The Magnificent...Two

Movie Stars still matter. As long as they're real movie stars and not just "leads". Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks both became famous in the 1980s and they continue to be two of the most reliable leading men thirty-ish years after their first hits. So nothing about the success of The Magnificent Seven and Sully is complicated or surprising. Congrats to those perennials. Here are the weekend box office charts:

TOP TEN WIDE
01 The Magnificent Seven $35 NEW Review
02 Storks $21.8 NEW 
03 Sully $13.8 (cum. $92.3)  Review
04 Bridget Jones's Baby $4.5 (cum. $16.4) Review
05 Snowden $4.1 (cum. $15.1)
06 Blair Witch $3.9 (cum $16.1) Review & Remembering Blair Witch (1999)
07 Don't Breathe $3.8 (cum. $81.1)
08 Suicide Squad $3.1 (cum. $318.1) Review & Worst of Year
09 When the Bough Breaks $2.5 (cum. $26.6)
10 Kubo and the Two Strings $1.1 (cum $45.9) Review

TOP TEN LIMITED
(Excluding Previously Wide)
01 No Manches Frida $740K (cum. $10.3)
02 The Beatles: Eight Days a Week... $397K (cum. $1.4)
03 The Queen of Katwe $305K NEW 
04 The Hollars $273K (cum. $729K)
05 The Dressmaker $180K NEW
06 Don't Think Twice $132K (cum $4) Review 
07 Hunt for the Wilderpeople $78K (cum. $5) Review
08 Cafe Society $57K (cum. $10.9) Review 
09 Greater $55K (cum. $1.8)
10 Indignation $25K (cum $3.3) Review

While the inspirational drama Queen of Katwe didn't exactly sell out its shows this weekend at 52 locations, word of mouth has been so strong on that picture that we can expect it will expand well once that word of mouth has a chance to be heard. The Dressmaker wasn't quite as big a draw in select cities but Kate Winslet and the movie's wackiness (anyone longing for the days of hit Australian comedy imports of the 1990s should run to the theater) should help keep that one afloat for a bit.

What did you see this weekend?

Review: Sully is a pleasant surprise

by Eric Blume

Several years ago pairline pilot Chesley Sullenberger famously landed a plane on the Hudson River saving all lives onboard. Sully, Clint Eastwood's new film about the event and the man has a quiet assurance and uniquely gentle force that reap bountiful cumulative rewards.  It’s a powerful movie about big things like the value of work and personal responsibility.  It’s also a Great New York Movie that makes you feel the special spirit of the city.  

Sully’s narrative cuts back and back and forth between the hours before the landing and several days afterwards.  This temporal shifting helps to focus us on what the film is really about: how someone who performs a truly heroic act processes that afterwards...

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What Does Tom Hanks Have to Do to Receive Another Oscar Nomination?

by abstew

The world was a very different place in January 2001. George W. Bush was being sworn into office for the first of his two terms as President, people used disposable cameras and brought the film to be developed at...drug stores, and the main places to watch new films was in the actual movie theater (where the average ticket price was $5.39) and then later going to the nearest Blockbuster to rent it. It also happened to be the last time that Tom Hanks was nominated for an acting Oscar.

With a total of 5 Best Actor nominations for Big (1988), Philadelphia (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Saving Private Ryan (1998), and Cast Away (2000) and back-to-back wins (only the second Best Actor to accomplish the feat after Spencer Tracy almost 60 years before and only one of five actors (the others are Luise Rainer, Katharine Hepburn, and Jason Robards) to have achieved the distinction in the Academy's 88 year history) it's not like Hanks is hurting for accolades. And if that weren't enough, he's even taken gold for television, winning 7 Emmys so far as a producer and director on multiple miniseries.

The Academy often has brief but passionate affairs when it comes to actors...

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Tom Hanks on 'La La Land'

Over the weekend at the Telluride Film Festival, Tom Hanks was on hand to support Sully (which was received positively). At a screening Q&A he got off topic to get effusive about our most anticipated festival player La La Land. The diversion began from discussing the difficulty to in getting an adult drama with no franchise potential like Sully made and how audiences are only craving new experiences at the movies. He went on to praise the boldness of its original songs and unfamiliar characters even though he's completely unassocatied with the film. (We just knew he was a musical man at heart!)

Hanks said:

When you see something that is brand new that you can’t imagine, and you think "Well thank God this landed"... This is not a movie that falls into some sort of trend.

We all understand the business aspects of it. It’s cruel and it’s backbreaking and take-no-prisoners. But there’s always that chance where the audience sees something that is brand new that they never expected, and embraces it and celebrates it... I don’t take anything away from [the studios] and there are some good movies that come out of that. But we all go to the cinema for the same thing, that is to be transported to someplace we have never been before.

Movies stars, they're just like us sometimes. Indeed, this is high praise for the film and its potential to provide a much needed unique cinematic experience to the masses. Aside from the commentary Hanks makes here, it's a reminder that one of the tinier treasures of Oscar season is hearing what movies filmmakers are taken with (apart from their own) - whether it's the commonplace 'actors on actors' pieces or the like.

Aren't you just dying to hear Emma Stone's thoughts on Sully now?

Box Office Special: 1984 Hits

Rather than talk about this weekend's boring box office results (nothing new to see here beyond a big weekend for that new kill-the-trespassing-teenagers flick Don't Breathe) let's travel back to 1984 which was a hugely influential year for franchises of many kinds. What can the biggest hits tell us about the then and the now? 

TOP TWENTY OF 1984
numbers adjusted for today's dollars via box office mojo

01 Ghostbusters $589.6  
Two Oscar nods. Spawned 1 terrible sequel, two animated TV shows, and this year's reboot

02 Beverly Hills Cop $581.5
Led to two sequels, a TV remake, and a TV pilot that wasn't picked up. Beverly Hills Cop 4 has been in some stage of development for 20+ years and is still supposedly being made. We'll believe it when we see it.

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