Streaming Roulette: Netflix & Prime for January

Curiously Netflix and Prime have no recent movies available to start 2019 with.  In the first half of January Netflix only has Solo: A Star Wars Story (beginning on the 9th). The situation at Prime is a bit better with Leave No Trace (3rd), Beautiful Boy (4th), and Eighth Grade 13th) all available soon. In other words, now is a great time to hit the actual movie theaters and catch up on Oscar hopefuls since the streaming services won't help much. Nevertheless here's a perusal of 'new'  streaming options.

As is our practice we've frozen the films at utterly random moments without cheating (whatever comes up comes up) for this quick preview. Let's go...

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Posterized: "Mad" George Miller, an Australian Oddity

George Miller, the 70 year old director reportedly putting much younger action directors to shame with Mad Max: Fury Road, hails from Australia and he's never quite left. He never went full Hollywood so to speak or, at least, his movies retained their oddity even when he did (Witches of Eastwick). Speaking of odd. His only Oscar is for Best Animated Feature though that's hardly what he's known for.

My favorite peculiarity about his filmography is that you can neatly divide it into three consecutive parts... at least until he comes circling back to Mad Max this very weekend. 

1. Mad Max
2. Susan Sarandon
3. Talking Animals

How many have you seen? 

* Strictly speaking he has two other directorial credits but one of them is only a segment in an omnibus film (Twilight Zone: The Movie) and the other is one of those title only outliers that you just kind of have to trust IMDb that it exists at all 

Box Office: Bella Marries but We're Totally Team George

Twi-hards RSVP'ed to their beloved franchise's wedding, giving Twilight's fourth film a box office weekend as bloated as its romantic angst and running time. George Clooney's Oscar bid (aka The Descendants) also saw very enthusiastic attendance. It's only in 29 theaters and still managed to crack the top ten (!), suggesting a future all lucrative like the family's in the movie (who happen to own gazillions worth of Hawaiian real estate).

Box Office (U.S.) Top Ten -Estimates

01 THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 1 new $139.5
02 HAPPY FEET TWO new $22
03 IMMORTALS $12.2 (cum. $52.9)
04 JACK AND JILL $12 (cum. $41)
05 PUSS IN BOOTS $10.7 (cum. $122.3)
06 TOWER HEIST $7 (cum. $53.4)
07 J EDGAR new $5.9 [review] (cum $20.6)
08 A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS new $2.9 (cum $28.3)
09 IN TIME $1.7  (cum. $33.4)
10 THE DESCENDANTS new $1.2  (cum. $1.3)

One Final Talking Point
Remember when we were wondering if The Help (#11 of the year) could overtake Bridesmaids (#10) to land in the US top ten of the year? It's still trying. The Help is still in theaters (under 400) and is now just $900,000 behind the other female driven smash featuring poo jokes. The only similarly intense and weirdly close battle for yearly "rank" bragging rights is between Captain America (#8) and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (#9) with less than $300,000 separating their takes; no poo jokes unite them but they do share super serum injections.

What did you see this weekend? Or are you saving your pennies for the awesome cavalcade of pictures opening for Thanksgiving. So many goodies opening for the holiday.