Podcast: Last Black Man in San Francisco, Toy Story 4

by Murtada Elfadl and Nathaniel R

 

Index (49 minutes)
00:01 Toy Story 4. Fun but was that necessary?
06:57 Emma Thompson shines in Late Night. Deserves a bigger audience.
20:10 Sienna Miller's character study American Woman 
32:00 We highly recommend the stylized, moving The Last Black Man in San Francisco.
47:11 The wrap-up 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Late Night and Last Black Man in San Francisco

Men in Black Don't Die in San Francisco

Since this weekend's box office was all over the place we have an expanded list today. We're taking all wide releases into account and the corresponding top 12 in limited release.

Weekend Box Office June 14th-16th (Actuals) 🔺 = new or expanded theater counts / ★ = recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 🔺 Men in Black Int'l $30 on 4224 screens *new*  REVIEW	1 🔺 The Dead Don't Die $2.5 on 613 screens *new*  REVIEW, JARMUSCH

2 Secret Life of Pets $24.4 on 4563 screens (cum. $92.6) REVIEW	2 🔺  Last Black Man in San Francisco $380k on 36 screens (cum. $733k) REVIEW  ★

Click to read more ...

Weak Sequels & Promising Platform Titles

Weekend Box Office Estimates June 7th-9th (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
Secret Life of Pets 2	Last Black Man in San Francisco
1 🔺 Secret Life of Pets 2  $47.1 on 4561 screens *NEW*  REVIEW	1🔺 Biggest Little Farm $347k on 285 screens (cum. $2.4)
2 🔺 Dark Phoenix $33 on 3721 screens *NEW*  REVIEW	2 🔺 Late Night $249k on 4 screens *NEW* REVIEW ★
3  Aladdin  $24.5 on 3805 screens (cum. $232.3) 1992 RETROSPECTIVE	3 🔺  All is True $237k on 328 screens (cum. $752k) POSTERIZED: DAME JUDI
4 Godzilla: King of Monsters  $15.5 on 4108  screens (cum. $78.5) POSTERIZED	4 🔺  Last Black Man in...  $230k on 7 screens *NEW*  REVIEW ★
5 Rocketman $14 on 3610 screens (cum. $50.4) REVIEW ★	5 🔺 Echo in Canyon $205k on 43 screens (cum. $501k)
6 Ma $7.8 on 2816 screens (cum. $32.7) REVIEW	6 🔺 The Souvenir $169k on 145 screens (cum. $696k) REVIEW ★

What did you see this week? 

• Secret Life of Pets 2 and Dark Phoenix both had dismal openings when compared to their predecessors. Dark Phoenix is likely to become the first X-film not to gross $100 million domestically. But that's okay, since Disney acquired Fox and this franchise can now go dormant until the MCU has their way with it. (We don't really understand why Disney is still going to dump money into The New Mutants reshoot. Just release it on Disney+ and be done with the bad Fox X-Men titles!) 

• Late Night had the weekend's best per screen average with $62k per theater and will go nationwide next weekend. The Last Black Man in San Francisco, also had a solid opening and the film will hopefully be able to capitalize on its strong reviews as it expands during the summer as counterprogramming for adult audiences. Late Night is hoping for a bigger box office splash than Booksmart and we assume they'll get it with more recognizable stars headlining. 

• Other limited openings this week lower on the charts were the music doc Pavarotti (with $142k), stripper doc This One's for the Ladies ($16k), and the Matt Bomer starring Papi Chulo with $7k from 2 theaters. 

• Rocketman crossed $50 million dollar in its 2nd weekend, holding the best of last week's wide releases down only 45% from its opening weekend (by contrast Ma was down 56% and Godzilla a steep drop of 67%) 

ENJOY THE TONY AWARDS AND BIG LITTLE LIES TONIGHT. WE'LL HAVE COVERAGE OF BOTH ON MONDAY AND TUESDAY.

Links: Madonna, Ghostbusters, James Bond, Emmy Campaigns, etc...

• EW six different cover stars for Entertainment Weekly's "50 Years of Gay Pride" issue: Wilson Cruz, Anderson Cooper, Melissa Etheridge, Janet Mock, Neil Patrick Harris, and Ruby Rose
• Coming Soon Sigourney Weaver confirms that the original cast will return for a Ghostbusters 3
• Travel + Leisure a movie theater in Switzerland has beds instead of seats now for movies. Want

More after the jump including Emmy campaigning, Madonna's "Dark Ballet" and Brad Pitt's honorable cease & desist...

Click to read more ...

Now Playing: "Late Night" and "Last Black Man in San Francisco"

Lots of new movies this weekend. Dark Phoenix and The Secret Life of Pets 2 are nationwide. The two highest profile limited releases were both reviewed by Murtada at Sundance earlier this year. They've finally arrived for the rest of us, so go see 'em!

Last Black Man in San Francisco (A24, platform release)
While watching The Last Black Man in San Francisco - a gorgeous, specific, and fantastical fable of a film with a decidedly assured tone - I kept thinking of Oprah Winfrey’s introduction of Precious  star Gabourey Sidibe at the Oscars. “Where did that come from?”, “Where did you learn how to do that?” I was asking these questions of writer/director Joe Talbot and writer/actor Jimmie Fails. They had collaborated on a short film before, but this is their feature debut... READ THE FULL REVIEW

Late Night (Amazon Studios, select cities this weekend... nationwide next week)
Emma Thompson plays legendary talk show host Katherine Newbery (think Letterman, 2 decades younger, English and a woman but just as famous and revered) in the new comedy Late Night. Early in the film Newbery meets a male employee from the writers room who is asking for a raise because he recently had a baby. In two minutes Thompson eviscerates him, and all of the decades of sexism and inequality in the workplace. She likens having babies to having a drug problem that one can’t shake. The latter is an unexpected and illogical simile until, that is, you hear it coming out of Thompson’s mouth. The writing’s funny and sharp, and Thompson is on full-throttle hilarious commitment... READ THE FULL REVIEW