3rd Update - Summer Movie Draft 2017

As this is written, there is still one day left in July, but the box office numbers are more or less good to go for a Summer Movie Draft update. How much did the rankings change since the last update? Remember, numbers are based on the world wide box office, and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 is still champ there, with Despicable Me 3 right behind it... 

Edward 
1) Snatched : $59,133,218  
2) Baywatch : $173,660,186  
3) Transformers: The Last Knight : $568,899,479  
4) Despicable Me 3 : $819,225,800  
5) Atomic Blonde : $24,497,677  
6) August movie : 

Louis 
1) King Arthur: Legend of the Sword : $140,775,066  
2) Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul : $37,391,140  
3) Captain Underpants : $87,082,031  
4) Spider-Man: Homecoming : $633,756,805  
5) The Emoji Movie : $25,650,000  
6) August movie : 

Jiaming 
1) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 : $860,634,272  
2) Alien: Covenant : $232,461,184  
3) Wonder Woman : $786,043,706  
4) War for the Planet of the Apes : $224,592,468   
5) Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets : $30,626,147   
6) August movie : 

Albert 
1) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales : $776,009,161  
2) The Mummy (2017) : $396,929,695  
3) All Eyez on Me : $44,887,387  
4) Cars 3 : $268,742,093  
5) Dunkirk : $234,136,220  
6) August movie : 

Current rankings... 

1. Jiaming : $2,134,357,777  

2. Albert : $1,720,704,556  
3. Edward : $1,645,416,360  
4. Louis : $924,655,042  

So, not much has really changed in the rankings, but it looks like Jiaming is definitely going to win this competition, and there's no way Louis is going to get out of last place. Spider-Man wasn't enough to get Louis out of that position, and Jiaming is still riding high on the strengths of Guardians and Wonder Woman; although it should be mentioned that the Apes movie was a solid addition to his draft picks. 

The interesting match here is between Albert and Edward for second place, as they are only about $75 Million apart from each other. Transformers and Despicable Me gave Edward a nice bump from his previous box office numbers, and Dunkirk turned out to be a solid pick for Albert. There are only a handful of big movies in August, so could one of them tip the scale between the two? The next and final update will determine who gets second place. 

- the Stuff & Junk show Episode 125 - Summer Movie Draft 2017  
- 1st Update - Summer Movie Draft 2017  
- 2nd Update - Summer Movie Draft 2017  

Comic-Con Withdrawals

San Diego Comic-Con International 2017 has come and passed. No different than all the other years, it's hard for me to not have withdrawals of just wishing I was still living the event. As it goes those, there will always be the memories to think fondly of. With that said, I have a Google Photos link here, to share with you all those SDCC memories that I captured on a photo or video. If you've been following my Instagram Stories, you've seen a good chunk of them already, but not all of them. If you were also at the event, feel free to share with us your experience! On that note, I also present to you my top ten favorite moments from San Diego Comic-Con International 2017!!! 

- check out my Photos + Videos from SDCC 

Albert's Top Ten Favorite Moments from San Diego Comic-Con International 2017... 

10) Along with seeing the cast of The Defenders on stage, I was able to see the exclusive first screening of the first episode of the show. It was a nice surprise and another "Hall H moment" to add to the list.  

09) An annual tradition of mine is to go to The Walking Dead booth at the show floor, for the photo ops of the particular year (it's different every year). Only took 30 minutes of my time, which is faster than it's been before. 

08) A panel that I thought was pretty awesome and informative was the "How To Tell Stories For A Microphone" panel. It was a voice over class that covered stuff from audio books to promos. I myself didn't get to go on the mic, but it was overall an entertaining experience. 

07) A new annual tradition of mine is the Sunday interview that I have with David Glanzer; the Chief Communication and Strategy Officer for Comic-Con International. David himself considers it an annual thing as well, so I appreciate him letting me do this every year so far since 2015. You can listen to the interview on Episode 141 of The Stuff & Junk Show. 

06) Getting into Hall H itself can be quite an event for Comic-Con attendees, but getting in and witnessing Halle Berry drink a tall glass of whiskey in one shot is yet another "Hall-H moment" for the books! The panel and the multiple video footage for Kingsman: The Golden Circle was also great. They pretty much showed about 15-20 minutes of the movie to us. We got a free shirt and a fidget spinner too! 

05) I was in a gyroscope for the first time ever; which is part of the promotion for the upcoming TV show "The Orville." I learned that after 20 seconds of being twirled around, it starts to become somewhat relaxing. 

