Inside Jurassic XXL's Genysis
Sunday, July 5, 2015 at 1:30PM 
Proving difficult to recapture a surprise novelty hit audience?You guys. I'm disappointed in the American public. Here we are on a national holiday weekend and they're still going to the dinosaur island off the coast of Costa Rica and a reheated pointless Terminator reboot of much better work from the world's most successful Canadian director! And they're doing that when the All American Pixar is knocking it out of the park with a story about a Midwestern girl moving to San Francisco and Channing Tatum and friends having a road trip strippers party from Florida to South Carolina. But America wants what it wants and in this case they wanted the microwave-reheated franchises from beyond our borders.
Early estimates had Inside Out leading but when later estimates came it it fell back into second place which means it now takes the record from My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) of the highest grossing movie that never had a #1 weekend. And the record will hold since there's no way it hits #1 next weekend with Minions opening to steal the family dollar away.
UPDATE With actuals in My Big Fat Greek's Wedding on most successful film that was never #1 at the box office lives on, since Inside Out just barely edged out the dinosaurs.
BOX OFFICE
July 3rd-5th Weekend
(some "new" titles have cumulatives since they opened early for the holiday)
01 Inside Out $29.7 (cum. $245.8) Inside Out Articles
02 Jurassic World $29.2 (cum. $556.5) Jurassic Articles
03 Terminator Genisys NEW $27 (cum. $42.4)
04 Magic Mike XXL NEW $12.8 (cum. $27.8) Review
05 Ted 2 $11.1 (cum. $58.5)
06 Max $6.6 (cum. $25.3)
07 Spy $5.1 (cum. $97.5)
08 San Andreas $2.8 (cum. $147.1)
09 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl $1.2 (cum. $3.9) Michael's Review
10 Dope $1.1 (cum. $14.1) Sundance capsule
11 Mad Max: Fury Road $1 (cum. $149) Review & Podcast & Random Articles
12 Avengers: Age of Ultron $.8 (cum. $454.2) Review & Marathon & Podcast
13 Love & Mercy $.7 (cum. $10.5) Best Actor
14 Pitch Perfect 2 $.5 (cum. $182.3)
15 Insidious: Chapter 3 $.5 (cum. $51.2)
16 I'll See You In My Dreams $.4 (cum. $5.8) Best Actress
WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?
Do tell.
Reader Comments (27)
I skipped the 4th of July celebration and watched Stray Dog, Debra Granik's documentary instead. I was oblivious that it would tackle themes such as patriotism and PTSD. The way the story unfolded and the cinema verité aspect of the filmmaking made it almost seem like a work of fiction led by a really charismatic, giving and complex human being. Ron Hall represents such a grey area when it comes to categorizing someone for their political, social and religious background. He defies all these labels and what is left is someone I was glad to have spent two hours of my life with.
Nothing so far, but seeing Irrational Man this evening, Jurassic World tomorrow, Southpaw Wednesday. (Maybe What Happened, Miss Simone? Tuesday.) Mixing it up.
I watched "I'll See You in My Dreams" and thought it was more just the Blythe Danner show. Love it when a script trusts it can be moving and engaging with taciturn but insightful scenes.
Inside Out. I was prepared to become emotional, but somehow, the Bing Bong sequence still caught me unprepared and I cried like I haven't in a while during a movie. It turns out that I wasn't prepared enough for how wistful the entire movie was and I should have known to brace for more when I started tearing up when Joy replayed the ice skating sequence and skated along with Riley.
This movie came at either the worst or best time for me. I still haven't figured out which, but I'm grateful for this movie anyway, because it was a wonderful experience that's lingering in a bittersweet, achy way.
The Tribe and '71.
Finished Mommy. The actresses deserve a better vehicle for their talents. For such a highly praised auteur I am beginning to understand why Dolan has challenges with American distribution. Most audiences here would respond as I did with disdain for having to endure what he was serving.
"Inside Out" which I enjoyed and yes I was crying at the end. A very good animated fantasy but not aimed at children who I doubt would get most of the jokes not too mention the more serious aspects of the screenplay, It does what only animation can do create a world that could not exist except in our dreams. On TCM I caught the classic " The Big Clock" a great period noir
I saw Far from the Madding Crowd, which I thought was a pretty effective rendering of the central relationship, though I thought the climax wasn't handled all that well due to the changes they made to the staging.
I was somewhat under the weather so no theatrical movies for me but I prescribed my own kind of medicine and took a heavy dose of classic movies on Youtube.
I watched two obscure Gene Tierney films:
The Secret of Convict Lake-An ordinary western but worth watching because of Gene, Glenn Ford and Ethel Barrymore in the cast
Rings on Her Fingers-A delightful comedy with Gene and Henry Fonda.
One of Veronica Lake's last films: The Sainted Sisters-It was a minor comedy but harmless with a terrific supporting cast.
The Brasher Doubloon-A low budget Philip Marlowe mystery with George Montgomery rather then Bogie as Marlowe but still a decent mystery.
And best of all two films that enabled me to complete seeing the filmographies of their respective stars.
The Revolt of Mamie Stover-A redheaded Jane Russell who like Donna Reed in From Here to Eternity is a "hostess" in a respectable dance hall run by her "boss" a platinum blonde Agnes Moorehead in Hawaii just prior to the outbreak of WWII but who is obviously a prostitute and likewise has a plan to make a packet of money and become proper. Obviously not in FHTE's class but a fun, flashy melodrama. Jane is a knockout.
