Halfway Mark: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (So Far)

Mainstream cinema is having a rough summer, qualitatively... but let's honor what mainstream cinema often does best, for this episode of the Halfway Mark Review. Which is to say the broad strokes of Good vs Evil.

Not that mainstream movies always ace this low bar, mind you: Marvel remains mostly terrible at crafting villains, Batman v Superman was so inept that it didn't even understand that you need heroes in superhero movies. X-Men Apocalypse was a crowded repetitive mess on either side of the good/bad divide. But enough about stinkers - happy thoughts:  BESTS! 

Heroes of the Year

• The Avengers (Chris Evans, Cast & FX Team) in Captain America: Civil War
Can't they all just get along? While it'd be silly to say that Civil War doesn't tell you which team to be on (Hint: it's in the title) it does offer up enough sympathetic furrowed brow angst when looking at Team Iron Man that it's easy to understand both sides of this argument. That's half the battle in the selling the film. The other half is staging the battles so that everyone survives but looks deeply affected by the blows, which it also does well. Black Panther and Spider-Man are wonderful new additions, and Black Widow again demonstrates that she's the swiftest, most asskicking, and consistently double sided tape that arguably holds these movies together. If only Captain America, Marvel's most successful comic-to-film translation, weren't having to fight for so much attention in his own damn franchise; Iron Man never had to that. 

• Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in Gods of Egypt
What's that you say? 'Gods of Egypt is a terrible movie!' Why yes, Yes it is. But that doesn't mean I can't honor Nikolaj's well shaped silly/serious turn as a blinded God. He's one of only two actors who knows what kind of movie he's in (the other is Geoffrey Rush, even better with the heightened camp) and he's fun to watch, helping to make this a sort of enjoyable terrible movie insteaad of just a terrible movie.  

Zootopia, Warcraft, The Conjuring 2 and more after the jump...

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Water Sports with Dory, Blake, and Dead Daniel

Moviegoers were content to keep swimming with Dory this weekend as the new releases didn't stir audiences. Well that's not wholly true. Moviegoers turned out for other water sports like water skiing on Daniel Radcliffe's corpse in Swiss Army Man (crowded houses but only available in NY & LA) and shark dodging with Blake Lively in The Shallows which had a solid per screen average, a low budget, and surprisingly good reviews. That triple combo could signify big profits for The Shallows ahead if the film finds legs in July, especially if it doesn't lose momentum over the 4th of July holiday week frenzy when The BFG, Tarzan, and The Purge 3 are all newly available to moviegoers. 

The two films that had the toughest time this weekend were the 20 years later (aka way too late) sequel Independence Day Resurgence and the horror/fashion/noir/thriller/satire/whatsit/drama Neon Demon, which risked a nearly wide opening (just under 800 theaters) but couldn't fill theaters -- Elle Fanning isn't bankable yet. Whatever happened to Dakota? *sniffle*

TOP TEN WIDE
1000+ screens. arrows indicate gaining or losing screens
▫️01 Finding Dory $73.2 (cum. $286.5) Review
🔺02 Independence Day: Resurgence $41.6 NEW 
▫️03 Central Intelligence $18.3 (cum. $69.3)
🔺04 The Shallows $16.7 NEW
🔺05 Free State of Jones $7.7 NEW 
🔻06 The Conjuring 2 $7.7 (cum. $86.9) 
🔻07 Now You See Me 2 $5.6 (cum. $52)
🔻08 X-Men Apocalypse $2.4 (cum. $151.1) Review, Podcast
🔻09 TMNT: Out of the Shadows $2.4 (cum. $77.1)
🔻10 Warcraft $2.1 (cum. $43.8) Six Questions

Fan Art by The Glitchway. Click here for more

TOP TEN LIMITED
Less than 1000 screens. Excluding previously wide. 
🔺01 The Neon Demon $606K NEW
🔻02 Love & Friendship $490K (cum. $11.8) Review, Podcast  
🔻03 The Lobster $436K (cum. $7) Reviewish, Podcast 
🔻04 Maggie's Plan $297K (cum. $2.2)  Review
🔺05 Genius $216K (cum. $807K) 
🔺06 Weiner $115K (cum. $1.2)  Review
🔺07 Swiss Army Man $114K NEW Review 
🔺08 Dark Horse $92K (cum. $493K) Review
🔻09 The Man Who Knew Infinity $88K (cum. $3.5)
🔻10 The Hunt for Wilderpeople $85K NEW Review 
 

Happy Pride Weekend, Everyone!
What movies did you catch this week?

Somehow I kicked off the weekend by visiting a facade of the Psycho house (Mommy issues for everyone!) with my bestie and The Flick Filosopher who was visiting from London. But I also caught Genius, The Neon Demon and Swiss Army Man and more on those soon.