What did you see over the weekend?

By Ben Miller

For the second straight week, the story of the North American box office is about failure instead of success.  While horror film Smile captured the top spot for the second straight week, David O. Russell's star-studded Amsterdam managed only $6.4 million on a reported $80 budget. Many are blaming the poor reception from critics and audiences (33% on Rotten Tomatoes, a measly B CinemaScore), but this feels like Russell's indiscretions coming back to bite him.  Meanwhile, Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, the first kid-focused film released in months, made for a solid 2nd-place showing.  

Holiday Weekend Box Office (estimates... not every film has reported yet) October 7th-10th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended links if we've written about it
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
SMILE	TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

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The Fault in Our 'TÁR'

by Nathaniel R

Cate Blanchett as "TÁR" © Focus Features

The world famous conductor Lydia Tár is breathing strangely in the wings. As she inhales and exhales forcefully with tiny staccato bursts of her facial muscles, the image of a rock star hopping in place, self-hyping before their concert is conjured. Will Tár's elite audience devolve into a hysterical screaming teenager at the first sight of her?

Conductor as rock star? It's a rare and incredulous notion. Gone are the days of monoculture when a "Maestro" like Leonard Bernstein (emphatically name checked) could become a household name. But in Todd Field's TÁR we believe it, surely in part because one of the most famous movie stars in the world is playing her. In the year of our lord 2022, Cate Blanchett needs no introduction; Lydia Tár is a different story, and her introduction -- an exhausting recitation of her many diverse accomplishments as she turns 50 -- is a doozy...

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Review: "Piggy" is a visceral nightmare

by Cláudio Alves

© Magnet Releasing

Somewhere in the Spanish countryside, in a small town of Extremadura, Sara lives the kind of earthly hell familiar to many of those who grew up as fat teens. Judgment comes from every direction, shame inflicted upon her until it curdles the spirit. It's not just strangers that hurt, for a casual remark from one's mother can be so lacerating it leaves a scar. Still, there's nothing worse for Sara than her peers, cruel kids who couch their hatred in vacuous assertions that they mean well, that it's for her own good. A trip to the pool for Sara becomes another opportunity for torment at the hands of mean girls, including former friends.

Nearly drowned, her clothes stolen, a humiliated Sara walks home half-naked under the summer sun. It's then that a mysterious van appears, looming ominous in her path. Inside, the girl's tormentors lay powerless, victimizers turned victims at the hands of a kidnapper cum killer. Sara sees it all, the man in charge sees her, and they both do nothing – the van drives away…

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Semi-Contrarian Takes on 'Alcarras', 'Bones and All', and 'Triangle of Sadness'

by Nathaniel R

BONES AND ALL © United Artists Releasing

Hello strangers. Yours truly has been moving apartments for the past few days hence the radio silence. But HQ (aka the desktop computer) is now plugged in, wifi connected, and ready to be of use again if the rest of me can similarly recharge. When was the last time you moved? It's a bitch, right? Bone tired and the whole body aches from packing and box lifting and such. Can't wait to talk about The Fabelmans and TÁR but first some quick takes on recent NYFF screenings the last of which (Triangle of Sadness) is just fabulous and now in theaters. Go see it!

BONES AND ALL
The latest flick from Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) is an interesting experiment in fusing tender romantic drama with sickening gore...

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NYFF: The elegiac 'Alcarràs' mourns the moment at hand

by Jason Adams

I never got to see my grandfather’s farm. The land was sold off and the barns and the stables were all torn down before I was born, all so a series of electricity transmission towers could be built across the middle of it. When I was a little kid my father and I would visit my grandparents small home perched astride where the farm used to be and my father would walk me out and point up at the towers in a field out behind their house, telling me how those towers stretched across the entire state. He always seemed proud, strangely in awe of them, as if those were our inheritance somehow. And I couldn’t stop thinking about those towers while watching Carla Simón’s melancholy and moving Alcarràs at NYFF this week. 

This film, about peach farmers on the other side of the globe spending one last summer on the precipice of losing their home, land, and farm, seemed to be offering genuine insight into my own family and history...

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