Weekend Box Office: Magic Mike and James Cameron

By Ben Miller

Super Bowl weekend has never been a hotbed of film dollars, and this weekend was no different.  Magic Mike's Last Dance, the third and final entry in Steven Soderbergh's male stripper series, won the weekend with a sub-$10 million opening.  That doesn't happen very often in the world of big budgets.  In fact, in the 21st century (excluding COVID openings), only Bangkok Dangerous and Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star had a worse opening and still managed to top their weekends.  That being said, the film only opened on 1,500 screens, so the per-screen average was pretty solid.  Second and third both belonged to director James Cameron.  Avatar: The Way of Water continues to work its way up all-time charts, but the re-release of Cameron's 1997 Oscar-winner Titanic added a respectable total for a 25-year-old film.

Weekend Box Office (actuals) Feb 10th-12th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended /  = Oscar Nominated
WIDE (Over 800 Screens)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
MAGIC MIKE'S LAST DANCE	CONSECRATION
1 🔺 MAGIC MIKE'S LAST DANCE $8.3 *NEW* 1,500 screeens	1 PATHAAN $976k (cum. $15.9) 492 screens
2 ★ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER $7.2 (cum. $647.2) 3,065 screens	2  🔺 CONSECRATION $329k *NEW* 762 screens

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'The Beasts' wins big at the Goyas

by Nathaniel R

THE BEASTS © Greenwich Entertainment

Spain's annual Goya Awards, now in their 37th year,  were held this weekend in Seville. Rodrigo Soroyen's thriller The Beasts, about a middle aged French couple who move to rural Spain and are greeted with surprising hostility by neighbors won big. It took nine prizes from its 17 nominations. (Greenwich Entertainment has distribution rights in the US but no word yet on when it's coming out.) If the name Rodrigo Soroyen sounds familiar to you, that's because he was an Oscar nominee not too long ago with the live-action short Madres (2018)...

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Is "Elvis" going to win the Makeup and Hair Oscar?

by Nathaniel R

Austin & Elvis. Image via YouTube comparison

The Makeup and Hair Stylist Guild (MUAHS) gives out prizes in multiple categories and this weekend at their ceremony three Oscar-nominated films in the Makeup category emerged as winners: Black Panther Wakanda Forever, The Whale, and Elvis.

 Only one of them can win at the Oscars. So which might it be? The last five Oscar winners  Darkest Hour, Vice, Bombshell, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and The Eyes of Tammy Faye only have have one thing in common: they all featured at least one famous actor, sometimes multiple famous actors, remade to look like another famous person via prosthetics. This bodes well for Elvis but it's not over till it's over and it has at least one formidable competitor, probably two. The MUAHS awards ceremony and complete list of winners is after the jump...

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MCU Catch-Up: ‘Ant-Man’ and ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’

By Abe Friedtanzer

I see a lot of movies. Still, I sometimes miss big releases if a) I don’t see the film either at a press screening or right when comes out and b) it’s not an awards contender. With the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there’s so much to keep up with. At a certain point, there are some entries that I just never get around to seeing. Among the few I was missing up until recently were Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp, the lead-ups to the forthcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Thanks to a long flight last week and two Disney+ downloads ahead of time, I’m now caught up with everyone’s favorite shrinking hero…

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Best Director Closet Picks... and Polls!

by Nathaniel R

The Oscar charts are complete for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplays with "who should win" polls on each page. So vote for your favs daily!  Each page also has trivia and factoids and listicles for your entertainment. For the first time in Oscar's 95 year history Director and Original Screenplay are an exact match and each of the directors also wrote or co-wrote the screenplays. We still can't get over that. Not just in 'how did it happen' but also in 'how did it never happen before?'. Do we just have more multi-hyphenates than we used to in Hollywood? (Probably) Or was it just a matter of the unique field of contenders this year? (Also possible)

Speaking of writer/directors. Today, February 10th, is Dan Kwan's 35th birthday and he has a lot to celebrate this year with 3 Oscar nominations for his 3rd feature Everything Everywhere All At Once. Remember his dance moves in "Turn Down For What?"  Speaking of "Daniels"... what did you think of their Criterion Closet visit?