Weekend Box Office: New Year, New Highs

By Ben Miller

In a refreshing change of pace, the long holiday weekend box office was full of good news!  Pretty much every film was up following that storm-stifling Christmas weekend.  Nothing new debuted in wide release, so Avatar: The Way of Water was able to actually increase from the week before.  James Cameron's movies typically have remarkable legs.  Its $67.4 million haul was good enough to place it as the third best third weekend of all-time, behind the film's predecessor and The Force Awakens.  Very good company to be in, box office-wise.  But it wasn't just Avatar.  Of the top 16 films at the box office, 13 increased from the week before!

Weekend Box Office (actuals) Dec 30th-January 2nd 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER	THE WHALE
1 ★ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER $67.4 (cum. $425.5) 4202 screens	1  🔺 THE WHALE $1.3 (cum. $5.8) 623 screens

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Review: Say hello to 'M3GAN' our new favorite Horror Princess

by Jason Adams

If you look at the episodes of Shudder’s documentary series “Behind the Monsters” – each of which was devoted to its own Horror Icon – one thing became painfully clear right up front: Where the hell are our female horror icons? I don’t mean the survivors – we all know our Final Girls, they are legion. I mean the villains. Where is our Jasine Voorhees? Our Frederica Krueger? Why does nothing happen if I say “Candygal” five times in the mirror??? 

Well the past couple of years have finally begun to right that gendered wrong, bringing us the return of Isabella Fuhrman’s Esther in her Orphan franchise (hopefully TBC, as the second film was a total hoot) as well as Mia Goth’s ax-welding and Oscar-worthy turn in Pearl (in both the titular prequel as well as X). Finally some iconic Halloween costumes for the Lizzie Borden lovers among us! And now this weekend makes for three with M3GAN, director Gerard Johnstone’s riotously entertaining new slasher, which merges Chucky with Mean Girls to gift us with an insta-icon for the horror ages.

M3GAN stands for “Model 3 Generative Android”... 

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Baker's Dozen: Best Screen Animals of 2022

by Nathaniel R

One of the underdiscussed joys of cinema, at least if you're an animal lover, are the non-human creatures that swim, gallop, slither, hop, and play across the screens. Debates continue about the use of non-human actors onscreen, but animal characters can be as memorable as their human scene partners whether they're computer generated, stop motion puppets, or furry or feathered actors. 2022's cinema gave us the full menagerie. Among the most memorable "real" animals, for better and worse, were Empire of Light's wounded pigeon, A Man Called Otto's feral yet easily domesticated cat, Everything Everywhere All At Once's weaponized pom, the homicidal chimp and lion of Nope and Beast, respectively, and Babylon's diarrhetic elephant. If you prefer fantastical beasties, the titular animated characters from The Sea Beast, My Father's Dragon, and DC League of Super Pets had their charms while "Socks" the robot cat of Lightyear was that misjudged film's MVP.

Speaking of fantastic, the following list is dedicated to Meilin in Turning Red for embracing her inner red panda, even if she isn't technically eligible being an all-too relatable teenage human girl person... 

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Happy New Year! Here's to 2023

As you may have gleaned these past several months, 2022 was a very difficult year for your host here. I was out of comission a few times. Feeling hopeful about 2023, though, so to those of you who are still with us, just know that I appreciate you now more than ever. I'm still trying to climb back onto this long running horse. Considered putting this beautiful beast out to pasture but reconsidered. Would rather go out with a big win than a what-just-happened? disappointing finish. Should we make like Cher and announce a Farewell Tour... that goes on indefinitely? Anyway, the point is: onward. The year is young. Mere hours young!

Coming in January: The Oscar nominations and all the stuff that comes with that, "Split Decisions" where the team debates movies they disagree on, more Year in Review lists plus nominations for the annual Film Bitch Awards. And the return of the Smackdown.

P.S. Can you think of any movies with great New Year's Eve scenes aside from When Harry Met Sally? 

Dozen Best Movie Posters of 2022

Our "Year in Review" continues. Let the List-Mania commence... 

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by Nathaniel R

Movie posters are not what they used to be. This is not an aesthetic  "everything was better in the past" complaint but a fact; they aren't as present an advertising force as they were when one tall rectangular image and tagline would do the bulk of the advertising work to define a film. Now that work is dispersed in multiple shapes and images and visual modes, the old school poster included. Posters aren't quite a lost art but they are in Big Hollywood which prefers to make every poster a hideous inhuman collage of movie stars, think Frankenstein's Monster if Dr Frankenstein, had eschewed body parts and just used hundreds of faces in mismatched sizes to build his undead "man".

But enough complaints. Let's celebrate the posters that did right by their movies this year...

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