The Amazing Samey-Man, A Redundant Box Office Chart

Amir here, with the weekend’s box office report. For the past ten days, I have been drowning in a stack of Hot Docs screeners, missed deadlines and research for [shameless self-promotion!] the next episode of my podcast. As I recover from all of that, it is reassuring, in a perverse way, to look at the box office top ten and realize that all is the same in the world. Order is restored. The audiences are happy. A fucking superhero film has won the day.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 came out on top with a figure that is being labelled “disappointing” around the web despite being higher than the GDP of nine small countries combined. Sure, that number is lower than the earnings of previous Spidey outings, but none of the preceding films suffered from an Electro that looks like an early draft version of a bad 80s sci-fi villain, or a Harry Osborn that looks like an early draft version of a bad 90s Leo DiCaprio. All this despite tens of millions of dollars spent on the CGI budget...

LOLZ

THE TOP TEN
01 THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 $92 *NEW* 
02 THE OTHER WOMAN  $14.2 (cum. $47.3)
03 HEAVEN IS FOR REAL $8.7 (cum. $65.6) 
04 CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER $7.7 (cum. $237.1) Review
05 RIO 2 $7.6 (cum. $106.4) 
06 BRICK MANSIONS $3.5 (cum. $15.4)
07 DIVERGENT $2.1 (cum. $142.6)  Review
08 THE QUIET ONES $2 (cum. $6.7)
09 GOD'S NOT DEAD $1.7 (cum. $55.5)
10 THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL $1.7 (cum. $51.5)

The rest of the top ten looks mostly similar to previous weeks. The Other Woman, a film led by three women that miraculously manages to fail the Bechdel test, is in second place, while Heaven Is For Real and God’s Not Dead continue to surpass all expectations as they hold on to the third and ninth positions, respectively.

On the limited end of things, Walk of Shame proved to be an aptly portentous title for the film's red carpet premiere, as it limped to a $745 per screen average on its opening weekend, but two smaller films did solid business. Belle, a historical drama about the true story of an illegitimate mixed-race child to a navy admiral received respectable reviews, while the Polish film Ida, Pawel Pawlikowski’s black and white, WWII drama has become one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year. I saw this one at TIFF last year, and its meticulous, chilly design gained my admiration more than love, but I’d happily give it another shot.

What have you watched this weekend?

Links (AKA Ways To Kill Even More Time on the Internet)

Vulture Battle of the Long Island Blondes in Wolf of Wall Street, Don Jon and American Hustle. My favorite among them is definitely ScarJo
The Playlist shares the new Electro teaser from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (aka Spider-Man 5) and is it just me or does Electro wielding his powers with a pointy all fingers twitch seem like a really bad cheap imitation of the Emperor in Return of the Jedi ?

Les InRocks [for French speaking readers] interviews director Alain Guiraudie on his critical breakthrough Stranger by the Lake. Please let us know the most interesting lines because I love the portrait of Guiraudie in the bushes
Awards Daily Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio to be honored at Santa Barbara Film Festival. (But in what order are the 48 or so honorees being feted? No one speaks of this!)
Thompson on Hollywood icymi here's a long piece on the very complicated voting process for Oscar's Best Picture. I feel like you have to a higher education math degree or just have a very finely tuned stay-patient stay-focused button, to understand this. Since I have neither, I'm (partially) lost. I have too many questions once you hit step #7... But the theory presented is that we will have a smaller pool of nominees due to the large number of films with broad support, rather than the more common sense 'more beloved films means more nominated pictures' feeling.
Variety SPC picks up the Hungarian future Oscar nominee The Notebook
Cinema Blend a new Ralph Fiennes clip from Grand Budapest Hotel 

Top Ten Mania
Towleroad my piece on the best queer characters of cinema this year from Kill Your Darlings through Blue is the Warmest Color
Towleroad best LGBT moments in television this year
Yahoo top grossing Broadway shows of 2013, The Lion King back on top despite Wicked continuing to rack in literally millions every week despite being several years old (Producers just burning money dawdilng about getting that movie mounted  as we've bitched about a lot). I read so many articles about this and NONE list all ten even though they're referring to a mythical top ten... so you gotta check...
Broadway World ...for that
Pajiba the "brotastic" list of most pirated movies of 2013 from The Hangover Part 3 to Gangster Squad
Frontiers LA has an amazing top ten from the always hilarious and hip "Chloe Sevigny" (aka Drew Droege). Here are the actressy entries though the whole thing is worth a read...

