Ipickthiswhiterose

Great stuff. Hope it keeps strong as the weekend goes on, but this is unambiguously good.

Codswallop. Shang-Chi seems to be doing well over here in the UK within reason. Good word of mouth so far on social media, and cinema was pretty close to full all day. Only anecdotal but promising.

Emma (wins) First Cow Wendy Colour Out of Space History of the Kelly Gang Would already make a half decent nominee list. Seriously though Emma is an absolutely beautifully shot film. Which is hardly surprising since its directed by a photographer.

I don't know if this is trying to be a serious answer but he was in a move that was virtually the exact same as the Joker the year before and it made no money whatsoever. None of his movies before Joker had made money for years and years. And if Joker was exactly the same but called 'Arthur' it would have had the same fate. Also, are people ignoring the fact that Ford V Ferrari wasn't actually a hit?

I just think taking a fantasy concept but then plonking a seemingly mundane family-drama road-trip element on it just is a weird thing to sell. Very oxymoronic. If I remember correctly Brave kept the extent of its mother-daugher family plot very quiet and mostly sold it on badass Merida doing cool stuff in a pseudo-medieval environment. Maybe this should have done something similar and emphasised a more generic fantasy quest scenario in the marketing. I think this was well on its way to being a huge misfire well before Corona came along. It's made it worse but the rest of the BO and some of the better holdovers seem to indicate that there was more money to be made here with a more appealing movie.

First Cow doing much better than Wendy, but only around half of what Emma did per theatre in its super-limited week. Still, $7,500 per theatre day one doesnt seem bad for such a super niche idea. Looks a really interesting little film.

Surely Im not the only one having a childish giggle at "Call of the Wind"

He isn't. Hes an extreme right wing fundamentalist polemicist who writes a series of extreme right wing fundamentalist polemics that are kind of vaguely tangentially related to movies that comes out. There's no taste involved, just a rigid political pseudo-intellectualism that only really exists in a certain corner of American society. All right leaning films get praise, regardless of quality, anything else (and I dont mean left leaning films, just pretty much anything) is painted as Marxist, various shades of immoral, "woke" (without any sense in the qualification) or eeeeeeevil. Read his Little Women "review" if you want to set a personal reading record for non-sequiteurs, race-baiting (he literally uses the heading to accuse it of racism, but doesn't say why or how anywhere in the review) and utter strawman WTFery. Guy's basically a lunatic youtuber who learned to write essays.

I can't think of many horror performances, especially not the kind that we're referring to, in which "being frightened" is the extent of the performance. In addition, 'Frightened' is a particularly misrepresented word that actually covers a number of different actual emotions. In Invisible Man, Moss covers a wide range of emotional notes - comfortably as much as the standard awards performance. One could easily dismiss performing Hamlet as "Acting confused", Juliet as "Acting in love", Stanley Kowalski as "Acting Angry" and Wally Loman as "Acting Tired" if one wanted to be glib and dismissive. To simplify Toni Collette's detailed and complex portrayal of trauma, mistrust, self-blame, delusion, seething resentment, desire for nuclear familyhood and, yes, abject terror in Heriditary - quite literally one of the best of the last decade in film - to "being frightened" is just as reductive. Comedy and horror are hard. Really hard. And they get absolutely shafted by awards in favour of easier genres like, most notoriously, biopics. If you want the proof just look at how many bad performances from greats there are in horror and comedy movies compared to dramas. How many times has De Niro fallen flat on his face doing horror?.....multiple. Nicholson nailed The Shining but is pretty awful in Wolf. Helen Mirren is awful in Winchester while Ian McKellen struggles in The Keep. Donald Sutherland in Virus, Heath Ledger in The Order, Nicholas Cage in (choose any option here), Nicole Kidman in The Invasion, Di Caprio in The Beach (not full horror but aligned), Jim Carrey in the Number 23. You can churn out an equivalent list for comedy (especially DeNiro, who decidedly finds drama a heck of a lot easier than any genre work).

Indeed. Hoffman winning the Oscar for Rain Man rather than Cruise is a good example. Both roles were equally integral to that film's success, and indeed Cruise played the character that actually changed over the course of the movie, but the less subtle "character" role won out.

This is simply not true. Every role is evaluable on the requirements of that role. If anything makes something more impressive or impactful it's dexterity of thought - which is down to the individual actor and how they work with the director, not the genre. In addition to this, subtlety is not inherently better than boldness. Manchester by the Sea and Fences are two movies that due to the cultural backgrounds of the characters require performances to be delivered at differing scales - both feature outstanding performances - one is not inherently better than the other just because the characters in MBTS are more prone to hiding certain emotions. Moss is as good in this film when she is proud of having got to the end of the street to pick up the post as she is when emoting heavily due to the stresses of the major action. Horror is rammed with some of the best performances of the last 5 years. And of all time.

