Box Office: Lady Bird and Three Billboards Strike

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (Dec 1-3) UPDATED WITH ACTUALS
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1. Coco  $26.1 (cum. $108.6) REVIEW | FEELING SEEN	1.🔺 The Disaster Artist $1.2 on 19 screens
2. Justice League $16.5 (cum. $197.3) REVIEW	2.🔺 Man Who Invented Christmas $863k on 674 screens (cum. $3.1)
3. Wonder $12.5 (cum. $88)	3.🔺 Titanic (20th Anniversary) $415k on  87 screens
4. Thor Ragnarok  $9.6 (cum. $291.4) REVIEW, YOUR QUEEN	4. Call Me By Your Name $281k on 4 screens (cum. $908k) SCREENPLAY | SEX SCENES
5. Daddy's Home 2 $7.5 (cum. $82.8)	5. Loving Vincent $211k on 161 screens REVIEW

As expected Coco had no trouble keeping people's interest for another weeek. More impressive, due to lower expectations, is Wonder's continued performance. It just hit $100 million globally and if you think about it it could just as easily have been a $15-20 million grosser that few people noticed since bestselling books are hit and miss when they attempt to become bigticket movies. Kudos to the marketing team who were able to focus interest on it immediately despite so many other ostensibly family friendly movies in the marketplace.

(Maybe families are getting bored of superhero movies? Nah, that's wishful thinking since Justice League, is about to hit $200 million and will likely outperform the infinitely more beloved Wonder Woman in foreign markets if not at home). More after the jump...

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Los Angeles Film Critics Association Winners 2017

by Nathaniel R

Another day, another set of precursor awards. We heard from the New York Film Critics Circle a few days ago where Lady Bird and The Florida Project were the big winners with two prizes each. Over on the West Coast Call Me By Your Name and The Shape of Water both took three prizes. Commentary, stats, and winners list are all after the jump...

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John Waters Annual Top Ten List

by Nathaniel R

Everyone's favorite weirdo kitsch and camp-loving auteur has released his annual top ten list. Though we really wish he'd make one last movie (A Dirty Shame was a weird thing to end on 13 years ago!) at least he's still with us as a cultural voice. His lists are always so fun to read because they're reliably eclectic with a little bit of every type of movie and usually one thing we've never heard of (this time that's I, Olga Hepnarova... a black and white docudrama about a chainsmoking lesbian in Prague). Topping his 2017 list is Edgar Wright's Baby Driver. He writes:

 The best movie of the year is a popcorn thriller, an art film, and a gearhead classic that grossed over $100 million. It deserved to! Watching the star turn of Ansel Elgort was like seeing John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever for the first time.

And he gets sassy to the nation's moviegoing parents about Wonderstruck:

Want an IQ test for your cinephile children? Just take them to see this beautifully made, feel-good kids’ movie about the hearing-impaired, starring a little girl who looks exactly like Simone Signoret. If your small-fry like the film, they’re smart. If they don’t, they’re stupid.

He also likes Wonder Wheel, Lady Macbeth, and the HBO film Wizard of Lies. Check it out.

92 Days til Oscar. Some Living Trivia For Ya!

Did you know the earliest Oscar year which boasts 20 acting nominees who are still with us is 1992? It's the 25th anniversary of that year and that's the furthest back in time you can go from which all the acting nominees are still walking this earth. With the very noticeable exception of long retired Gene Hackman (no one has been able to convince him to come back to the movies -- and directors have tried!) most of them are still working, too. The lesson is simple: cherish your favorite actors while they're with us because no one lasts forever... except through their art!

The nominees that year were:

Leading ACTRESS	Leading ACTOR	Supporting ACTRESS	Supporting ACTOR
Deneuve Indochine	Downey Jr Chaplin	Davis Husbands & Wives	Davidson Crying Game
McDonnell Passion Fish	Eastwood Unforgiven	Plowright Enchanted April	Hackman Unforgiven ★
Pfeiffer Love Field	Rea Crying Game	Redgrave Howards End	Nicholson A Few Good Men
Sarandon Lorenzo's Oil	Pacino Scent of a... ★	Richardson Damage	Pacino Glengarry...
Thompson Howards End ★	Washington Malcolm X	Tomei My Cousin Vinny ★	Paymer Mr Saturday Night

If you'd like a breakdown of the earliest years for the individual categories, it won't surprise you to hear two things. First, that we're offering that list since we're trivia overachievers here at TFE . Second, those categories line up exactly like average age statistics for those races i.e. lead Actress skews youngest, then Supporting Actress, then Actor, and in last place is Supporting Actor because that's the category that's most frequently enamored of veterans. Those details are after the jump...

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Tweetweek: Grapefruit, Given Names, Wisdom

Three truths.

We were grossly misusing the phrase “Our long national nightmare is over” before this

— Chase Mitchell (@ChaseMit) December 1, 2017

Thinking about movies right now feels terribly frivolous and also one of the few things keeping me sane.

— Scott Renshaw (@scottrenshaw) December 2, 2017

This Tiffany Haddish backlash is weird proof that people love Oscar bait more than they want to admit.

— Sam Coffey (@SamCoffey72) December 1, 2017

so sad but all true observations. The latter I've noticed in social discussions so many times. Okay on to funnier or at least less depressing things after the jump including more Tiffany Haddish, Captain America's beard, Lady Bird, Ava DuVernay being inspiring (what else is new), and so on...

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