Wednesday, February 27, 2019

How to Train Your Dragon 3 is #1


For the weekend of February 22-24, 2019, How to Train Your Dragon 3 was the big winner and s a solid close-out for the trilogy. It benefited from The LEGO Movie 2 underperforming, and Alita: Battle Angel not capturing enough imaginations to prevent a big second-week drop-off.

Fighting with My Family expanded, and while business wasn't too bad for a small indie film, it IS an indie film that heavily featured Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as himself in the marketing.

Dragon should rule next week too, as its only competition will be a Madea movie (which will get about $20 million), and a generic stalker thriller starring Chloe Grace Moretz. Then in two weeks? Captain Marvel.



Opens March 1
A MADEA FAMILY FUNERAL with Tyler Perry, Courtney Burrell and Patrice Lovely.
GRETA with Chloe Grace Moretz, Isabelle Huppert and Maika Monroe.

Monday, February 25, 2019

Complete List of 91st Academy Award Winners


BEST PICTURE - Green Book
BEST DIRECTOR - Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
BEST ACTOR - Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
BEST ACTRESS - Olivia Colman, The Favourite
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - Mahershala Ali, Green Book
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY - Green Book
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY - BlacKkKlansman
BEST ANIMATED FILM - Spider-Man into the Spiderverse
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM - Roma
BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM - Free Solo
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY - Roma
BEST FILM EDITING - Bohemian Rhapsody
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS - First Man
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN - Black Panther
BEST COSTUME DESIGN - Black Panther
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING - Vice
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE - Black Panther
BEST ORIGINAL SONG - "Shallow", A Star Is Born
BEST SOUND EDITING - Bohemian Rhapsody
BEST SOUND MIXING - Bohemian Rhapsody
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT - Period. End of Sentence.
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT - Skin
BEST ANIMATED SHORT - Bao

Count:
4 - Bohemian Rhapsody
3 - Black Panther, Green Book, Roma

It wasn't too bad not having a host, although I did like the SNL trio of Tina, Amy, and Maya acting like the not-hosts.

Biggest surprises? Olivia Colman beating out Glenn Close, Bohemian Rhapsody winning the most trophies overall. All eight Best Picture nominees winning something. I had Green Book as my second-place guess for Best Picture, so I can't say I'm TOO surprised it beat Roma.

Sunday, February 24, 2019

My Top 15 Movies of 2018

BUT FIRST!...

Best Movies 16-20

BUMBLEBEE - Easily the best Transformers movie. I credit the simpler story, the 1980's nostalgia, and a compelling lead (Hailee Steinfeld).

GAME NIGHT - Comedy's hard, and Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams are hilarious in this high-concept comedy where a group of couples think they're part of a pretend kidnap-mystery when it winds up being the real thing.

HEREDITARY - Spooky. A horror slow-burn, with a nomination-worthy performance from Toni Collette as a mom who gets more unhinged after her own mother dies and supernatural events start happening around her and her family.

ROMA - Alfonso Cuaron's semi-autobiographical tale about a house-servant in Mexico in 1971 is immersive and natural, and while not much happens in the first hour, it marinates the audience into these people's lives so that the events of the second half have more impact.

SEARCHING - A gimmick done right. John Cho is a desperate father searching for his missing daughter, but it's all done from the POV of screens. Computer screens, phone screens, camera footage, and it never overstays its welcome or feels like a cheap trick.

=======
And now my Top 15 Films of 2018
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15. ANT-MAN & THE WASP 
14. AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
13. BLACK PANTHER
12. SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE - I lump all four Marvel movies together, but I do have them in order that I enjoyed them. They're all great. Infiinty War did a good job of juggling the massive cast and dozens of subplots. Ant-Man & the Wasp manages to be as fun as the first one. Black Panther is the first comic-book movie to actually get nominated for Best Picture (after the wrongful snub of The Dark Knight a decade a go). And the Spider-Verse movie, which I do believe will win Best Animated Film, is a landmark in animation, the same way Toy Story was in 1995.

11. YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE - Joaquin Phoenix is a force in this pared-down version of Man on Fire. He's a mess, not someone you want in your life, but if your daughter got kidnapped, there'd be no one on Earth you'd rather have hunting her down than him.

