Review: Netflix's all star comedy "Don't Look Up"

Netflix's latest release, "Don't Look Up" sees a cast of A-listers staring down the apocalypse.by Christopher James

Satire is a precise tool, not a blunt object.

Adam McKay has led a polarizing, yet successful career trying to tackle tough topics with a sardonic edge. In The Big Short, he broke apart the 2008 financial crisis with some degree of success through raucous and audacious storytelling techniques. Vice, which received many Oscar nominations, took the “more is more” cinematic devices to dine out on anger towards the right. While I found it smug, it makes sense why some nodded their heads and found some shred of insight in a film confirming their own biases. That begs the question: what do we do with our anger towards people and movements that we believe are leading to the destruction of our world? 

Don’t Look Up is a disaster movie that bills itself on being a prescient allegory for our inability to deal with climate control (aka the big comet heading to destroy us). McKay presumes the world, and all of us who inhabit it, are doomed and good riddance because everyone sucks. It’s a nihilistic movie with many ill formed targets...

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Green Book's Post-Oscar Bump and New Releases

What did you see this weekend? I only took in Greta before getting sick but I keep meaning to get to How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. It was, essentially, the last weekend of the 2018 film year, since most of the major Oscar winners got one last expansion before they depart theaters (almost of all of them are already on DVD). They're milking that golden cow, they are! So, we thought we'd share everything in wide release and the corresponding chart toppers in limited for a really full box office picture this weekend. Ready? Deep breath. Let's go.

Weekend Box Office (Actuals) (March 1st-3rd)
W I D E	PLATFORM / LIMITED
1 How to Train Your Dragon 3 $30 (cum. $97.6) on 4286 screens	1 🔺  Apollo 11 $1.6 on 120 screens *NEW*

2 🔺 A Madea Family Funeral  $27 on 2442 screens *NEW*	2 🔺  Everybody Knows $467k on 209 screens (cum. $1.2)

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Box Office: Ready Player Dogs

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (March 23rd-25th)
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1.🔺Ready Player One $41.2 (cum. $53.2) NEW REVIEW	1. 🔺 Isle of Dogs $2.8 on 165 screens (cum. $5.9) CAPSULE | HOMAGE OR APPROPRIATION
2. 🔺Tyler Perry's Acrimony  $17.1 NEW	2. 🔺 The Death of Stalin $1.4 on 484 screens (cum. $3.9) REVIEW
3. Black Panther $ 11.2 (cum. $650.6) PODCAST	3. 🔺 Baaghi 2 $580k on 123 screens NEW
4. I Can Only Imagine $10.7 (cum. $55.5) NEW	4. 🔺 The Leisure Seeker $248k on 38 screens (cum. $1)
5. Pacific Rim Uprising $9.2 (cum. $45.6) REVIEW	5. 🔺 Finding Your Feet  $61k on 14 screens NEW

Spielberg had his biggest opening in years with Ready Player One, though a lot of people (including our own Chris Feil) don't love the film. Black Panther just won't quit, now nearing the domestic totals of Titanic  (unadjusted) and Jurassic World  and only just starting to lose theaters in its 7th weekend. Meanwhile...

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Box Office Weekend: Madea Rules, Snowman Drools

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (October 20th-22nd)
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1. 🔺 BOO 2! A MADEA HALLOWEEN  $21.6 new	1.🔺 GOLMAAL AGAIN $1.0 on 265 screens new
2. 🔺 GEOSTORM $13.3 new	2. THE FLORIDA PROJECT $636k on 112 screens (cum. $1.3) REVIEW 1, REVIEW 2
3. HAPPY DEATH DAY  $9.3 (cum. $40.6)	3.🔺 LOVING VINCENT $391k on 114 screens (cum. $1.3)
4. BLADE RUNNER 2049  $7.1 (cum. $74) REVIEW | SHORTS | "BESTS"	4. MARK FELT $192k on 332 screens (cum. $491k)
5. 🔺  ONLY THE BRAVE $6 new	5. 🔺 BREATHE $155k on 311 screens (cum. $187k)
6. THE FOREIGNER  $5.4 (cum. $22.8)	6. GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN  $153k on 61 screens (cum. $232k)
7. IT  $3.5 (cum. $320.2) REVIEW | 5 TAKEAWAYS	7.THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER $114k on 4 screens new REVIEW

Another weekend that few studios will be celebrating, partially because there was so much competition with five new wide releases and five new platform releases...

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Spooky Season

Trick or treat, trick or treat, give us something to make us shriek! When October rolls around inevitably film studios capitalise on Halloween fever to release a slate of horror movies… and often take the chance to dump them at a “critic-proof” opportunity. Let’s look what’s being carved up for us this October.

Ouija: Origin of Evil – 21 October

Prequel to the 2014 film Ouija that lots of people watched but far less people liked. This time young attractive people in the current era, have been replaced by family with creepy little girl in the 60’s, a far more in vogue horror trope of the moment. Lin Shaye is the only one appearing in both films, who was only added to the original in reshoots, and has curiously become a horror movie icon in the last few years. No reviews are out yet, but considering director Mike Flanagan’s unexpectedly sleeper hit on Netflix Hush kept horror simple but tight, it may fare better than the first. 

Three more Halloween-aimed films after the jump

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