04) Another interactive thing that I got to do, is to go Super Saiyan at the booth promoting Dragonball Z Super. It was I suppose an embarrassing thing to do, but it was also silly fun. 

03) A new restaurant called "Monkey King" was where I ate lunch at on Thursday. As it goes with most restaurants and bars during Comic-Con weekend, they usually have their drinks or entrees "themed" for the event. I myself got a drink called the "web slinger," but the best drink has to go to my friend's choice of ordering the "mandarin take-out" which actually comes in a Chinese take-out box. Just relaxing and taking in the Comic-Con atmosphere at the San Diego Gaslamp District is always a favorite thing to do during the event. 

02) Being part of the crew for the Unnecessary Debates panel with The Grand Geek Gathering!!! I'm not sure if I count this as actually having a panel at Comic-Con, but it's the closest thing to that so far. You can watch the panel through their website...  
http://www.thegrandgeekgathering.com/unnecessarydebates/ 

01) The Kingsman experience at the Hard Rock Hotel! It happened during the first day, and it set the standard for the rest of the event. One free generous sized hamburger and chips, plus three free drinks of whiskey!!! It was the epitome of what I've grown to love about Comic-Con. Just hanging out with fellow geeks, in a themed bar set to a genre film that's based on a comic book. That's the San Diego Comic-Con for you. 

Until we do this again on July 19-22, 2018, Thank You For The Memories Comic-Con!!! 

Make sure to check out the coverage done on the Stuff & Junk Show podcast! 
- episode 140 : One Comic-Con Day 
- episode 141 : Comic-Con 2017 recap 

2nd Update - Summer Movie Draft 2017

RE: the Stuff & Junk show Episode 125 - Summer Movie Draft 2017 and 1st Update - Summer Movie Draft 2017 

The US Independence Day July 4th Holiday weekend is done, so now it's time to check out the current status of the #whowhatwhereswhy Summer Movie Draft. Numbers are based on the world wide box office, but either way there seems to be one person who is in an undeniably dominant lead... 

Edward 
1) Snatched : $58,475,520  
2) Baywatch : $152,147,747  
3) Transformers: The Last Knight : $435,353,351  
4) Despicable Me 3 : $203,314,390  
5) July movie : 
6) August movie : 

Louis 
1) King Arthur: Legend of the Sword : $140,331,333  
2) Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul : $33,429,830  
3) Captain Underpants : $76,971,215  
4) July movie : 
5) July movie : 
6) August movie : 

Jiaming 
1) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 : $856,042,537  
2) Alien: Covenant : $231,535,392  
3) Wonder Woman : $713,894,475  
4) July movie : 
5) July movie : 
6) August movie : 

Albert 
1) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales : $711,190,894  
2) The Mummy (2017) : $350,607,133  
3) All Eyez on Me : $43,063,141  
4) Cars 3 : $176,655,918  
5) July movie : 
6) August movie : 

Current rankings... 

1. Jiaming : $1,801,472,404  

2. Albert : $1,281,517,086  
3. Edward : $849,291,008  
4. Louis : $250,732,378  

Is that it? Seems like we are already looking at what the final rankings will be at the end of the summer. Jiaming clearly has the best set of draft picks in his group, and there doesn't seem to be much of a chance of Albert to overtake him. It's also questionable as to whether Edward will be able to take the 2nd spot away from Albert. Louis on the other hand is going to have to rely on his last three choices to potential catch up to Edward, and maybe even steal 3rd place from him. 

July has one major blockbuster of a movie that will overshadow the rest of that Month, although there are several other major releases that might produce some good numbers. Let's see how that goes with our players. 

P.S. Louis originally had "Amityville: The Awakening" as one of his choices, but that movie has been delayed. His next eligible pick to replace that movie is actually one that was released in May already; Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul. 

I see a lot of movies

When I tell people that I do a minimum of 2 - 3 movie reviews a week for my #isawthatmovie blog, apparently the month of June 2017 wanted me to move past my limits. I did see a lot of movies in June; 18 in one month, but what might still surprise some people is that these are films that I actually went to a theater to see. These are after all newly released movies that aren't exactly available to watch online yet (legally that is).

I'm far from being what the average movie goer is, and because of that I usually get asked these three questions... 

How do I find the time to go to the movies that often?
Well it helps that I don't have kids, and my wife doesn't mind. However, what it also means is that I do spend less time on other forms of entertainment, like video games, or reading, and even my TV viewing habits have decreased (honestly, not by that much). After all, I have to write the non-spoiler reviews as well, and that too takes some time from me. 

