Gotham Nominees: Teenage Girls, Lesbian Romances,Trans Women

You might think that October is too early to get nominations for Best of the Year but you'd be wrong. 

Diary of a Teenage Girl scored big leading the Gotham nominations

At least according to the IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards. They're the East Coast answer to the Indie Spirit Awards and perhaps we're imagining it but it's almost as if they announce earlier every year.  They're also juried which is why their nominations are sometimes really cool / odd. Like most of the Oscar precursors worth loving, Gotham marches to their own drum. So what's the takeaway and reward for these films? A fresh flag planted down that you really should watch them and for indie films, that's a big deal.

The biggest winners this morning are surely Tangerine (3 nominations) and The Diary of a Teenage Girl (4 nominations). Both were hits at Sundance and well reviewed when they arrived but both are small enough to slip through "Best of" cracks on critics list and with awardage. But both are strong enough filmmaking visions and entertaining and even accessible enough that with enough concentrated attention it will be possible to imagine them cracking a surprise big nomination somewhere... like, say, The Golden Globes. 

The other big winner is everyone -- we finally have an awards lineup that in interested in female voices.  Full list follows 

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In praise of Wiigs

Manuel here asking: when did Kristen Wiig become the reigning queen of indie cinema especializing in fascinatingly messed up women? 

Left to Right: A Deadly Adoption, Diary of a Teenage Girl, Welcome to Me, Nasty Baby (front), Skeleton Twins, Girl Most Likely

I just watched Diary of a Teenage Girl (Sundance review) and while the film is clearly a showcase for newcomer Bel Powley, I couldn't shake off the former SNL funny gal's Charlotte. And that got me thinking about Wiig's amazing recent roster of fascinating female characters, some of which deserved better vehicles (coughGirl Most Likelycough). She really was never going to rest on her comedic laurels, was she? 

In other Wiig news, her other Sundance flick, Nasty Baby (read Nathaniel's review) now has a trailer and a release date (Oct 23). I'd embed it on here except all trace of it has apparently disappeared from YouTube and thus from all other outlets which posted it (guess they want to keep the film a secret?). But you can still watch it here.

BYOYNMS in the comments and tell me: Which indie drama Wiig is your favorite?

What did you see this weekend?

BOX OFFICE WIDE
August 28th-30th estimates

01 Straight Outta Compton $13.2 (cum. $134.1) Podcast
02 War Room $11 new
03 Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation  $8.3 (cum. $170.3) Tim's Review
04 No Escape $8.3 new (cum. $26.8)
05 Sinister 2 $4.6 (cum. $18.5) Interview 

While it was a semi-drowsy weekend for new releases, Straight Outta Compton and Mission: Impossible continued to hold well. Just outside this list was The Man From U.N.C.L.E. which, though it had a rough opening and is now losing theaters, is holding its per screen average better than should probably have been expected. Perhaps enough people have heard that it's actually G.O.O.D.?

BOX OFFICE LIMITED (excluding prev. wide releases)
August 28th-30th estimates

01 Mistress America $.4 (cum. $.9) 150 screens
02 Diary of a Teenage Girl $.4 (cum. $.9) 795 screens Review
03 Phoenix $.3 (cum. $1.4) 142 screens Interview
04 End of the Tour $.3 (cum. $2.3) 256 screens
05 Grandma $.3 (cum. $.4) on 19 screens Nathaniel's Review, Joe's Review, Posterized

While it's always thrilling to see a distributor get ballsy and expand tiny movies to the number of theaters that they deserve to play in, rather than cautiously hope people will stumble upon hidden gems, it doesn't always pay off. Sony Pictures Classics added over 700 screens for Diary of a Teenage Girl , perhaps sensing now or never given their full upcoming slate, but the per screen average was not pretty. Will they be as bold with Grandma in two weeks? That has a chance of paying off better if they can stoke Oscar buzz and make Lily Tomlin's career-capper into a leave your house event for adult moviegoers.

Just outside this list sits the modest Learning to Drive, which is a highly pleasant watch starring Patricia Clarkson and Ben Kingsley and Life Metaphors. Improbably 2015 has become a strong year for women of a certain age with star vehicles for Patty (who is 55), Blythe (72), and Lily (75), with Charlotte Rampling (69) still to come in 45 Years. That's in addition to the four who regularly get them: Meryl (Ricki), Helen (Woman in Gold), Judi & Maggie (Best Exotic 2). So we talked about that on last week's podcast.

Finally, when I figure out why I didn't love Mistress America, considering that TFE was madly in love with the last Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig duet Frances Ha, I'll tell you but I haven't figured it out. If you've seen it perhaps you can help in the comments. What did you see this weekend?

Links

BuzzFeed Netflix not legally responsible for your 'viewing history' - it's so funny that people thought they were
The Hairpin Mission: Impossibly Silly "I Still Don't Understand How Tall Everyone Is"  
Interview Director Marielle Heller talks about the ratings and sexuality of her daring debut The Diary of a Teenage Girl 

Towleroad George Takei once asked Gene Roddenberry about including gay characters on Star Trek. Interesting historical response but what's their excuse now since that franchise is still alive?
IndieWire How to apply for a Women of Color directors and screenwriters 10 day retreat
This is Not Porn Cute. Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg take a break during Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 

Tim is the Best
Antagony & Ecstasy revisits Dog Day Afternoon... (great films often generate great writing about film)
Antagony & Ecstasy also revisits the very first unreleased Fantastic Four (1994) and claims its still the best adaptation of Marvel's first family (bad films often generate great writing about film) 
.... moral of combining them: Timothy Brayton often generates great writing about film.  

Off Cinema 
Laughing Squid a feline feeding machine to let your cat be more self-actualized indoors
Gothamist sad news: Annie Lennox's daughter's boyfriend has gone missing after a tandem kayak accident 

"Clobberin' Time"
There's a lot of handwringing going round about what exactly happened between Josh Trank and the studio and the source material to make Fantastic Four so bad. Film School Rejects even felt it needed a six-year timeline. But there's also post-mortems about the opening weekend which are lower than usual for superheroes.Variety argues that audiences are getting wise to money grabs (with tanking reboots like FF and diminished returns for Spider-Man) and studios need to think harder about repackaging known brands. But I personally don't know if that's the case -- I mean audiences are still putting up with needlessly padded "part 1 and part 2" finales which everyone knows are not artistically motivated decisions aimed at providing them with the best possible movie. So until audiences start bailing on those, I'm not eager to give them too much credit for protecting their wallets against Hollywood's 'screw-quality / make another billion quick' tactics. 

Alexander/Alexandra

From the "We Nearly Forgot To Mention It And What Is Wrong With Us" Folder:
Alexander Skarsgård, currently untethered to a particular role/screen persona post-True Blood, came to the premiere of The Diary of a Teenage Girl (opening tomorrow) in drag. For reasons we know not...

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