The (Truly) Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

By Spencer Coile 

The year is 1958, and Miriam "Midge" Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) lives on the Upper West Side with her wealthy husband (Michael Zegen) and two children. Her parents (Tony Shaloub and Marin Hinkle) live in the same apartment complex to watch the kids for her. She is dressed to the nines for all occasions, supports her husband's (flailing) career in stand-up comedy, and still has time to whip up a mean brisket. Why would she ever want her life to change? 

Which is to say, of course, that it will and does.

When her husband leaves her for his secretary, Midge angrily (and drunkenly) takes to the stage of the Gaslight, a downtown bar her husband frequently played at, to rant to her audience about this sudden shift. Her improvised venting, though, has the crowd in stitches. And it soon becomes clear that not only is she performing a stand-up routine, she is also quite good at it... 

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YNMS: Give Us "Permission"

by Jason Adams

Raise your hand if you're a Rebecca Hall fan! I feel as if I can see a virtual sea of hands waving in front of me, as well I should in a post-Christine world where she's shown us just exactly how much she's capable of putting on-screen. If only more awards bodies had taken notice last year... or this year too, actually, where she turned in another very fine piece of work in Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. Shame she's getting over-looked, but lucky for us she's not going anywhere.

Next year's she re-teaming with the man who gave her her big break in the movies (that would be Woody Allen, so I hope she's got her talking points in order) but before that she's got Permission coming out, a romantic drama about longtime partners opening up their relationship that co-stars Dan Stevens...

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Beauty vs Beast: Grit's the Word

Jason from MNPP here wishing the actor Jeff Bridges a happy 68th birthday today with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" poll. What's your favorite performance from Bridges? Mine is far and away his performance in Peter Weir's wildly underrated 1993 plane-crash survivor drama Fearless, but that movie doesn't lend itself well to this series. So instead we'll go with something more recent, namely his turn as "Rooster Cogburn" in the Coens' 2010 update of True Grit. Don't you wish he'd won his Oscar for this rather than Crazy Heart? And we'll pit him against his fine co-star and co-nominee Hailee Steinfeld. Good luck with this one!

PREVIOUSLY Last week twas everybody's current favorite momma drama Lady Bird's turn in the hot seat, and daughter came out victorious - Saorsie Ronan went all Baller / Anarchist and took 55% of your vote. Said chasm301, giving me a good chuckle:

"Lady Bird is basically the most instantly iconic teen movie character since Cher in Clueless. (Ok maybe Regina George or Tracy Flick). She gave this victory to herself. It was given to her by her and me too."

Podcast: The Shape of Lady Bird

Nathaniel and Nick talk two Best Picture hopefuls, the generous funny adorable Greta Gerwig movie Lady Bird and the overstuffed visually creative Guillermo Del Toro fantasy The Shape of Water. 

Index (43 minutes)
00:01 Lois Smith & Lucas Hedges and lingering moments
06:00 Greta Gerwig, Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and Tracy Letts are all brilliant
16:00 More Lady Bird gushing
23:00 The Shape of Water -wanted to love it more
27:00 Guillermo del Toro problems and monsters
32:00 The performances in the movie
37:40 The Best Picture field, Hollywood sexism, and the atypical versus typical within the contenders

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Shape of Water & Lady Bird

Box Office: Lady Bird and Three Billboards Strike

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (Dec 1-3) UPDATED WITH ACTUALS
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1. Coco  $26.1 (cum. $108.6) REVIEW | FEELING SEEN	1.🔺 The Disaster Artist $1.2 on 19 screens
2. Justice League $16.5 (cum. $197.3) REVIEW	2.🔺 Man Who Invented Christmas $863k on 674 screens (cum. $3.1)
3. Wonder $12.5 (cum. $88)	3.🔺 Titanic (20th Anniversary) $415k on  87 screens
4. Thor Ragnarok  $9.6 (cum. $291.4) REVIEW, YOUR QUEEN	4. Call Me By Your Name $281k on 4 screens (cum. $908k) SCREENPLAY | SEX SCENES
5. Daddy's Home 2 $7.5 (cum. $82.8)	5. Loving Vincent $211k on 161 screens REVIEW

As expected Coco had no trouble keeping people's interest for another weeek. More impressive, due to lower expectations, is Wonder's continued performance. It just hit $100 million globally and if you think about it it could just as easily have been a $15-20 million grosser that few people noticed since bestselling books are hit and miss when they attempt to become bigticket movies. Kudos to the marketing team who were able to focus interest on it immediately despite so many other ostensibly family friendly movies in the marketplace.

(Maybe families are getting bored of superhero movies? Nah, that's wishful thinking since Justice League, is about to hit $200 million and will likely outperform the infinitely more beloved Wonder Woman in foreign markets if not at home). More after the jump...

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