What did you see this weekend?

As expected those talking yellow dildos (thanks Tim) won the weekend in a big way, though they didn't quite beat the top opening of all time for a toon -- which, I hate to remind you, is held by Shrek The Third. The others held fairly well, particularly Magic Mike XXL which keeps inspiring interesting conversation and dropped only 25% in its second weekend instead of the usual 40 or 50%. The least advertised hit was Baahuball, the Beginning, a spectacle from India on only 236 screens.

BOX OFFICE
July 10th-12th Weekend
01 Minions $115.2 NEW Tim on the Minions phenom
02 Jurassic World $18.1 (cum. $590.6) Jurassic Articles 
03 Inside Out $17.1 (cum. $283.6) Inside Out Articles 
04 Terminator Genisys $13.7 (cum. $68.7) Review 
05 The Gallows $10 NEW 
06 Magic Mike XXL NEW $9.6 (cum. $48.3) Review
07 Ted 2 $5.6 (cum. $71.6)
08 Self/Less $5.3 NEW How many Ryan Reynolds movies have you seen?
09 Baahuball: The Beginning $3.5 NEW
10 Max $3.4 (cum. $33.7)

Among notable films in limited release, the documentary Amy (reviewed) had a great second weekend taking in nearly $2 million, the energetic must-see trans comedy Tangerine (raved right here) made $64,000 on 4 screens (with hopefully more to come when word gets out on how raucously fun it is), and the doc Do I Sound Gay? earned $11,000 on 1 screen. Robin Williams bummed out final film Boulevard (reviewed here), didn't fare that well with only $7,000.

What did you see this weekend? 
I ended up hiding from the heat and binge-watching UnReal against my will -- but The Boyfriend does whatever Emily Nussbaum at the New Yorker tells him and she had raved about it. I had absolute zero interest in it based on the subject matter (behind the scenes drama at a show not unlike the women-as-chattle reality series The Bachelor) but it's a stunner -- so cynical, provocative, and superbly acted. Constance Zimmer and Shiri Appleby - wow! 

Link: The Director's Cut

The Film Stage talks to the team behind Tangerine, the iPhone shot movie that was my favorite from Sundance
Pajiba green screen Jean-Claude Van Damme clips for you to make your own movie with
T, The New York Times Style Magazine profiles Xavier Dolan
Entertainment Junkie looks at the visual effects Oscar race
The Dissolve The Voyage of Time Terrence Malick's forthcoming film will have two versions. One with Brad Pitt's voice and one with Cate Blanchett's. I'm getting tired of multiple versions of the same thing, I must admit. It seems so indecisive. But maybe I'm just smarting because today I learned that...
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby arrives on DVD and Blu-Ray on Tuesday and I keep hearing conflicting things. Some say it has all three versions of the film and some say it just has "Them" (which from everything I've read is the disappointing compromise). Should you be lucky enough to have access to the original two parts, which I recommend, watch "Him" first. 

Awards Daily The Visual Effects Society Winners a complete list but the three key big screen wins are Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Big Hero 6, and Birdman. 
Film School Rejects want Edward Norton to win Birdman's acting Oscar
/Film Baz Luhrmann is developing a music-related series for Netflix called The Get Down which focuses on the rise of hiphop, punk and disco in the late 70s. Could be amazing. Cross your collective fingers
Guardian wonders which modern actresses are channeling their inner Hepburn.

(True story. Last night I had a dream in which I was doing a sisyphean task of loading and unloading bags of ice. And Katharine Hepburn was my grandma in that dream.)

Retro Pleasures
Comics Alliance a look back at the awesome production design of Batman Returns which plays that stinkin' city like a harp from hell
The Dissolve "all the weird angles of Fritz Lang's M"
Medium a piece on Gene Kelly's death two decades ago and various tributes 

Off Screen
Vox has a fascinating long read on the Men's Rights Activism and social media debates about persecution and privilege
Playbill Anthony Rapp of Rent fame has co-created the first ever BroadwayCon for theater fans. The first annual event will be held next January!

This Week's Must Read
Kyle Buchanan at Vulture demonstrates beautifully how indie Sundance break-outs and subsequent career offers for their no-budget scrappy directors are a microcosm of Hollywood's White Guy Problem. It's so true!  A young white man can go from directing an indie for less than a million to helming huge blockbusters in one short step. Buchanan has examples and no such offers greet the directors of color or those with vaginas whose breakout films are just as mainstream leaning and just as popular.

Sundance: "Tangerine" The Best Trans Hooker Christmas Comedy You Might Ever See!

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

Indie writer/director Sean Baker (and recently his co-writer Chris Berloch) specialize in portraits of characters on the margins of society. Baker's previous slice-of-life film was the still underappreciated Starlet (2012), which traced an unlikely friendship between a young porn star and an old woman she meets at a garage sale.  Their very worthy follow up is TANGERINE (not to be confused with the Estonian drama currently nominated for Oscar's Foreign Film Category called Tangerines). Again we find Baker looking at places others haven't thought to look — or at least haven't looked at with anything like the same affectionate humor and nuanced humanity.

In this case that place is a Hollywood block filled with ex-con trans hookers who still have their penises, their lonely trade, immigrant cab drivers, and the colorful seedy neighborhood they all share. Tangerine is filled with memorable scenes in busted-ass laundromats, car washes, cheap motels with "party rooms", and of course Donut Time. The movie tells the story of a single event-filled day and night (Christmas Eve) in the lives of Sin-Dee Rella (Kiki Kitana Rodriguez) and her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) who treats her to half a holiday sprinkled donut in the movie's abrasively funny opening scene. 

"Merry Christmas, bitch."

Remember that claim that Wolf of Wall Street used the most "f--ks" ever uttered in a movie? I hope Tangerine makes that claim for "bitch". [More...]

Click to read more ...