The Furniture: The Forest and "The Force Awakens"

"The Furniture" is our new design series. Here's Daniel...

Once upon a time, Hollywood movie magic looked a bit different. In this age of CGI, with some blockbusters relying so heavily on digital effects that they border on fully animated features, it’s easy to forget how science fiction and fantasy once looked. This is why the throwback technical elements in Star Wars: The Force Awakens are so exciting to behold.

One could go on for quite some time about all these details, many of which come up in the extensive special features included on the Blu-ray. One production design revelation in particular that's worth celebrating is that the final fight scene between Kylo Ren and Rey, set in a dark and snowy forest, was shot on a set.

Initially, a location shoot was considered. Such a choice worked wonders for the forest sequence in House of Flying Daggers (2004) , certainly. Yet, due to the fact that the nighttime setting would severely restrict the schedule, the production design team led by Rick Carter and Darren Gilford began workshopping a solution [More...]

Click to read more ...

Everybody Wants Some!! Turns The Baseball Jersey Inside Out

Eric previously argued against Everybody Wants Some!! right here. Here's Daniel Crooke with a second opinion....

Nobody lives in the moment like Richard Linklater. Which is remarkable, considering his canny cinematic ability to lounge with a certain slice of society, simultaneously celebrate and circumvent the trappings of self-importance, and extrapolate no less than what one might call the meaning of life. This is not to say that Linklater offers any absolute definitions – or that he’s a sage Second Coming who has all of them – but that he stands alone when it comes to unassumingly examining issues of identity, socialization, and finding the place where one fits in the world. His latest film Everybody Wants Some!! is no exception; in fact, by isolating one group of folks oft regarded as empty-headed and disposable – that of the jock, the bro, whatever you call them when their glistening pecs aren’t in your way – Linklater challenges the viewer to costume change their own preconceptions along with his ensemble as they amble their way through myriad modes of social circles and shooting the shit.

Now, on its face, one can certainly see why these bong-hit beats would preclude certain audience members from even engaging with the characters onscreen, to miss the forest for the trees. Linklater’s films often work as living, breathing Rorschach tests where you only see what you want to see but the marrow of Everybody Wants Some!! is found in the Magic Eye of it all. Blur the edges of the frame. Blend the bro code, social structures, and pronounced personal differences from the brain’s left side and the spontaneous soul-searching, open-ended quests across campus, and embracing of social overlaps from the right and, in the middle, you’ll find what the film’s really about. More after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Box Office: Melissa Shows Batman Who is 'Boss' (and Other Female Hit Stories)

To keep ourselves entertained, we like to spin the box office charts so it's not just "copy/paste" from week to week. So let's look at the box office top ten through the lens of current movies with female leads. Melissa McCarthy (in a photo finish for #1 with superheroes) and Helen Mirren keep proving their box office consistency over and over again, don't they? We're also happy to see Sally Field doing so well in what could have been a blink and you'll miss it VOD movie. Field's already outperformed last year's senior female sleeper indie hits Grandma and I'll See You In My Dreams.

But the 10 female names below make up such an odd odd sorority you must admit...

TOP TEN FEMALE LEAD MOVIES THIS WEEKEND
01 The Boss (Melissa McCarthy) $23.4 NEW Melissa McCarthy
03 Zootopia (Ginnifer Goodwin) $14.3 (cum. $296) 
04 My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (Nia Vardalos) $6.4 (cum. $46.7)
06 Miracles From Heaven (Jennifer Garner) $4.8 (cum. $53.8)
07 Gods Not Dead 2 (Melissa Joan Hart) $ 4.3(cum. $14.1) 
08 Divergent: Allegiant (Shailene Woodley) $3.6 (cum. $61.8) 
09 10 Cloverfield Lane (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) $3  (cum. $67.9)
10 Eye in the Sky (Helen Mirren) $2.8 (cum. $10.4) 
13 Hello My Name is Doris (Sally Field) $1.6  (cum. $9.3) 
21 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Tina Fey) $.2 (cum. $22.7) 

As for the films we aren't including in this spun chart, Batman v Superman: Birth of Manic Depressive Anti-Heroes  at #2 is still a ginormous money-devourer even if with $296.6 domestically and $780 globally it's underperforming given it's behemoth budget and its launch pad to dozens of other proposed movies (there's already a huge crack in the foundation? Yikes). Meanwhile the latest stop on Jake Gyllenhaal's 'look what i can do on screen -- anything!' tour flopped coming in 15th for the weekend atnearly 900 screens. While it's true that Jake runs circles around his movie Demolition the fact that his starpower alone couldn't wallop what looks like the most unpleasant movie-watching experience of all time (Hardcore Henry took $5 million finishing at #5 for the week) is just f***in' depressing.

This is why we can't have nice things.

tfw you won the internet pic.twitter.com/BuOykvPiyB

— JASON (metalmeatwad) (@MichaelNotCera) April 7, 2016

Anyway -- What did you see this weekend?
I mean, other than WITNESS (1985) on Netflix which you surely watched for Tuesday Night's Best Shot. (Can't wait for this one since that movie is such a beauty.) I personally couldn't take in any movies people have heard of because I'm cramming for my upcoming "New Directors" jury duty at the Nashville International Film Festival which kicks off this weekend.

Beauty Break: Happy National Siblings Day!

Let's hear it for siblings, fictional and otherwise! Today is National Siblings Day so I dedicate this to my sister and brothers even though they're not movie people and won't read this. But let's look at beautiful photos of three of our favorite sets of screen siblings. Starting with the most successful of all...

Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Review: Melissa McCarthy in "The Boss"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Melissa McCarthy cuts an imposing figure in her first scene in The Boss and I’m not talking about her plus size physique though we’ll get there in a minute. In the new comedy she’s Michelle Darnell, a mega-successful businesswoman (details are fuzzy on what kind) descending into a stadium on a giant faux phoenix that’s shooting off fireworks. The sound mix is as uniformly deafening as that image is unsubtle so you can’t make out a single word of the rapping, mob chanting, pandemonium that follows. This should be annoying but it comes as a weird relief in this relentlessly politicking season of pandering narcissistic windbags wearing saggy human costumes on TV every night. It’s better to close your ears and laugh at the inanity of the spectacle than really contemplate what they’re saying and what their cults are cheering about; that way lies nihilistic depression about the state of the world and we’re here to laugh, damnit, this being a Melissa McCarthy movie. (In short: I was in the right mood to see this movie. And that often matters with comedy.)

Shortly after that insane entrance, which presents Darnell as a Susan Powter style self-help guru (for economics), the movie recasts her as a less specific cutthroat executive who buys and sells companies in the blink of an eye — and buys and sells out people with equally swift mercilessness.  [More...]

Click to read more ...