Almost There: Paul Dano in "Love & Mercy"

by Cláudio Alves

Paul Dano's film career has been awards-adjacent since the very beginning. At seventeen, he won the Best Debut Performance Spirit Award for his work in L.I.E. Five years later, he was one of the stars of Little Miss Sunshine, the first of three Best Picture Oscar nominees in the actor's filmography. Still, though the Academy regularly loves Dano's movies, they have never shown any affection for Dano himself. That might change this year with The Fabelmans, where the actor portrays a fictionalized version of Steven Spielberg's dad in what's bound to be one of the season's biggest award magnets.

To celebrate the actor's achievements and potential first Oscar nomination, let's look back to the last time Dano was on the Academy's radar. In 2015, he almost category frauded his way to a Supporting Actor nomination for his work as Brian Wilson in Bill Pohlad's Love & Mercy…

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On this day in history: The very first Oscars, Loving, and more...

Every once in awhile we do this to remind ourselves that this moment we're in is fleeting but time is infinite or something... and I'm not even stoned while typing this.

On this day in movie-related history...

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Links: Streep in Berlin, Tarantino in Hot Water, Garber at the Altar

Oscars Cometh
Awards Daily Love and Mercy is pulling out all the stops for their Oscar campaign including Brian Wilson concerts
Twitter everyone is excited that Mad Max Fury Road is getting an Oscar campaign but most hits get this treatment even the ones that have no chance.
Academy Conversations Truth is on the campaign trail, too with this recent conversation in NYC. Pssst. I believe NY's BAFTA chapter also hosted a screening just last night at the theater I was in (though I was there for a different movie)
NYT Style "The Gonzo Vision of Quentin Tarantino" like Matt Damon before him he might do his latest Oscar campaign good by just shutting up. In this new profile he infuriates a lot of people with his anger about his racial criticisms of his work and even has the nerve to be chauvinistically condescending about Kathryn Bigelow's beating him at the Oscars

Look, it was exciting that a woman had made such a good war film..."

 

General Linkage
Variety WOW. Meryl Streep, who has never really been a film festival queen like some respected actors will be president of the Berlinale jury in 2016. It's her FIRST film festival jury. Naturally she starts at the top as president of an A list fest
AV Club on a fun new instagram movie/tv mocking account "Night Lotion" LOL
EW a roundtable with the creatives behind Aladdin for its Blu-ray release
TFE did you vote on our Aladdin inspired poll?
The Tracking Board collects all the recent Jennifer Lawrence news... which is a lot and frankly we don't have the strength this week. Can we talk about any other actress for a change? She doesn't even have a movie out right now. Can we at least wait for her to be in movie theaters again?
Gothamist Lena Dunham's next HBO series in development is called Max about magazines and second-wave feminism in the 1960s
Guardian Sir John Hurt's given the all-clear from doctors after his chemo for cancer. Yay! 
Guardian in extremely confusing Hollyweird news Paramount is developing a remake of The Ten Commandments (1956). Didnt they notice all the money lost on the last one (Ridley Scott's Exodus)?
Vulture goes to the set of The Knick
NYT Playboy magazine will no longer feature nudity but tone down their pictorials to "suggestive"
EW want to be naked with Miley Cyrus and The Flaming Lips? Everyone gets naked (including the audience) for the video for "The Milky Milky Milk" 
/Film on recent Marvel news - the biggest of which is that Hulk will co-star in Thor: Ragnarok
Playbill interviews the huge stage talent Danny Burstein. He is really remarkable on stage but has a low profile on film and TV. I was pleased to see him pop up recently in The Family Fang and Blackhat albeit in tiny roles. If only they were making great screen musicals and casting appropriately.
Pajiba collects the best tweets from the Democratic Debate last night. Some really funny ones here 
Variety Julianne Moore lead Hollywood committee fighting for gun violence prevention 

*throws rice*
Finally, congratulations to Victor Garber (Alias, Titanic, Argo,The Flash). He married his boyfriend of 16 years, the artist Rainer Andreesen this week. They eloped apparently. Photo via Rainer's instagram

Sing-Along to Go
Here's Victor Garber singing Elton John's "Last Song". Since nearly the entire cast of The Flash has beautiful musical theater voices, can we please get a musical episode?  Pretty pretty please. I don't care if it has to be on an Alternate Earth.