The best of the bunch however was the 1950 drama Under My Skin with a great John Garfield performance, though because of his size it is a stretch to buy him as a successful jockey, that is adapted from a Hemingway story and was quite compelling. Tough to know why with that pedigree it is so hard to find, I've been searching for years.
Testament of Youth.
And Lynn Lee is absolutely right in the Alicia Vikander thread. Vikander really does sneak up on you.
I didn't make it out to a movie this weekend. At home I watched the ever delightful Tremors and the super dull gangster drama Son of a Gun. I also watched most of Contact on HBO the other night, and that was a lot of fun.
"Amy" & as hard as it is to watch sometimes, I think we owe it to her, her AMAZING TALENT & the way she was hounded & chase like an animal until she died to see it!
Jurassic World Saturday, Testament of Youth Monday. Was nice to see Alicia in a more, shall we say, "full-bodied" performance.
I didn't hate Jurassic World either. Totally disposable, but I kind of liked that it was just an unapologetic rehash with no pretense of being anything other than a big commercial thrill ride. The Chris Pratt/Bryce Dallas chemistry worked for me, even if most of the dialogue (and most of the "drama") was schlock.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Arnold. In California, it is considered semi-patriotic to watch the Governator on the Fourth of July.
Hm. The last Woody Allen film I liked as much as Irrational Man (having just seen it) was Match Point. And I say that as a great admirer of Blanchett's performance in Blue Jasmine and of Midnight in Paris and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. May have something to do with the fact that Emma Stone is pretty great at playing all the comic, romantic and emotional beats in her role and that Phoenix (like Rhys Meyers and Bardem) doesn't "do" Woody at all.
I guess I like hyper-intellectual dark Woody.
Watched Annie Hall for the first time. Also Save the Tiger. Then watched Stage Beauty for the 7th time.
Santy C -- jealous of anyone getting their first time with Annie Hall. such a treasure.
I tried, and had to stop watching, 'The Yards' and 'Coriolanus'. The former, while directed by one of my favorites (James Gray) and with an impressive cast, was a little too slow-paced for my taste. I want my thrillers to have a little pulse in them. I'm not a fan of slow-paced films that "reward your patience" at the end, which is a PC phrase critics use to describe films that the majority of moviegoers would find boring.
'Coriolanus' suffers the Shakespeare adaption problem, which is that if you're going to adapt a Shakespeare play into a film, you should really consider updating the language. I know this has been said before and to many it's anti-intellectual, but it bears repeating. The idea that everything BUT the language can be updated is a little ridiculous because the reason why Shakespeare alienates the majority of its readers is not the setting or story or characters or themes but the language. This is especially true for lesser-known Shakespeare plays that aren't taught in high school like 'Coriolanus'. Something has to give at some point. For every one person who finds the language artistic and beautiful to read, there are 9 others who don't know what the hell he's saying because no one speaks Old English anymore. As a result, the only people who like 'Coriolanus' are those few Shakespeare fanatics who have studied him thoroughly and can easily grasp his language.
Considering that Terminator and Magic Mike basically flopped I do not know what the opening complaining was really about. Well MM did make it's budget back already since its budget was like 12M and Terminator should make its budget eventually back with overseas included so they maybe more like underperformed even if they did unexpectedly bad. But I do not want any films to loose money since people loose jobs when that happens and the studios do not have enough money to fund riskier projects if they lose money. So this was the ideal outcome, the films make their money back but they do not get sequels and they do not encourage more similar films.
Magic Mike was a completely underwhelming drama with surprisingly very little titillation factor (let's be honest, that's what the main draw was) and a horridly unsympathetic female lead, so not surprised that the sequel is not exactly knocking 'em dead at the box office (even with that gr8 preview). On the other hand, Jurassic World's staying power is baffling. It's an ok dino show but utterly manufactured at its core. Anyway, going to see Spy tonight and kind of excited!
I saw Terminator Genisys on Wednesday (I used MoviePass, so I didn't pay). I expected it to be a complete disaster but it turned out to be just meh. It had some interesting ideas but the execution was weak and the rest just felt passionless and workman like. As for the actual weekend; both Captain American films came on cable, so I DVR'd them and watched them back to back.
I caught Independence Day and Frozen on DVD. The former feels like a good bad movie (unlike Jurassic World which feels like a bad bad movie) while the latter holds up okay on repeat viewing but I will admit I liked it considerably better in theaters.
I also hit Magic Mike XXL-I liked the weirdness of the road trip, but was surprised at how tame it was nudity-wise, especially compared to the original, and it was missing a bit of that Dallas-magic.
I finally saw Inside Out, and frankly I was VERY nervous after that unbelievably bad "Lava" short. Thankfully, it was one of the cleverest, most inventive films - animated or otherwise - that I've seen in a good long while, even if I didn't find it quite as magical as most others seemed to. I empathized with the characters but wasn't moved to tears. I thought the best parts were the looks inside the other people's heads (ESPECIALLY the cat).
Watched "Harper" (fun) and "Bull Durham" (okay, but did love Costner and Sarandon) for the first time.
I'm finally catching up on last year's Oscar fare. First up was Foxcatcher, which is a real snooze fest in my opinion. Not that I need my movies to be narrative driven, but I honestly didn't see the point in telling the story. At. All. The best I can say is that criminally underused Sienna Miller does some surprising actressing on the edges in her couple of brief scenes.
Troy H: No, they don't NEED to be narrative driven, but if you're going to make one so clearly trying to be CHARACTER driven more than anything, why commit to such simplistic character sketches?
UPDATE: When actuals came out, Inside Out placed 1st! Yay!