What are you up to this weekend?

This Memorial Day Weekend isn't on fire at the movies. Nobody much cares about Baywatch (which is neither exciting like an action movie or funny like a comedy, but can still be amply defined as an "action comedy") and a new Pirates of the Caribbean is getting only the usual flock of lemming moviegoers for an established franchise and no one else. This is, by a very wide margin, the worst opening for a Pirates sequels. Elsewhere in sequel land the news isn't much better. Alien Covenant is the least popular Alien film yet if you adjust for inflation (and dont count those Predator crossovers because why would you?). Will Wonder Woman turn things around next week for audience interest or is counterprogramming that Big Hollywood rarely does anymore what they actually needed to do this very summer?

In limited release, slightly better news. Two unconventional romcoms are performing pretty well: Israel's 'wedding without a groom' film The Wedding Plan and the unfaithful ole marrieds of The Lovers are still expanding to decent business.

Weekend Box Office (May 26-28)
W I D E	L I M I T E D
1.🔺 PIRATES (5) $62.1  NEW	1. 🔺 THE LOVERS $665K (cum. $1.3) (443 screens)  REVIEW
2. GUARDIANS (2) $19.8  (cum. $333.2) REVIEW	2. LOWRIDERS $539K (cum. $5.1) (334 screens)
3.🔺 BAYWATCH $18.1 NEW (cum. $22.7)	3. NORMAN $503k (cum. $3.0) (324 screens)
4. ALIEN (6)  $10.5 (cum. $57.3)  REVIEW | FRANCHISE	4.🔺 PARIS CAN WAIT $456k (cum. $860k) (70 screens)
5. EVERYTHING EVERYTHING $6.1 (cum. $21.5) REVIEW	5.🔺 THE WEDDING PLAN $311k (cum. $595K | 91 screens)
🔺 = new or added screens numbers from box office mojo

What did you see this weekend? 

Cannes Day 1: The Netflix Battle and "Ishmael's Ghost"

by Nathaniel R

Maren Ade, Will Smith, Agnes Jaoui, and Pedro Almodóvar at the Jury Press Conference today

Though we aren't in the South of France we'll try to keep an eye on the proceedings across the pond there these next two weeks. If you're relatively new to movie obsessing (We keep hoping more young people will tune in to TFE. We used to attract baby cinephiles... not sure where they congregate now!) Vox has a terrific heavily expository overview of why Cannes is so important, how to pronounce it ("can" not "cans" or "cahn"), why so many famous people go, why everyone is so dressed up, and some other myths and mysteries that surround the festival.

Jury Press Conference & the Netflix Divide
Because juicy click-bait headlines drive traffic most websites are framing the Jury Press Conference as a bloody war between the president Pedro Almodóvar and his most famous juror Will Smith. They may well eventually come to artistic blows in jury deliberations (who knows) but this is already grossly overstated. They merely have different feelings about Netflix, a famous "disruptor" as a company. Will Smith is very pro Netflix (basically because he has kids who like it). Almodóvar is very pro theatrical exhibition, because you know, he's a filmmaker who cares about movies. That's about the extent of the "war"...

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Pedro Party: All About My Mother

It's a Pedro Party all week. Here's Lynn Lee on her introduction to Almodóvar...

To all actresses who have played actresses.  To all women who act.  To men who act and become women.  To all the people who want to be mothers.  To my mother.”

All About My Mother was the first Almodovar film I ever saw, and as it happens, I saw it with my own mother.  I don’t remember why I picked it for us to see together.  It certainly wasn’t because of the title or because I thought it would be something she’d particularly like.  In fact, if I’d thought about it more, I might have been anxious that she would find it too outré.  Or for that matter, that I would; as both a movie lover and a young adult, I was just beginning to learn what was out there and how far it stretched beyond my own personal experience.

To our credit, or rather to Almodovar’s, there was no reason for such trepidation...

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Today's 5: Carrie, Snatched, Blowup, and more...

Today's 5 mood boosting assignments from showbiz history...

2017 oh wait that's today! New in movie theaters today: Goldie Hawn returns to the cinema in the Amy Schumer comedy Snatched; Uneven but sometimes really exciting director Doug Liman unveils the sniper drama The Wall (starring Brit Aaron Taylor-Johnson with a twangy accent); Guy Ritchie anachronistically Ritchifies the King Arthur legend with Charlie Hunnam and Jude Law; Demian Bichir stars in Lowriders; and Diane Lane takes a road trip with Arnaud Viard in Paris Can Wait when her husband Alec Baldwin bails on her for business.

In their honor: Go see a movie this weekend. Pick a title any title. If you don't want to see one of those catch up with The Lovers or Lost City of Z. Both are good flicks.

1988 The infamous stage musical version of horror classic Carrie opens. It will close five days later. The off Broadway revival in 2012 did significantly better but still closed at a loss

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Arthouse Box Office... Go see "The Lovers"

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (reviewed) opened huge as expected, and is now #2 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of this highly specific metric: Most box office improvement over the opening of the first film. Number 1 in this regard is still Captain America Winter Soldier. With the mainstream box office being totally dominated by two franchises featuring action heroes of scant relation deploying the word "family" as frequently as rounds of ammo, let's turn our attention to the films in limited release. Richard Gere is the unexpected leader with not one but two films (The Dinner and Norman) in the top five.

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