Box Office: Muscle Cars, Curvy Androids, and Eternal Youth

Oscar Isaac Dance Off to celebrate EX-MACHINA's wide release. Who'll join us?The concept of characters that don't age insures of at least one thing: they don't usually get to have sequels without looking ridiculous. Adaline may never age but her actressy vessell Blake Lively will. Still Blake had a good opening for what looked like a ridiculous movie so kudos to her! In other box office news, Furious 7 continued to the success story of the film year having already cracked a billion worldwide and bound to be more succesful domestically than anything released last year since it will soon surpass Katniss and that Sniper.

The happiest news for cinephiles is the success of A24's thinky sexy sci-fi oddity Ex Machina as it went into wide release with a per screen average as good as most of its competition. Russell Crowe's directorial debut (he also stars) The Water Diviner kicked off its US run without much fanfare but still managed over a million in limited release.

WIDE RELEASE
01 Furious 7 $18.2 (cum. $320.5) Review
02 Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 $15.5 (cum. $43.9)
03 Age of Adaline $13.3 NEW Trailer discussion
04 Home $8.3 (cum. $153.7) the rise and fall of Dreamworks
05 Unfriended $6.2 (cum. $25.1) 
06 Ex-Machina $5.4 (cum. $6.9) Review

Russell Crowe seems pretty proud of himself.

LIMITED RELEASE - EXCLUDING MOVIES THAT WERE ONCE WIDE
01 The Water Diviner (AUS) 320 Theaters $1.2 NEW 
02 Brotherly Love (US) 200 Theaters  $.2 NEW
03 Clouds of Sils Maria (France) 71 Theaters $.2 (cum. $.5) Articles
04 Child 44 (UK) 510 Theaters $.1 (cum. $1)
05 Wild Tales (Argentina) 58 Theaters $.1 (cum. $2.5) Review
06 The Salt of the Earth (France/Brazil/Italy) 47 Theaters $.09 (cum. $.5) Conversation
07 What We Do in the Shadows (NZ) 18 theaters $.07 (cum. $3.2) Review
08 Kung Fu Killer (Hong Kong) 28 Theaters $.06 NEW
09 Adult Beginners (US) 10 Theaters $.04 NEW 
10 Seymour: An Introduction (US) 378 Theaters $.03 (cum. $.5) Review

What did you see this weekend?
Any of these 16 movies listed or did you watch movies at home?

I'm not aware of too many things, i link what I link, if you know what I mean

Hello Cinema has a really fascinating conversation about the reception of foreign films, Iranian and elsewhere, in North America referencing interesting movies like A Separation, Leila, Mother of George, Children of Heaven, City of God, and many more
Man, I Love Films on the beloved 40s noir horror Cat People (such a good flick, huh?) 
My New Plaid Pants falls in love with (nsfw) 1966's Georgy Girl with Lynn Redgrave & Alan Bates 
Guardian George Clooney, perpetual bachelor, is engaged! 

ABC Musicians Paul Simon and his wife Edie Brickell arrested for disorderly conduct. The New Bohemians were not brought in for questioning
Theater Mania Grease Live! will be the next TV musical event after The Sound of Music's success. No cast yet (and good luck strying ot out Stockard/Olivia/John) but it's aiming for 2015 
Serious Film my friend Michael liked Match, the Tribeca film starring Patrick Stewart I reviewed yesterday, a helluva lot more than me so it's worth sharing an opposing opinion
First Showing footage from Russell Crowe's directorial debut, The Water Diviner
Empire the WB triples down on director Zach Snyder giving in both the Man of Steel sequel and the Justice League movie  (but why? People have already turned on Man of Steel as a 'meh' which doesn't bode well for enthusiasm next time)
Cinema Blend ...is on rumor control: Matt Damon as Aquaman? 
Towleroad so that's what Teen Wolf's departed cast member Colton Haynes has been up to. (side note: Towleroad has been killing it with the post titles of late)
The Wire revisiting Mean Girls with the woman who wrote the non-fiction / non-comedy book it's adapted from 

Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People" List
The full list has been revealed with these 27 people in the "arts" section: Marina Abramovic, Amy Adams, Diane Paulus, Matthew McConaughey, John Green, Beyoncé, Sheika al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, Donna Tartt, Jordan Peele, Seth Meyers, Benedict Cumberbatch, Robin Wright, Binyavanga Wainaina, Miley Cyrus, Robert Redford, Jenji Kohan, Yao Chen, Arundhati Roy, Megan Ellison, Carrie Underwood,  Kerry Washington, and Keegan Michael Key. Weird eclectic lineup. (This last season renewed my love for Amy Adams but I've never thought of her as "influential" per se.) Interestingly enough -- at least for The Film Experience's purposes -- five of the slots are taken up by recent hotly-contested Oscar contests. Best Directors Steve McQueen & Alfonso Cuarón are both accounted for as are the leading "Original Song" nominees Robert and Kristen Anderson-Lopez (from Frozen) and "Happy" Pharrell Williams.  All of the celebrities get tributary write-ups by other starry folk: Oscar whisperer Harvey Weinstein honors film legend Redford; James Franco writes about Abramovic (OF COURSE HE DOES); Naomi Watts talks up Robin Wright who had her best year; and Jessica Chastain has the good sense to worship Megan Ellison...

The Italian Renaissance flourished because patrons like the Medici family sponsored artists and valued their craft. Today the film industry has been blessed with a modern version of the Medicis — a single benefactor who has the utmost respect for cinema: Megan Ellison.
         -Jessica Chastain 

The magazine has multiple covers as most event issues do these days. Who would you have placed on the list that didn't make it?