Bye Instant Watch: Terms of Endearment, Tom Cruise, Big Fish...

What's leaving Netflix Instant Watch?

We should probably start covering that. It seems like a boring topic but we jazz up your public service announcements. I'll close my eyes and play with the control bar and wherever I freeze the movie I'll share the image. This weekend is your last chance to watch these films for free for who knows how long. Since there are Oscar titles in the mix, perhaps you can fill some holes in your Oscar lists of Things To See or Rewatch.

Ready? In chronological order of their film year, seven films leaving Netflix on February 1st...

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (1983)

EMMA: I've got some good news. I'm unofficially pregnant. I mean I haven't got the tests back but I'm never late.

AURORA: [Pause] Well... No, I don't understand."

Look how crazy young Jeff Daniels is! Shirley Maclaine is so hilarious and complicated in this movie -- that long pause with cascading rejection of possible responses under frozen 'I don't understand' face. She's going to lose out since she doesn't want to think of herself as a grandmother. A well deserved Best Actress win, with Shirley obviously relieved about it "this show has been as long as my career."

Oscar Note: I know we've asked this before but how long before we get another girlie Best Picture winner it's been FOR-EV-ER. Terms of Endearment was nominated for 11 Oscars (an astounding amount for a contemporary-set film), winning 5. 

six more movies after the jump

THE TERMINATOR (1984) 

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Link Wars: Episode VII

For those looking for the new Oscar charts, I promise it's the top priority now once all this surprisingly busy April madness wraps tonight.

More Intelligent Life on badass Angelina Jolie and Maleficent
Press Play how modern actors struggle with Marlon Brando's legacy
The Perceptive Eye on military suicides, PTSD and The Hurt Locker 
Pajiba how many romcom tropes can David Wain shove into one movie? The trailer of They Came Together with Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd

Guardian on Bob Hoskins (RIP). "five foot six cubic and bursting with brilliance"
Variety uh oh. Harvey Weinstein and Olivier Dahan STILL fighting over Grace of Monaco two weeks before its Cannes debut
The Dissolve looks back at the 80s comedy classic A Fish Called Wanda
The Sheila Variations returns to Young Adult and Charlize Theron's brilliance therein
Boy Culture Tom Hardy's recent magazine pictorial (which we discussed) regif'ed
MZS. "Advice to Young Film Critics" good advice, too.
Coming Soon Fox has cancelled Almost Human, the cyborg cop show that I kinda liked. I never really wrote about it so I didn't have a chance to talk about Karl Urban's John Wayne voice. Ah well...
Queerty in literal cock-tease news, Zac Efron claims he's willing to show it all on film after all the wet underwear, and horizontal peeing and so on... I guess he's figured out what people like about him. (Save your money, Zac!)
Pajiba 'did someone call for a Tom Hiddleston puff piece?'
Rambling Film 7 things that should happen on True Blood's final season (the 7th). I stopped watching but I concurred with most of these even two years ago. Since Buffy also ended as season 7 is this now the standard for vampiric shows? Does this mean we can be rid of The Vampire Diaries in 2015?

Mean Girls Mania
'we're not just a regular blog, we're a cool blog'...

But we're not the only ones celebrating Mean Girls for it's 10th anniversary today. It's EVERYWHERE. On Amanda Seyfried's twitter feed (do you think Lindsay will mention it today on hers?), in a brief EW group oral history, Vanity Fair's best fashion moments, Boy Culture's reminiscence of interviewing cast members, and probably on any pop culture website you click on today. Important note... This wasn't planned since Netflix's Instant Watch service is all contractual based in terms of timing but the Tina Fey high school classic actually expires today. So it's 10th anniversary is the last day you can watch it on Netflix if you don't own it while listening to our Movie-Long Podcast Commentary while you're streaming it!

You go Glen Coco! 

Casting News
HitFix and every other site on earth has the news: the Star Wars Episode VII sausage party cast has been announced. John Boyega, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Max von Sydow and since all visual fx spectacles are required to have him (well, he is awesome) Andy Serkis. Those newbies will join the old cast who are reprising their roles in capacities large or small. There is one new girl Daisy Ridley who we are unfamiliar with. Did she get the part Lupita Nyong'o was rumored for? The Guardian did some mild digging into this actress unknown and here's everything they found.

Today's Spotlight Illustration
Glen Hanson, one of my favorite illustrators, posted this on his Instagram. No idea what film he's doing costume sketches for but me likey...