Doesn't it cost a lot of money to see these many movies in theaters?
Well let's look at the range of movie ticket prices right now. The cheapest that I can find is $6.00, and that's usually in a budget theater, or during a special pricing period (be it a specific time of day, or a specific day itself). The most expensive price I've encountered is $13.99, and that isn't counting 3D or IMAX screenings either. Ideally, I would always go to the budget theater for that fantastic $6 per ticket pricing. However, several of the movies I want to see aren't available in that condition. What does help is that I am still a member of Moviepass; which gets me six movies for $40 a month, as well as a loyalty member of Regal Cinemas and AMC; which gets me at least a minimum of 1-2 free movies a month. Doing the math for those 18 movies that I saw in June, the price for each of those films comes out to about $7.02 a ticket for me. It's not as good as $6, but it's much better than $13.99. The lowest per ticket price I ever pulled off was $4.96 per movie, and I would love to repeat that again more often. 

Isn't most of those movies not worth watching anyway? 
This is where the subjectivity factor comes in. Some people would argue that there are movies that I see on the big screen, that only truly deserves to be seen on the small screen. While I can admit that it can be the case for some, I truly feel that the movie theater experience does indeed add positively to every movie I see. As for the quality of the films, out of those 18 I saw in June, I would say about 6 of those were a disappointment. That is the problem of going to a lot of movies, it's that you will come across some duds. That's also the problem of having a movie review site, it's that I have to watch even the bad movies on occasion. With all that said, I see more films worth checking out than the bad ones anyway. 

If it isn't obvious, I am a huge advocate of going to movie theaters to see a film. Despite some issues with the occasional rude people that I encounter at theaters, or the occasional battle for a good seat, I still love going to the movies enough to look past those issues. Either way, it looks like June 2017 is the one to beat for me, in terms of the amount of movies I have to see in one month. Let's see how the rest of the year goes. 

- Albert

1st Update - Summer Movie Draft 2017

RE: the Stuff & Junk show Episode 125 - Summer Movie Draft 2017 

May, the first month of the #whowhatwhereswhy Summer Movie Draft is now over. Check out who is taking the lead so far, although that shouldn't be a surprise. Remember that the numbers are based on the world wide box office. 

Edward 
1) Snatched : $51,672,324  
2) Baywatch : $31,120,629  
3) June movie : 
4) June movie : 
5) July movie : 
6) August movie : 

Louis 
1) King Arthur: Legend of the Sword : $120,445,757  
2) June movie : 
3) June movie : 
4) July movie : 
5) July movie : 
6) August movie : 

Jiaming 
1) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 : $797,422,917  
2) Alien: Covenant : $162,560,959  
3) June movie : 
4) July movie : 
5) July movie : 
6) August movie : 

Albert 
1) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales : $365,722,950  
2) June movie : 
3) June movie : 
4) June movie : 
5) July movie : 
6) August movie : 

Current rankings... 

1. Jiaming : $959,983,876  

2. Albert : $365,722,950  
3. Louis : $120,445,757  
4. Edward : $82,792,953  

With the huge help from the Guardians, Jiaming takes the commanding lead of the summer movie draft. Albert is in a good but distant second place, but does have three movies in June to help him catch up to Jiaming. Like Albert, Louis only had one movie pick for May, but it was enough to land him in third place. The comedies unfortunately weren't able to help Edward out as much as it probably could have, but his picks for June might improve his luck in the competition. Let's see how it plays out at the end of June! 

Albert's First Convention Panel

As mentioned on the TitanCon 2017 episode of The Stuff & Junk Show, on April 29, 2017, Albert was an actual panelist at a convention! After decades of going to comic book, anime, video game conventions, he finally got to be an actual part of a geek convention panel. The convention panel was set up by his friends from The Grand Geek Gathering, and it was called "Unnecessary Debates." 

You can listen to Albert's recap of TitanCon 2017 and about being on a convention panel on Episode 126 of The Stuff & Junk Show
- whowhatwhereswhy.com/stuffjunk/2017/4/29/titancon2017

or you can watch what it looks like via the Grand Geek Gathering YouTube page
- youtube.com/channel/UCXMbfJiIFAWLrMLshT0kYCw

Thanks to, CSUF TitanCon, The Grand Geek Gathering, Ronin-Expo, and Zombiec0rps!