Weekend Box Office: "Fast X" Starts Slow

By Ben Miller

Surprising absolutely no one, the 10th entry in the Fast and the Furious series Fast X won the box office weekend.  What was surprising was the muted opening box office of only $67.5 million.  That's the lowest opening for that series since Tokyo Drift in 2006 (unless you count Hobbs and Shaw which opened with $60 million in 2019).  Comparatively, these films make the same amount of domestic money, so you can expect anywhere from $170-$200 million total.  Worldwide is where these films really make their paydays, so keep expecting these things to keep being made.  In fact, each film since Fast Five has made over $500 million outside of North America...

Weekend Box Office (actuals) May 19th-21st 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (Over 800 Screens)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
FAST X	SANCTUARY
1 🔺 FAST X $67 *NEW* 4046 screens	1 BLACKBERRY $288k (cum. $1.0) 374 screens

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Cannes at Home: Day 4 – Once Upon a Time In...

by Cláudio Alves

The competition continues to heat up at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, with various contenders staking their claim on the Palme. It may be time for Nuri Bilge Ceylan to win his second. About Dry Grass is his seventh competition feature, including 2014's grand champion Winter Sleep. Then again, the critics have reached a consensus so far, with the favorite film being Jonathan Glazer's return to feature filmmaking after a decade-long pause, The Zone of Interest. Kaouther Ben Hania's follow-up to the Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin is less acclaimed but might yet prove an awards contender. Four Daughters is one of two documentaries in competition.

For this 'Cannes at Home' adventure, let's look at some of these directors' past successes, their best films according to yours. There's Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Glazer's Under the Skin, and Ben Hania's Beauty and the Dogs…

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Cannes: The cowboys of Almodóvar

Elisa Giudici reporting from Cannes

Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke as lovers in "Strange Way of Life". © Sony Pictures Classics

After 25 years, two former hired guns meet again in a small town in the Far West. After crossing the desert, Silva (Pedro Pascal) arrives at Bitter Creek where his old friend and ex-lover Jake (Ethan Hawke) has become sheriff. The two share a dinner and then a night of passion, but as they make the bed together (a tender first time in Western movies history, according to the director) hidden meanings, old wounds, and possible hidden agendas on both sides emerge in a heated discussion.

As usual, 30 minutes of Almodovar can be more impactful and memorable than three hour from other auteurs...

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Doc Corner: 'Museum of the Revolution'

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

In director Srđan Keča’s Museum of the Revolution (Muzej revolucije), the titular building is never seen as it was once envisioned. A tribute to communism in an area now recognised as Serbia, plans were abandoned following the breakup of Yugoslavia. The opening frames of this sobering documentary feature silent, sepia-toned (to the point of orange) archival footage of what appear to be a groundbreaking ceremony for the renovation of Belgrade after the war full of hope and promise (however politically misguided). The museum was never completed.

We quickly learn that the remnants of it sit abandoned and derelict, a shelter from the elements for homeless peoples. Among them is Mara and her daughter, Milica, as well as an elderly woman named Vera who acts sometimes as babysitter, attempting to empart any bit of wisdom onto the girl. In what was meant to be a monument to revolution, now sits as a stark reminder of what society does with the remains of progress.

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Cannes at Home: Day 3 – A Cinema of Violence

by Cláudio Alves

The third day of the festival, second day of competition screeners, brought with it our first big Cannes stinker of the year, as well as a potential prize magnet. Starting with the catastrophe, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire's Black Flies, which stars Sean Penn, incurred the wrath of many a critic. In more positive news, Chinese documentarian Wang Bing presented the first part of a tetralogy project (Youth or Spring are the alternate English language titles), a three-hour-plus epic of observational cinema concerning the lives of young laborers in China's garment industry. Could this be a significant contender for end-of-the-festival honors?

For the Cannes at Home project, let's consider how these two auteurs have dedicated much of their careers to depicting violence – Sauvaire the brutality of war and combat, Wang the horrors of exploitation. With that in mind, our films for today (both available to stream) are Johnny Mad Dog and Bitter Money…

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