Dope Re-Release: What Does It Mean?

Please welcome our new contributor Kieran Scarlett.

Dope (discussed here) hits theaters again this weekend. The film made a splash at the Sundance Film Festival in January before opening wide earlier this summer to slightly less rapturous response and modest box office. Not that $16 million for a movie with a production budget of $700 000 is anything to sneeze at, mind you. Still, it's not quite the sleeper hit many at Sundance thought it would be. Will it be able to improve on those numbers? Perhaps. 

Is there hope for Dope?

With Straight Outta Compton performing very well, Dope's obsession with the early 90s could play well on re-release. Or will the audiences just see the megahit rap biopic and pass over the Sundance indie altogether? 

With the upcoming re-release of Dope and yesterday's DVD and Blu-ray release of Mad Max Fury Road (reviewed here), the question of awards prospects for films released in the first half of the year comes into play. It's possible that Dope's re-release could be priming the pump for an awards campaign - a reminder of The Little Indie They Thought Could And Still Might. Awards wise, it's going to be an uphill climb for something like Dope. Even if one takes into account the fact that the Academy has come under fire recently for lack of diversity in its nominations and might be looking to fix that, Dope may still have trouble standing up against other efforts. There's Tangerine, which in addition to being an absolute joy of a film has a better hook in terms of an awards narrative. And there's the aforementioned Straight Outta Compton, both a critical and commercial success. Still, if Dope is indeed trying to make an awards play, a re-release right now is a wise move, right before the Telluride Film Festival kicks off and things typically start to get very noisy in the world of awards punditry. 

Have you seen Dope yet? It's your last chance to check out Rick Famuyiwa's love letter to '90s hip-hop nostalgia before its DVD release next month.

Kieran is a Canadian expat whose love affair with movies began with Judy Garland and Julie Andrews.  He thanks his older brother for his film fanaticism and apologizes profusely for dragging him to see "Cold Mountain" on opening weekend because 'people in it might get nominated for stuff.'  He received his MFA in writing from the American Film institute. He spends a lot of time thinking about the 1974 Best Actress race, admiring Dorothy Malone's mambo skills and longing for the return of Holly Hunter.  Kieran can be found in Los Angeles, writing, working on movies and searching for the perfect arthouse theater with good parking. [Follow him on Twitter.] 

Halfway: Best Supporting Performances of 2015 Thus Far

½way mark - part 6 of ?
While it was a great deal of fun choosing and articulating the Best Leading work of the year (thus far) at the halfway mark, the Supporting fields prove a more difficult task. This is not exactly the norm as movies tend to have more supporting role than leading ones. But -- grossly generalizing now -- a lot of movies underuse their supporting casts, especially the women. This is particular true of summer blockbusters: Jurassic World and Terminator Genisys, for example, don't even have any supporting females. You're either a male character, a leading female love interest, or you don't exist... except perhaps in cameo form (the eternal plight of one Judy Greer). Either that or the character actors are severely underchallenged. It's easy to feel exceptional warmth for Mary Kay Place in I'll See You In My Dreams or Sally Hawkins in Paddington, for example. Both women are welcome onscreen at any time, terrific actresses, but they're not expected to do much at all other than be a warm and welcoming presence. 

Anyway, let's proceed. 

Supporting Actress: Rose Byrne & Kristen Stewart 

But...that's not playing by the rules which is to choose five performances like you're doing an Oscar shortlist (though these lists should never be mistaken for Oscar Predictions which is a different topic altogether). So let's try again.

Here we go with 4 acting categories after the jump

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Podcast XXL: Brian and Earl and the Inside Out Girl

Nathaniel R is thrilled to welcome Nick Davis back to the podcast. He's been binge-watching 2015 movies after months of deprivation. Seven films discussed if you count Jurassic World... but perhaps you shouldn't. We talk fast because there was just so much to catch up on.

Contents

• 00:01 Jurassic World
• 02:00 The Upcoming 1995 Smackdown
• 04:45 Magic Mike XXL and his women
• 10:37 Dope and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: Or, The Good and Bad of Sundance Quirkiness 
• 22:10 Inside Out and a little more XXL just because
• 29:24 Love & Mercy and/or 'Admirations & Misgivings' about the movie itself
• 39:00 Spy

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes.  Please continue the conversation in the comments because if the podcast were twice as long there'd still be plenty left to say. We repeat: seven movies.  

Further (Related) Reading: 
1995 Smackdown Info, Nathaniel on Magic Mike XXL, Nick on Magic Mike XXL, Rose Byrne FYC, and Nick's "Fifties" Report for 2015

Inside Out, Magic Mike XXL, Me and Earl

From Dope to Adam Jones: New Posters Roundup

Manuel here to try and help us catch up with the barrage of new film posters (and trailers!) that have dropped these past few days. It’s hard to keep up, what with Cannes, Eurovision, singing along with the Barden Bellas and furiously following Mad Max. Here are six posters you may have missed:

Musically Inclined: A #TBT double feature

The Sundance hit (review here) gets an appropriately 90s-tinged and sunny poster that features a pretty fun tagline (“It’s hard out there for a geek”) while the film adaptation of the gloriously 80s cartoon gets a Snapchatty poster (telling you everything you need to know about its intended audience) which looks as broody as that underwhelming first trailer.

Tearjerkers: Docs to sob to

Word from Cannes was pretty ecstatic about the former and for those who loved Senna and Amy Winehouse this should come as no surprise; knowing this, the poster goes for simple iconicity becoming Amy’s own signature beehive (Could Oscar make up for that Senna snub come next year?). The Slamdance doc on the Batkid “Make a Wish” story goes for heartwarming, giving us perhaps the peppiest nod to the darkest of all contemporary superheroes. If you want to get your hankies ready, there are trailers for both films.

Twice the Bradley: Can you sell a film on Bradley’s star power alone?

That’s a valid question. After three consecutive Oscar nominations and coming off two gargantuan hits which topped the box office last year, Bradley Cooper is front and center in the posters for Cameron Crowe’s Aloha and especially on John Wells’ Adam Jones. That may be enough for some people, but these marketing efforts left me wanting. That said, can we talk about the supporting casts on both of these films?

Which of these six films will you be catching in the next few months? Did you also do a double take when looking at that headshot-ey poster for the culinary-centered Adam Jones and/or gay-gasped when you saw the gorgeous Amy poster?

Cannes Lineups: Director's Fortnight

Previously in Cannes news
The Coen Bros led Jury and the Lineups for Competition and Un Certain Regard 

While the competition & un certain regard films are the "star headliners" as it were, they aren't always the ones that garner the most critical buzz or sales or what not. So let's look at what's coming in the Director's Fortnight sidebar. While this section is non competitive, the films are eligible for the Camera D'Or prize if they are among the first films in a director's career, though that's tough to win since they're competing with first films in other sections, too. The last few winners of this prize were: Beasts of the Southern Wild (Oscar nominee Best Picture), Ilo Ilo (Oscar submission Best Foreign Film) and France's Party Girl.

Opening Film

In the Shadow of Women

In the Shadow of Women (France) dir: Philippe Garrel. 
A romantic drama about documentary filmmakers in Paris 

Closing Film

Dope (US) dir: Rick Famuyiwa
This action comedy about high school hip-hop fans who get caught up in a drug deal gone wrong was a huge hit at Sundance (our quick take). It has supposedly been edited since then, which would probably only strengthen it. It's very funny but a bit bloated. 

The Rest of the Lineup is after the jump

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