6. The bowel-shaking rhythms of Jodie Foster’s Elysium timbre.
3. Actresses without teeth. Or anyone but Anne Hathaway. 

LOL

Links: Ava, Spidey, Kruger, and The World's Finest

Vulture says goodbye to Ryan Gosling as he begins his break from on-screen acting post Only God Forgives. But it's not over. It's never over.
Laughing Squid awesome movie-themed wedding invitations. Seriously clever! 
In Contention Kris is ecstatic over the news that Man of Steel 2 will include Batman; "The World's Finest" will finally share the screen.
Pajiba on 20 reasons they're sad to be missing Comic-Con 

NPR extremely negative review of a book about Ava Gardner that she didn't want published
Playbill Rose Byrne might play "Grace" in Annie. That's the "We Got Annie!" assistant to Daddy Warbucks played by Ann Reinking in the previous film version
Movie City News 33 Weeks to Oscar - a season without a frontrunner?
Greg in Hollywood thinks this year's Emmy list is the gayest ever -- so many out TV stars these days
New Zealand Herald appreciates Diane Kruger's  terrific recent run of career-elevating parts 
New Zealand Herald -- I'm double-dipping (thx Morgan) since they're into actresses right now -- talks to Nicole Kidman about her recent roles and Grace of Monaco 
i09 has a ton of details from the Marvel Panel at Comic-Con including new Captain America Winter Soldier footage and the Guardians of the Galaxy panel and the Avengers sequel has been titled. It's Avengers: The Age of Ultron.

Peter 'Garfield' Parker 
Huffington Post truly fun interview with Andrew Garfield at Comic-Con who is delightfully candid about his years locked into playing Spidey.

And here he is at Comic-Con delighting the crowd...

Twins: Electro & Mr Freeze

Have you seen the first official still of Electro (Jamie Foxx) from The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This is it, albeit quite, um, altered by my photoshoppin' whimsy.

Can The Amazing Spider-Man 2 be as terrible as I want it to be? I mean please please please for the love of all that is holy in comic book cinema please don't be just dull and bland and redundant like The Amazing Spider-Man reboot. Please be just straight-up terrible so that you're fun to hate! Like Batman and Robin (1997)!

Children of the Link

EW lets you zoom in on details of Spidey's new suit from The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Cinema Blend Oscar winning cinematography Wally Pfister's directorial debut Transcendence is already courting the Chinese audience 
Pajiba "the 12 most awesome sexually confident movie lines" Ha. I couldn't pull any of these off (TMI!) but I love the list
Coming Soon You can now watch the opening and closing credit sequences of Pacific Rim online. Though honestly they look fairly generic despite the hype for the film.
Playbill Theresa Rebeck of Smash-creation fame is trying another series. She's developing a "Bleak House" adaptation for Bravo 

Variety Whoa. Hunky Bollywood superstar Hrithink Roshan recently had brain surgery. Get well soon.
Awards Daily Rising writer/director Ava DuVernay, who made the excellent Middle of Nowhere last year, is taking on Selma, a true-life drama about MLK and the Civil Rights Act
In Contention will Philomena be TWC's secret Oscar weapon this year? I don't know how secret it can be after the reception of several minutes at Cannes but yes, it could be.
Final Girl is about to trace the evolution of the entire Children of the Corn series with a marathon blogging effort on Monday. But she's already surveyed the posters.
Natasha VC a perfect one sentence commentary on Mia Farrow and Philip Roth watching Sharknado together