Halfway Mark Box Office (Pt 1: The Mainstream)

As part of our midway through the year report (we've already seen fun halfway top fives from the team and favourite male performances) here's a look at the box office year thus far. Tomorrow we'll get a bit more niche, okay? Figures here are estimates as of Sunday June 30th for films released in the first six months of the year.

BOX OFFICE TOP TENS IN SIX CATEGORIES
🔺= the movie is still in over 100 theaters.

1. TOP GROSSING FILMS WITH A FEMALE LEAD
(Excluding films where a male lead is just as prominent as his female co-star)

Captain Marvel

01 Captain Marvel (Disney/Marvel) $426.7 starring Brie Larson. March 8th
02 Us (Universal) $175 starring Lupita Nyong'o. March 22nd
03 Alita Battle Angel (Fox) $85.7 starring Rosa Salazar. Feb 14th...

Click to read more ...

One Two Chucky's Coming For You

by Jason Adams

If you squint in the opening moments of the latest Child's Play film -- which supposes a restart, a return to the beginning, an origin story -- it might remind you of Paul Verhoeven's Robocop, another 80s property that recently got the reboot treatment, sans soul. The soul gone missing this time around though is actually a literal one (or as literal as "souls" get anyway), as Chucky's not-so-humble beginnings have been rethought. He's no longer a regular doll that got the soul of a psycho voodoo'd into him, but one whose ultra modern computer tech gets maliciously-virused by a disgruntled employee at a slave labor camp buried somewhere in the deep dark recesses of Somewhere Vietnam...

Click to read more ...

Review: Octavia Spencer lets loose with "Ma"

by Sean Donovan

In an age where critics praise a generation of thoughtful, innovative, and dazzlingly styled horror films, a deceptively basic package like Ma --unconcerned with winning good reviews, elevating the genre, or acquiring a fancy boutique label like A24 -- is uniquely refreshing. Ma’s jump scares are familiar, its plotting is predictably iffy, its logic and emotional contexts for its supporting characters even more so- but goddamn it, it’s fun.

The ‘fun’ comes from feeding off the joy of Octavia Spencer inhabiting domestic horror-thriller, Hand That Rocks the Cradle realness. No longer is Spencer smiling on a gilded stage, frozen while Peter Farrelly and Nick Vallelonga accept prizes for socially regressive trash to which she’s somehow attached. Octavia’s back baby, and this time she’s got hell to raise and teens to terrify....

Click to read more ...

What did you see over Memorial Day?

What did you see over the long weekend? Yours truly had a visitor in town so we were doing the touristy things and Aladdin was the movie of choice (not ours!)

Four Day Holiday Weekend Box Office May 24th-27th 🔺 = new or expanded theater counts / ★ = highly recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 🔺 Aladdin $116.8 on 4476 screens *new* 1992 RETRO	1 🔺 Biggest Little Farm $679k on 181 screens (cum. $1.2)

Click to read more ...

We Need to Talk About Suspiria / Third Tilda's a Charm

Please welcome guest contributor Maggy Torres-Rodriguez

Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria is now available to stream on Amazon Prime. So if you’re looking for a flick to throw on, kick back and re-- really have your stomach churn, this is it. BUT before we get into that, can we first take a moment to talk about Dakota Johnson’s Met Gala dress (pictured above)...

Click to read more ...