Word: massing
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...early summer, Transformers 2 steamrollered all competition on its way to becoming only the ninth movie in history to earn $400 million at the domestic box office. Then, as if not just in response but rebuttal to this mass-produced entertainment, came Avatar, the James Cameron sci-fi spectacular that has earned $350 million in its first 2½ weeks and, in about the same time, should overtake the Transformers sequel. It has already passed the billion-dollar mark at the worldwide box office (Transformers 2 topped out at $800 million), quickly becoming the fourth highest-grossing all-timer after...
...Academy Award winners (Robert Zemeckis, Ron Howard) or Oscar nominees (Michael Mann, Spike Jonze), whereas Cameron is the only Oscar winner among directors of the top 10 grossers. The lessons: prestige directors get to spend more money, and, in dollar terms, their "personal vision" can look astigmatic to the mass audience. (And great to critics, who put the Mann and Jonze films on their 10-best lists, and would rightly fret if big-budget assignments went only to hacks.) Consider, too, that none of the first seven of the top 10 grossers had traditional stars; but the loser list featured...
...title alone, promising to duplicate the automaton thrills of its predecessor, justified laying down money for it. Transformers 2 didn't enter the national consciousness; it anaesthetized it. Nobody buzzed about the movie, but everybody saw it. The industry, it seemed, had finally figured out a way to mass-produce blockbusters. Pringles pictures on the grand scale...
Pitch: This novel, written in dictionary form, doesn’t have a conventional plot or structure, although it’s loosely based on the mass conversion of the Khazar people to Judaism in the 8th or 9th century. According to the author, there’s also an allegorical connection with Serbia...
...prime minister was even quick to capitalize on the coincidence of Pope Benedict XVI's being knocked down in a security breach at the Christmas Eve mass. "We must truly fight back against this factory of lies, extremism and hate," he said on the RAI state television's top newscast after a woman pulled down the pontiff as he entered St. Peter's Basilica...