Monday, April 22, 2019 at 5:24PM by Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R
With the weekend bringing so few movies to theaters we opted for an all listener questions episode of the podcast. You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. We hope you enjoy our answers and provide some of your own in the comments.
So many good questions, thank you. Comment party in 3...2...1... Go!
Monday, April 22, 2019 at 3:00PM 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...
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."
Monday, April 22, 2019 at 1:00PM 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.
Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 10:45PM 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.)
Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 6:34PM 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?
