Box Office: My "Secretary" Diana and My Cousin Rachel

By Nathaniel R

Universal's attempted monster movie franchise launch didn't go so well. The Mummy met scathing reviews and a disappointing opening weekend. Now, a $32 million launch would be major news for many films but not for a $125 million budgeted feature starring Tom Cruise that is intending to launch a whole "universe". Not everything can be Marvel's Cinematic Universe, Hollywood!

In the absence of a strong competitor and on terrific word of mouth (no small thing), Wonder Woman continued her reign at the box office. Given a relatively small second week drop (43% while DC's usual superhero sophomore frame drop is 67%) the Amazon princess is looking to join the $300 million club stateside which will put her right up there with Supes and Batman. DC's "Big Three" indeed.

Charts and further comments after the jump...

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Review: "It Comes at Night"

by Chris Feil

After last year’s Krisha, Trey Edward Shults returns to the horror of family dynamics with post-apocalyptic nightmare It Comes At Night. This time he’s equipped with higher production value and more familiar faces than that astute micro-budgeted debut, though Night is just as personal. His resulting sophomore feature is part Greek tragedy, part vague social polemic, and one of the most terrifying films in several years.

Set in a remote, wooded mini-mansion, a family has made their home a fortress from some unspecified apocalypse. The elderly father of Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) has fallen “sick”, leaving her husband Paul (Joel Edgerton) and son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) to dispatch of him for their own safety. The desperate invasion of another family (led by Christopher Abbott and Riley Keough) tests both the reclusive family’s empathy and rigorously protected lifestyle. Meanwhile, Travis is having increasingly vivid visions of the encroaching malignant threat that test his (and our) sense of reality.

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25th Anniversary: Alien 3 - the theatrical cut vs. the assembly cut

Tim here. With Alien: Covenant opening to #1 over the weekend, it's fortuitous timing that today marks the 25th anniversary of Alien³.  The 1992 sci-fi thriller is probably best-known today for two reasons: introducing music video director David Fincher to the world of theatrical features, and knocking all the shine off of the Alien franchise for the first time (and alas! not the last).

 Underperforming at the box office, and outright flopping with critics, Alien³ has never since recovered its reputation; if time has been kind to it, it's only because at least we can now say, "well, at least it's not as bad as Alien: Resurrection"...

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Review: "Alien: Covenant"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

If the famed director Ridley Scott were in art school, his professor would be yanking the paintbrush out of his hand — “it’s perfect, stop adding brush strokes!” His wife probably has to pull spices from his hands as he cooks. If you’ve been playing along with this Hollywood giant’s career you know that he can never leave well enough alone. I’ve lost count of how many “versions” there now are of his early sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner (1982) and, after years of threats, that film will have a sequel this October, Blade Runner 2049, though Scott opted to pass the directorial reigns over to Denis Villeneuve (Arrival).

Having exhausted returning to that particular sci-fi well, Ridley has moved back even earlier in his career to the film that made him famous, Alien (1979). He’s now directed two prequels to it (Prometheus and now Alien: Covenant) and more films are promised. (Perhaps the controversial ending of 1991’s Thelma & Louise is the only thing that’s kept that film, the third member of his holy trinity of masterworks, free of his tinkering!).

So how’s the new film?

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The Furniture: Decorating Obsession in "The Skin I Live In"

It's a Pedro Party! Our Almodóvar week is extending a couple of days. You can click on the images from this production design feature to see them in magnified detail. Here's Daniel Walber...

El Cigarral is a mysterious, hidden estate that lurks on the outskirts of Toledo, Spain. Its gates are perpetually locked and its secrets are not easily pried loose. Its owner, Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas), keeps the outside world at a distance.

That said, more people manage to break in than he might like. It’s inevitable, at least in movies like these. Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In is part of a long tradition that winds its way from The Island of Lost Souls through Eyes Without a Face. And this house, which seems to be accessible only under cover of night or in disguise, is among the most dramatically conceived in the entire genre...

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