With A Star is Born going 'Drama' where does that leave the 'Musical/Comedy' race at the Golden Globes?

by Nathaniel R

Perhaps you've heard that both A Star is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody will being competing as Dramas rather than Musicals at the Globes. That's a fairly shocking move since dramatic biopics about musicians generally campaign as "Musical or Comedy" -- think Walk the Line, Ray, Beyond the Sea, Coal Miner's Daughter. Presumably Warner Bros has bought into the stigma that "Comedy or Musical" is the lesser category which is really unfortunate because it's one of the best things about the Globes. The Comedy or Musical prizes are filled with great stuff that Oscar SHOULD have recognized throughout the years.

The Globes really ought to have consistency with who they allow to compete where but since they don't, it's a savvy move on Warner Bros part especially in the field of 'Best Actress, Drama' where Glenn Close's campaign probably felt that the win was all but locked up until Lady Gaga (already a Globe favorite) muscled in. Glenn Close has won two Globes herself so it's not like the Globes don't like her but it's worrying that the Globes have only given her prizes for her TV work. Like Oscar they went in other directions every time she was up for movie roles during her highly popular 1980s run. As for Bohemian Rhapsody it's a strange choice since Rami Malek will probably have a tougher time breaking into Best Actor, Drama... 

Click to read more ...

Blueprints: "Crazy Rich Asians"

I’m back. Thanks everyone for bearing with the small hiatus that the column took for the past few weeks. Who knew being overworked and sick wasn’t a good time? For our return, let’s take a look at the biggest movie of the summer, and how a pivotal scene operates in many emotional levels. -Jorge

Warning! Crazy Rich Spoilers ahead!

There are many things to admire in Crazy Rich Asians. Consider theway it reinvents a rom-com formula that seemed to have gotten stale. Or its historic all-Asian cast, something that hadn’t happened in an American movie in over two decades. Big themes of family, legacy, tradition and culture running through its veins. And Michele Yeoh’s stare. One scene in the movie encompasses all of these traits.

The mahjong game, the final confrontation between Rachel (Constance Wu) and Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh) was not in the original novel; it was written specifically for the film. It's one of the most emotionally powerful moments of the movie, where Rachel finally gives up the fight and backs away from her fiancée and his family that clearly doesn’t want her there. But in the scene, Rachel reclaims power and control in many levels at the same time. Let’s take a look at the script to see how the most tense movie moment of the summer was crafted. Sorry, Mission Impossible...

Click to read more ...

Beauty vs Beast: Tiger vs Dragon

Jason Adams from MNPP here, hoping against hope that Michelle Yeoh's name doesn't get lost among all the brand new Oscar contenders currently dominating our thoughts thanks to the ongoing Toronto Film Festival; they might be fresh playthings but Crazy Rich Asians as Nathaniel just reported is still dominating the box office, so let's keep Yeoh's heat going.

And what better way than to use this week's "Beauty vs Beast" glance back at her previous greatest role, that of the love-stricken bad-ass Yu Shu Lien in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She faced down an ignorant but loveable upstart that time around to, with Zhang Ziyi embodying all fiery desire as the thief and shit-kicker Jen Yu. 

survey services

PREVIOUSLY Our Hammer vs Cavill battle kept itself pretty tight but Armie came out on top (I hear he's into that) with 52% of your vote - said Matt:

"Well, Armie Hammer wants to wrestle. So....yeah."

Summer Box Office Top Ten. Are These "Popular Achievements"?

by Nathaniel R

It's probably foolish to continue to poke fun at The Academy for their desperation in wanting to honor "Popular Achievements" but we can't help ourselves. It's so redundant. Box office success is its own reward and has nothing to do with "best" really, just with "success of brand awareness" and "delivering what people are expecting". The charts prove that it's getting more and more rare for an original picture to make it into the year end top ten. Even in the summer, with a much smaller field of contenders, it's still really hard for any movie that isn't a sequel to be one of "the most popular." Summer movie season kicked off on April 27th with The Avengers and ends right about now on Labor day weekend.

Herewith the TEN biggest hits of Summer 2018... How many of them did you see and if you controlled all box office, how much would they have earned?

SUMMER TOP TEN (Figures as of 9/2/2018)

1. AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (April 27th) $678+ It was always going to be huge but the phenomenon of Black Panther helped push it way way over the gross of the preceding Avengers picture which made $459 domestic. (Global Gross to Date: $2 billion... the first Marvel movie to ever do that... Black Panther grossed $1.3 billion globally though it's a bigger hit than Infinity War in the US)

2. INCREDIBLES 2 (June 15th) $601+ Proving that audiences were really impatient for a sequel to the 2004 smash, they turned out in droves 14 years later, the rose still in full bloom (Global Gross to date: $1.1 billion)

Click to read more ...

What did you see over the weekend?

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office Estimates (August 24-26)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1. CRAZY RICH ASIANS  $25 (cum. $76.8)  Review, Michelle Yeoh	1. 🔺 PAPILLON $1.1 on 544 screens *NEW*

2. THE MEG $13 (cum. $105.3)  Review	2. 🔺  PUZZLE $372k on 265 screens (cum. $1.2)

3. 🔺 HAPPYTIME MURDERS $10 *NEW*	3. 🔺 SEARCHING $360k on 9 screens *NEW*

Click to read more ...