Box Office Bourne Again

Off blog my weekend was rough so I didn't make it to the movies. But here's to hoping you did. Nostalgia for Matt Damon's return to the Bourne franchise was greeted with enthusiam by moviegoers and what suffered as a result was nostalgia for another return over at Star Trek Beyond which took a big tumble in its second weekend. Meanwhile yet another nostalgia play (it's all about revivals these days) Ghostbusters became yet another $100 million domestic hit for Melissa McCarthy (she has six of them now) though the problem with this one is that it cost far more than her other films to make.

In other box office news: Cafe Society is about to outgross Woody Allen's last feature (Irrational Man) and it's only been out for a week; The Legend of Tarzan is now the 11th most popular film of the year (but with its hefty price tag will it get a sequel?); and if you want to see Viggo Mortensen in Captain Fantastic (which you really should because it's quite good) get to it in the next couple of days because it's per screen average didn't fare too well with this weekend's significant expansion so it's unlikely to stick around much longer; and we can maybe finally say goodbye to the Ice Age franchise on their fifth outing. Their international box office is what's been keeping the series afloat but the fifth film is significantly underperforming so cross your fingers if you're screaming "enough already" every time that once funny squirrel bounces across your movie theater screens chasing a nut in a trailer. 

TOP TWENTY
🔺01 Jason Bourne $60 NEW Review 
▫️ 02 Star Trek Beyond $24 (cum. $105.7) Review
🔺03 Bad Moms $23.4 NEW
🔻04 Secret Life of Pets $18.2 (cum. $296.1) 
🔺05 Lights Out $10.8 (cum. $42.8) 
🔺06 Ice Age Collison Course $10.5 (cum. $42.1)
🔻07 Ghostbusters $9.8 (cum. $106.1) Review
🔺08 Nerve $9 NEW 
🔻09 Finding Dory $4.2 (cum. $469)  Review
🔻10 Legend of Tarzan $2.4 (cum. $121.8) Review
🔻11 Hillary's America $2.3 (cum. $8.6)
🔺12 Cafe Society $2.2 ($3.9) LIMITED RELEASE Review
🔻13 Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates $1.4 (cum. $43.9) Review
🔺14 Captain Fantastic $1 (cum. $2.4) LIMITED RELEASE Review
🔻15 Central Intelligence $910K (cum. $125.3)
🔻16 The Infiltrator $817K (cum. $14.3)  Review
🔺17 Absolutely Fabulous $800K (cum. $3.3) LIMITED RELEASE Review, Production Design
🔻18 Purge: Election Year $703K (cum. $78.3)
🔻19 BFG $416K ($52.1) Review
🔻20 Hunt for the Wilderpeople $350K (cum. $2.9) LIMITED RELEASE Review 

What movies did you catch this past weekend?

Next weekend Suicide Squad opens and will surely dominate the conversation and may well feel like the end of summer movie season though there are a few weeks left of that. The really interesting contest is the following week when Florence Foster Jenkins battles both Pete's Dragon and those anthropomorphic R rated food items from Sausage Party.  Tough to say which film might survive that brawl.

The Furniture: The Best of Absolutely Fabulous

Daniel Walber's series looks at Production Design in contemporary and classic movies

This, week, in honor of the most fabulous sitcom in the history of television, I’m going to try something a bit different. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, expanding toward world domination as we speak, is a booze-soaked-cherry on top of a quarter-century-aged fruitcake. It also does more than well by the show’s strongest points, bringing back not only its beloved characters but also its crazed sense of fashion.

And as you can tell by its choice use of an underwater exercise bike, the movie renews the TV show’s flare for production design as a comic tool. Jennifer Saunders and the show's design team, which only varied a bit over the years, have always used excess to their advantage. To prove my point, here are five favorite design moments from the many seasons of Absolutely Fabulous...

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Podcast/Smackdown Pt 1: "Julia" & "The Goodbye Girl"

As a companion piece to yesterday's Smackdown, a two-part podcast. In the first installment Mark Harris, Guy Lodge, Nick Davis, Sara Black McCulloch, and Nathaniel R discuss 1977's Oscar race, Jane Fonda & Vanessa Redgrave's friendship, Neil Simon's quippy writing, and more...

Part One. Index (41 minutes)
00:01 Intros, 1977 Memories, Annie Hall vs Star Wars
05:55 "getting" movies and Oscar-watching before the internet
09:09 Julia and Jane Fonda's curious "supporting" lead
16:23 Gender in Julia, Vanessa Redgrave's politics, and queer subtext
29:45 Child acting and difficult language in The Goodbye Girl
35:45 The influx of divorce/single parenting movies in the 70s
39:14 Nick's family memory of The Goodbye Girl

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

Smackdown 77. Part One. Julia

Top 7 David Harbour

A surprise list to start your morning off right. We've been thinking a lot about Stranger Things these past couple of weeks, and many of those thoughts have revolved around the unexpectedly hefty role for usual supporting player David Harbour. I personally think he's Best in Show in that sci-fi fantasy 80s nostalgia trip. The first time I remember seeing him was on Broadway in 2001 as the object of Robert Sean Leonard's crushing in Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love. His profile has been growing slowly ever since and its a treat to see him make so much of such a big opportunity in the Netflix hit.

Favorite David Harbour Performances

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Smackdown '77: Melinda, Leslie, Tuesday, Quinn, and Vanessa Redgrave

Presenting the Supporting Actress Nominees of '77. A mother with extraterrestrial problems, a highly neurotic swinger, a wealthy political activist, a precocious daughter, and a timid ballerina.

THE NOMINEES 

John Travolta opening the envelope

If the characters weren't quite typical this time, the shortlist formation was a familiar mix of career glories. Consider the slotting: Oh look, there's the child actor slot that the Supporting Actress category is famous for going to Quinn Cummings; Tuesday Weld wins the underappreciated enduring talent nod; No typical shortlist is complete without a newish critical darling with momentum which in 1977 was Melinda Dillon (she had created the "Honey" role in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf  on stage but didn't get to do the movie and was finally making film inroads via her role in the previous year's Best Picture nominee Bound for Glory ); Finally, you have to have a current Oscar darling with considerable prestige and fame (Vanessa Redgrave) on hand in any given year. Oops, that's only four. The last type is more rare but not unprecented. The final player fell under what you might call the "novelty" slot (Leslie Browne). When the latter happens it's usually either foreign-born non-actors or famous musicians but in this case it was a soon to be principal dancer with the American Ballet Company.

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS

Here to talk about these five turns are our panelists: Mark Harris (Author of "Pictures at a Revolution," and "Five Came Back"), Guy Lodge (Variety, The Observer), Nick Davis (Associate Professor of English and Gender & Sexuality Studies at Northwestern), Sara Black McCulloch (Rearcher, Translator, Writer) and your host Nathaniel R (Editor, The Film Experience).

And now it's time for the main event... 

1977 
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN 

 

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