Beauty vs Beast: Pre Endgame

Jason Adams from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- a little movie called Avengers: Endgame will be hitting a couple of screens this weekend (we count Thursday nights are "the weekend" now in blockbuster world) with the blunt force of a megaton bomb; this time next week it'll be nothing but breathless box office masticating and eulogies for the fallen. So today, in the ever so brief calm before that oblivion, let's look back at last year's Infinity War appetizer and face down the great big goof heard round the galaxy -- that time Peter Quill aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) let his emotions get the best of him and let Thanos (Josh Brolin) live to snap another day... 

web survey

PREVIOUSLY While every week is a good week to be Emma Thompson Week last week we made it official in honor of her 60th birthday, and the Merchant Ivory character to top them all turned out to be, with 68% of your vote, Margaret from Howard's End. Said Marsha Mason:

"Remains of the Day is the better film imo, but her performance in Howards End sticks with me a little more."

West Side Story Casting Pt 2: "When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way"

If you missed part 1, The Sharks, that's here. 

With the casting of Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story complete, and planning to shoot this very summer, let's meet the Jets. We've done the research to familiarize you with the new cast which is thankfully extremely heavy with very talented dancers and singers so we hope Steven Spielberg has a heretofore unknown gift for filming big dance heavy musical numbers! Links go to their instagram pages if we could find them...

PRINCIPALS

• Ansel Elgort (Tony)
The 25 year old movie star has been threatening to do a movie musical for awhile now (he was once attached to a Hans Christian Anderson biopic that seems to have been trapped in development hell) and is finally getting around to it with West Side Story. Major credits include leading roles in The Fault in Our Stars, Billionaire Boys Club, Baby Driver, and the forthcoming drama The Goldfinch.

Click to read more ...

1972: Oversharing with "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie"

TFE will be periodically looking back at the 1972 film year before we hit the Supporting Actress Smackdown next Sunday. Here's Paolo. 

This is going to sound like I’m overestimating my writing power but here goes. The symbolism within Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Oscar's Best Foreign Film winner of 1972, is easy to write about. Up to interpretation, as they say. What isn’t easy is writing about the feelings the movie evokes. In short, I might be explaining jokes, which slightly offends me as a fan of comedy. But I’m going to do it anyway, since the humor is the first thing that comes to mind in writing about what is arguably Buñuel’s most personal movie. 

The film is about six white bourgeois people who just want to eat but someone or something keeps interrupting them. (I have the same dream... but it's not about food.)

Click to read more ...

Easter Weekend Box Office

Happy Easter. It's the quiet before the Avengers: Endgame storm at the nation's theaters.

Weekend Box Office Estimates April 19th-21st (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = New or Expanded Theater Count /  ★= Recommended
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES excluding wide releases losing screens
Curse of La Llorona	Kalank
1 🔺 Curse of La Llorona  $26.5 *NEW* REVIEW	1🔺 Kalank  $1.2 on 320 screens *NEW*
2 Shazam  $17.3 (cum. $121.3)	2 🔺 Amazing Grace $591k on 188 screens (cum. $1.3)
3 🔺 Breakthrough $11.1 *NEW*	3 🔺 High Life $292k on 146 screens (cum. $688k) ★  REVIEW, PODCAST
4 Captain Marvel  $9.1 (cum. $400) REVIEW, BIGGEST HITS 1ST QTR	4 🔺 Teen Spirit  $250k on 696 screens (cum. $305k) REVIEW
5 Little $8.4 (cum. $29.3)	5 🔺 The Chaperone $86k on 55 screens (cum. $222k)

Kalank, a big-budget Bollywood spectacle opened in India and the US on the same day (!) and topped the box office in limited release while the Elle Fanning led Teen Spirit received a disastrous reception in its nearly wide expansion taking in just $360 per screen. Meanwhile at the multiplexes, The Curse of La Llorona which is "sort of" part of The Conjuring franchise (though not officially?) opened at #1 for wide releases and Captain Marvel inched over $400 million domestic in its 7th week of release, somehow returning to the top five despite a continued (if unusually slow) loss of screens. What did you see this weekend? 

Cannes 2019 Un Certain Regard Lineup

We already dove into the Cannes Competition Lineup so it's time to look at the other most famous program, Un Certain Regard, which tends to be where a lot of the edgier titles from younger directors go. Some years people actually think this program beats the main competition for quality (since the main competition generally defaults to the "masters," regardless of whether or not they happen to be having a strong year).

UN CERTAIN REGARD

Fernanda Montenegro in "Invisible Life"

Here is a bit about all that titles in Un Certain Regard. These films won't get quite as much buzz in May UNLESS they break out and the familiar refrain begins "Why wasn't this in the main competition?" You know how Cannes critics do...

Click to read more ...