10. ANNIHILATION - One of the more original sci-fi movies of the past few years, it contains genuine suspense, unsettling imagery, and a third act that mystifies without feeling like a cop-out.

9. THE FAVOURITE - Two bisexual women vie for the attentions of Queen Anne in 17th-century England. It's wickedly funny.

8. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT - The franchise continues to impress with its stunts but it also has emotional resonance, as the repercussions of previous films' events seem to be catching up to Ethan Hunt. MI7 & MI8 are filming back-to-back, presumably to allow Cruise to play Hunt for the last time before he turns 60.

7. GREEN BOOK - Funny, touching PG-13 dramedy about the unique friendship that springs from musician Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his driver Frank (Viggo Mortensen). It's based on true events, and Frank's real-life son co-wrote the screenplay.

6. THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS - Some stories are stronger than others but taken as a whole, it hits on many familiar Coen Brothers' themes, and this is now the most gorgeous Netflix movie yet.

5. A QUIET PLACE - A movie suspenseful enough to make the audience hold its collective breath with the main characters.

4. WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? - Mr. Rogers made quite an impact being the most decent human being of the 20th century. This doc captures how sincere he was, and how he touched everyone who came into contact with him.

3. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU - It's not perfect, but it's so unique and takes such unexpected twists that I couldn't help but love the audacity of it. And Lakeith Stanfield should get as much work as possible.

2. A STAR IS BORN - A classic story told right. I'm surprised this isn't the front-runner for Best Picture. Seems like the perfect Hollywood-y movie that the Academy likes to celebrate.



1. BLACKkKLANSMAN - It seems like Spike Lee's been in the wilderness for a while, and this is his best movie in decades. It's sharp, it's entertaining, and it packs an emotional wallop at the end. Very well done.

Honorable mentions to Bohemian Rhapsody, Chappaquiddick, Creed II, The Death of Stalin, First Reformed, Isle of Dogs, RBG, Red Sparrow, A Simple Favor, Unsane, Upgrade and Widows.

Friday, February 15, 2019

The Prodigy - Movie Review

Starring Taylor Schilling, Jackson Robert Scott, Colm Feore, Peter Mooney, Brittany Allen, Paul Fauteux and Elisa Moolecherry.
Written by Jeff Buhler.
Directed by Nicholas McCarthy.

★½

Each movie, I give them one big rule they've established, as long as the movie then follows the rules it set up in the universe. For this movie, I will give them that reincarnation is a thing. But, the movie still has to follow basic logic, and there are some dumb decisions made by a couple main characters late in the movie that yanked me out.

The film focuses on Miles, an 8-year-old boy who has the spirit of a serial killer slowly taking over. We see the killer die right before Miles is born, so there's no mystery there. It's a matter of waiting for characters to catch up to what we know. Miles keeps doing creepy things. He mutters Hungarian in his sleep. He likes sharpening knives and tools.

There are a couple effective jump-scares, but more often, director Nicholas McCarthy telegraphs what's coming. We get tropes like the close-up on the boiling tea kettle. In many ways, the movie is set up to live or die by the third act, and that's where the movie really jumps off the rails. How stupid are these people?

Jackson Robert Scott is really good at switching between being normal and malevolent as Miles. So at least there's that.

Sunday, February 3, 2019

Glass #1 for third week


For the weekend of February 1-3, 2019, Glass was #1 for the third week in a row. No studio wanted to put their big guns out in its wake, so there wasn't much competition. Plus the expansion of some Oscar-nominated movies didn't get much bump. And this little thing called the Super Bowl might affect Sunday tickets.

Miss Bala is a poorly-reviewed remake, so it didn't do much business. Theater chains have to be thrilled that four new wide releases are coming next week. I expect them to be the top four.

The Upside had been considered an awards movie, but when it got mixed reviews at early screeners, it got dumped in January, and yet here it is, hitting the $75 million mark.

The Mule crossed $100 million domestic.

Opens February 8
THE LEGO MOVIE 2 with the voices of Chris Pratt and Elizabeth Banks.
WHAT MEN WANT with Taraji P. Henson, Max Greenfield and Tracy Morgan.
COLD PURSUIT with Liam Neeson, Emmy Rossum and Laura Dern.
THE PRODIGY with Taylor Schilling, Colm Feore and Jackson Robert Scott.