What did you see this weekend? I caught a masterpiece!

This weekend saw several new films hitting theaters including the trashy Unforgettable (reviewed), the epic The Promise, and Ben Wheatley's Free Fire (reviewed). Apart from the Disney Nature documentary Born in China and the almost-wide expansion of last week's newbie The Lost City of Z, none made much of an impact with moviegoers, as the holdovers just won't quit filling theaters. Boss Baby and Going in Style, for example, only dropped 20% in their 4th and 3rd weekends respectively.

I spent the weekend hitting the Tribeca Film Festival (our reviews have already begun) but the highlight by far was the rare opportunity to see Lina Wertmüller's Seven Beauties (1975) which is best known to Oscar buffs as the first instance of a woman being nominated for Best Director. The film was more amazing than I was prepared for. We're talking a tonally daring, politically charged, sexually crazed, harrowing and hilarious World War II movie. Most movies don't even have 10% of its verve and personality. I was riveted from the first frame to the last and if you ever have a chance to see it (or live in NYC) you'd be insane to pass it up. I'm going to try to hit at least one or two more Wertmüller movies while the series is running at NYC's newly renovated Quad cinema. 

What did you see this weekend? 

TOP WIDE (800+ theaters)
01 Fate of the Furious $38.6 (cum. $163.5) Ranking the Franchise
02 Boss Baby $12.7 (cum. $136.9) Review
03 Beauty & the Beast $9.9 (cum. $471) Review
04 Born in China $5.1 NEW
05 Going in Style $5 (cum. $31.7) 

TOP LIMITED 
01 The Lost City of Z $2.1 (cum. $2.2) 614 screens Review 
02 Colossal $584k (cum. $1.3) 224 screens Review
03 Their Finest $555k (cum. $1.1) 176 screens
04 Norman $136k (cum. $272k) 18 screens
05 T2 Trainspotting $80k (cum. $2.2) 160 screens

Foreign Film Race Pt 4: Female Directors and Oscar Submissions

Everything you wanted to know about the foreign language film race ...but were afraid to ask*

Toni Erdman, one of 14 films in the Foreign race directed by women, is widely expected to be nominatedPt 1 All the trailers -Albania to Italy
Pt 2 All the trailers - Japan to Yemen
Pt 3 Debut directors

Though Hollywood has an appaling track record when it comes to female representation behind the camera, other countries actually fare a lot better in this regard. Oh sure, it's still not as easy as it is for the men, but each and every year we see several female filmmakers from various countries around the Globe chosen as the best representative of their country's cinema. Now try to imagine how rarely that would happen if the USA had to export only one film to represent them annually. Hard to imagine isn't it? The only times it might conceivably have happened would have been Lost in Translation (2003) which lost best picture to a New Zealand production or The Hurt Locker (2009) which actually won best picture.

Denmark's PAW (1959) and Italy's SEVEN BEAUTIES (1976) were Oscar firsts for women

The 20 Oscar Nominated Foreign Language Films Directed By Women (and this year's hopefuls) after the jump. If you've ever wanted to do that 52 films by women viewing challenge some great ideas follow...

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