"Parasite" explodes --what did you see over the weekend?

What did you see over the weekend? I went to Pain & Glory for a second time and as with all Pedro Almodóvar movies, the second viewing is richer than the first. But the big story of the weekend was Bong Joon-ho's Parasite. EVERY SCREENING in NYC was sold out by Friday morning. It must have also been crowded in Los Angeles because it achieved the highest per screen average of the entire year, and the best since La La Land (2016) and we all know what happened to La La Land. Not that Parasite is going to earn $151 million in US release alone and win 6 Oscars but, still, what a feat for its opening weekend. 

Weekend Box Office October 11-13 (ACTUALS) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES
1 JOKER $55.8 (CUM $193.5) REVIEW	1  🔺 PARASITE $384k *new* PODCAST, BEST OF TIFF ★

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Murtada talks "Pain & Glory"

The Film Experience representing on Turkish TV! Murtada appeared this weekend to discuss Pedro Almodovar's autofiction career reflection in Pain & Glory. Well done. (If you haven't yet caught Murtada's review, referenced here, check it out.)

Pain & Glory now playing in NYC, LA, DC, San Francisco, Chicago.
Oct 18^th Houston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Miami…
Oct 25^th Detroit, Austin, Seattle, Denver, Fort Meyers, New Jersey, Ontario…
Nov 1^st Atlanta, Fort Worth, Honolulu, Milwaukee, Santa Barbara...
Nov 8^th New Orleans, San Antonio, Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinatti, Des Moine...

Horror Actressing: Mia Goth in "Suspiria"

by Jason Adams

To tell the truth it's been taking me a coven's worth of willpower not to use this "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series week after week as an excuse to go through the cast-list of Luca Guadagnino's  Suspiria one by one by one and highlight every single woman in the film -- there's nary a weak link in sight, everybody is serving something special, and that's a lot of every-bodies given how deep that cast-list runs. 

Thankfully I'm not alone in my obsession, and one of my favorite horror writers on the entire internet, Stacie Ponder at Final Girl, has devoted the entire month of October to doing just that. She's not just talking the stellar cast though -- every day she's dissecting themes and images and if you ask me proving to the naysayers (of which those of us who adore the film know there are many, more many, than there are lovers) that Guadagnino gifted us with a profoundly rich and moving horror masterpiece, aching up to its eaves with feeling.

Anyway Stacie's impelling piece last week on the love relationship between Susie (Dakota Johnson) and Sara (Mia Goth) finally managed to break my back with respect to holding out on talking this movie -- specifically I've had nothing but Goth's work on my mind for seven straight days. And what a blessing that's been...

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How had I never seen...“Enter the Dragon”?

by Cláudio Alves

I often find myself bristling at the idea that cinema is, essentially, a form of storytelling. Many a great filmmaker has said those words and many passionate cinephiles have done so too. Far from me to begrudge anyone that thus defines the seventh art. To each his own, but it’s difficult not to think that storytelling is simultaneously too broad and too narrow a description. After all, what of experimental cinema or aesthetic marvels that have little to no story?

Narrative isn’t the only type of cinema there is and even if we account for the narrative value of documentaries, many fact-based projects circumvent that too. Not to sound facetious, but, to me, cinema is moving image and time, it’s editing and it’s audiovisual stimuli. Such words may smell like pretention and taste like academic nonsense, but through them, one can understand the appeal of certain films in a way that’s impossible when thinking of them as storytelling.

Enter the Dragon is garbage as storytelling. As a spectacle of color and rhythm, however, it’s pure delight…

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Podcast: Parasite + Listener Qs

with Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R

 

Index (58 minutes)
00:01 Parasite's opening weekend success and its basic premise
06:30 through 22:59 [SPOILER SECTION]
23:00 Its Oscar prospects and the joys of sold out theaters
30:00 CHANGE OF TOPIC. Continuous shot movies. 
32:38 More Parasite chatter (non-spoilers) plus a Portrait of a Lady on Fire tangent
39:13 Listener Questions 

 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? 

Parasite plus