Box Office: You Must "Focus"

I kept thinking of Agent Carter's Russian villain whenever I saw the trailer to Focus, because he said "you must focus" every other line in that series while he performed his instant super-hypnosis. Which was ridiculous but the show is really fun. Anyway: Will Smith! The media tour around Focus kept focusing (sorry) on how Will Smith is not concentrating on box office now! and Box Office doesn't define him! so they were obviously prepping for disaster should it happen. But no disaster. He's still bankable even if a $19 million opening isn't what he used to be able to carry off with ease. I wonder if the presence of Margot Robbie helped? Or maybe people don't even realize yet that it's "that hot girl from Wolf of Wall Street".

The other new wide release was the horror film The Lazarus Effect which did over $10 million. 

In news we care more about Julianne Moore entered the top ten for the first time with Still Alice during her Oscar-winning weekend and at $12 million already the Alzheimers drama is turning into quite a little hit for her. As beloved as she is, she's not a box office star so this is a major success --along the lines of a Far From Heaven. Unfortunately her other movie, the David Cronenberg picture Maps to the Stars, tanked in limited release. I'm sure the distributor utterly confused its potential audience by holding it in reserve during those weird intermittent bursts of buzz it had for well over 9 months and then releasing it quietly while everyone was concentrating on her other movie. But she's marvelous in that one, too.

The Irish thriller '71 starring Jack O'Connell and set during 'The Troubles' also opened in very limited release (reviewed) and it's very good so you should see it. 

What did you see this weekend? Or maybe you just stayed in to bingewatch House of Cards?

Box Office: 50 Shades of Oscar Green

This weeks box office is nearly identical to last week's only less cash to go round. The top three films still reign holding off newcomers and outside the top five people are still checking out the Oscar nominees for some last minute looksies before the big ceremony tonight (yes, we'll be live-blogging). American Sniper is now just $17 million away from becoming 2014's #1 film.  But it has started to lose theaters and its per scene average isn't what it used to be. At any rate it's going to be a photofinish with the top three of 2014: Hunger Games 3 & Guardians of the Galaxy 1 are just 3 million apart in grosses and Sniper is approaching them with unblinking dead-eyed determination.

TOP OF THE BOX OFFICE
Click on the highlighted titles for past articles on that film
01 50 SHADES OF GREY $23.2 (cum. $130.1)
02 KINGSMAN $17.5 (cum. $67.1)
03 SPONGEBOB MOVIE $15.5 (cum. $125.1)
04 MCFARLAND USA $11.3 NEW
05 THE DUFF $11 NEW
06 AMERICAN SNIPER $9.6 (cum. $319.6) 
07 HOT TUB TIME MACHINE 2 $5.8 NEW
08 JUPITER ASCENDING $3.6 (cum. $39.5) 
09 IMITATION GAME $2.5 (cum. $83.9) 
10 PADDINGTON $2.2 (cum. $67.6)
11 STILL ALICE $2.1 (cum. $7.9) 

In happy news for our long awaited Julianne Moore Oscar coronation Still Alice, expanding to just under 800 screens, nearly made the top ten and has already earned a very healthy $8 million for a movie about the cheery topic of alzheimers. Selma will soon cross the $50 million mark. Despite whining in some corners that it underperformed it's actually the 4th most successful Best Picture nominee.

Best Actress. An Oscar Thrill & Personal Ballot

It's just four days until Oscar and I remain stunned and overjoyed that god* will be taking home her first Oscar. I can scarcely believe it. I thought it would be a nail biter given that this never happens. It's true we're about to get our first fiftysomething Best Actress winner in 62 years and I couldn't be happier about it! Given Oscar's very limited idea of what constitutes great acting (let's face it they were never going to "get" how well Scarlett Johansson was embodying a inhuman alien psyche distracted by curiousity) they didn't have much to choose from this year. But we cinephiles did. Best Actress is always a tough category for the actressexual, so I truly wish I had 8 nominees each year. I truly do. Of course then I'd weep for the 9th. You're always going to have to leave people out.

I force myself to narrow it down to 12 semi-finalists each year for a happy dozen before I make the final calls so here's a last shout out to a dozenish favorite leading ladies of 2014 (in alpha order) though this time it's a baker's dozen because I had to include the baker's wife albeit in her other incarnation this year.

Let's hear it for this incredible work. (Weak year my ass)

• Emily Blunt, Edge of Tomorrow
• Marion Cotillard, Two Days One Night
• Essie Davis, The Babadook
• Anne Dorval, Mommy
• Luminita Gheorghiu, Child's Pose
• Scarlett Johansson, Under the Skin
• Keira Knightley, Begin Again
• Agata Kulesza, Ida
• Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Beyond the Lights
• Julianne Moore, Still Alice / Maps to the Stars **
• Elisabeth Moss, Listen Up Phillip
• Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
• Reese Witherspoon, Wild

See the Film Bitch Awards Best Actress nominees here!

* Julianne Moore is God.

** I could never understand what the f*** was happening with Maps to the Stars (Globe eligible but not Oscar eligible - what the hell?) so it is not included in my 2014 awards though I would surely have nominated Juli for it. I haven't yet decided if I will consider it for 2015 -- it supposedly opens February 27th -- but it seems to have been lost in the gap between film years. I will never understand this predilection of distributors to confuse potential audiences and critics in year end prizes. Never ever. It fills me with such bile every annum.

The Teachings of Juli

Jose here. Why do I keep forgetting how funny Julianne Moore is? Perhaps because not counting 30 Rock and Maps to the Stars (yes, that is a funny performance) the movies always give us tragic, sad Juli.

Photo credit: Jose Solis

She is the one actress who has perfected the act of onscreen suffering, if you only knew how many times I’ve played that scene with the late night phone call in Far From Heaven to help me cleanse my soul...anyway, once you think of it, outside the movies she always seems to have a huge smile on her face and emanates ginger joy wherever she goes, which wasn’t the exception at a Still Alice press conference I attended yesterday, where she along with Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, author Lisa Genova and co-director Wash Westmoreland discussed the film.

Not one to keep my obsessive fan questions to myself, as Nathaniel has pointed out in the past, I pitched Juli my DVD boxset called “Ill Juli” which would feature Still Alice, The End of the Affair and Safe. She laughed the biggest Moore laugh I’ve had the joy to witness and said “hey, I do comedy too!”

More Juli after the jump...

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Best Actress Battles: Juli vs. Jen?

A recent headline, suggesting 'ways in which Jennifer Aniston could win the Oscar' (I shan't quote it directly but it's here if you must look upon it) didn't raise my eyebrow. Didn't even cause a twitch! If you've followed the Oscar game your whole life and especially if you've followed it in the past ten years when the internet has amplified all of the minutea you'll know that journalists are always looking for fresh angles or, with or without those, highly fantastical angles sold as plausible to use for click bait. So though the articles (I'm sure they are plural though I haven't actually read them) didn't worry me at first -- I believe that Julianne Moore will win gold -- but the immediate enthusiastic social media response to the idea that Jennifer Aniston might have an Oscar coming in February is what finally shoved my unwilling eyebrow up.

"Consider..." that here are two movies (Still Alice and Cake) that virtually no one outside of the press & industry has seen since both opted for one week qualifying releases. Yet they're the two that the fans are getting emotionally invested in in terms of "should/will win" arguments. It serves as a useful reminder that around Christmas-time each year the narratives truly begin to take over, media "battles" are created, and the actual films and performances are left far far behind...

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