Still Blissing Out Over "La La Land"

Over the weekend I wrote up an Oscar preview for Towleroad - which you can consider a companion to our current Best Picture Chart and updated Oscar predictions. Here's what I wrote about La La Land, which I realize I didn't capsule review for you at TIFF: 

This musical from the young writer/director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) won the coveted "Audience Award" at Toronto. That prize nearly always aligns with a Best Picture nomination in January. But the nomination will be the least of it - it has "winner" written all over it. La La Land is a total bliss-out, a colorful two hour romance with song and dance numbers about an aspiring actress and her jazz musician boyfriend. This is the third movie to co-star Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling and their onscreen chemistry is even better this go around and it was tremendous to begin with in Crazy Stupid Love five years back.

Here's a shocking statistic for trivia buffs: If La La Land is nominated for Best Picture it will be the first original live-action musical to do so since All That Jazz (1979). The musical nominees inbetween them were either animated  (Beauty & The Beast), adaptations of pre-existing shows (Chicago) or used pre-existing music for their songs (Moulin Rouge!). If La La Land wins it will be the first original movie musical to win the Oscar since Gigi (1958).

In addition to these general notes here are a few slighter more specific ones...

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The Furniture: A Warm Welcome in Hunt for the Wilderpeople

"The Furniture" our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber

Hunt for the Wilderpeople, the year’s most heart-warming comedy, may not seem like an obvious example of unique production design. It takes place entirely in the backwoods of New Zealand, much of it deep in the bush. It’s a showcase for the tremendous beauty of the land, not opulent sets.

Yet while the design team may not contribute to the film’s breathtaking vistas, their work is crucial to its narrative arc. Before young Ricky (Julian Dennison) and his ornery foster uncle Hec (Sam Neill) are forced by circumstance to run from the law, they don’t like each other very much. It’s Bella (Rima Te Wiata), Hec’s wife, who welcomes Ricky into their lives. Her love and her house serve as an emotional foundation, and her sudden death sparks the adventure to come.

Were it not for her memory, Ricky and Hec would run away, each to his own wilderness.

Their love for her keeps them together, or at least the guilt it inspires...

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Drag Race All Stars E6: 'Pants. Pants I Say...'

RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 2 didn't need a runway theme to remind us that Alaska is wearing the pants this time around. RuPaul's joke about goofing off during deliberations, which is genius as we've discussed, only further emphasizes who's the boss this season. And it ain't Ru, okay gurl?

I can't wait to see how this turns out.

That binocular miming bit from Katya was cute but there's no suspense. I think we all know who's turning it out at the finale...

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Feeling the "Effects" (One Mississippi, Episode 2)

by Stephen Fenton

When a loved one dies, there’s a flurry of activity; all manner of tasks to be done and arrangements to be made. It’s those first few days after the funeral that are the hardest, when reality starts to kick in, and you realize you to make sense of this new normal. And that’s where we find Tig and family in the second episode of One Mississippi.  

“How was your stay at the hospital? Were you satisfied? Or did things not go so well?...Because you died.”

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Mr Burton's Box Office For CGI Whimsy

If you were a peculiar orphan with supernatural powers could you imagine anyone more perfect than Eva Green to be your guardian? Tim Burton may not be the director he used to be in quality or bankablity but he was smart to latch on to Eva Green as his latest pale skinned raven haired muse. She ran so many circles around everything else that was happening in Dark Shadows (2012) it's a miracle that it was her character and not the film that cracked apart and crumbled. Her reviews are strong again for this new fantasy film.

TOP TEN WIDE
01 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children $28.5 NEW 
02 Deepwater Horizon $20.6 NEW 
03 The Magnificent Seven $15.7 (cum. $61.6)  Review
04 Storks $13.8 (cum. $38.8) 
05 Sully $8.4 (cum. $105.3) Review
06 Masterminds $6.6 NEW
07 Queen of Katwe $2.6 (cum. $3) Review
08 Don't Breathe $2.3 (cum. $84.7)
09 Bridget Jones's Baby $2.3 (cum. $20.9)  Review
10 Snowden $2 (cum $18.7) 

TOP TEN LIMITED
(Excluding Previously Wide)
01 M.S. Dhoni The Untold Story $1.2 NEW
02 No Manches Frida $380K (cum. $10.9)
03 The Dressmaker $357K (cum. $622K) 
04 The Beatles: Eight Days a Week $355K (cum. $2)
05 I Belonged To You $325K NEW
06 Denial $102K NEW
07 Don't Think Twice $99K (cum. $4.1) Review
08 The Hollars $98K (cum. $910K)
09 American Honey $75K NEW 
10 A Man Called Ove $61K NEW Sweden's Oscar Submission

In limited release it's clear by now that niche distributors need to study whatever it is companies like FIP and China Lion are doing because they keep managing strong opening weekend grosses for Bollywood films and Chinese films without so much as a sliver of traditional US media promotion.

What did you see this weekend?

I got a cold (boo) so I missed a screening or two (no one needs someone sneezing through a whole movie while they're watching it) but did manage to catch up with the Molly Shannon cancer dramedy Other People (and the review and interview right here) which were all quite enjoyable.