Podcast: Booksmart, Ma, Diamantino, and Rocketman

by Murtada Elfadl and Nathaniel R

 

Index (53 minutes)
00:01 Drama Desk Awards (plus Tony buzz)
10:00 Rocketman w/ Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Bryce Dallas Howard
25:40 Olivia Wilde's Booksmart w/ Kaitlyn Dever & Beanie Feldstein
34:00 The thoroughly bizarre Diamantino
39:10 Octavia Spencer in the horror flick Ma (plus Missi Pyle!)
48:00 Randomness: summer movies, Nathaniel's bday, upcoming Smackdowns

Mentioned (Extra Credit Reading!)
• Rocketman vs Bohemian Rhapsody Vulture Quiz
• New Yorker Ma Essay by Doreen St. Félix
• TFE Nathaniel's Review of Rocketman
• TFE Murtada's interview with the Diamantino directors 

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? 

Rocketman, Ma, Booksmart

Finally, some options at the movie theater!

What did you see over the weekend? I saw four movies - a fun weekend. FINALLY. It's always better when multiple options of quality arrive instead of every distributor clearing the way for some preordained lame Disney blockbuster.

The charts and a few notes are after the jump...

Weekend Box Office May 31st-June 2nd  🔺 = new or expanded theater counts / ★ = recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 🔺 Godzilla: King of the Monsters $47.7 on 4108 screens *new*	1 🔺 Biggest Little Farm $435k on 275 screens (cum. $1.8)

2 Aladdin $42.8 on 4476 screens (cum. $185.5) 1992 RETRO	2 🔺  The Souvenir $133k on 74 screens (cum. $460k)  REVIEW, PODCAST ★

3 🔺 Rocketman  $25.7 on 3610 screens *new*  REVIEW ★	3 The White Crow $125k on 212 screens (cum. $1.5) PODCAST

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Review: Octavia Spencer lets loose with "Ma"

by Sean Donovan

In an age where critics praise a generation of thoughtful, innovative, and dazzlingly styled horror films, a deceptively basic package like Ma --unconcerned with winning good reviews, elevating the genre, or acquiring a fancy boutique label like A24 -- is uniquely refreshing. Ma’s jump scares are familiar, its plotting is predictably iffy, its logic and emotional contexts for its supporting characters even more so- but goddamn it, it’s fun.

The ‘fun’ comes from feeding off the joy of Octavia Spencer inhabiting domestic horror-thriller, Hand That Rocks the Cradle realness. No longer is Spencer smiling on a gilded stage, frozen while Peter Farrelly and Nick Vallelonga accept prizes for socially regressive trash to which she’s somehow attached. Octavia’s back baby, and this time she’s got hell to raise and teens to terrify....

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