What did you see this weekend?

In a relatively uneventful weekend save for a great second weekend for Zootopia, falling only 33% the highest per screen averages went to two films starring 60something women -- Helen Mirren in Eye in the Sky and Sally Field in Hello My Name is Doris. How about that? I mean, they're only at a handful of screens in NY and LA but perhaps they'll have decent futures.

What did you see this weekend?  

WIDE RELEASES
01 Zootopia $50 (cum. $142.6)
02 10 Cloverfield Lane $25.2  NEW 
03 Deadpool $10.8 (cum. $328) Reviewish
04 London Has Fallen $10.6  (cum. $38.8)
05 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot $4.6 (cum. $14.5) Review
06 The Perfect Match $4.1  NEW
07 The Young Messiah $3.4  NEW
08 The Brothers Grimsby $3.1 NEW
09 Gods of Egypt $2.5 (cum. $27.3) Review
10 Risen $2.2 (cum. $32.3)

LIMITED RELEASES
less than 800 screens excluding previously wide
01 The Lady in the Van $.5 (cum. $8) 363 screens Review
02 The Other Side of the Door $.5 (cum. $2.1) 585 screens
03 Embrace of the Serpent $.1 (cum. $.5) 75 screens Interview, Review
04 Where to Invade Next $.1 (cum. $3.2) 151 screens Review & 2nd Opinion 
05 The Mermaid $.1 (cum. $2.9) 82 screens
06 Eye in the Sky $.1 5 screens  NEW 
07 Knight of Cups $.09 (cum. $.1) 36 screens Reviewish
08 Hello, My Name is Doris $.08 4 screens  NEW Review
09 Son of Saul $.07 (cum. $1.6) 105 screens Interview, Review
10 45 Years $.06 (cum. $4.0) 70 screens 

Review: Hello, My Name is Doris

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

In a perfect world we would always have room for our Best Actresses as they age but in the world we actually live in only British Dames and Meryl Streep are allowed to do that. And Tilda Swinton but she lives inside her own space and time continuum. The expiration date on female movie stars — their “last f***able day” (thank you Amy Schumer) — before they disappear into thankless supporting roles used to be 40 and now it’s thankfully extended until about 50. But at some point in most star careers the lead roles all too abruptly stop.

That’s why it was a joy last summer to see Lily Tomlin ace a rare film-carrying job in Grandma and why it’s nice to have a spiritual sequel just months later in Hello My Name is Doris. The two films are nothing alike but for their creative foundation

They’re both star vehicles for a senior citizen legend carefully crafted entirely around her specific gifts. Which is to say that with Grandma we got an acerbic feminist politically savvy LGBT comedy and with Hello My Name is Doris we get a cutesy boy-crazy romantic dramedy because Lily Tomlin and Sally Field are very different performers. [more...]

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Don't be sad, James!

Atonement (2007) is coming to Hit Me With Your Best Shot this Tuesday (March 15th). Join us won't you? Watch the movie on Netflix. Pick a shot. Post it to your social media! It's that easy. We'll link up if you let us know and see what everyone picked. 

10 Linksfield Lane

Playbill Danny Boyle may direct the film version of the Broadway musical Miss Saigon
First Impressions a deep dive revisit of Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring "Sofia Coppola is a great filmmaker, in every way the equal of anyone of her generation"
Daily News sad story about the disappearance of Richard Simmons. Fans think he's being controlled and held in his mansion against his will like the second half of the Love & Mercy plot

Film Doctor "the pleasure of withholding information" on 10 Cloverfield Lane
Awards Daily have you watched the trailer for A Hologram for the King? How will it adapt the book?
AV Club thinks Zootopia is the inversion of Wreck It Ralph. Spoilers
EW Paramount has dumped The Little Prince animated movie just a week before its intended release. What is going on with that picture?
YouTube Anna Kendrick and Stephen Colbert are huge Stephen Sondheim fans
E! Adorable photo of the Malia and Sasha Obama w/ Ryan Reynolds
Vogue Lourdes Leon (aka Spawn of Madonna) makes her modelling debut for Stella McCartney

Showtune to go
It's Liza Minelli's birthday. Do your best Fosse in her honor... 

Mercedes McCambridge: Giant (1956)

Our second chapter of the Centennial Mercedes McCambridge celebration is also the second time Oscar celebrated her. She received her second and final nomination in Best Supporting Actress for Giant, a massive epic about social discrimination affecting a wealthy Texas ranching family. Here she's playing opposite massive stars Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean (his final performance), but McCambridge still lingers over the film after her staunch matriarch Luz Benedict departs. She has perhaps only twenty minutes of screentime at the start of the film's sprawling length, it's a brief performance that the actress makes both broad and oddly complete.

You might call her performance wooden or inexpressive if you've never experienced this kind of woman in real life. The stoic inexpressiveness and static undercurrent of rage is eerily familiar if you're accustomed to this brand of southern woman, one who has been toughened up by a man's world and educated to hate. McCambridge respects the deliberate unknowability with which Luz wants to greet the world - this is a woman who has thrived on not letting anyone in to subvert her authority. She wears Luz's hatred (and self hatred?) like an impenetrable shield of armor, as her eyes offer the only suggestion of more brewing underneath the facade. More...

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