Curio: Big on Bigelow

Alexa here. Kathryn Bigelow turns 61 today (really?), and she is just all kinds of awesome, no? Determined and intelligent while blowing past all considerations of gender, she makes films with meticulous pace and atmosphere that always rise above the mass. Zero Dark Thirty, her latest, opens on December 19th but is already enjoying rave reviews.  I'm simultaneously glad she was the first woman to win a directing Oscar and appalled that it took that long for a woman to win one. 

To wish this most formidable lady a happy birthday I dredged up some celebrations of her two best-known films.

Posters by voagar, Felix Schlater, and bd designs.

Curio objects (not posters) celebrating Point Break (1991) are after the jump

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Yes, No, Maybe So: "Zero Dark Thirty"

Time and the finite nature of it is an essential ingredient in all suspense films. So I need to get myself on the clock when it comes to Zero Dark Thirty. I was shocked at how quickly we knew of its existence post Hurt Locker but then... it never seemed to come. It still feels like something off in the very distant future set in the very recent past. But it actually opens in 66 days. Tick tock.

Let's break down the trailer...

YES

• At the very least it'll make an interesting comparison point to Showtime's "Homeland".
• Jessica Chastain gets her first high profile lead role!
• Joel Edgerton
• That hot soldier with the glow stick
• I've been with director Kathryn Bigelow since Near Dark and I'm not going anywhere. I tend to love her work. And even when I don't, it's interesting.
• It looks far more beautiful, visually, than The Hurt Locker... which wasn't really going for beauty but there's so many frameable stills in the trailer and a rangier color palette. In short: I'm glad it's not Hurt Locker 2. As much as I love The Hurt Locker it requires no sequel.
  
  MORE AFTER THE JUMP

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Box Office: Without Super Powers, You Are Nothing

The global love of superpowered young men hasn't even begun to decline as the star-less Chronicle, about three teenagers who develop uncanny powers opened at #1 for Superbowl weekend. It almost doubled its production budget on opening weekend. Harry Potter himself Daniel Radcliffe had to settle for second place with The Woman in Black but that's probably because he's no longer the most powerful wizard on earth.

Chronicle is unkind to cars.

BAKERS DOZEN (Estimates)
01 CHRONICLE  $22 new  
02 THE WOMAN IN BLACK  $21 new  
03 THE GREY $9.5 (cum. $34.7)
04 BIG MIRACLE  $8.5 new
05 UNDERWORLD AWAKENING $5.6 (cum. $54.3)
06 ONE FOR THE MONEY $5.2 (cum. $19.6)
07 RED TAILS  $5 ($41.3)
08 THE DESCENDANTS  $4.6  (cum. $65.5)
09 MAN ON A LEDGE $4.5 (cum. $14.7)
10 EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE $3.9 (cum. $26.7)
11 CONTRABAND  $3.4 (cum. $26.7) (cum. $62.1)
12 THE ARTIST $2.5 (cum. $20.5)
13 BEAUTY & THE BEAST 3D  $2.4 rerelease  

Someone's wearing lifts... Janet McTeer is 6'1". Daniel Radcliffe is 5'5"

Talking Points
• It's a good weekend for Janet McTeer, huh? Not only did she finally feel some major industry love again post Tumbleweeds (1999) with her Albert Nobbs Oscar nomination, but she's co-starring in The Woman in Black. What's more Albert Nobbs held up well in limited release, according to IndieWire suggesting it has more life in it yet. Will it expand further now?

• The Descendants may soon surpass Sideways to become Alexander Payne's biggest hit yet. It's just 6 million behind it now.

• A Separation has crossed the 1 million mark which is a big deal these days for a foreign film. Hopefully they'll keep expanding since they've just been adding a tiny number of screens each week. 

• The Artist is slowing down a bit in wide release but it's already tap danced its way clear of being called "lowest grossing Best Picture winner ever" (should it win) since it's a bigger hit than The Hurt Locker. That said anything that wins this year beyond The Help is going to end up in the 10 lowest grossers list. The Atlantic did some tallying and adjusting for inflation a year ago and they claim that these are the lowest grossing Best Pictures ever. All of them are superpower free (unless you count Javier Bardem's "Chigurh" as a supernatural evil force which maybe you can):

1. The Hurt Locker (2009) $15
2. All The Kings Men (1949) $60
3. Hamlet (1948)  $61
4. An American in Paris  (1951) $67
5. Crash (2005)  $67
6. Marty (1955) $70
7. No Country For Old Men (2007) $85
8. lt Happened One Night (1934) $86
9. The Last Emperor (1987) $89
10. The Great Ziegfeld (1936) $95

What did you see this weekend?