for any other movie, $26,269, compared with $19,719 for the overall box-office champ, "War of the Worlds." Tee hee hee. After all the media attention about one of the stars of one of the aforementioned movies, I would like to think that this is a small sign that at least some of the moviegoing public has made a choice...and chose penguins.

Don't get me wrong: I'm under no delusions that the penguins are going to top the nationwide box office, or that the movie is really pulling people out of the queue for War of the Worlds. But the numbers are nice, yes? And maybe there are a few other people out there, like me, who would rather watch the annual trek of penguins to their breeding ground than watch aliens emerging from the bowels of the earth to annihilate the human race.

And if my recent moviegoing experience is any indication, the volume on these action movies is WAY out of proportion. Either that or everyone else is becoming hard of hearing and so the volume needs to be that high for most of the audience. I just can't bear going to a movie theatre and feeling the sound in my bones. Literally. This happened to be not long ago. I could feel the sound in my ribs, and it was not pleasant. But that's a topic for another post. Right now, I'm going to be happy about the penguins.

* If you're already registered on the Chicago Tribune site, the same name/password works for the Los Angeles Times. Same ownership, same registration system.