Podcast: Everything you wanted to know about precursor awards week ... but were afraid to ask*

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl welcome back NICK DAVIS! 

In this hour long conversation Nick, Murtada, and your TFE mastermind Nathaniel discuss the first gigantic week of precursor season. What hath the Globes and SAG wrought and who are we sad about (Alfre Woodard!) and who are we rooting for (Antonio Banderas) and the like. We're divided on Judy and Dark Waters and Robert DeNiro's The Irishman and we dunk a little on Richard Jewell and The Two Popes (sorry!). We also have words for NEON not finding a way to honor Clemency while pushing Parasite. Finally we try to suss out the impossible "Best Actor" race which is giving everyone predictive pause.  

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Precursor Madness

Scripter Awards Nominations

by Murtada Elfadl

The USC Scripter awards announced their nominations today. It was another good day for The Irishman and Jojo Rabbit as they continue collecting accolades this month. Joining them are The Two Popes and Little Women whose record so far has been spotty. In a surprise, the fifth spot went to Dark Waters, which means that this is another precursor that passed on honoring Hustlers. Also missing is A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. It seems both films awards strengths lie only in their supporting players, Jennifer Lopez and Tom Hanks respectively. The other title ignored today was Joker, which could still rally with the Academy. 

The Scripter is an award presented annually by the University of Southern California (USC) to honor both screenwriters and the authors whose work they adapted...

Click to read more ...

"Dark Waters" flood in but everything is still "Frozen"

This weekend Frozen II easily stayed up top and will soon vault over Joker which has been out for a month and a half longer in the box office sweepstakes. We share that only so you can marvel at how quickly the royal family of Arendelle is collecting taxes from their subjects (aka everyone on planet Earth). In other news Dark Waters expanded into wide release. Murtada reviewed it for us and let's just say that I think he was very kind (as several reviews have been). It felt like it twice the length of The Irishman with no shaping, rhythm, visual style, or verve -- completely mystified that it's a Todd Haynes film shot by Ed Lachmann and acted by Ruffalo and Hathaway who are both fairly generic in it. What happened?

Weekend Box Office [Estimates] Dec 6th-8th 🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM
1 FROZEN II $34.6 (cum. $337.5) REVIEW	1 PARASITE $700k on 333 screens (cum. $19.3) PODCAST, CLASS, BONG ★
2 KNIVES OUT $16 (cum. $57.9) REVIEW, WHODUNNITS?, ANA DE ARMAS ★	2 JOJO RABBIT $562k on 579 screens (cum. $19.2) CAPSULE, PODCAST
3  FORD V FERRARI  $6.5 (cum. $91.1)  REVIEW, PODCAST ★	3 🔺  HONEY BOY $452k on 460 screens (cum. $2.1)  REVIEW, PODCAST ★
4 QUEEN & SLIM $6.5 (cum. $26.8)	4 🔺  WAVES $421k on 570 screens (cum. $1.0) REVIEW, 2ND OPINION ★
5 A BEAUTIFUL DAY...  $5.2 (cum. $43.1) CAPSULE, PODCAST, TOM HANKS ★	5 NO SAFE SPACES $292k on 200 screens (cum. $749k)
5 🔺 DARK WATERS $4.1 (cum. $5.2) REVIEW	6 🔺 PANIPAT $282k on 172 screens *new*

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND? 

Review: Todd Haynes returns with "Dark Waters"

by Murtada Elfadl

You know you are in good hands when the actor chosen to come in and jumpstart the plot, give dimensionality to the film, or just wreck the audience hearts is Bill Camp. This is exactly who Todd Haynes chooses to do all three of these things in Dark Waters. Camp is a Virginia farmer who calls on a corporate lawyer he knows from the old neighborhood (Mark Ruffalo) to help him sue the big corporation that is killing his animals, his family and himself with the toxic waste they spill out in the water system and into the bodies of the unsuspecting.

This is just the tip of a big iceberg that Robert Bilott (Ruffalo) uncovers...

Click to read more ...

Mark Your Calendars!

by Nathaniel R 

Given the release of Parasite this very weekend, and Judy, Pain and Glory, Hustlers, also in theaters with Oscar buzz in various categories, it's safe to say that Prestige Film Season is more than underway. So we thought we'd update that calendar now.  Here's how the schedule is looking for awards hopefuls in terms of important dates so mark your calendars...

OCTOBER

RIGHT NOW - Limited Release: Parasite (Bong Joon-ho's South Korean Oscar submission), The King (Shakepearian drama starring Timothée Chalamet), Missing Link (animated hopeful ) begins streaming on Hulu

NEXT WEEKEND - Limited Release: JoJo Rabbit (Taiki Waititi's Nazi satire), The Lighthouse (Dafoe's latest bid for gold, a black and white horror-tinged hallucinatory drama), The Laundromat begins streaming on Netflix

25th -Dolemite is My Name begins streaming on Netflix... 

Click to read more ...