Green Book's Post-Oscar Bump and New Releases

What did you see this weekend? I only took in Greta before getting sick but I keep meaning to get to How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. It was, essentially, the last weekend of the 2018 film year, since most of the major Oscar winners got one last expansion before they depart theaters (almost of all of them are already on DVD). They're milking that golden cow, they are! So, we thought we'd share everything in wide release and the corresponding chart toppers in limited for a really full box office picture this weekend. Ready? Deep breath. Let's go.

Weekend Box Office (Actuals) (March 1st-3rd)
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 How to Train Your Dragon 3 $30 (cum. $97.6) on 4286 screens	1 🔺  Apollo 11 $1.6 on 120 screens *NEW*

2 🔺 A Madea Family Funeral  $27 on 2442 screens *NEW*	2 🔺  Everybody Knows $467k on 209 screens (cum. $1.2)

Click to read more ...

VES Nominees. Fun and Weird They Are.

I'm typing up my final predictions article so while I'm doing that why not peruse my final predictions in the Screenplay categories (my big risk is Ida there) and something completely different: the Visual Effects Society nominations.

They  looked at CG heavy 2014 on the big screen and small and declared that these were the things they most liked looking at! I do suggest hitting the jump to see the whole list because they have a lot of interesting and highly specific categories like "Outstanding effects simulations in a photoreal/live action feature motion picture" which pits that funny scene from X-Men Days of Future Past when Quicksilver runs around the kitchen in slo-mo with that looped destructive beach sequence in Edge of Tomorrow that goes on forever until Tom Cruise gets the hang of it. 

The "supporting visual effects" is always an interesting category. I'm hoping Birdman wins but I can't for the life of me figure out what effects work went into The Imitation Game (???) which is also nominated! That damn movie, showing up everywhere! I liked it at first well enough but it's one of those films that can't bear the weight of all these honors and thus you begin to turn on it. 

My favorite VES category might be "Outstanding created environment in an animated feature motion picture" because three of them are places you'd definitely want to visit for hours if you could exploring every pixel: The Boxtrolls Cavern, The Land of the Remembered from Book of Life, and Oasis (which I believe is Cate Blanchett's dragon sanctuary) in How To Train Your Dragon 2. The fourth, though, is my pick for runt of the litter "Into the Portal" from Big Hero 6 which is the weakest segment in their movie, narratively and though your eyes may disagree, I didn't care for that segment visually either.

The complete list is after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Oscars Songs & Scores. Plus: Chart Updates

Each year the list of eligible ORIGINAL SONGS that will vy for Oscar nominations holds numerous surprises. These surprises almost invariably fall under the question heading:

That movie had a song in it?"

Apart from song showcases that are an important part of the narrative - remember that sweet tense reunion between Hiccup's father and mother in How To Train your Dragon 2? - many songs are buried in their movies by way of incomplete airings or end credit positioning when people are exiting the theater  -- you have to be the first music in the end credits to be eligible at all. Come second and you're outta there as Madonna learned the hard way for her end credits "Masterpiece" in W.E. (that's the name of the song, not a qualitative judgement). The other annual head-scratcher question about this category is not the mean-spirited "Why does it exist?" but the far less frequently asked "Why is it afforded more nominees than the Makeup & Hairstyling category since literally all live action films require makeup & hairstyling and only a teeny-tiny portion of films have a composer on their payroll writing original songs. Indeed that question is only ever asked by The Film Experience though we think it a good one.

Makeup & Hairstyling is now the only Oscar category still considered unworthy of 5 nominations annually despite being a craft that's used in 100% of live-action movies which a few other categories cannot claim. But that's a topic for when the Makeup Branch finalist list is announced. Why am I talking about it now? My brain, inside a head that requires no hairstyling, hops track is all. Sorry bout it.

ORIGINAL SCORE
The annual list of eligible Original Scores for Oscar's music branch to consider holds a different kind of surprise altogether. Those surprises are about what's not listed. They fall under the question heading:

They disqualified that one? Why???"

This year apparently the music for Foxcatcher and The Two Faces of January -- to name two examples from famous composers (Danna & Iglesias respectively) -- wasn't "original" enough or something for Oscar. But the headline snub is Antonio Sanchez's work on Birdman. It's won much (rightful) attention for its unique percussive approach.

