Review: Bad Education

by Tony Ruggio

Filmmaker Cory Finley is fast becoming an auteur. That much is clear, and more, when watching his second directorial effort Bad Education, a great film unfortunately relegated to the streaming fringes of HBO. A film this good would’ve been poised to make a bigger splash with Netflix or Amazon, as well as contend for Oscars over Emmys.

Hugh Jackman gives the best performance of his career as Frank Tassone, a Long Island area school district superintendent who in the early aughts, along with district business manager Pamela Gluckin (Allison Janney) and others, embezzled millions of dollars from school funds to support their lavish lifestyles... 

Click to read more ...

TIFF: A Good Time with "Bad Education"

by Chris Feil

Long Island public school administration corruption comes to light in Cory Finley’s Bad Education, a sharp examination of early 2000s secrets hidden in plain sight. A young school paper reporter Rachel (Blockers’ Geraldine Viswanathan) first goes looking for a quote on her high school’s flashy new building project. What she ultimately stumbles upon are records that reveal an embezzlement scheme funneling millions of taxpayer dollars into the interests of those at the top, including Hugh Jackman’s chief administrator Frank Tessone.

Based on an actual case of massive fraud, Bad Education is less salacious than you might expect and much more humanely interested. Mike Makowsky’s script starts with the big picture and focuses towards the personal, detailing not only the slippery slope of petty to major financial theft, but also the landmine of Tessone’s closeted sexuality in a culture that forces him into interiority. The film has a strong, smoothly told grasp on the finer points of the story, such as economic inequity, gender imbalance, and personal relationships allowing people to look the other way.

Click to read more ...

Review: Missing Link

by Chris Feil

Laika is back with another idiosyncratic stop-motion wonder and its their most chipper effort yet. Missing Link follows the animation house’s unique imagination down a rabbit hole of globe-trotting legend, delivering a buddy comedy that’s also about self-love and self-respect. As ever, Laika serves us such spectacular visuals and winning charm that it’s easy to overlook what is more familiar in the film. But this one finds the studio at their most unfettered, giving us a breezy treat that rings of a new level of confidence.

Hugh Jackman leads a surprisingly delightful voice cast as a seeker of rare creatures named Sir Lionel Frost. Attempting to join an elite society of beast hunters that mocks him, he sets off to America in search of Big Foot. What he finds is the gentile apeman Mr. Link, who in turn enlists Frost to guide him to the other side of the globe in search of  a storied tribe of yetis that could be Link’s closest biological kinfolk. With those uppercrust poachers pursuing them to usurp Frost’s discovery, Frost and Link are joined by the widowed Adelina Fortnight, and the three set off on a self-actualization journey into the unknown.

Click to read more ...

Would you rather?

OMG. Did you hear that Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster are doing The Music Man on Broadway together for the 2020 season? Aaaaahhhhh how perfect. Anyway, since Hugh is on the brain (and seems to be getting younger !?!), it's time for another round of our celebrity-fantasy quick decision poll time ago (an excuse to share our fav instagram posts on the regular essentially). So, would you rather

... go falconing with Hugh?
... get your beard did with Rune Temte (Captain Marvel) in Oslo?
... reenact Lady & Tramp with Justin Theroux?
... reminisce about Natural Born Killers with Juliette Lewis?
... ice skate with Jonathan Van Ness?
... have a drink with Russell Tovey & Andrew Scott?  
... ride camels with Sandy Powell?
... chopper to an island for fine snail delicacies with Michelle Yeoh?
... dunk your hair in the pool with Tracee Ellis Ross? 

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide.

Click to read more ...

Movies gobbled up tickets on Thanksgiving Weekend

by Nathaniel R

What did you see over the long holiday weekend? Some of the movies got a two day headstart opening on Wednesday, others on Friday but awards season is most definitely upon us; almost everything has now screened for someone and there's only one month of the year left to get through.  We've expanded the two charts to include all 14 films in wide release (over 800 screens) and the corresponding top players in limited release. There's a glut of titles out there at the moment.

Here's how the box office went down for the holidays. There is a lot to ponder after the jump...

Weekend Box Office (ACTUALS) (Nov 23rd-25th)
W I D E 800+ screens	PLATFORM / LIMITED excluding prev. wide
1 🔺 Ralph Breaks the Internet $56.2 on 4017 screens (cum. $84.7) *NEW*	1 🔺 Boy Erased $1.5 on 672 screens (cum. $4.5) Podcast

2 🔺 Creed 2 $35.5 on 3441 screens (cum. $56) *NEW* Michael B Jordan,  Podcast	2 Can You Ever Forgive Me $598k on 426 screens (cum. $6) Review, Podcast ❤️

Click to read more ...