It's the most wonderful time of the year... 'Top Ten List' time

by Nathaniel R

I've been gleefully reading top ten lists for as long as I've loved movies. The first I waited for impatiently was in the Detroit Free Press in the 1980s and decades later I still love the impulse to live best movies, no matter how many people occassionally play contrarian to dismiss them as irrelevant and reductive. Top ten lists are definitely the latter but they're hardly the former, since what people value tells us so much about them and the idiosyncracies of individual top ten lists as well as occassional consensus across them are are especially beautiful if you love the magic that happens between any artform and its audience.

That said they'll make you crazy as often as they delight you. After the jump three early top ten lists worth discussing...

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Beauty vs Beast: Saoirse and Her Sisters

Jason from MNPP here with another round of "Beauty vs Beast" for you people. This weekend Mary Queen of Scots hits theaters and I'm sure you'll hear more about it here being, you know, a movie starring two impressive young actresses being impressive once again - one of those actresses, the one called Saoirse, well she's spent 11 straight years now impressing us, and today we're looking back at the place that started, i.e. with Joe Wright's Atonement. Saoirse should face down female relatives more often - her "cousin" Queen Elizabeth, her mother Laurie Metcalf, her sister Keira Knightley... it works out well for her.

web survey

PREVIOUSLY We tackled the parental figures of Moonlight last week (they could both use a good tackling, honestly) and y'all clearly thought the Oscars got it right, giving Mahershala Ali almost 70% of you vote. Said AlexD:

"Performance wise they're hand in hand for me. Both superb, both brilliantly adding depth and emotion to their characters. Ali shines all the dark and less flattering qualities of a character with whom we mostly sympathize on screen, while Harris humanizes a character with whom we don't (on screen)."

Detroit Film Critics Relive "Eighth Grade" and Indulge in "Vice"

We don't cover every film critics organization at TFE now that there are around 40 of them and half of those are now doing nominations to go along with their winners (exhausting!) but given that your host here originally hails from the Motor City we feel a certain amount of affection. This year the 21 Detroit area or Detroit-connected critics went all in for the adorable summer sleeper hit Eighth Grade and the forthcoming political comedy Vice. Their winners were...

Film Eighth Grade
Director Adam McKay, Vice
Actress Toni Collette, Hereditary
Actor Ethan Hawke, First Reformed...

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Lunch with Amandla and Russell

by Murtada Elfadl

At a lunch to celebrate The Hate U Give at The Whitby Hotel in midtown New York, I got the chance to chat with the film’s stars Amandla Stenberg and Russell Hornsby about the film and their performances.

During the Q&A portion of the luncheon Amandla told the audience about how she read the book early on and pursued the project because it really spoke to her. So when I had a moment to speak to her later, I asked her what other ideas would she like to push forward with her upcoming projects. She informed me that she’s taking her time with a project she’s working on as a writer and director. However she also wanted to share the truth on screen:

I would love to be in a narrative that was not heteronormative where I don’t have to play straight where I could express myself  with authenticity.

As we discussed on a recent podcast, Russell Hornsby has the very difficult task of having to spell out the themes of The Hate U Give in a few speeches he gives to his onscreen children. In particular I asked him about the speech in which he tells his kids about how to behave if ever stopped by the police. Hornsby talked about doing research but then discarding it to be in the moment and finding the truth in the scene:

I looked at Amandla, I looked at those kids and in every turn I was talking to my kids. It wasn’t Maverick, it was Russell talking to his children. This is a passionate honest moment for me as a father, trying to hold my emotions at bay because it hurts so much that I have to do this.

The Hate U Give is still playing in a few screens nationwide so there’s still time to catch these two amazing performances! 

Ralph and Queen Anne Rule Again

Weekend Box Office Estimates Nov 30th- Dec 2nd🔺 = New or Expanded Theater Count
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1. Ralph Breaks the Internet $25.7 (cum. $119.2)	1.🔺The Favourite $1.1 on 34 screens (cum. $1.6) Review, Podcast, BIFA Wins
2. The Grinch $17.7 (cum. $203.5) Posterized	2. Boy Erased $590k on 660 screens (cum. $5.5) Podcast, Soundtracking, Nicole at TIFF
3. Creed 2 $16.8 (cum. $81.1) Michael B Jordan,  Podcast	3.Can You Ever Forgive Me? $350k on  screens (cum. $6.5) Review, Podcast

As suspected with no real new competition the charts were virtually the same as last week so we're skipping the usual report. The good news is that The Favourite and Shoplifters , easily two of the best films this year, both had fine results with second weekend expansions.

What did you see this weekend? I saw Mary Poppins Returns (grinned stupidly the whole time - Emily Blunt is ❤️) and caught If Beale Street Could Talk a second time... to sadly the same reaction; tried to love it but just didn't apart from three inspired supporting performances (Regina King, Colman Domingo, and Brian Tyree Henry are all on fire) and some craft elements. Perhaps it'll work better for all of you when it opens in two weeks!?