July is a Wrap

Whew. That month was a swift one. It's August tomorrow, WTF? While we continue updating those Oscar charts please check out some highlights you might have missed in July... 

• Podcast is Back The Big Sick, Baby Driver, Dunkirk, and more
• Charlize Theron in Jade Scorpion an early peak at greatness in a terrible movie
• Bright Or, 'how will we define a Netflix blockbuster?'
• Soundtracking Chris revisits Young Adult
• Roundtable Drama Reese, Jessica, Oprah and more on the hunt for Emmy
• Being There (1979) unexpected essential viewing for 2017
• Okja's many delights on Netflix
• An Ode to Joan Harris for Mad Men's 10th anniversary
• An Ode to Julia TFE's first restaurant review (wait, what?)
• The Furniture  leered through Fassbinder's erotic Querelle
• Emmy Reactions our favorite nominations
• Emmy Reactions but how did they pass up ____?

COMING IN AUGUST: Robert Mitchum's Centennial, Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit, Emmy discussions as the TV Academy does their final voting, In the Heat of the Night (1967), Scarface (1983... I know I know), and much more. We haven't planned as far ahead as we usually do!

Four Movies Shared the Wealth This Weekend

By Nathaniel R

What did you see this weekend?

Weekend Box Office (July 28th-30th)
W I D E	L I M I T E D
1. DUNKIRK $28.1 (cum. $102.8) PODCAST	1. 🔺   A GHOST STORY $382k (cum. $941k) 329 screens
2. 🔺  THE EMOJI MOVIE $25.6	2. 🔺  DETROIT $365k 20 screens
3. GIRLS TRIP $20 (cum. $65.5)	3. MAUDIE  $350k (cum. $4.6) 228 screens REVIEW
4. 🔺 ATOMIC BLONDE  $18.5	4. 🔺  MUBARAKAN $300k 128 screens
5. SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING  $13.4 (cum. $278.3) REVIEW | 2ND OPINION | PODCAST	5. 🔺WOLF WARRIOR 2 $190k 53 screens
6. WAR FOR PLANET OF APES  $10.3 (cum. $118.6) REVIEWISH | PODCAST	6. 🔺 LADY MACBETH  $179k  (cum. $467k) 104 screens
7. DESPICABLE ME 3 $7.7 (cum. $230.4)	7. 🔺  AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL $130K 4 screens REVIEW
8. VALERIAN $6.8 (cum. $30.6)	8. THE LITTLE HOURS  $125k (cum. $1.2) 96 screens  REVIEW
9. BABY DRIVER $4 (cum. $92) REVIEW | 2ND OPINION | POSTERIZED | PODCAST	9.🔺 THE MIDWIFE $78k   (cum. $112k) 27 screens
10. WONDER WOMAN $3.5  (cum. $395.4) REVIEW | TOP TEN | SPECIAL	10. THE HERO  $68K (cum. $3.8) 102 screens BEST ACTORS
🔺 = new or added screens numbers from box office mojo

Dunkirk and Girls Trip, both enjoyed very strong second weekends (giving their audiences exactly what they promised... which is all too rare!) and managed to mostly fend off the new challengers which were the animated Emoji Movie and Charlize Theron kicking all kinds of spy ass as Atomic Blonde. It was a fairly unique weekend since all four titles were within 10 million of each other - they all have a reason to celebrate. The only people not celebrating? Whoever chose to take their families to Emoji Movie which is the worst reviewed movie of the year. 

In limited release the doc sequel An Inconvenient Truth (reviewed), Kathryn Bigelow's race riot drama Detroit, the Hasidic drama Menashe (reviewed), and Brigsby Bear all barely dipped their toe into theaters but audiences expressed interest in all four. Expect expansions soon with Detroit going wide next weekend.

Actor Chart Updates: Who will repeat?

Having just had a lively discussion about Best Actress and Supporting Actress possibilities, let us turn our attention to the men.

Though I'm not currently predicting any women from last year's 20 honored thespians to repeat this year, it's not uncommon for that to happen. So let's try out a Denzel Washington post-Fences prediction and see how it feels. He's headling Roman Israel, Esq. a Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler) picture about a lawyer in crisis and conflict with his new law firm. Colin Farrell co-stars. The film was called Inner City during filmmaking but now goes by the name of Denzel's character. The film takes place in the 1970s so Denzel has a fro!

