Box Office: The Accountant and Certain Women

Though awards season has started outside of movie theaters it definitely hasn't started within them (a flaw of the system as we continuously bemoan) and The Birth of a Nation took another campaign hit this weekend dropping a rough 61% in its second weekend while its competition last weekend dimmed by only 38 to 50% in round two. This week was a battle between two films from reliably bankable stars without awards gold on their mind -- Kevin Hart's Kevin Hart: What Now? and Ben Affleck in the thriller The Accountant. The latter surprised by slightly outperforming the successful opening weekends of both Argo and The Town despite having nothing like their enthusiastic reviews. 

TOP TEN WIDE
01 The Accountant $24.7 NEW 
02 Kevin Hart: What Now? $11.9 NEW
03 The Girl on the Train $11.9 (cum. $46.5) Review
04 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children $8.9 (cum. $65.8)
05 Deepwater Horizon $6.3 (cum. $49.3) 
06 Storks $5.6 (cum. $59.1)
07 The Magnificent Seven $5.2 (cum. $84.8) Review
08 Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life $4.2 (cum. $13.7)
09 Sully $2.7 (cum. $118.3) Review
10 Birth of a Nation $2.7 (cum. $12.2) More

TOP TEN LIMITED
01 Priceless $703K NEW 
02 Desierto $450K NEW Mexico's Oscar Submission
03 Denial $398K (cum. $839K) Review
04 A Man Called Ove $205K (cum. $436K) Sweden's Oscar Submission
05 The Dressmaker $171K (cum. $1.3) 
06 American Honey $142K (cum. $362K) Review
07 The Beatles: Eight Days a Week $123K (cum. $2.5) Review
08 No Manches Frida $110K (cum. $11.3)
09 M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story $80K (cum. $1.7)
10 Certain Women $65K NEW Review

In limited release Certain Women, just off of its NYFF festival bow, posted the strongest per screen average (albeit only on 5 screens) with the animated feature Miss Hokusai (part of a very competitive Best Animated Feature race this year) not far behind on just two screens.

What did you see this weekend?

YNMS: "Live By Night"

by Chris Feil

Ben Affleck's Live By Night, his directorial follow-up to Argo, has been long-rumored to pop up as a late entry into the 2016 Oscar race. Could Warner Bros. be out for some Best Director retribution after Affleck famously missed the nomination for that film? Don't be surprised if its January debut is preceded by a quick qualifying run in the hopes of making up for that sting.

Now we have our first look at what Affleck has been working on between Batman gigs. His second Dennis Lehane adaptation, the film finds the director in his crime saga sweet spot before also taking over the Batman directorial duties. Will this be one to savor before he's wrapped up in that studio monster? Take a look at the first trailer:

Let's break down the Yes, No, Maybe So of this first look...

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April Showers: Gone Girl

In April Showers, Team TFE looks at our favorite waterlogged moments in the movies. Here's Chris on Gone Girl (2014).

Gone Girl is a variation on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, its Nick and Amy being the new George and Martha.  But instead of a pair of unwitting guests, this George and Martha use the media to attack one another - and the verbal barbs are traded in for actual bloodshed. David Fincher loads the film with the darkest rapid fire comedy, much like Edward Albee's acidic play, and the final beats of both can spark immediate audience conversation.

The final act of Gone Girl is where the film reveals its darkest side. If you haven't yet seen the film or read the source novel, then you don't know that the first two acts are pretty twisted themselves. The film's structure and narrative conceits keep us from seeing the true version of this George and Martha together until Amy's third act return...

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Movie v Its Ensemble

Spoilers Ahead - Many of you have surely taken in the large spectacle clashing of Zack Snyder’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice for either popcorn fun or schadenfreude curiosity after the critical drubbing. Even the film’s fans and apologists have to admit that substantial missteps were made.

One of the most gruesome of the film’s plentiful sins is how it hangs its enviable cast completely out to dry. This is a cast of Oscar winners, legends, and future greats (poor Scoot McNairy!) giving it their all, but still completely out to sea. The luckiest are the ones that are still used too sparingly: Laurence Fishburne and Diane Lane don’t have time to make a mark, despite giving the grim actioner its only laughs.

But the film has a huge actor problem. There are many moments of its cast being underserved, undervalued, or placed into outright embarrassing situations. And there’s one glaring example I just can’t get past...

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Beauty vs Beast: Hannah's Sisters

Jason from MNPP here, looking out across this rainy New York City day and thinking of Woody Allen, as I'm wont to do. Today specifically we're thinking about his great 1986 film Hannah and Her Sisters, because today is the great Dianne Wiest's birthday, and that film won Wiest her first of two much deserved Oscars. (It doesn't hurt that the movie just celebrated its 30th anniversary on March 14th.) So today's edition of our "Beauty vs Beast" series it is!

We're facing off the "and the Sisters" of the title -- Weist as the recovering actress Holly and Barbara Hershey as the brother-in-law snatching Lee. Granted the awardage (and the general consensus that she totally deserved it too) might immediately tilt this contest in Wiest's direction in your mind, but slow yourself and don't make the mistake of under-valuing Barbara Hershey's fine work in the film; she makes the difficult and confused character of Lee pretty darn sympathetic and funny too. Much to my emotional consternation if they made online quizzes asking us which of the three sisters we are in this film I am sure I'd end up being a Lee.

PREVIOUSLY Last week nathaniel took over and delightfully went Full Tabloid, asking you to choose between the recently y'all to choose between the recently fractured power-couple Bennifer 2.0 -- y'all had the good sense to stand with Jennifer Garner to the tune of just under 70% of the vote. Said John T:

""I mean ehh on both of them but Jen seems like a nice person off screen and Ben like a jackass. As they're both gorgeous I will use that as my tiebreaker"