The calm before the box office storm?

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (Dec 8-10)
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1. Coco  $18.4 (cum. $135.6) REVIEW | FEELING SEEN	1.🔺 The Shape of Water $1.1 on 41 screens (cum. $1.3)  CAPSULE | PODCAST
2. Justice League $9.6 (cum. $212.1) REVIEW	2.🔺 Darkest Hour $741k on 53 screens (cum. $1.1) CAPSULE | SECOND VISIT
3. Wonder $8.4 (cum. $100.3)	3.🔺 Man Who Invented... $687k on 720 screens (cum. $4.3)
4.🔺 Disaster Artist $6.3 (cum. $7.9) REVIEW	4.🔺 Call Me By Your Name $291k on 9 screens (cum. $1.3) SCREENPLAY | SEX SCENES
5. Thor Ragnarok $6.2 (cum. $301.1) REVIEW, YOUR QUEEN	5.🔺 I Tonya $264k on 4 screens REVIEW NEW

With only 2 new movies (I Tonya and Just Getting Started) in a big movie-going month like December it was a dire weekend at the box office with the box office essentially looking the same as last week. Somebody will need to write a book some day on what happened to distribution in 2017...

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Beauty vs Beast: Guess Who's Coming

Jason from MNPP here wishing everybody a Happy Golden Globe Nomination Day - I hope everybody's favorite thing got a nomination (and since everybody's favorite thing is clearly Helen Mirren I know it's true). We're taking our "Beauty vs Beast" series to a film that did well but maybe not as well as expected (no director, no screenplay) - Jordan Peele's masterful horror comedy Get Out, which we just happened to re-watch last night in an effort to reaquaint ourselves with a movie that was fading from memory.

And I'm glad I did because some of the issues I'd had the first time (I'd found its metaphor a little scattered) came more into focus, and I was reminded of its many strengths - Peele juggles all sorts of genre and tonal trickery with ease, and I love every single performance in the film (yes even whatever Caleb Landry Jones is doing). So much so that choosing the right opponent today for Daniel Kaluuya's justly nominated work in the lead gave me pause - arguments could be made to face him against Catherine Keener or Betty Gabriel here. But ultimately I laugh harder at Allison Williams eating Fruit Loops and listening to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack than I do at any other joke, and so...

Whose team are you on?

Chris

Rose

build quizzes

PREVIOUSLY Rooster done got himself trampled against Mattie in our True Grit poll last week - Hailee Steinfeld took over 3/4s of your vote. Said cal roth:

"Steinfeld is B R I L L I A N T in this. "The soul already fled the body" or something like that. She reminded me a young Jodie Foster in the way she is fierce above all things, without even realizing she isn't that strong. That category fraud still stings."

The Furniture: Matte Paintings at the End of an Era

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

Over the course of the past year, I’ve done an informal retrospective series on the Best Production Design nominees of 1967. It isn’t an especially “New Hollywood” lineup, despite being the year of “Pictures at a Revolution.” Four of the nominees are lush period pieces, three of them lengthy musicals. They often feel like extravagantly-designed chaos, whirlwinds of sets and props that spin out of control. This is true of both the hilarious brawls of The Taming of the Shrew and the dated, stereotype-laden adventures of Thoroughly Modern Millie. Camelot, the winner, manages to split the difference between Old Hollywood excess and New Hollywood sexuality.

The final two films, both Best Picture nominees, are a bit less of a thrill. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Doctor Dolittle are, respectively, the most realistic and most fantastical of the five nominees. However, despite their differences, they both underline the inadequate end-point of old-school studio design.

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Golden Globe Nominations 2017

by Nathaniel R

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has reached its diamond anniversary. Alfre Woodard and Sharon Stone announced the nominations. Here are the Globe nominations in all their glory and folly (it's always a combo of the two with any awards body... though people tend to be harsher on the Globes in this perception matter). The biggest surprise was the big love for Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World (which no other awards group had screened to date) but the Golden Globes do like to be first as is always evident in their TV nominations which are generally quite favorable to new series (note the love for The Handmaid's Tale, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, and more). As is also their habit they embraced a musical for their comedy/musical category giving a Best Picture nomination to The Greatest Showman. 

Among the saddest snubs (discussed in fuller detail here) were Jake Gyllenhaal for Stronger (though sister Maggie was nominated again for her amazing work on The Deuce), Regina Hall for Comedy Actress (somehow they needed Helen Mirren again), and a complete shutout for three high profile Comedies or Musicals: Girls Trip, Beauty and the Beast, and The Big Sick. 

FILM NOMINATIONS

Motion Picture Drama
Call Me By Your Name
Dunkirk
The Post
Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

No surprises and all solid bets for Oscar nominations for Best Picture. The film arguably hurt most by an omission here is Darkest Hour since The Florida Project and Mudbound never seemed like "Globe" films, if you know what I mean. All the other nominations with commentary are after the jump...

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Would you rather...?

Mondays can be such a drag so let's fantasize that we're hanging with celebrities rather than returning to the day jobs, shall we? 

Would you rather
...eat oatmeal raisin cookies with Jessica Biel?
... get a quick drink with Wolverine and Professor Xavier?
... visit the ancient pyramids with Hilary Swank?
...hit the recording studio with Ben Platt?
...doing drag with Kristin Scott Thomas?
...can fruit with Dolly Parton?
...go to yoga with Lea Michele & Jonathan Groff?
...see the last Jedi with TV genius Bryan Fuller?
...welcome the snow with Lena Headey?
...or have a spontaneous dance party with Miguel Angel Silvestre?

[Pictures are after the jump to help you decide]

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