Tuesday
Apr162019
Tuesday
Apr162019
Game of Thrones "Winterfell" (S08E01)
Tuesday, April 16, 2019 at 12:30PM Eric & Ben will be covering the television event of the summer for us, the finale of Game of Thrones - Editor
BEN: Alright Eric, first thing's first: who do you watch with? I'm watching with my two brothers. One understands everything, but doesn't watch it religiously, while the other has never seen a minute. I'll also say that we watched while slightly impaired.
ERIC: I'll watch the whole season with my husband, who is a complete sci-fi/fantasy nerd (he even liked Krull)...and quite frankly, without him, I don't know what I'd do. I'm always saying "who's that again?" when one of the minor characters comes on. The premiere seems like it's just an establishing episode? Not tons of actual drama, but they have a lot of stories to unify, and I think they met that very challenging task smartly, did you...?
Tuesday
Apr162019
April Foolish Predictions #8: Lead Actor
Tuesday, April 16, 2019 at 9:15AM by Nathaniel R
It won't be hard (qualitatively) for Taron Egerton to outdo Rami Malek in the biopic rock star acting department. But will Oscar feel like "we just did that"?
We didn't forget about our April Foolish Predictions, but just got a wee bit sidetracked. Today's update is the marquee category of Best Actor. Our crystal ball shows us virtually nothing this year in regards to this category with everyone feeling both likely and unlikely for various reasons. One of the most confusing elements is that we know Oscar loves non-fictional characters best but half of those performances seem to be in Netflix movies and you never know which they'll give the big push to, or even release in theaters at all. In the absence of sure things, even on paper, we decided to take some wild swings. For example: Daniel Kaluuya for Queen and Slim which might prove way too divisive since it was introduced as "protest art" at CinemaCon; Ben Affleck, who never has been praised all that much for the acting side of his career, for his addiction drama Torrance. We almost went with Mark Ruffalo who reads like a safe bet in a potentially great role in Todd Haynes's untitled new film. On the other hand, Haynes is not a speedy filmmaker so the likelihood of 2020 for that feels strong.
The safest bet on paper is surely Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. But they passed right by Hanks for Captain Phillips, Saving Mr Banks, The Post, and Bridge of Spies, any of which might have netted him an easier nomination in the 1990s when they couldn't get enough of him. So you never know. Check out the chart to see where all the big names and rising stars rank. Do you have any hunches this early?
Tuesday
Apr162019
"Little" is a hit but "Shazam!" stays on top
Tuesday, April 16, 2019 at 1:08AM What did you see over the weekend? We waited until Monday night to get the full receipts on the arthouse releases (which often report late). Both Shazam! and The Mustang (still expanding) stayed on top in their second and fifth weekend respectively. It was a crowded weekend... well, overcrowded actually, since only the new comedy Little managed to make much of a box office impression of the 17 (gulp) new releases. Sadly Laika, our current favourite animation studio, had trouble. Missing Link proved their weakest opening by far with only $5.8 million (they generally manage about $14 million on opening weekends).
Here's the top ten in both wide and platform titles...
| Weekend Box Office (Actuals) April 12th-14th 🔺 = new or expanded theater counts |
|
| W I D E |
PLATFORM / LIMITED |
 |
 |
| 1 Shazam! $24.4 on 4306 screens (cum. $94.2) |
1 🔺 The Mustang $773k on 527 screens (cum. $3.1) |
 |
 |
| 2 🔺 Little $15.4 on 2667 screens *NEW* |
2 🔺 Amazing Grace $349k on 58 screens (cum. $589k) |
Monday
Apr152019
New Podcast: High Life, Sauvage, and Mary Kay Place in Diane
Monday, April 15, 2019 at 10:00PM by Murtada Elfadl and Nathaniel R
Index (50 minutes)
00:01 Claire Denis' High Life starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, and the Fuck Box
16:00 A gay hustler movie from France Sauvage/Wild
24:10 Mary Kay Place is Diane in Kent Jones' intimate narrative debut starring a slew of underutilized older actresses
34:50 What we've been seeing on Broadway as the Tony nominations approach
44:44 Coming Soon & miscellaneous silliness since Murtada wants to know if Cate Blanchett is in Avengers: Endgame)
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?