Water Sports with Dory, Blake, and Dead Daniel
Sunday, June 26, 2016 at 12:45PM Moviegoers were content to keep swimming with Dory this weekend as the new releases didn't stir audiences. Well that's not wholly true. Moviegoers turned out for other water sports like water skiing on Daniel Radcliffe's corpse in Swiss Army Man (crowded houses but only available in NY & LA) and shark dodging with Blake Lively in The Shallows which had a solid per screen average, a low budget, and surprisingly good reviews. That triple combo could signify big profits for The Shallows ahead if the film finds legs in July, especially if it doesn't lose momentum over the 4th of July holiday week frenzy when The BFG, Tarzan, and The Purge 3 are all newly available to moviegoers.
The two films that had the toughest time this weekend were the 20 years later (aka way too late) sequel Independence Day Resurgence and the horror/fashion/noir/thriller/satire/whatsit/drama Neon Demon, which risked a nearly wide opening (just under 800 theaters) but couldn't fill theaters -- Elle Fanning isn't bankable yet. Whatever happened to Dakota? *sniffle*
TOP TEN WIDE
1000+ screens. arrows indicate gaining or losing screens
▫️01 Finding Dory $73.2 (cum. $286.5) Review
🔺02 Independence Day: Resurgence $41.6 NEW
▫️03 Central Intelligence $18.3 (cum. $69.3)
🔺04 The Shallows $16.7 NEW
🔺05 Free State of Jones $7.7 NEW
🔻06 The Conjuring 2 $7.7 (cum. $86.9)
🔻07 Now You See Me 2 $5.6 (cum. $52)
🔻08 X-Men Apocalypse $2.4 (cum. $151.1) Review, Podcast
🔻09 TMNT: Out of the Shadows $2.4 (cum. $77.1)
🔻10 Warcraft $2.1 (cum. $43.8) Six Questions
Fan Art by The Glitchway. Click here for more
TOP TEN LIMITED
Less than 1000 screens. Excluding previously wide.
🔺01 The Neon Demon $606K NEW
🔻02 Love & Friendship $490K (cum. $11.8) Review, Podcast
🔻03 The Lobster $436K (cum. $7) Reviewish, Podcast
🔻04 Maggie's Plan $297K (cum. $2.2) Review
🔺05 Genius $216K (cum. $807K)
🔺06 Weiner $115K (cum. $1.2) Review
🔺07 Swiss Army Man $114K NEW Review
🔺08 Dark Horse $92K (cum. $493K) Review
🔻09 The Man Who Knew Infinity $88K (cum. $3.5)
🔻10 The Hunt for Wilderpeople $85K NEW Review
Happy Pride Weekend, Everyone!
What movies did you catch this week?
Somehow I kicked off the weekend by visiting a facade of the Psycho house (Mommy issues for everyone!) with my bestie and The Flick Filosopher who was visiting from London. But I also caught Genius, The Neon Demon and Swiss Army Man and more on those soon.
Reader Comments (21)
I watched "Psycho 2", actually, with plans to catch the other sequels soon. Meg Tilly is uniquely terrible in it, but otherwise it's kind of a fascinating revival effort, with a better concept than I expected.
Also saw "Tickled", which is an interesting story but a bit thin as a film. Maybe should have been a short? It's almost too single-minded, makes passing reference to some larger topics and ideas but doesn't follow through on any.
I saw "Love and Friendship" and "Swiss Army Man." "Love and Friendship" was delightful but also sort of terrifying. Kate Beckinsale is so cunning and scary that I feared for the well-being of the other characters. Still I was charmed by it all and the supporting characters for once were interesting in there own right.
I came away with mixed feelings towards "Swiss Army Man," but I probably lean towards the positive. It's certainly whimsical and creative with strong, committed performances from Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe. The score is also damn effective. I'm still humming themes from it a day after. There are a lot of terrific moments, but my main issue with the film was how much it told rather than show. The characters pretty much explain the film's every theme and metaphor. Is it still a metaphor if it's explained? It won't surprise me if the film becomes a cult classic, and despite my mixed feelings I'm looking forward to what Daniels will bring us in the future.
The combination of studying for the bar exam and being temporarily relocated to a Maryland area with relatively few movie theaters is severely limiting my moviegoing this summer. I've resigned myself to just waiting to catch most of the summer releases when they get released on streaming in the fall/winter, and by then I'll be in New York with theaters aplenty. Hopefully I'll take a study break soon and work my way over to the only nearby theater and catch one of the bigger scale releases.
Nat, that headline is...ummm...misleading.... ;-)
Nat, Hunt for The Wilderpeople is missing from your limited list. I saw it last week and really enjoyed it. I hope that it finds an audience as I think many others will enjoy it too.
Happy Pride Day to you Nathaniel! " The Shallows" looks like another Jaw's wanna be
The Neon Demon wasn't a limited release. :/
To celebrate the upcoming birthday, I managed to convince my local film society (I am a programming member) to schedule Olivia de Havilland's THE SNAKE PIT on the weekend. Fantastic film, including great performances from Betsy Blair, Beulah Bondi and Leo Genn to support de Havilland's star turn.
