The Furniture: Brooklyn and Carol's Dramatically Different Department Stores

It's our new Production Design series, "The Furniture." Daniel Walber kicked things off last week with the bedroom in The Exorcist. Now a different era and public spaces - Editor

Thanks to Brooklyn and Carol, 2015 was a banner year for the 1950s department store. Both Eilis and Therese spend a fair amount of time as New York City shopgirls, selling to housewives and dealing with stern floor managers. Yet, despite the ostensibly common setting, Brooklyn's Bartocci's and Carol's Frankenberg's could not be more different.

The staff areas are a good place to start. Bartocci’s has a simple enough space for its employees, with open coat lockers to keep their belongings. It’s not beautiful, but the wood lends it a cozy quality. Production designer François Séguin (The Red Violin) and art directors Irene O’Brien (This Must Be the Place) and Robert Parle (Riddick) have a subtle, but assured touch. [More...]

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The One Thought I Had While Staring At The Nice Guys Poster

Manuel here. I was making my way through recent casting news, and trailers dropped, and posters revealed to see what I should share with you all this morning when I found the new poster for the Russell Crowe/Ryan Gosling buddy action comedy The Nice Guys and well… I was hypnotized by one specific detail about it.

Did you spot it? I can’t unsee it and I keep going back and forth on whether it’s an intentional flourish on the part of the marketing team (if so, thank you Concept Arts, you know your Gosling audience well!) or just an inadvertent consequence of the period-appropriate attire the Shane Black flick is going for (it would also mesh well with the cheeky tone of the film's very funny trailer). Either way, I had to open it up to the TFE readership at large: will you be watching the film to see if this VPL is a key plot point in the film?

Oh, yeah, I guess we should talk more about the film's plot which pairs a bumbling private eye (Gosling) with a no-nonsense er, "enforcer" (Crowe) to solve a missing person's case (Kim Bassinger's daughter in the film; oh, did I bury the lede that Bassinger is in this? Wait til you hear Matt Bomer is in it too!). The film definitely feels well within the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wheelhouse but that's not a complaint since I very much enjoyed that 2005 film which, we have to admit, paved the way for the Robert Downey Jr. renaissance we all thought might never come to pass. Pre-Iron Man RDJ—remember that? Seems like a lifetime ago. And yes, that's also a reminder that Black is fresh off directing Iron Man 3 which makes his return to more off-kilter filmmaking a welcome change (oftentimes you just lose directors to the sequel/blockbuster-making machine, you know?)

Feel free to watch the trailer and let us know which way you’re leaning.

Uncomfortably Meta Movie Still

What did you see this weekend?

Moviegoers are officially tired of The Divergent Series as its third installment was off 44% from the previous film. And they've still got one film to go! Studios will soon (hopefully) realize that not every book adaptation deserves multiple movies. Damn you Hunger Games & Hobbit & everything else that encouraged this awful trend of greed over storytelling purity; plodding along when you should set hearts racing is an anti-audience move. Zootopia and Deadpool continue to be huge hits. In fun news, Sally Field's vehicle Hello My Name is Doris got within a ferry ride's distance of the top ten with a million dollar weekend even though it's only on 128 screens. Well done, Sally! 

WIDE RELEASES
01 Zootopia $38 (cum. $201.8)
02 The Divergent Series: Allegiant $29  NEW 
03 Miracles From Heaven $15  NEW 
04 10 Cloverfield Lane $12.5  (cum. $45.1)
05 Deadpool $8 (cum. $340.9) Reviewish

LIMITED RELEASES
less than 800 screens excluding previously wide
01 Hello My Name is Doris $1 (cum. $1.1) 128 screens Review 
02 Kapoor & Sons - Since 1921 $.9 NEW 143 screens
03 Anomalisa $.7 (cum. $3.4) 573 screens
04 The Lady in the Van $.4 (cum. $8.7) 301 screens Review
05 The Other Side of the Door $.1 (cum. $2.7) 227 screens 

OTHER PICTURES
The Bronze, a foul mouthed comedy about Olympic medalists, waited over a year past its buzzy Sundance launch to arrive in theaters and did so (on over 1000 screens) with almost no promotion. I didn't even realize it was opening until I was looking up movie times for something else and I pay attention to release dates. The result was an absolutely bleak $361 per screen average, which is bound to be the worst of the year for a wide release.  

In extremely limited release Midnight Special opened at 5 locations with a strong $184,000 which bodes well for its future. Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Days (interviewed) earned $27,000 on 3 screens, Argentina's Oscar submission from 2015 El Clan (Nathaniel's review) finally opened to $12,500 on 3 screens and Krisha (Daniel's review) opened to $10,250 on 2 screens.

What did you see this weekend?

Oscar Whisperer: Have we seen any nominees yet?

Though we all know that the bulk of Oscar nominations come from the last quarter of each and every year, have we seen any awards players yet? Here's a tricky thing about punditry -- if you start too early people say you're part of the problem in "narrowing" the field but if you don't start early how are you going to be of service in keeping the entire year in play and offering perspective on which film should be watched so that it's not all about "cramming" at the end of the year which leads to all that last quarter focus. So we start early.  Here are first quarter possibilities if the Academy has longer memories than usual this year and if they surprisingly generate excitement later in the year by way of top ten lists or second wave releases (Bluray, streamin, etc...)

January
Kung Fu Panda 3 (Animated Feature)
Both of the previous films about the round warrior "Po" (Jack Black) were nominated for Best Animated Feature. Will Dreamworks go 3 for 3 with this series? The reviews are right in line with those of the previous films but franchises often outstay their welcome when it comes to "Best of Year" accolades.

The costumes in Hail Caesar (courtesy of Mary Zophres) are great fun

February
Deadpool (Visual FX, Makeup and Hairstyling)
Hail Caesar! (Original Song "No Dames" and Any Category, really) 
The WWitch (Sound, Supporting, and Any Category, really) 

Deadpool will surely surface for the Saturn Awards but good luck with the standard awards bodies considering that superhero films don't fare well even in VFX nominations... and Deadpool is a bit bargain bin aesthetically, however popular it may be with audiences.  An extreme longshot but it will surely attempt Oscar recognition in both VFX and Makeup bakeoffs.

As for Hail, Caesar! and The VVitch, they're the most prestigious of the year's mainstream releases thus far by way of being from beloved filmmakers or inspiring critical fervor, respectively. But will any voters remember them or take them seriously enough given traditional resistance to comedy and horror? The first step in taking any film seriously is to actually watch it; conscientous voters should watch these two films. 

March
April and the Extraordinary World (Animated Feature)
Batman v Superman (Visual FX)
Krisha (Best Actress)
Zootopia (Animated Feature) 
Hello My Name is Doris (Best Actress) 

Zootopia is by far your best bet for early bird Oscar glory given the outstanding reviews and audience love and Disney being a power player in the animated feature category. Can Sally Field's Doris generate good Golden Globe will? Will Krisha develop a following (it won the Cassavettes at the Spirit Awards for 2015 but the Spirit Awards have different eligibility rules -- festival showings sometimes count for them).

Of the two attempts at reviving the Superman franchise (Superman Returns in 2006 and Man of Steel in 2013) only Returns won Oscar favor (Visual FX nomination). Will Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice be ignored or embraced for its effects? It all depends on its future competition but it's worth noting that, for whatever reason, Batman is the favorite superhero of groups that traditionally resist superheroes. Batman films have won 3 Oscars from 15 nominations. 

What will you hope for or count on from the first quarter?