There's not much of a story this weekend beyond Star Wars: The Force Awakens which broke all available records without even breaking a sweat this weekend with a $238 million opening. And that's even before the lucrative Christmas week. Jurassic World currently tops the 2015 box office globally with $1.6 billion in revenues with Furious 7 tailing it with $1.5. Surely The Force Awakens has its eyes on even greater prizes though. Like James Cameron's top two records Titanic's 2.1 billion and Avatar's (2009) 2.7 billion worldwide gross.
The Force Awakens is a good movie so the audience wins. Or do we? Let's talk about the Dark Side of the box office as we look at the biggest hits of the year in five separate categories after the jump...
It's so tough to keep up with other movie stuffs during precursor week. So here are several news items, essays, montages to help up catch us all up. Ready. Set. Go...
NEWS i09 One sorcerer supreme is not enough for Doctor Strange star Benedict Cumberbatch. He's also signed on to play Jasper Maskelyne, a Nazi-fighter War Magician The Wrap Universal's Mummy reboot will swap the gender of the monster. Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: Secret Service) will star Film Stage George Clooney's next directing job is the noir Suburbicon. He's lining up an all star cast and Julianne Moore just joined
Playbill Lee Daniels creating a girl band tv series for Queen Latifah (Empire was such a succcess that there are lot of music industry series about to hit or in development) /Film Ang Lee's Thrilla in Manila, a boxing drama is said to be eyeing Ray Fisher as Muhammad Ali and David Oyelowo as Joe Frazier Guardian looks like it's Idris Elba vs Matthew McConaughey for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's Dark Tower
OF INTEREST Film School Rejects has a curious but interesting take on why people need to stop naming Mad Max Fury Road "Best" of the year Film School Rejects on the Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation commentary track Viv & Larry interview with illustrator Alejandro Mogollo Diez who specialize in movie icons MNPP Rob Kazinsky's new tv show has been renamed... but will it help? People really aren't into the Frankenstein myth that much as evidenced at box office Pajiba's review of Joy is getting a lot of traction for its skewering of David O. Russell as a mansplainer of feminism. I suppose I should write about this movie. It's not great but I don't think it's getting a fair shake Comics Alliance Frank Miller is not into Netflix's Daredevil choices
LIST MANIA / AWARDAGE Washington DC Film Critics award Spotlight best pic but give multiple prizes to Room, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Revenant African American Film Critics Assn give Straight Outta Compton Pic, Ensemble, and Supporting Actor (Jason Mitchell - weirdly ignored by NAACP). Creed wins three prizes including Breakthrough for Michael B Jordan... um, he broke through years ago people! Vulture & Slate both do best TV shows of 2015: Jessica Jones, Mad Men, Jane the Virgin etc The New York Times best theater of 2015: Hamilton, The King and I, Lupita Nyong'o etc
TODAY'S VIEWS If you haven't yet seen these give them a spin. It's David Ehrlich's Top 25 Films of the Year (his editing skills are absurd but so is having Tangerine way down at #24), Channing Tatum saying 8 Hateful things to a kitten "you know what sucks about you, dude. You don't have thumbs" You know what sucks about you, Chan. You're not in nearly enough of The Hateful Eight to make that 182 minu--- oops, embargo.
Happy SAG NOMINATION DAY! It's time for our glorious depressing tradition of trying to convince a UNION that they ought to look into slightly different rules that are less likely to devalue their dues paying members. Each year when the SAG ensemble nominees are announced the list of actual nominees from the films reveal that non-big name actors are routinely excluded. The problem is that the size of your fame doesn't always correlate with your role and the bulk of SAG's membership is non-famous actors. If you're curious about why this happens it's due to the rules that you have to have your own title card to be considered part of the official ensemble. In other words you need to a) be famous or b) have a really good agent or c) have the leading role. The only exception to this rule is when the credits don't follow the normal rules. For example Woody Allen movies always list the cast alphabetically on a shared title card. In those cases, you have to be on the first title card to make it in which is why Corey Stoll, who gave the best performance in Midnight in Paris, was left out that year. He wasn't famous enough yet to be on the first page of credits. Now he tends to get his own title card.
So let's look at who was honored and who was mistreated this morning by the group nominations.
BEASTS OF NO NATION Nominated Cast: Abraham Attah, Idris Elba, Kurt Egyiawan (as "2nd I-C")
Who was left out: Just about everyone which makes it the strangest nomination of the group. Does three make an ensemble? I have not yet seen the film -- child soldier dramas are a subgenre I avoid like the plague since they're mentally scarring -- but I hear that Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye who plays "Strika" is quite good in the movie.
The Screen Actors Guild nominations are just one week away. Who do you think will be nominated for Best Ensemble? Spotlight is the only sure things since it screams "ENSEMBLE!" Or at least it whispers "Ensemble" with grave concern and sobriety standing with arms akimbo with rolled up sleeves and khakis. The Martian is probably in since it's well liked, hard to avoid, has a big cast, and it's long been speculated that actors sometimes vote for movies that they wish they could have been in (i.e. movies wherein a bunch of people look to be having fun making it)
For this week's edition of the podcast, Nathaniel and Nick gab about old lady movies (I'll See You In My Dreams, Ricki & The Flash, and Grandma). Nick hasn't seen The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Nathaniel hasn't seen Straight Outta Compton so they tell each other about them, too.
Contents (43 minutes) 00:01 Grey Gardens to Straight Outta Compton? 06:45 I'll See You In My Dreams, Ricki & The Flash 19:30 Grandma 27:00 The Man From U.N.C.L.E. 30:00 Sam Elliott 33:00 Miscellania: The Gift, Tom at the Farm, Sand Dollars, and being over Helen Mirren
You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes.
Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 2:55PM 
