Review: "The Front Runner"

by Chris Feil

Fresh off of delivering exacting holistic wisdom with frequent collaborator Diablo Cody in this past spring’s Tully, Jason Reitman is already back and pivoting hard into political commentary with The Front Runner. Detailing the combustion of Gary Hart’s 1988 presidential campaign due to the outting in the press of Hart’s not-so-secret affairs, the film stars Hugh Jackman as the prideful candidate fatally underestimating the public’s association between his character and marital fidelity. Reitman and cowriters Matt Bai and Jay Carson cover the unraveling in stringent attention to the timeline, while angling this as a key breakdown in the separation of political media consideration and tabloid press.

The result is something unintentionally passive, a film about a political candidate flailing against public expectations he refuses to assuage. The film itself is equally headstrong about satisfying on its own rather limited terms...

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Vote!

Elections have consequences. 

Rita Moreno to return to movie musicals?

by Nathaniel R

Rita Moreno in her Emmy worthy performance in "One Day at a Time"

Rita Moreno, the beloved octogenarian, EGOT and Triple Crown of Acting winner, and Latina pioneer, is back in a big way. She's doing some of her best work ever on One Day at a Time (the lack of an Emmy nod is just shameful) but we have very good news about a future movie role. She's been cast in the movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights (2020). This will be her first movie musical role in over 50 years! 

For those who don't know Moreno's career before West Side Story (1961), it wasn't her first musical...

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Bohemian was the dom top of the weekend

Weekend Box Office - Actuals November 2nd-4th 🔺 = New or Expanded Theater Count
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1.🔺Bohemian Rhapsody $51 *NEW* Review, Podcast	1.🔺Beautiful Boy $1.3 540 screens (cum. $3.1)  Podcast
2.🔺Nutcracker & the... $20.3 *NEW* Review	2.Johnny English 2 $1  on 552 screens (cum. $3.2)
3.🔺Nobody's Fool $13.7  *NEW*	3.Free Solo $1  363  screens (cum. $6.8)
4. A Star is Born $11 (cum. $165.5)  Review, Soundtrack, Podcast	4.🔺Can You Ever Forgive Me? $1 180 screens (cum. $1.7) Review, Podcast
5. Halloween $10.8  (cum. $150.2) Review	5.🔺Suspiria $979k 311 screens (cum. $1.2) Podcast

What did you see this weekend? Want-to-see factor on the Queen movie Bohemian Rhapsody was huge (Bryan Singer's alleged crimes and the sometimes-harsh reviews didnt deter people). Meanwhile Boy Erased enjoyed the weekend's top per screen average but at only 5 screens earning $207k -- a solid start for its platform Oscar-campaign intentions.

Beauty vs Beast: All Hail Queen Posey

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" contest, which this week will be marking the milestone of 50 freaking years of the eternal goddess Parker Posey. Do you recall the first place you saw her? I feel like for most people it was probably Dazed and Confused but I have a really vivid memory of her in Coneheads, for some reason. Whatever is was she's since given us half of her life and heaps of iconic characters in that time, and we're gawping in the presence of greatness today.

It seems a bit blasphemous to ignore her work with Christopher Guest ("Busy Bee!") but I'm gonna - I'm gonna go with two of her characters that ended up shaping my perception of her screen-image the most. And those two are Mary in Party Girl and Jackie O in The House of Yes...

bike tracks

PREVIOUSLY Our Halloween hangovers should (hopefully) be gone by now so let's say goodbye to my favorite holiday with one last big hug to Jack Skellington, who took the Nightmare Before Christmaspoll with 74% of your vote. Said catbaskets:

"Mr. Oogie boogie says there's trouble close at hand. You better pay attention, now, 'cause he's the boogie man. Jack counters that there are few who deny that at what he does he is the best for his talents are renowned far and wide. Jack in a landslide."