Honors Keep Piling up for Glenn Close

by Nathaniel R

One of the sneakily quiet Oscar campaigns that's really been working for maximum January presence is Glenn Close's for The Wife. Close has distracted herself from all the hoopla with an acclaimed performance Off Broadway in Mother of the Maid, but future honors keep lining up so she'll be busy once that plays shutters just before Christmas.

In January she'll be honored at both the Palm Springs and the Santa Barbara film festivals (which are basically elaborate Oscar-courting events because the A-listers and the Academy members come out in droves) and now comes word that the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens New York will have a screening program called "Getting Close: Ten Great Performances by Glenn Close" which runs November 23rd through December 2nd. All six of her Oscar-nominated performances will be screened plus Reversal of Fortune, 101 Dalmatians, Cookie's Fortune (interesting choice) and, of course, The Wife. (If Close is nominated for The Wife, which we fully expect her to be, she'll be tough to beat. Only two performers in Oscar history have ever remained "losers" with a record of 7 or more nominations: Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole.)

The movies are affordable but the celebration ends with a "Salute" dinner with cocktails, film clips and speeches from Close's friends and colleagues. You can also attend the glitzy dinner provided you have $1500 to burn on a ticket. It's for a good cause, though, as the proceeds benefit this worthwhile museum's many exhibits, screenings, and community engagement programs.

Weekend Box Office: The Predator, The Wife, and More...

by Nathaniel R

I'm eager to get back to regular moviegoing. I love festival season but being so far ahead of the game has drawbacks. Unlike most pundits/critics/bloggers whatever you want to call people, I don't especially like the system of the media seeing movies months before the public. Mostly because I like actually discussing them with you! So when it comes to regular releases you're probably ahead of me. Have you seen A Simple Favor  or Predator or The Nun or Peppermint or White Boy Rick or Lizzie? It's easy for us at TFE to miss films that open in theaters during the heat of festival season.

And now the box office charts of the weekends with links to our reviews and such if they exist...

Weekend Box Office Estimates (September 14-16th)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1. THE PREDATOR $24 *NEW*	1. 🔺 THE WIFE $1.2 on 541 screens (cum. $3.5) Review, Poster Blurb, Glenn's Oscar

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Posterized: Glenn Close

by Nathaniel R

Glenn at the UK premiere of The Wife earlier this monthWith The Wife expanding to 78 movie theaters today, more of you will now have the chance to see the performance that's won Glenn Close so many raves. So let's consider this weekend the kick-off to what we hope will be a competitive but satisfying Best Actress race since Lady Gaga (A Star is Born) and Emma Stone (The Favourite) are in the process of making big splashes at Venice as we type this. To celebrate the Oscar campaign for Glenn Close, let's look back on her filmography, shall we? Balder & Dash beat us to a very fine essay about her whole career and we're glad they did because plans to do a whole Glenn Close Week here failed; weirdly  I discovered that a lot of members of Team Experience are agnostic about her! I have had an up and down relationship with this Connecticut-born Oscar favorite, myself, but I am most definitely not agnostic about her performance in The Wife. I think it's the best she's been in 20 years and I'm thrilled (and surprised) to be quoted on the poster for the movie.

Here is her entire feature film career via movie posters. We've mixed in a few key TV projects so that this will feel more comprehensive, since Close has spent major time there, as well. How many of these 51 Glenn Close performances have you seen?

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Podcast: Crazy Rich Asians and Glenn Close for Best Actress

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl welcome Nick Davis back to the podcast this week for lots of Crazy Rich Asians talk.

Index (58 minutes)
00:01 Introductions. Randomness.
02:10 Nick has read the book that The Wife is based on!
05:01 Crazy Rich Asians talk. Lots and lots on with SPOILERS (sorry). We love the ensemble including Michelle Yeoh, Harry Shum Jr, Pierre Png, Gemma Chan, and more...
36:34 Older films we've been watching: Travels with My Aunt (1972) Your Name (2016), and Luchino Visconti's The Damned (1969)
42:00 Recent releases: I Feel Pretty, Madeline's Madeline, The Darkest Minds
50:45 Steve James new docuseries "America to Me"
54:00 Glenn Close for Best Actress! 

Referenced in this discussion
• Nathaniel's year old review of The Wife from TIFF
• Murtada's Desiree Akhavan interview
• Justin Chang's Crazy Rich Asians review
• Kelley Dong's Crazy Rich Asians review
• The 1972 Best Actress list

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Crazy Rich Asians, The Wife

Crazy, Now Richer Asians

by Nathaniel R

The past two years have definitely been a huge wakeup call to Hollywood -- American audiences are demanding more diversity onscreen. It wasn't just the sleeper smash of Get Out, or the bigger than Batman/Superman numbers for Wonder Woman, or the record-breaking figures for Black Panther. Add Crazy Rich Asians to the increasingly large stack of hits proving to the powers that be that people value representation onscreen and movies that reflect the ethnic diversity of real life and the fact that the human race is 50% female. 

Weekend Box Office Estimates (August 17-19)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1. 🔺 CRAZY RICH ASIANS  $25.2 (cum. $34) *NEW* Review, Michelle Yeoh	1. THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS $498k on 276 screens (cum. $10.5) Review

2. THE MEG $21.1 (cum. $83.7)  Review	2. 🔺  PUZZLE $217k on 108 screens (cum. $733k)

3. 🔺  MILE 22 $13.6 *NEW*	3. 🔺  THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST $138k on 72 screens (cum. $404k)  Podcast, Interview

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