What did you see this week?

Though theaters in LA and NYC never reopened, in places they did many are now closing again due to skyrocketing COVID rates. Sigh. This pandemic will be with us until there's a vaccine and not a day sooner because 40% of the country is insane and the GOP have politicized basic decency and believing in science as into bad things. WEAR A F'IN MASK. Jesus. Anyway. I personally had a heavy viewing week taking in The Life Ahead, Sound of Metal, First Cow, Mulan, The White Tiger, Pieces of a Woman, and Hillbilly Elegy. More on most of those soon.

On the internet, The Life Ahead hit Netflix and I Am Greta arrived on Hulu. Meanwhile in limited theatrical release The Climb and Ammonite opened and earned $103 and $85k respectively.  What did you see this week?

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (WIDE... SUCH AS IT IS THESE DAYS)

1. Freaky *new* (serial killer comedy) $3.7 million
2. Let Him Go (Diane Lane and Kevin Costner thriller) $1.8 (cum. $6.8)
3. The War with Grandpa (Robert DeNiro comedy) $1.3 (cum. $15.2)
4. Come Play (horror)  $1.1 (cum. $7.3) 
5. Honest Thief (Liam Neeson action) $800k (cum. $12.3)
6. Tenet (Christopher Nolan sci-fi) $735k (cum. $56.3)

100th Anniversary: "Leaves from Satan's Book"

by Cláudio Alves

Carl Theodor Dreyer is one of my favorite filmmakers. I'll never forget the first time I watched The Passion of Joan of Arc on the big screen and was transported, how experiencing Vampyr felt like witnessing a projected nightmare, the ecstasy of Ordet's ending or Gertrud's stern ruminations on love. It's to my great shame that I'm not familiar with the Danish director's early works, having mostly ignored them until now. The centennial of Dreyer's second feature, Leaves from Satan's Book, makes this a great time to start correcting these cinephilic lacunas…

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How Had I Never Seen, 1987 Special: ROBOCOP

By Lynn Lee (with special guest Jeff Chen)

Until recently, I’d never seen RoboCop, Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 sci-fi classic about a viciously murdered cop who’s resurrected as a cyborg supercop.  I was too young to see it when it first came out and didn’t get around to it when I was older, partly because I’d heard it was gruesomely violent.  However, I learned it had passionate fans that included some very astute critics.  Among them is Jeff Chen, former writer for ReelTalk Movie Reviews and a fellow alum of the dearly departed online critics’ group Cinemarati (through which I met both him and TFE’s very own Nathaniel), who ranks RoboCop as his favorite movie.  As part of TFE’s 1987 retrospective, I finally saw RoboCop and invited Jeff to discuss my reactions as a first-time viewer and how the movie has remained in our cultural consciousness for over 30 years.

JEFF: RoboCop is indeed my favorite movie.  A lot of that has to do with timing.  I was already an avid movie watcher as a teenager, but I’d been mostly watching PG or (the new, at the time) PG-13 movies.  I was 15 when I went to my best friend’s house and he put on a VHS copy of RoboCop.  And I was traumatized and exhilarated...

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1987: Remembering "Maurice"

by Cláudio Alves

Director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant met in 1959, and quickly started a romantic and professional partnership. It lasted for 44 years until Merchant's death. Along with screenwriter, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, they made a name for themselves with the production of prestigious literary adaptations. Their first brushes with success came in the late 70s and early 80s, but it was in 1985 and 1986 that their lives changed. A Room With a View, their first E.M. Forster adaptation was a huge hit, both with critics and audiences. The picture even won three Oscars, including for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Following such a triumph, one would expect Merchant & Ivory to bask in their glory, perchance repeating the formula of their success. They did end up adapting another of Forster's works, though they chose what, at the time, was the author's least known and least respected book. The result of this unexpected turn was one of the pair's most personal pictures. In 1987, the movie was received with lukewarm enthusiasm, but, as far as I'm concerned, Maurice is one of their very best efforts…

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"Hello, it's me ♫ ♬ I was wondering if after all this showbiz history..."

7 random things that happened on this day (Nov 14th) in showbiz history

1941 Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion premieres. It reaps three Oscar nominations (including Best Picture) winning Best Actress for Joan Fontaine. (Olivia de Havilland was NOT pleased that her baby sister beat her to an Oscar... so she won two of them)

Network, Hoosiers, Adele, and more after the jump...

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