Inivisible Man with £2.2m opening weekend. (per Screendaily) Parasite now overtaken £10m and beating out Passion of the Christ is pretty much guaranteed. Amazing achievement. Sonic has overtaken Detective Pikachu with £14.7m ($18.8m). Call of the Wild collapsed pretty badly second weekend and is at £2.3 Emma, at £6.2, with a genuine chance of out-grossing Birds of Prey, at £8.4, in the UK. Made about twice the latter this weekend. One-off evening screening of The Lighthouse in Preston (handful of days expansion with most of them in the morning - just really weird) was about half full yesterday. Disappointed that films like this, Colour out of Space and Portrait OALOF aren't opening wider but that's the way of things. Has made as much (£1.3m) as Queen and Slim though which did open wide. Dark Waters also opened wide this weekend and didn't do too badly, just short of a mill. Downhill was DOA wide. Running tallies for Lil Women £22m ($28.2m), Bad Boys 4L £15.7m ($20.1m) , Dolittle £15.4m ($19.7m), Jojo Rabbit £7.9m ($10.1m), Frozen 2 £53.6m ($68.6m), Jumanji £36.7m ($47.0m) , Gentlemen £11.9m ($15.2m)

Lead actress Morfydd Clark was excellent earlier this year (UK release, pretty sure not out WW or in US Dom yet) in double roles in The Personal History of David Copperfield - played both his mother and his love interest. Really promising actress.

Hollow Man was a poor film, but it has a latent exciting idea in it. The line I always remember paraphrased was "Imagine what you could do if you didn't havs to look in the mirror afterwards". And this movie takes advantage of that greatly, with some stunningly directed and tense scenes (the attic sequence ia a standout) and some excellent dynamics between those who llve the central character but are afraid of her responses with Elizabeth Moss caught between fear and not wanting to appear paranoid. As a recovery and domestic violence movie it is excellent - one of the better scenes is before any Invisible Man shtick when Moss is trying to leave the house for the first time to pick up the post. It isn't flawless, there are leaps of logic that every viewer has to make a choice whether they care about or not and mine ran out at "floating knife travels halfway across crowded restaurant without anyone noticing, nor does said large restaurant have cameras". The central death-faking which is skirted over very conveniently, the sister has a very sudden and unrealistically negative response to what would have surely been intepreted as a self-damaging email from a trauma victim, and there are more individual moments where its, again, just how much you care about physical logic. Largely a very good film though and a recommend for anyone. Flat B for me.

My desire to see tht movie was completely sunk by the casting. Hated Cage in Mandy (for the same reason I don't like pouring syrup over chocolate cake) and thought he looked/looks awful in this. Which is a shame as I'd be all in on a film like this usually. Will still try and hunt it down (not easy in UK)

Pleased with those expansion numbers from Emma. The underperformance of Wendy and the TIM numbers being just under for now means it may even have a chance of taking PTA for a second week in a row. Well deserved, it really is a fantastic adaptation.

I can honestly say that as someone who didn't enjoy the first that I am amped by what I've seen from the second, jumping from single-high-concept-gimmick to world-building. Tiny sample size but can confirm its gained a follower in me and Ill be watching in cinema, which I didn't do the first.

To her slight defence I believe she was raised from childhood as a scientologist, rather than an adult convert. She was also married to abject creep Fred Armison. So she's suffered enough. Never seen someone who makes my skin crawl so much. Hoping for 30m here, would like a sequel that develops the narrative in a new direction. Also interested in Call of the Wild drop, since its demographic would seem to imply good legs.

Yeah, I totally understand this and think it's thematically and structurally a big positive. I'm also a little confused by anyone bagging the ending, which I thought was v good. My comments pertain more to the physical logic/mechanics of certain scenes, including the restaurant, requiring a leap. All horror films do, of course, but there were just a few moments that pushed it given the generally gritty tone the film IMO. It's still a strong recommend for me. But I also had super high expectations.

In the "Enjoyed it but a little underwhelmed" club. Perhaps a bit spoiled by A24 to exact tastes too much recently. Well made and some excellent sequences, definitely a crowd pleaser. Acting good across the board. Surprised the number of scenes where the logic just falls to pieces though. Restaurant scene for instance doesn't stand up to any scrutiny. Might not matter though, depends on the individual viewer for stuff like that.

Wow. I really, really, really wish I hadn't watched that trailer. Talk about showing too much. Not just spoilers but.....everything. Whole sequences. Multiple of them. How disappointing. It's still my favourite horror film, I still think now is a good time for a reinterpretation, I'm still looking forward to it....but, awwww.

Delighted to see Emma and Parasite doing such solid business. Looks like Emma has opened below David Copperfield but is already well ahead. The family group is just the standard unit for UK cinemagoers, isn't it. Dolittle isn't much of a surprise, just a disappointment. Lion King getting to $100m when Infinity War didn't (even with some ER variance) is just a perfect encapsulation of the sheer churning mechanism of family cinemagoing over here.

I was reading a thread about the weekend box office when...... Anyway, Sonic looks like it's going to fall in the sweet spot above the midweek trend but below the silly projections. Not the absolutely massive hit it perhaps got reactionarily praised as (not here, but in some quarters) but certainly a pleasing success for Paramount. Eesh at BOP not likely getting to 90m. I maintain it's the new Scott Pilgrim (or Ready Player One if it hadn't had Asian markers and the Spielberg name to save it) , a film that looks mainstream but chips and chips away at target demographic until the ultimate target audience is way more niche than it, or critics who sit within that niche, thinks. Call of the Wild can hope for long legs if indeed it is skewing that old.

Don't forget Rhythm Section as well. I mean that thing was HISTORIC

It's seriously good. Fantastic acting, photogrqphy and direction. I really recommend this to anyone who can get to see it. Meanwhile, having just seen Call of the Wild, I'm rooting for it in its bizarre lost cause. Despite CGI dog there is a lot of heart and effort in that movie. I found it considerably superior to Sonic, and a good family yarn. Lots of atmosphere and lots of care. Closer it can get to 30 the better, and would love it to cause a little mini upset.