What did you see over the weekend?

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office Estimates (August 24-26)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1. CRAZY RICH ASIANS  $25 (cum. $76.8)  Review, Michelle Yeoh	1. 🔺 PAPILLON $1.1 on 544 screens *NEW*

2. THE MEG $13 (cum. $105.3)  Review	2. 🔺  PUZZLE $372k on 265 screens (cum. $1.2)

3. 🔺 HAPPYTIME MURDERS $10 *NEW*	3. 🔺 SEARCHING $360k on 9 screens *NEW*

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The European Film Awards Long List

by Nathaniel R

Maria Bäumer plays the famous 1970s actress Romy Schneider in German biopic 3 DAYS IN QUIBERON

Though we only know ten "official" titles for Oscar's foreign film race so far the European Film Awards often hold clues as to other films that might be submitted. Their 49 "suggestions" for nominations (aka finalists) have been announced. Nominations will follow on November 10th with the ceremony to be held December 15th in Seville, Spain. Those 49 films and our thoughts on their Oscar prospects are after the jump... 

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West Side Story, Pt 3: Tonight Won't Be Just Any Night

Occassionally Team Experience passes a movie around amongst the team for a retrospective. This month's installment is West Side Story (1961), one of the most popular films of all time and winner of 10 Oscars.

Part One - by Lynn Lee
Part Two -by Eric Blume

Part 3 by Nathaniel R

Growing up I watched West Side Story as often as I could. It was surely my most formative film though as a kid I didn't really know the hows and whys of movies, only how they made me feel. Some movies were good for laughing, others for crying, and a lot of them just to get caught up in adventures and stories. West Side Story was, no, IS, all the things a movie could be in one massive tuneful package. I devoured it every chance I got as a kid. 

When Eric left us in Part Two Maria and Tony had just symbolically wed, lit by heavenly golden light, as they finished singing "One Hand, One Heart". A soft, reverent hush fell over the scene as the lovers kissed and the music faded. Then an abrupt cut to:

01:34:59  This impossibly bold red sky. It's a hard image with a blaring aggressive music cue signalling a major shift within the movie.  From here on out: tragedy. The juxtaposition of the wedding with this image, remains to this day, one of the most violent cuts I've ever seen in a movie. Red is the only choice for it. The camera then swoops down to street level as the Jets begin to sing "Tonight"...

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We have our first 10 contenders for Best Foreign Film

by Nathaniel R

Our first 10 official contenders for Best Foreign Language Film for the Oscars have been revealed. Any of the links will take you to the foreign submission charts where you can read more. They are:

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Showbiz History: Cheers, The Wizard of Oz, Beach Rats

10 random things that happened on this day, August 25th, in showbiz history...

1885 Silent film master G.W. Pabst (Pandora's Box) born in Germany. 

1918 Today is the Centennial of composer Leonard Bernstein. We've been posting a three part West Side Story tribute that I hope you will all read and comment on! Part 3 later today, apologies for the 24 hour delay. (Oh, and check out today's Google Doodle in his honor)

←1939 The Wizard of Oz arrives in movie theaters. Though popular in its initial release, the 9th highest grossing film of its year and a Best Picture nominee, the budget was high enough that MGM recorded a loss of $1 million...

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