1970s are popular in cinema this year. Also working early 1970s looks this year are the stars of two true stories. Spielberg's The Papers is already causing a buzzy stir. Less discussed but also scheduled to open this season is the Ridley Scott drama All the Money in the World about the famous kidnapping of a young man from a wealthy family (busy actor Charlie Plummer). Kevin Spacey is the grandfather billionaire who won't pay the ransom, Michelle Williams is the mother, and Mark Wahlberg is a CIA operative but it's tough to know who is lead or supporting or whatnot since it sounds like an ensemble picture. Incidentally the role played by Michelle Williams was originally offered to Angelina Jolie and then they sought out Natalie Portman. It's tough to know what they were looking for for that role (beyond stardom) because those three actresses have such different onscreen personas and talents.

Both of these movies could easily be something closer to box office hopefuls than gold-statue hunters given their mainstream stars and plots but you never know with holiday season releases. Check out the updated charts and report back...

ACTOR CHART UPDATES
Denzel & Daniel & Tom (all multiple Oscar winners!) on the rise
SUPPORTING CHART UPDATES 
A ton of movement here since we still know relatively nothing about what might happen in this category yet. Upward movement for mother!'s Javier Bardem, Call Me By Your Name's Michael Stuhlbarg, and Dunkirk star Fionn Whitehead who will next be seen in a big role opposite Emma Thompson in The Children Act. 

Podcast: Dunkirk and Spider-Man Homecoming

In this episode Nathaniel, Joe and Nick talk about the latest superhero movie (Spider-Man Homecoming) and the latest heroic movie without super powers (Dunkirk). Plus Nick has very exciting upcoming Film Comment issue news.

Index (42 minutes)
00:01 Nick talked to Jane Campion, omg!
03:15 Spider-Man Homecoming, Tom Holland, Marisa Tomei, and a brief sidebar to Avengers: Age of Ultron
13:33 Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan's recurring obsessions, and brief tangents to Detroit and The Beguiled

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Related Posts
• Revenge of the Twinks
• Review Spider-Man Homecoming
• Previous Podcast

Dunkirk and Spidey

Actress Chart Updates: Kate Winslet is Buzzing

Wonder Wheel continues to gather quite a lot of pre-release hype. It's opening quite late for a Woody Allen picture on December 1st. If you look at the history of his releases they've been summer counter-programming for a very long time now. Midnight in Paris (2011) and Blue Jasmine (2013) have been his biggest Oscar and commercial successes since the 1990s and they both opened in the summer. You have to go all the way back to Match Point (2005) to find a successful December release for the annual Woody Allens and that one came up short of expectations on Oscar nomination morning (1 nomination) despite a lot of pre-release critical buzz.

But Amazon Studios, who plan to distribute Wonder Wheel themselves (a first for them), seem to have an eye on Oscar. Perhaps they've bought into the common (and very wrong) belief that you have to be a December release to catch Oscar's eye? Good luck to them and we hope the movie is as good as we're hearing!

Consider this high praise from Kent Jones who selected the movie to close the New York Film Festival in October:

I’m not quite sure what I expected when I sat down to watch Wonder Wheel, but when the lights came up I was speechless. There are elements in the film that will certainly be familiar to anyone who knows Woody Allen’s work, but here he holds them up to a completely new light. I mean that literally and figuratively, because Allen and Vittorio Storaro use light and color in a way that is stunning in and of itself but also integral to the mounting emotional power of the film. And at the center of it all is Kate Winslet’s absolutely remarkable performance—precious few actors are that talented, or fearless.

Now, it's important to note that Kent Jones is the Festival Director and thus has an obligation to promote his festival but still... wouldn't it be wondrous to see Kate rise again after the delicious hint of her full throttle starpower returning via The Dressmaker last year?

UPDATED OSCAR CHARTS
Best Actress - Kate, Emma, and Meryl on the rise
Best Supporting Actress - Holly Hunter securely up top... for now
Foreign Film Chart 1 - Afghanistan to Ethiopia speculation