Shameless Plug, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #161

January 3, 2012 Arthur Tebbel 1 Comment

Hey Everyone,

I don’t have a letter this week.  I was super-busy.  I would, instead, like to talk about the project I was working on instead.  Thanks for indulging me.  Well, indulging me more than usual.  Which is saying a lot considering the premise of this column is someone who imagines that famous people want to hear his opinions on things.  Whatever, let’s just get to the point.

For about as long as I can remember I’ve been very interested in box office results.  I like the way they validate my favorite movies when they’re popular.  I even like the way I can feel like I’m some sort of persecuted minority when the movies I like fail to score the big numbers.  Privileged white people love feeling like persecuted minorities.

Anyway, I wanted to actually learn something about box office.  It’s clear that there are vastly different groups of people that go to different movies.  The same people that push Iron Man to great heights are probably not the same people causing Rango to be number one for consecutive weeks.  I wanted to get a real feel for the thread that holds all these movies together; to see what connects these movies besides their dizzying success.  That’s why I started Box Office Democracy.

Box Office Democracy is my pet project for 2012.  Every week I will go see the number one movie in America.  Those will be the only 52 times I go to a theatre this year.  If a movie repeats I’ll see it more than once.  Going into the year I thought that meant that I might see Twilight a few times, now that I’ve looked at the January release schedule I’m a little concerned I’ll see Mission: Impossible four times.  I guess I knew the job was dangerous when I made it up for myself.

Anyway, I would love if you all who read this here would read that there.  I won’t be leaving this gig and, with the exception of sacrificing this week’s column for a shameless plug, working on BOD won’t affect the production of Pop Art even a little bit.  I mean unless I commit suicide in a fit of Tom Cruise related despair if M;I is still packing them in in mid March.  Seriously, encourage all your friends to go see something else this weekend.  Unless you would tell them to go see Chipwrecked.  For the love of God, don’t tell anyone to go see Chipwrecked.