Also saw BASTILLE DAY (stupid fun) and half of ROCK THE KASBAH which was good (I don;t understand the fervour of hatred for this movie) but the heating wasn't working in the theatre on one of the coldest Canberra nights of the season so I had to quit.
Jim -- different sites have different definitions anywhere from 600 to 800 to 1000. And it's changed over the years (as movies have wider and wider releases) so we go by 1000. Since Neon Demon was on just under 800 screens we opted to include it in limited.
Vaus - i shall fix. it wasn't listed when the first wave of estimates came out.
I saw a screening of Hunt for the Wilderpeople--loved. Silly, funny, poignant, and utterly charming. Plus great New Zealand scenery and a curmudgeony Sam Neill. (He, Brosnan, and Neeson seem to be moving into those roles--ok by me.)
Florence Foster Jenkins--enjoyable while I was at the theater but haven't thought about it since. A lesser Streep film IMO. Any talk of Oscar nom is ridiculous and click-baity (talking to you Vanity Fair!) though maybe a GG nom for Hugh Grant or Simon Helberg.
And, Pride (again!) because I want something sweet and British to cheer me up about the state of this big bad world on so many fronts.
Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, which is great for anyone who loves music. Very inspiring film.
a) Pina: Good enough, though there's a bit of a random "watching this on youtube would be equally edifying"
b) The season finale of Game of Thrones: This show is so good it's unreal. I'm a full Americans supporter for the awards, but when it inevitably gets snubbed, Game of Thrones full victory romp will be fine.
c) The speech by Jesse Williams at BET was everything.
Dakota is having her comeback this year with American Pastoral, and a possible oscar supporting nomination, if the movie and her performance gain good reviews.
I also watched the season finale of GoT, and goddamnit that episode is SO GOOD! The literal queens are mind-blowingly killing it. See for yourself, pardon the pun.
AFi Docs festival here in DC:
A Family Affair - Slightly self-important documentary about a 30-something trying to make sense of the dynamics between his father and uncle, and their mother. It really wasn't as interesting as it was billed to be. The take away was ... all families have some screwed up dynamics. You don't need to waste 2 hours to get that message.
The Lovers and the Despot - Doc about a South Korean actress and director who were kidnapped by Kim Jong-Il and forced to make movies for North Korea. A straightforward, faithful telling of the story (although the music was overbearing and overly dramatic at times).
Obit - The goings-on in the obituary section of the NYT. It was a real crowd pleaser. Both showings were sold out with a looooong standby line. It was lighter than expected, upbeat, life-affirming and very now. But I got the sense that it will be outdated in 10-15 years. So, it will probably win 325,236,257 awards (a la most of the recent doc winners). Possible Oscar contender? Who knows?
Under the Sun - Russian filmmaker granted access to North Korea to document every day life for one little girl and her family in Pyongyang. NK officials hijack the filmmaking and script the entire movie, making the participants "replay" scenes over and over to show happy, fun, patriotic life in NK. Prior to the screening, the audience was told that the movie was put together with what film the filmmaker had. With that in mind, it was interesting for about 45-60 minutes. You couldn't tell if the people were just programmed to do what they were told or if they had any feelings at all (maybe they were not told that it was supposed to be a documentary?). The filmmaker spent more time than necessary at the end showing how the handlers really pushed the lead little girl, and that was more uncomfortable than interesting. The last 20 or so minutes is essentially just close-ups of her crying (not sure if it was because she was tired or scared or what).
EU Film Fest in Bangkok. No UK film on schedule which is kind of foreshadowing :(
I saw Tale of Tales, The Fencer, The Broken Circle Breakdown (yes, some titles are not so current) and The People vs. Fritz Bauer. They ranged from good to great but I'm definitely glad and grateful to see them in theatres.
Saw Broadchurch on Netflix. Olivia Colman KILLS. Great series for Agatha Christie fans.
I watched a lot of oldies:
The Girl from Missouri -- Jean Harlow had great screen charisma.
The Killers -- Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner are easy to watch, and I liked the pacing of the movie tremendously.
Badlands -- My first time seeing this, and speaking of naturals, Terrence Malik and Sissy Spacek were it. I loved the surprising choice of score, too.
I saw Independence Day: Resurgence Friday Morning, Freeheld Friday night and re-watched Independence Day Saturday night. IDR was a bore. The new younger cast were pretty bland; most of the older cast felt shoehorned in; and some other new people were just there. In terms of story, they try to make it a little more complicated then the first film but it just comes off as convoluted and unfocused. Most importantly of all, there's no sense of fun with this film. It just feels like it's going through the motions until that stupid fucking ending that sets up a third film... Yeah, good luck with that.
Freeheld was... fine, I guess. It was a little too on-the-nose in places, Steve Carrell was irritating and you never really got to know Moore or Page's characters. In saying that, the story had its compelling moments and I thought Michael Shannon was solid in it. As for Independence Day; it still holds up to me as a pretty fun film. It has its issues but for the type of film it aimed to be, it's a success.
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