Visual Effects Shortlist - Scene Breakdown

By Ben Miller

The 10 finalists for the Best Visual Effects Oscar were announced last week.  Though once reserved for films that pushed the boundaries of what films could visualize, the Oscars have since gravitated towards spectacle and bombast.  Of the 10 films, none came from an independent studio or had a budget less than $100 million.  That isn't to say their effects should be discounted, but don't expect to see something like Ex Machina or shortlisted documentary Welcome to Chechnya from last year.  This category is usually reserved for outright spectacle, and these shortlisted films reflect that.

Let's focus on one specific setpiece per film that highlights the visual effects artists...

Click to read more ...

Tweet the Season

Tweet of the Year incoming!

time to check twitter pic.twitter.com/DEljkvkb9R

— what are you ᑐᑌᑎᑕ (@clumsyghost_) December 20, 2021

Hahahaha. But seriously Twitter is good for somethings. Unexpected moments of frivolity, silly memes, amusing notes about movies and television, mutual lust appreciation societies for celebrities, tweet threads that can become great movies (like Zola) and so on. So, anywhere, here are some tweets we enjoyed this holiday week...

Click to read more ...

Truth-Telling: Florence Pugh's Halloween Rant.

What the..
Apparently Yelena didn’t make the cut.
GUYS. I LITERALLY TALK ABOUT POCKETS IN NEARLY EVERY SCENE.
Halloween= A LOT OF FREE SWEETIES.
May I remind you that the vest has “A LOT OF HANDY POCKETS”..
Costume+vest+POCKETS= someone who came prepared.
IT IS with great importance we understand how vital Yelena is for Halloween.
Rant over, thanks for listening.

Florence Pugh (Black Widow) has a point. Should we cancel Halloween?

Streaming Roulette, Oct: The Manor, Black Widow, 'Just a Girl' and more...

New month and a... oops, we're approaching the halfway mark. How did that happen? It's past time for another round of Streaming Roulette where we point out a handful or two of random titles that are streaming and just for fun, freeze frame them at totally random places in the scroll bar...

I brought a little something to get the party started...

THE MANOR on Prime
Barbara Hershey stars in this new horror film about a woman convinced that residents of a nursing home are being killed. Bruce Davison co-stars so you get two 1990s Oscar nominees in this new film from a director named Axelle Carolyn...

Click to read more ...

Box Office: 007 Money and 2021's Highest Grossers

All you need to know about this very strange ecosystem shift in moviegoing is that an Icelandic language film (Lamb) made the overall top 10 despite having a per screen average of just $1,715. These are odd times we're living in when only blockbusters are making bank and even those aren't operating at close to full strength. There used to be 25-30 movies in wide release at any given time but there were literally only 8 in release this weekend here in the US. One wonders how the economics will all play in the future decade since streaming isn't as profitable as the traditional theatrical market and films have always been budgeted for pre-COVID realities. Will we see production values decrease in the next decade as Hollywood starts trying to make things on the cheap or just much higher subscription prices for streaming services?  What did you see this past week/weekend? More notes are after the jump.

Weekend Box Office October 8th-10th 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE	PLATFORM TITLES
No Time To Die	Lamb
1 NO TIME TO DIE 🔺  $56 Deborah's Review	1 LAMB 🔺 $1.0 in 583 theaters Cannes Capsule
2  VENOM LET THERE BE CARNAGE  $32 (cum. $141.6)	2 THE JESUS MUSIC [DOC] $150K in 270 theaters (cum. $857k)...

Click to read more ...