Watch at Home: Never look away from ball culture while synchronized swimming

Nathaniel R giving you the heads up on what's available to you now to screen at home.

New on DVD/Blu-Ray
• Fighting With My Family - Rising star Florence Pugh (Lady Macbeth) leads the ensemble in this film about a female wrestler
• Her Smell - Elisabeth Moss won raves for playing a punkrock addict in this indie with a riot grrrl style soundtrack. 
• Never Look Away - the least discussed and last-released nominee for last year's historically popular Foreign Film competition at the Oscars (all five were hits which just about never happens) 

Also new: Liam Neeson in Cold Pursuit, the popular documentary Apollo 11, and the horror flick Happy Death Day 2 U. New to streaming after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Soundtracking: Her Smell

by Chris Feil

It’s not incorrect to call Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell a musical, it just feels like a simple categorization doesn’t contain all of the levels that the film operates on. It’s also King Lear on downstairs cocaine, a Cassavettes character study, and an epic saga of female friendship. And of course it’s also a subtle period piece, unfolding over the years when Spin magazine reigned supreme, bad behavior was a natural extension of star persona, and grunge and punk excesses converged into a million different stylistic offshoots.

But music remains the film’s connective tissue, whether it is pushed to the background by the impossible behavior of Elisabeth Moss’s demonic antihero Becky Something or returns because of her genius. What makes it all work is that the music feels authentic both to the period and the specific, fractious aesthetic Perry is going for.

Click to read more ...

"Little" is a hit but "Shazam!" stays on top

What did you see over the weekend? We waited until Monday night to get the full receipts on the arthouse releases (which often report late). Both Shazam! and The Mustang (still expanding) stayed on top in their second and fifth weekend respectively. It was a crowded weekend... well, overcrowded actually, since only the new comedy Little managed to make much of a box office impression of the 17 (gulp) new releases. Sadly Laika, our current favourite animation studio, had trouble. Missing Link proved their weakest opening by far with only $5.8 million (they generally manage about $14 million on opening weekends).

Here's the top ten in both wide and platform titles...

Weekend Box Office (Actuals) April 12th-14th  🔺 = new or expanded theater counts
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 Shazam!  $24.4 on 4306 screens (cum. $94.2)	1 🔺 The Mustang $773k on 527 screens (cum. $3.1)

2 🔺 Little  $15.4 on 2667 screens *NEW*	2 🔺  Amazing Grace $349k on 58 screens (cum. $589k)

Click to read more ...

Review: Her Smell

by Chris Feil

Some audiences may be unprepared for the full force slap that Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell has in store. It pulls no punches from the jump, immediately plopping us into the halls of a hellish backstage captured in serpentine camera fluidity. We’re immediately caught in the circus of early-90s addict punk rocker Becky Something, a monstrous and damaged creation from Perry’s muse Elisabeth Moss. And just as you get used to the manic construction around her, as Perry douses us in a fecund sound design and sweaty neon palette, the film shifts into something quite moving and rigorous on all of its levels. This is something more ambitious and soul-baring than the music dramas to which we’ve grown accustomed.

Click to read more ...

Team Experience Awards 2018: Our Favourites

by staff

We couldn't let the Oscar season go without our team of writers giving you our 7th annual Team Experience Awards (Nathaniel doesn't vote on these but his Film Bitch Awards will resume in a couple of days). We've given ourselves some time to catch up to 2018's offerings and as a result we have some fun surprises in store for our ballot! This year our Best Film goes to Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite, one of the six prizes we've given it of thirteen total nominations. Next behind is Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk with nine mentions, and then the love is spread pretty wide elsewhere with Roma, Hereditary, BlacKkKlansman, and Can You Ever Forgive Me? doing well among nominations.

Best Picture

1. The Favourite
2. If Beale Street Could Talk
   
3. Roma
   
4. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
5. Hereditary
   
6. BlacKkKlansman
   
7. Widows
   
8. Annihilation
   
9. First Man
   
10. We the Animals

Click to read more ...