With Birdman out of the way, expect the five nominees to be: Alexandre Desplat (Unbroken), Alexandre Desplat (The Imitation Game) Alexandre Desplat (Godzilla) Alexandre Desplat (Grand Budapest Hotel) and Alexandre Desplat (The Monuments Men). I'm joking but there is no rule against it in the craft categories! You know if John Williams wrote five new scores in a year he'd win all five nominations. Somebody give Desplat a sedative before he burns himself out. He's so brilliant but do you think he'll stop working himself into an early grave once they give him the statue? He's won six nominations in the past decade, most of them from Best Pictures nominees or winners no less, but he has still yet to win the gold.

ELIGIBILITY LISTS AND A FEW MORE NOTES AFTER DESPLAT...

Click to read more ...

Your 2014 animated Oscar contenders

Readers, an apology. Here I am, the Film Experience's resident animation expert, and I'm late with news twice over. First, on Tuesday, the Academy annouced the full list of 20 contenders for Best Animated Feature. Nathaniel prepared a post discussing this development, but wasn't able to publish it before traveling to California. Here are his thoughts on the subject:

As expected we will have a full five-wide Best Animated Feature category this year. It only takes 16 contenders to trigger that and we have 20. This branch is definitely not the most predictable when it comes to nominees -- or even, sometimes winners (remember how competitive the Brave year was?) --  often opting for a few little seen critical and foreign darlings. The internet seems to be rooting for The Lego Movie which is by a significant margin the most popular animated film of the year in the US. What's interesting is that it's uniquely American appeal means that internationally the numbers are much different and How To Train Your Dragon 2 is, globally, the biggest cartoon of the year. It's also probably the frontrunner for Gold but you never know. It's not as undeniable as Toy Story 3 (a universally acclaimed capper to a hugely beloved trilogy that wasn't able to be honored with the competitive Oscar until then since the category hadn't existed).

Disney's Big Hero 6, opening this week, I can't personally see winning the category but it's a likely nominee and, what's more, the short before it called Feast, which tells the tale of a human's love life through his hungry puppy, is a strong contender for the short film Oscar. It was love at first sight for me and I'm not even a dog person.

THE ELIGIBLE 20 (plus 10 eligible animated shorts after the jump)...

Click to read more ...

Tues Top Twenty: Halfway Hotties (Best of 2014)

The power of list compels me! Yes, yes, I need to move on from halfway mark madness (we've previously covered best visuals, best acting, best sounds, and best movies) since they're already out of date and it's been so busy what with chart updates (in progress), Emmy nominations, Smackdown panel announcements, Dawn of the Planet and Apes, Boyhood. We need to be back in THE NOW. But I'm dragging my feet mostly because I really like what 2014's been giving. I'm crushing on it hard and thinking about asking it to go steady. 

This is the final halfway mark list. A shorter version of it was published in my column at Towleroad which happens to be "a site with homosexual tendencies" but I've significantly altered it for you because you are all movie mad and the best moviegoers are polysexual when it comes to lusting after big screen beauty.

Why aren't old favorites in this list?
This list is dedicated to Steve Rogers' impossibly broad shoulders and Natasha Romanoff's awesome cleavage (it was generous of Scarlett to unzip for that helicopter scene, don't you think?) but here's the thing. Doing the same shtick over and over again is not sexy. It's like choosing between missionary style and horizontal with man on top. So I've determined that people are totally ineligible if we've seen them do their character multiple times so no franchise babes that aren't newbies or signifantly altered.

Why isn't Marion Cotillard's Immigrant on this list?
Because we'd feel guilty if we lusted after beautiful Polish immigrants who are tricked into becoming sad whores to provide for their sickly sister.

20 HOTTEST ACTOR/CHARACTERS OF 2014 

20 Tom Hiddleston as “The Great Escapo” in Muppets Most Wanted
Boyfriend Material?: Great sense of humor. Into light bondage to spice things up. Looks fiiiiine in a pair of longjohns. Is, to date, the only performance in the Muppets 35 year franchise that’s likely to cause pervy crotch-focused gifs on the internet.
Dealbreaker: Probably in a Russian gulag for a reason

19 Nick Thurston as “Blue Eyes” in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 
Boyfriend Material?: "Blue Eyes" is right... so soulful. This one's for the plushies... but not the bears. Blue Eyes hates the bears. Easily manipulated (a plus for you control freaks). Plus scars can make you strong / give you character. 
Dealbreaker: Limited conversationalist. Daddy issues.

18 more AFTER THE JUMP...

Click to read more ...