"Are you a Catholic?" (Actually No, But I *Get* It)

For The Lusty Month of May, we're looking at a few sex scenes. Here's Nathaniel...

They like to say that people come into your lives for a reason. Also true of movies. When I saw Priest (1994) in its American release in 1995, I was just out of the closet but still very much struggling with having been a strict Mormon for then roughly 100% of my life. The movie is about a gay Priest (Linus Roache) who struggles with his vows .... and not just the sexual ones. It hit me in a seismic way. This had never happened to me before or since but I started crying at the end and actually couldn't stop until after the credits had ended. 

Where you are in life can dictate a lot about how you receive a movie. But this series is about sex scenes so let's narrow our focus. Today Priest's sex scene, which I had liked (okay, obsessed over - shut up) back then plays super tame. Why did it shock me then? I have the answer in 2015 watching it again...

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Box Office Prophecy: Kristen Wiig's Legs

I've been in Boston for my girlfriend's birthday. Yesterday on the last day of the weekend birthday-ing, our group filed into a very crowded house for Bridesmaids. Perfect movie choice for a rainy day after brunch with a group o' friends. Given how consistently the entire theater was LOLing -- including our row -- you'd think the film could've knocked Thor right off the Bifrost.

A Truth: Wiig's Penis Imitation > Thor's Hammer. 

But I guess a great audience response and word of mouth is what second weekends are for. I expect Bridesmaids will have major box office legs and the tiniest of percentage dips next weekend. It's much funnier than The Hangover (2009) to which it's often compared (for plot and especially marketing reasons) and that film, which opened stronger, only dipped 27% and 18% in its 2nd and 3rd weekends going on to a very substantial gross. I'm guessing we see something very similar with Kristen Wiig & Co, at least percentage wise, in the next couple of weekends. I hope The Hangover II doesn't eat into its potential audience in the coming weeks. The wolf pack already had its turn.

The Box Office (Actuals)

01 THOR $34.7 (cumulative $119.4) [review]
02 BRIDESMAIDS new  $26.2
03 FAST FIVE $20.4 (cumulative $169.6)
04 PRIEST new $14.9
05 RIO $8.2 (cumulative $125.2)
06 JUMPING THE BROOM $7.0 (cumulative $25.7)
07 SOMETHING BORROWED $6.8 (cumulative $25.5)
08 WATER FOR ELEPHANTS $4.2 (cumulative $48.5) [review]
09 TYLER PERRY MADEA'S BIG HAPPY FAMILY $2.2 (cumulative $50.2)
10 SOUL SURFER $1.8 (cumulative $39.2)

What did you see this weekend? I'll try to write up Bridesmaids soon. I have a few things to say about it but they feel too entirely jumbled and disparate to make sense of this morning.