Hey all, Nathaniel back at my own home blog. Sorry for my radio silence the past couple of days but on rare occasions the words just don't come. What did you see this weekend? Here's what the masses turned out for.
Gone Girl's strong opening weekend -- a best for David Fincher -- suggests that it's going to stick around for awhile given how many conversations it starts (and editorials it will continue to inspire). That must be what that blurb whore meant when he said "date movie of the decade"... that you'd want to talk about it after seeing it giving you conversation fodder at dinner. At least I hope that's what he meant because the story is so cynical about relationships and would probably be a horrible thing to see with someone you barely knew and didn't know if you could trust and didn't know how to read their reactions to entertainment yet (people want different things from it, after all).
TOP TEN WIDE (800 THEATERS PLUS)
01 GONE GIRL $38 NEW Review
02 ANNABELLE $37.2 NEW
03 THE EQUALIZER $19 (cum. $64.5) Why Denzel?
04 THE BOXTROLLS $12.4 (cum. $32.5) The Most Exciting Animation Studio
05 THE MAZE RUNNER $12 (cum. $73.9) Review
06 LEFT BEHIND $6.8 NEW
07 THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU $4 (cum. $29)
08 DOLPHIN TALE 2 $3.5 (cum. $.1)
09 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY $3 (cum. $323.3) Review & Ten Best Trees
10 NO GOOD DEED $2.5 (cum. $50.1)
Hrithik Roshan gets wet for action flick BANG BANGTOP TEN LIMITED (EXCLUDING WIDE RELEASES LOSING THEATERS)
01 BANG BANG $1.2 NEW
02 THE GOOD LIE $.9 NEW
03 THE SKELETON TWINS $.7 (cum. $3.5)
04 MY OLD LADY $.4 (cum. $2.2)
05 BREAKUP BUDDIES $.2 NEW
06 HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS $.2 (cum. $.5)
07 LOVE IS STRANGE $.1 (cum. $2) Review
08 THE TRIP TO ITALY $.1 (cum. $2.6) Review
09 PRIDE $.09 (cum. $.2) Review
10 JIMI: ALL IS BY MY SIDE $.09 (cum. $.2)
The latest Bollywood action flick starring Hrithik Roshan, he of the very huge muscles and stunning eyes opened big. I don't see Bollywood movies unless there's a dance sequence so someone let me know if Hrithik shows his moves again in this one.
I can watch his dancing in Dhoom again forever...
The other newbie The Good Lie was just behind. I keep hearing that the advertising is not very accurate. Maggie Smith fans have come out for My Old Lady despite a total lack of publicity but weirdly it isn't doing nearly as well as Quartet did and that was a really bad movie. And now two great gay films: Love is Strange didn't take off like I'd hoped but a $2 million theatrical gross for an indie without bankable stars these days isn't exactly bad news either. Meanwhile Pride, my fav cause of the moment, is only in three cities but will add more next Friday. As I've said before I think this would be a massive arthouse hit if this were still the 1990s when people went to charming limited release movies rather than waiting for them to go to Netflix.
Emmy Threats to the standard lineup don't you think? Jeffrey Tambor for Best Actor in a comedy and Viola Davis for Best Actress in a drama
In TV's version of box office, the ratings, Viola's How To Get Away With Murder is the best ranked new network show of the fall -- thus far, at least, since it's premature to say such things given that premieres are still happening. If you haven't yet checked out my liveblog of the first two episodes why not do it. I'm probably spendingnew week bingeing on Amazon's Transparent. Watched the first three episodes last night and wow it's good with fantastic performances, intriguing and tangled character-based plots, and a firm sense of taking it all very seriously while also being able to laugh at itself. Amazon had been waiting for a series to capture accolades / attention in a way that would put them on the map as a content creator and this could well be it. I haven't heard anything about whether any of their recent pilots (we reviewed Hand of God) will be making it to series.
What did you see this weekend?