Podcast XXL: Brian and Earl and the Inside Out Girl

Nathaniel R is thrilled to welcome Nick Davis back to the podcast. He's been binge-watching 2015 movies after months of deprivation. Seven films discussed if you count Jurassic World... but perhaps you shouldn't. We talk fast because there was just so much to catch up on.

Contents

• 00:01 Jurassic World
• 02:00 The Upcoming 1995 Smackdown
• 04:45 Magic Mike XXL and his women
• 10:37 Dope and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: Or, The Good and Bad of Sundance Quirkiness 
• 22:10 Inside Out and a little more XXL just because
• 29:24 Love & Mercy and/or 'Admirations & Misgivings' about the movie itself
• 39:00 Spy

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes.  Please continue the conversation in the comments because if the podcast were twice as long there'd still be plenty left to say. We repeat: seven movies.  

Further (Related) Reading: 
1995 Smackdown Info, Nathaniel on Magic Mike XXL, Nick on Magic Mike XXL, Rose Byrne FYC, and Nick's "Fifties" Report for 2015

Inside Out, Magic Mike XXL, Me and Earl

Golden Oldies Rule The Box Office

Fact: People love themselves from prehistoric monster movies. 

Jurassic World (aka Jurassic Park 4) took absolutely no chances whatsoever on losing the collective global nostalgia for Steven Spielberg's original dino-blockbuster, modelling itself almost exactly on its predecessor. The only plot elements and story beats missing in this very very familiar movie are the kind you can't regurgitate: Spielberg's brilliance, Laura Dern's Face o' Wonder, and that scene with the dinosaur poop. As a result its opening weekend was big enough to fund the development of a real life theme park with ½ a billion in worldwide grosses in just 3 days. It's now the second biggest opening of all time after Marvel's The Avengers (2012). Which means that it's fairly certain that Jurassic Park 4 or Star Wars 7 will be the Crowned Champ of 2015 when the year wraps up. Sorry about it Avengers 2, Hunger Games 4, Furious 7, and Originality; you've all lost!

This way towards ridiculous grosses, you monster!

WIDE RELEASE
June 12th-14th Weekend
01 Jurassic World NEW $204.6 Jurassic Park Articles 
02 Spy $16 (cum. $56.9) Rose Byrne FYC
03 San Andreas $11 (cum. $119.3)
04 Insididous Chapter 3 $7.3 (cum. $37.3)
05 Pitch Perfect 2 $6 (cum. $170.7) Review 
06 Entourage $4.3 (cum. $25.8)
07 Mad Max: Fury Road $4.1 (cum. $138.6)  Review & Podcast & Random Articles
08 Avengers: Age of Ultron  $3.6 (cum. $444.7) Review & Marathon & Podcast
09 Tomorrowland $3.4 (cum. $83.6)  Review
10 Aloha $.9 (cum. $18.9) Review

UNDER 800 SCREENS
June 12th-14th Weekend
01 Love & Mercy 573 screens $1.7 (cum. $4.7) 
02 I'll See You In My Dreams 246 screens $.8 (cum. $2.9) 
03 Home 584 screens $.7 (cum. $119.3)
04 Furious 7 357 screens $.5 (cum. $350.7) Review
05 Far From the Madding Crowd 366 screens $.4 (cum. $10.7) Review 
06 Cinderella 270 screens $.2 (cum $199.2) Review
07 Ex Machina 194 screens $.2 (cum. $24.7) Review & Podcast & Random Articles
08 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl NEW 15 screens $.2 Review 
09 Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 234 screens $.2 (cum. $68.8)
10 Woman in Gold 198 screens $.1 (cum. $32.2)

The story in limited release was also oldies but goodies: The Beach Boys & Blythe Danner. Love & Mercy got quite an enthusiastic critical (and audience) response and Mama Paltrow continues to headline the non-story story of the summer in that her movie has received very little press but has somehow found an audience anyway and steadily accumulated a very nice little gross for a septugenarian romantic drama. Do you think Bleecker Street will have the guts to fund her an Oscar campaign? 

What did you see this weekend?
I saw the dinosaurs (guilty), finished up Sense8, and wisely decided not to binge Orange is the New Black but to truly savor it this time. I'm savoring my visitation privileges with these convicts this year for as long as I can manage will-power wise. Maybe I can make it last through Mid July?!?