The Grinch opens to $66 million

For the weekend of November 9-11, 2018, The Grinch easily won the week. Illumination has had success with taking on Dr. Seuss (like Horton Hears a Who and The Lorax), so can an animated Cat in the Hat movie be on its way?

The other two wide releases - Overlord and The Girl in the Spider's Web - look like they'll be quickly forgotten.

Meanwhile, Bohemian Rhapsody had a mere -39.6% drop-off in its second week, which is good because the big guns of Thanksgiving releases are on their way.

In limited release, The Front Runner did okay. It stars Hugh Jackman as Gary Hart, the Colorado senator once considered the favorite to get the Democratic nomination for president in 1988 until rumors of extramarital affairs brought him down.

Meanwhile add Beautiful Boy and Can You Ever Forgive Me? to the long list of prestige limited release movies to come out this fall that haven't caught on when they open to more screens. (See also Suspiria, Wildlife, A Private War, Colette.)

Opens November 16
FANTASTIC BEASTS 2 with Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston and Johnny Depp.
WIDOWS with Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Robert Duvall and Daniel Kaluuya.
INSTANT FAMILY with Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne and Octavia Spencer.
GREEN BOOK with Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali and Linda Cardellini.

First Man - Movie Review

Starring Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Patrick Fugit, Ciaran Hinds, Olivia Hamilton, Shea Whigham, Pablo Schreiber, Lukas Haas and Ethan Embry.
Written by Josh Singer.
Directed by Damien Chazelle.

★★½

The good stuff first. Everything in space is great. This movie makes you feel like you are in that shuttle. That creeky "are you sure this thing will hold up?" shuttle. So half of the movie is good stuff.

The other half is a real drag. Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) was a depressed guy, and here he is making history, but there doesn't seem to be much joy or wonder. Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll) is portrayed as a jerk, but at least he's stoked about space travel.

A lot of Neil's tightness is around the death of his young daughter. There's also the issues of accidents that kill some of his friends. Outside pressures ask NASA, "Is space travel really worth the cost?"

I saw it in IMAX, and that's the best way to see it. It has a lot of positive qualities, even if it's low on actual joy.