"The Farewell" tops at the Spirit Awards
by Nathaniel R
And the winners are...
BEST FEATURE The Farewell
Though Lulu Wang's lovely family drama didn't receive any Oscar nominations, it proved the most beloved film at the Independent Spirits...
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THANKS IN ADVANCE
by Nathaniel R
And the winners are...
BEST FEATURE The Farewell
Though Lulu Wang's lovely family drama didn't receive any Oscar nominations, it proved the most beloved film at the Independent Spirits...
We've polled Team Experience to answer the following two questions and we hope you'll chime in too.
Let's begin.
WHICH OMISSION MOST UPSET YOU?
CHRIS FEIL: Did the acting branch not get their Swimona swag?? Jennifer Lopez's omission will be a wound that is going to take some time to heal for all of us, a snub some had been predicting because of whispers of a misogynistic and reductive POV on Hustlers from voters. It's not just the omission of the performance that infuriates, but the probable reasons for it...
A star is born about an hour into Uncut Gems. The lead character, an obnoxious can’t-quit gambler (Adam Sandler) catches his mistress (Julia Fox) in the bathroom of 1 Oak Club in New York with The Weeknd. (Yes the Canadian popstar has a small role as himself.) What follows is a dragged-out funny intense loud lovers fight that starts in the club and spills into West 17th Street as Sandler and Fox scream barbs at each other and continue to fight to the bemusement of onlookers. She begs him to understand “Nothing happened, we were just doing coke.” He throws the ultimate final insult to end the fight “Go fuck The Weeknd.” Or so he thinks. That’s when Fox throws her whole body against the hood of the cab he’s trying to escape in, determined to continue the fight. That’s when we knew it; here’s an actress who will have a long career...
So, from here on out we'll be hitting our "Year in Review" lists which will include a few exciting box office deep dives on niche topics. So let's retire the regular box office charts of the weekend for 2019 with one last blowout of EVERYTHING still in wide release (there's just 13 films on that many screens at the moment and boy is the last of 'em unlucky). And, as per usual, their counterparts in limited release where the more interesting movies usually are. That said you'll notice the platform section of the chart is not yet complete. That's because those numbers rarely come in comprehensively or correctly before Monday evening so we'll update again then.
What did you see this weekend?
Weekend Box Office December 13th-15h (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended |
|
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens) |
PLATFORM TITLES |
1 🔺 JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL $60 *new* |
1 PARASITE $632k on 306 screens (cum. $20.3 PODCAST, CLASS, BONG, SAG CAST★ |
2 FROZEN II $19.1 (cum. $366.5) REVIEW |
2 🔺 UNCUT GEMS $525k on 5 screens *new* REVIEW ★ |
by Chris Feil
In recent years, director duo Josh and Benny Safdie are cornering a market all their own of thriller of toxic neons and fatal consequence, after the deeply grim exploits of Heaven Knows What and Good Time. Nobody makes films quite in the way that the Safdies are making them right now, even if their particular brand of originality swims in back alley, off-putting aggressiveness. This round, their Uncut Gems is a dose of high anxiety filmmaking that’s partly Shakespearean tragedy of hubris and part underbelly crime saga in another unexamined pocket of New York City life.
Their best and most subversively accessible, it’s something enervating, infuriating, and compulsively watchable, all centered on a complex protagonist that also embodies all of the film’s contradictory qualities. That man is diamond dealer Howard Ratner, arrogantly betting off his assets and dwindling goodwill in the hopes of one massive payout, brought to exhilarating life by a possessed Adam Sandler.