Box Office: Vampire Hospitality, Unique Internships, and Drug Wars

Though Hotel Transylvania 2 and the Anne Hathaway/Robert DeNiro pairing in The Intern surprised no one by taking the top two spots at the weekend box office, the big story was at the tail end of the top ten chart where Denis Villeneuve's possibly Oscar nomination bound cartel-drama Sicario landed despite still being in very limited release still, with less than 60 locations. That's what's called playing to sold out crowds. I split the charts below into limited and wide release though so Sicario takes the #1 spot on the limited half of the cinema equation. We just talked about that stunning drama on the podcast. 

There don't seem to be estimates on SPC's German Oscar contender Labyrinth of Lies which is a pity since we're curious.

BOX OFFICE WIDE
800+ screens (Sept 25th-27th)
01 Hotel Transylvania 2 $48 NEW Tim on the director Genny Tartakovsky
02 The Intern $17 NEW 
03 Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials $13.8 (cum. $51.4)
04 Everest $12.1 (cum. $22.1) 
05 Black Mass $11 (cum. $42)
06 The Visit $6.5 (cum. $52)
07 The Perfect Guy $4.6 (cum. $48.7)
08 War Room $4.2 (cum. $55.9)
09 The Green Inferno $3.5 NEW
10 A Walk in the Woods $1 (cum. $27.2)
11 Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation $.9 (cum. $193.4)
12 Grandma $.8 (cum. $5.1) Review, Poster

BOX OFFICE LIMITED
Under 800 Screens - Excluding Previously Wide (Sept 25th-27th)
01 Sicario (59 screens) $1.7 (cum. $2.2) Podcast, Emily on a roll
02 Pawn Sacrifice (781 screens) $1 (cum. $1.3)  
03 Lost in Hong Kong (28 screens) $.5 NEW
04 Un Gallo con Muchos Huevos (364 screens) $.2 (cum. $8.8) 
05 Meet the Patels (63 screens) $.2 (cum. $.4)
06 Unbranded (58 screens) $.1 NEW
07 Sleeping With Other People (102 screens) $.1 (cum. $.3) Review
08 Stonewall (129 screens) $.1 NEW Interview, Review, Podcast
09 Goodnight Mommy (28 screens) $.1 (cum. $.2) Interview, Oscar Submission
10 Phoenix (85 screens) $.08 (cum. $2.8) Interview
11 Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (10 screens) $.04 (cum. $.2)
12 The New Girlfriend (45 screens) $.04 (cum. $.09) Review

Sicario's success excepted, it was a bloodbath at the arthouse. Stonewall met vitriolic reviews (my "D" grade review is somehow comparatively nice!) and a disastrous less than $1000 per screen average despite a fairly well publicized opening weekend. In other weak openings, 99 Holmes, the housing crisis drama with Michael Shannon and Andrew Garfield debuted on only 2 screens and Mississippi Grind, a pool shark drama with Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds, on only one (what the hell, movies !?) and with those extremely nervous toes in movie theater waters, neither made even the top 12 at the arthouse despite well liked indie directors pairing famous stars with reliable well loved character actors to the tune of positive reviews.

Finally, we neglected to mention the opening of the French trans drama The New Girlfriend (starring Romain Duris, left) last week and though the François Ozon drama hasn't made much of a stir at the arthouse (an entire year's wait for a release after its festival debut can't have helped) but it adds to 2015's strong impression that the floodgates are now open for the T to be amply represented in LGBT cinema.

What did you see this weekend?

The Oscar Foreign Film Submission List - We're Almost There!

With the "official" statement still to come from the Academy (expect it in just under a week) we know the titles of 71 contenders for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar thus far. Last year 83 countries, a record, submitted. The latest titles to be named from countries still waiting on their first nomination include Jalal's Story (Bangladesh), Men Who Save the World (Malaysia), You Carry Me (Montenegro), and Heavenly Nomadic (Kyrgyzstan). Infrequently nominated countries like India (Court) and Iran (Muhammad, Messenger of God) have announced controversial chocies.

As for traditionally bigger Oscar players, we're still waiting on Italy and Spain (Spain has narrowed it down to three films) but now we have the titles from Canada (Felix & Meira) and Denmark (A War). 

• Current Predictions plus all time stats/trivia
• Afghanistan through Estonia  18 official 
• Ethiopia through The Netherlands 30 official
• Norway through Vietnam 23 official 

NYFF: Mia Madre & No Home Movie

Manuel on an unlikely double feature he’d like to dub “How I Mourned Your Mother.”

In his TIFF coverage, Nathaniel mentioned that film festivals sometimes offer you random thematic threads born out of unlikely juxtapositions. This was the case when I caught Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre and Chantal Akerman’s No Home Movie almost back to back. Both films are concerned and inspired by the death of the respective filmmakers’ mothers. The results are as widely different as you’d imagine and fascinating for wildly different reasons.

Moretti’s Mia Madre opens with a scene of laborers rioting against their factory’s owners. Workers chant and fight against armored policemen in riot gear. And then Margherita (an effectively understated Margherita Buy) yells “Stop!” She’s shooting a film, as it turns out and she’s not too happy with the framing she was getting. We slowly learn her personal life is taking a toll; she’s broken up with her boyfriend and her mother is slowly dying at the hospital. You can almost imagine the press about that shoot (“Director’s Personal Issues All But Ruined the Production”). [More...]

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Original Song Power: Simple Song #3, Writing's On the Wall, Etc...

This year's Original Song category is in great early health for a change. Ricki and the Flash's "Cold One," Pitch Perfect 2's "Flashlight" and I'll See You in My Dreams's title tracks are all well showcased in their films, and "Simple Song #3" from Youth, which the entire movie builds to, is an absolute slam dunk. (In all four movies the song in question was "written" by an in-movie character and is played in full). I was delighted to learn that the latter is eligible after seeing the film at TIFF as it's so good that I had assumed it was a famous composition repurposed.

And with Lady Gaga already making nice with the Oscar folks with that Sound of Music medley at the last High Holy Night, and possibly revitalizing her popularity with AHS: Hotel, we could see her back again to perform "Until It Happens To You" from the documentary The Hunting Ground. (And those are just the songs that are high profile or that we already like! The category routinely holds surprises both in the eligibility list and the actual quality of low profile contenders.) 

Skyfall mania aside, as we've documented many times before, James Bond songs are rarely nominated for Oscars. I'm hoping this new one, embedded below from Sam Smith, grows on me. I don't dislike it as many internet types already do but then I'm wildly averse to snap judgments on music singles. Hearing them repeatedly has changed how people feel about them thousands of times in the past. And as any movie buff knows, hearing Bond songs while watching those stylish 007 opening credits always helps cement the song's degree of success (or lack thereof).

So we'll see. And hear.  But... have you first impressions?

(A sampler platter of Original Movie Songs from 2015 thus far)

NYFF: Shorts (Animated & International)

Part of the joy of film festivals (I’m told) is discovery, and so, this being Manuel's first full New York Film Festival, he figured he’d give its various Shorts Programs a chance.

It’s not a form I watch often though you’d think it’d be growing in popularity given our ever-shrinking attention spans. And with that in mind, rather than review all thirteen shorts I watched, I’ve singled out highlights from the programs screening at the festival, which include Pixar’s latest and a dazzling black and white queer short from Argentina. More...

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