Review: Finding Dory

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

One of the best things about breakout supporting characters is that the fandom surrounding them comes honestly. Scene-stealers aren't handed their movies, but earn them. So it went with Dory, Ellen DeGeneres's forgetful blue tang who swam circles around every other character in Finding Nemo (2003), figuratively speaking, though she did sometimes swim in actual circles since she couldn't remember where she was going.

Thirteen years later, though Finding Dory takes place just after Finding Nemo ends, we're swimming in circles again with Dory, via a suspiciously similar movie. Let us count the ways...

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Finding Treasure (with Pixar's Dory)

It will surprise you less than Dory, that she's the new queen of the box office. Finding Dory, the sequel to Pixar's most beloved non-Toy based title with mainstream audiences (not with us though - we're WALL•E / Incredibles people round these parts), broke records when it swam into theaters Thursday night. The bankability of a little Hart (Kevin) and a Big Johnson (Dwayne "The Rock") made an impact in second position, as well, though it's worth noting that pairing them didn't remotely result in twice their usual opening weekend grosses (these are fairly typical for either of them. Maybe their fanbases are too similar?) Between those two movies requiring nearly 8,000 screens between them it was a rough weekend for other movies with most big and small releases losing a ton of movie houses (yes even Love and Friendship and The Lobster which both had strong momentum until they lost theaters. *sniffle*). There's a lot of summer left but there's only one last tidal wave of box office as we move towards the July 4th holiday and Independence Day, The BFG, and Tarzan soon battle for dominance.

TOP WIDE
arrows indicate gaining or losing screens
🔺01 Finding Dory $136.1 NEW Review
🔺02 Central Intelligence $34.5 NEW
🔺03 The Conjuring 2 $15.5 (cum. $71.7) 
▫️04 Now You See Me 2 $9.6 (cum. $41.3) 
🔺05 Warcraft $6.5 (cum. $37.7) Six Questions

Jude Law & Colin Firth in GENIUSTOP  LIMITED
Under 1000 screens. Excluding previously wide. 
🔻01 Love & Friendship $797K (cum. $10.9) Review, Podcast
🔻02 The Lobster $647K (cum. $6.3)  Reviewish, Podcast
🔺03 Maggie's Plan $471K (cum. $1.8)  Review
🔺04 Genius $306K (cum. $442K) Review 
🔺05 Weiner $144K (cum. $1) Review 
 

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND? 
I caught Neon Demon (ooh boy. that's going to be tough to write about) and rewatched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) - our 50th anniversary celebration of that classic begins tomorrow!

Warcraft. What were they thinking?

Six questions that trouble me still from the Warcraft screening last week...

What on earth does Glenn Close need the money for?"

For some reason they only hired sexy men to play these monsters

That's just one of many questions I screamed into the abyss whilst watching this expensive, silly, over-stuffed but under-nourished video game adaptation. What's more this was only one of about 7 questions I screamed to which no answers came in a single scene of the movie. I couldn't even begin to tell you what was going on other than it was important enough to precede the climax of the movie. But I'll try. A young sorcerer (Ben Schnetzer) enters some sort of black gooey CGI cube and meets some sort of anthropomorphized supernatural force with sounds just like Glenn Close and finally looks just like Glenn Close as it solidifies and turns to camera upon which she/it/they bestow(s) on the young sorcerer some sort of magic that they've been withholding from some sort of bureaucrat mystics association so that he can return to battle another sorcerer to become "The Guardian" of the world of Azeroth where this all takes place...and that's not even the A plot!

The A plot is slightly less confusing...

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Patrick & Vera conjure up a big opening weekend

Don't be scared, Patrick. It's just money!

While The Conjuring 2 didn't quite equal its predecessor it came close which is saying a lot in this summer of underperforming sequels. It also helped that it's budget was only $40 million so it's already well on its way to profit. Contrast that to Warcraft's $160 million budget with a $24 million opening. Ouch. Still its foreign performance (nearing $300 million) should help it turn a profit. But one is reminded of The Golden Compass, another would be franchise that chose to end on a cliffhanger rather than telling a full story. Despite doing well overseas it never got a sequel.  Maybe let your audience decide if they like your movie before ending with "to be continued..."?

None of the new limited releases did particularly well including our beloved The Fits which earned $16K in just 4 theaters. Even Love & Friendship & The Lobster appear to have peaked last weekend but we'll see if they can hold screens or expand again next week.

Expect a ton of the current movies to lose all oxygen next weekend when probable behemoth Finding Dory swims into town.

arrows indicate gaining or losing screens

TOP TEN WIDE
🔺01 The Conjuring 2 $40.3 NEW 
🔺02 Warcraft $24.3 NEW
🔺03 Now You See Me 2 $23 NEW 
▫️04 TMNT: Out of the Shadows $14.8 (cum. $61) 
🔺05 X-Men Apocalypse $10 (cum. $136.3) )  Review, Podcast
🔻06 Me Before You $9.2 (cum. $36.8) Review
🔻07 Angry Birds $6.7 (cum. $98.1)
🔻08 Alice Through the Looking Glass $5.5 (cum. $62.4) 
🔻09 Captain America: Civil War $4.3 (cum. $396.8) Review
🔻10 The Jungle Book $2.7 (cum. $352.6)

TOP TEN LIMITED
Under 1000 screens. Excluding previously wide. 
🔺01 Love & Friendship $1.5 (cum. $9.5) Review, Podcast
▫️02 The Lobster $991K (cum. $5.1)  Reviewish, Podcast
🔺03 Maggie's Plan $690K (cum. $1.1)  Review
🔺04 Te3n $284K NEW 
🔺05 Weiner $166K (cum. $760K) Review 
🔻06 The Man Who Knew Infinity $161K (cum. $3.1) 
🔻07 The Meddler $135K (cum. $3.9) Review 
🔺08 The Wailing $133K (cum. $551K) 
🔺09 Sing Street $69K (cum. $2.9)  Review, Who's the MVP?, Podcast 
🔻10 A Bigger Splash $60K (cum. $1.8) Reviewish, Podcast
 

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND? I caught Warcraft (don't judge) and The Conjuring 2 (fun scares and Patrick sings!!!!!) and the Lupita Nyong'o Tony-nominated play Eclipsed (heartwrenching). Busy weekend. 

Swing, Tarzan, Swing! Ch.5: Mike Henry gets his 007 on in the "Valley of Gold"

As we approach the release of The Legend of Tarzan (2016) we're ogling past screen incarnations of the Lord of the Apes...

Tarzan aficianados will cry foul that I've skipped ahead to 1966 in this retrospective but the awesomely named actor Jock Mahoney wouldn't mind. He only made two Tarzan films in the mid sixties... and barely finished those. He got deathly ill on the second, lost 40 lbs during the picture, and couldn't get out of the jungle fast enough. The first of those pictures lost money, too.

You see, in the wake of the phenomenal success of Dr. No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963) and Goldfinger (1964), James Bond was the new #1 adventure hero and Tarzan was old news. The Tarzan franchise took note and tried to combine the two with Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966), introducing the closest thing they could find to Sean Connery's swarthy dimpled masculinity: Mike Henry.

Mike Henry was a professional football player with the Los Angeles Rams but he left sports for the actor's life and donned the Tarzan's loincloth.

...Or, should we say his suit.

In addition to introducing Tarzan as a jet-setting perpetually-endangered looker in a suit, this new 007 style adventure also begins with a kitschy mod score over colorful credits, an opening action sequence that's somewhat disconnected from the movie that follows, and an intelligent international criminal with a taste for booby-trapped gifts. So, you know, we're definitely in Bond territory...

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