Box Office: Hit Missions to Mars & Mexico

The Martian is attempting to beat Gravity's October record this weekend. The charts only reflect studio Estimates so we'll see tomorrow for sure. At any rate the all star space adventure (yes, there is much more than Matt Damon therein) is an immediate big hit. Can something this light and fun -- we'll talk about it on the podcast tonight but it doesn't exactly run deep -- make inroads to awards glory? 

In other box office news Sicario continues to perform well surviving its wide expansion with ease. Word of mouth should continue to bolster it because hotdamn it's intense. It's also quite a strange double feature with The Martian (though both are good times at the movies) since  Blunt feels like she's in consistently more danger than Damon even though she's wearing body armor and fully armed and people are rarely firing at her while he's stuck alone on an inhospitable planet without breathable air, lasting supplies, or food.

Finally Grandma, a movie we've been rooting for since January is starting to lose theaters after a totally respectable run. While it never quite crossed over (which is harder and harder to do these days with shorter theatrical windows - see also the similar grossing word of mouth gem I'll See You In My Dreams) it'll end its theatrical run with over $6 million theatrical which is plenty to keep it in play for Best Actress honors (people have been nominated with a lot less) if the campaign is strong and especially if The Globes are there for Lily in Musical or Comedy actress. Do you think they will be?

BOX OFFICE WIDE
800+ screens (Oct 2nd-4th)
01 The Martian $55 NEW Matt's foot-in-mouth tour
02 Hotel Transylvania 2 $33 (cum. $90.5)  Tim on the director Genny Tartakovsky
03 Sicario $12 (cum. $15) Podcast, Emily Blunt
04 The Intern $11.6 (cum. $36.5) Review
05 Maze: Runner: The Scorch Trials $7.6 (cum. $63.2)
06 Black Mass $5.9 (cum. $52.5)
07 Everest $5.5 (cum. $33.1)
08 The Visit $3.9 (cum. $57.6)
09 War Room $2.8 (cum. $60.5)
10 The Perfect Guy $2.4 (cum. $52.6) Review

BOX OFFICE LIMITED
(Oct 2nd-4th)
01 The Walk (448 screens) $1.5 NEW (cum. $1.9) Review
02 Grandma (315 screens) $.4 (cum. $5.8) Poster Blurb, Lily Tomlin's Filmography, Review 
03 Sleeping with Other People (392 screens) $.2 (cum. $.6)  Review
04 Meet the Patels (78 screens) $.1 (cum. $.7) 
05 Talvar (51 screens) $.1 NEW
06 Goodnight Mommy (43 screens) $.4 Interview, Oscar Submission
07 Learning To Drive (115 screens) $.1 (cum. $3.1)
08 99 Homes (19 screens) $.1 (cum. $.1) The return of Andrew Garfield
09 Southpaw (303 screens) Re-Release $.07 (cum. $52.2)
10 Un Gallo con Muchose Huevos (112 screens) $.07 (cum. $8.9)

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?

I came down with a brutal cold after waiting in line in the cold for an hour for Steve Jobs (and being turned away roughly 15 people before making it inside) so it looks like I'll be emptying my DVR instead of moviegoing *sniffle* 

Podcast: Straight Outta U.N.C.L.E. and Into Old Lady Movies

For this week's edition of the podcast, Nathaniel and Nick gab about old lady movies (I'll See You In My Dreams, Ricki & The Flash, and Grandma). Nick hasn't seen The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Nathaniel hasn't seen Straight Outta Compton so they tell each other about them, too.

Contents (43 minutes)
00:01 Grey Gardens to Straight Outta Compton?
06:45 I'll See You In My Dreams, Ricki & The Flash
19:30 Grandma
27:00 The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
30:00 Sam Elliott
33:00 Miscellania: The Gift, Tom at the Farm, Sand Dollars, and being over Helen Mirren

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. 

Straight Outta Old Lady Movies

Posterized: Lily Tomlin

with Paul Weitz. Photo via Getty Images

The great Lily Tomlin hits the road literally and figuratively this weekend in Paul Weitz's terrific Grandma, previously reviewed right here by both myself at Sundance and Joe Reid at Tribeca. The movie just opened in the major markets and more cities will follow soon. For my column at Towleroad published earlier today I ranked the ten movie roles that I think of as her best from her now 40 year old movie career. I hope you'll read it.

Consider this weekend the ignition of her Oscar campaign engine, too. It's Lily's first leading role in a feature since (gulp) 1988's Big Business so this doesn't happen very often at all and we must take notice! Go see it I'm so proud that The Film Experience is on the poster for this one.

Lily was Emmy-nominated last month for Grace & Frankie and if Grandma can continue building on this moment of newfound appreciation of a 75 year-old living legend, an Oscar nomination for Best Actress could well follow. You know how that goes sometimes when the culture rallies around an actor in a particular moment like "Oh, right. We've always loved you -- here you go, diva!" (see Diane Keaton's easy nomination rode for Somethings Gotta Give or Julianne Moore's win last seaon)

Let's take a trip through Lily Tomlin's spotty film career via movie posters (with a couple of excerpts from my Towleroad piece)! How many of her 24 features have you seen? 

