Pre Summer Malaise @ the Multiplex

With DC's Big Three both overperforming and underperforming (if you know what I mean) in Zach Snyder's ugly hit, and all the box office stories being old (like Zootopia, showing incredible legs in its 5th weekend) or depressing (two terrible biopics on screens with Don Cheadle's Miles Davis and Tom Hiddleston's Hank Williams). We've definitely entered the doldrums before the summer explosion of would be all-sequel giants (like Captain America 3, X-Men 6, Finding Nemo 2, Neighbors 2, Ghostbusters 3.0, etcetera), box office charts are too dull and repetitive.

Zootopia is a smash. Holding as well as Frozen did.

So let's just check in with films whose success or lack thereof we're interested in today...

RANDOM BOX OFFICE CHECK-IN
01 Batman v Superman $52.3 off 68% in its second weekend. Ouch. Review
02 Zootopia $20 astonishing hold, off just 16% in 5th week Reviewish
11 Hello My Name is Doris $2.3 going wide in its 4th week Review 
13 I Saw The Light $.7 nearly wide in 2nd week Review
15 Midnight Special $.5 still in very limited release but doing well Positive / Negative
18 The VVitch $.4 in 666 theaters again, Haha, after new trailer 

Platform Releases
19 Everybody Wants Some $.3 NEW Review
28 Miles Ahead $.1 NEW Review
33 Embrace of the Serpent $.07 hit $1 million finally! Interview
41 Knight of Cups $.02 losing screens, flopped as badly as To the Wonder did. Reviewish
42 Krisha $.03 adding screens, crossed $100,000! Review

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?

Do tell in the comments.

Don Cheadle x 4 in "Miles Ahead"

Nathaniel reporting on the closing night film of the New York Film Festival

Don Cheadle has been an esteemed actor for a full twenty years now. His big reputation began with his breakout turn in The Devil with the Blue Dress (1995) and kept building. Somewhere along the way, despite a Best Actor nomination for Hotel Rwanda (2004) the leading man career didn't materialize (apart from his 4 time Emmy nominated gig on Showtime's House of Lies). The sturdy ensemble player attempts to right that wrong by producing, writing, directing and starring (whew) in a Miles Davis biopic.

Cue the trumpets!

And here we are. Miles Ahead was given the honor of closing this year's New York Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics will release the film.

It's tough to argue that Cheadle hasn't earned a spotlight as bright as this. [More...] 

Click to read more ...

All That Link

It's been so long since we had a link roundup! You were all partying over the long weekend anyway. But we're back to normal. Please to enjoy these fine, discussable or just fun posts around the web...

Antagony & Ecstasy looks back at Thelma & Louise now that Susan Sarandon is on the road in Tammy's crime spree
VF Jennifer Lawrence meets Emma Watson
Leigh Alexander on internet sexism - the dos and don'ts 
BuzzFeed Matt McGorry and Samira Wiley from Orange is the New Black recreate Matthew McConaughey movie posters. Love.
WSJ Taylor Swift fancies herself a journalist suddenly and writes about the future of fandom, music careers and record sales 
AV Club on that potato salad kickstarter 
Deadline on new controversial strict rules for documentary eligibility at the Oscars. I understand the arguments against the new ruling but I would also like to caution documentarians to think about what they're asking for. The Oscars are larger than your particular craft and they really are supposed to be about CINEMA (i.e. things that play in theaters) so shush. These kinds of rulings may hurt at first but there should be a difference between television and movies. Television has its own awards for you to win if your film is great. Don't be greedy. I do agree with one complaint though: what's fair for docs should also be fair for features so Oscar needs to tighten up its eligibility rules across the board.

Hey, Look

It's the first image of Don Cheadle as Miles Davis in a forthcoming biopic. Filming has just begun. I guess Cheadle hasn't moved to TV for good (i *really* hate House of Lies) but at this point he seems far more likely to win an Emmy than an Oscar. The movie is apparently more about his marriage than his music. The best news about the project by far is that it gives Emayatzy Corinealdi a follow up leading role to her great work in Middle of Nowhere. She plays Miles first wife Francis Taylor.

Bob Fosse and Roy Scheider at Cannes for "All That Jazz"Fosse Fosse Fosse
Sound on Sight has an excellent retrospective of Bob Fosse's astounding but weirdly forgotten cinematic career from Mynt Marsellus. I wish Marsellus hadn't hedged on his ending - Fosse absolutely is equal to the other far more famous auteurs cited (Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, etcetera). They are only better remembered / respected I'd argue because they:

a) have comparatively gigantic filmographies
b) are still alive and working twenty-seven years after Fosse's death (Fosse was older than all the other crucial 70s breakout auteurs save Robert Altman and Fosse also died relatively young at only 60)
c) made their best films in genres that are more typically male than the film musical and thus escaped the pervasive destructive sexism that tends to devalue all rich work in more traditionally "feminine" fields like musicals, romances, and melodramas. We see this all the time in film criticism. Still.