Click to read more ...

i'm just a link machine... a bloggin' writin' fiend ♫

MNPP picks five favorite shots from his favorite movie Rosemary's Baby
Village Voice wonderful insightful review of Lily Tomlin as Grandma 
Comics Alliance did you know we almost got a Jurassic Park animated series before Spielberg changed his mind?  
Coming Soon Christian Bale to star in a biopic about Enzo Ferrari directed by Michael Mann
THR might we have another documentary theme nominated in the Original Song category? Lady Gaga & Diane Warren's "Till It Happens To You" from the campus rape documentary The Hunting Ground is a buzzy one

Coming Soon speaking of Lady Gaga, here's our first look at her in American Horror Story: Hotel
Out Cheyenne Jackson talks about her, too. She's all up in my internet today!
Pajiba on the expanding cast for that Netflix Brad Pitt movie War Machine 
Playbill Carrie The Musical being revived again... in Los Angeles this time in October. It never truly dies
The Film Stage James Gray has begun production on Lost City of Z starring Charlie Hunman, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, and Tom Holland. (They don't mention it in the article but this is the first time he's made a movie WITHOUT Joaquin Phoenix since his 1994 debut Little Odessa.)
The Film Stage also shares Bong Joon-Ho's 10 favorite films: Recent entries like Zodiac  appear alongside stone cold classics like Psycho and South Korean classics like The Housemaid (1960) which you might remember was recently remade.
Variety Hugh Jackman may make an Odyssey movie. 
Final Girl top 20 horror movies of the 21st century. I read stuff about horror by smart horror fans way way more often than I am willing to watch horror. Why is that? Don't know! But it's true.
Variety wonders why The Americans still can't catch a break with Emmy voters 
Variety is the Emmy race for Drama down to Game of Thrones versus Mad Men? 
i09 ewww Buffalo Bill's creepy house from Silence of the Lambs is for sale (basement not included which makes the news far less creepy)

Off Cinema For Fun
Bad Lip Reading takes on the First Republican Debate -heh
Zimbio "it turns out posing Nicki Minaj's wax figure on all fours was a bad idea" - ya think!? 

Showtune to go...
Congratulations to Tony winner Victoria Clark on her recent wedding! Beautiful wedding photos and if you've ever seen her perform you won't soon forget. Her acting and her gorgeous voice are ideally fused together and she gives splendid rich and nuanced musical performances. Lately she's been relegated to featured roles as mothers and grandmothers but she is one fine leading lady. Here she is doing Sondheim's classic "Losing My Mind" from the recent revival of Follies (Bernadette Peters played the role in NYC but Victoria took over for Los Angeles)

Photographed by Julia Wade 

Links: Video Game Movies, Big Lebowski Reads, Oscar Site Purchases

David Poland won't review Pixels 'because... why?'
Variety Our Brand is Crisis starring Sandra Bullock gets an October 30th release date. With that film, The Walk and Freeheld all coming out it could be a huge year for features based on documentaries at the Oscars
TFE in case you missed it Ann Dowd is in that film, too and loved being part of the ensemble
Towleroad I interviewed the director/star of Do I Sound Gay?, a documentary on the gay voice that's out right now
The Guardian reviews the latest Jason Reitman live read (The Big Lebowski) and loves on Michael Fassbender as "The Dude" and Patton Oswalt (in John Goodman's role of "Walter" and Mae Whitman (multiple parts) in particular. Not so much Jennifer Lawrence in Julianne Moore's original part

Variety interviews legendary documentarian Barbara Kopple. My shame: I've still never seen Harlan County, USA but people always say it's amazing
Comics Alliance on rumors about "Robin" in Batman v Superman. He might be played by Zach Snyder's son Eli who has only worked for his dad but it's "not entirely" and only "sort of" nepotism. (Related: on the internet, words continue to lose their meanings)
/Film looks at upcoming video game based movies. I don't play video games so none of this means anything to me but if you do... (I amend. There's one I'll see called Assassin's Creed but that's only because Fassy and Cotillard are both in on the heels of co-starring in Macbeth)
Awards Daily loves Grandma and agrees with us that Lily Tomlin needs to be in the Best Actress conversation 
Gold Derby I forgot to mention that they were bought up by a larger media company so congrats to Tom O'Neill. That leaves David Poland, Jeffrey Wells, Sasha Stone and little ol' me as the last of the original indies still doing this. Not everyone wants to be bought up... I'm not sure who I'd be without The Film Experience... but on the other hand, money is nice. green. useful.   

Off Cinema
Esquire has a fascinating/terrifying long read on climate scientist 'what if the end of the world was your day job?' 
Stage Buddy for Kander & Ebb's 50th anniversary, a ranking of their top 50 songs. Wow this is comprehensive. The order is all out of whack (Cabaret and Chicago combined only get 3 songs in the top 25!)  but still, good job Andrew! This reminded me how much I loved the music in The Visit and how great the music is in New York New York.

Speaking of... here's your Showtune to Go from The Scottsboro Boys (2010) which I'm so sad I never saw during its Broadway run (this song "Go Back Home" which comes fairly early in the show is so gorgeous). I only heard raves and it won 12 Tony nominations but in the season of The Book of Mormon there was no oxygen for the competition. Maybe someone will one day make it into a movie?