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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years ago

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The Weekend Warrior 8/6/21 - THE SUICIDE SQUAD, FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL, VIVO, ANNETTE, AILEY, NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL, JOHN AND THE HOLE, and More

After a week with three new wide releases and others coming up in August with three and even four (!), it’s kind of nice to get a “quieter” week with only one wide release, plus it's one that I’ve already reviewed. Yay!

With that in mind, that allows me to start things off with two film festivals that are near and dear to my heart, the first being the 25th annual installment of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which runs from this Thursday, August 5 through August 25. That’s three weeks, which is sort of the norm, although it will be a festival that blends virtual with in-person screenings making it a true hybrid festival. Personally, I would love to be up in Montreal for some of the in-person screenings, as they tend to be quite rousing and rowdy events -- and that will include an early preview of James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad this Thursday -- but I will have to settle for the fest’s vast screener library inste ad. Not that I’ve actually had time to watch much as I watched my entire weekend and free time slip away in order to watch and write about other things, but there’s some good stuff.

For instance, they’ll be premiering Donnie Yen’s new movie, Raging Fire, directed by Bennie Chan, next Tuesday, a few days before it gets a theatrical release across North America. (Its International Premiere is actually taking place at the New York Asian Film Festival, which you can read more about below.) Fantasia will also have the World Premiere for Rueben Martell’s Don’t Say Its Name, a horror movie featuring indigenous talent both in front of and behind the camera. Let Me Make You a Martyr filmmaker returns with his new crime-thriller Ida Red, starring Joshua Hartnett, Frank Grillo and Melissa Leo.

This year’s Fantasia is going to close with The Great Yokai War - Guardians, the sequel to Takashi Miike’s The Great Yokai War which opened Fantasia way back in 2006. In fact, Miike has probably been one of Fantasia’s most consistent guests, having many movies playing at the festival that never get released in the United States in any form.

It’s going to be an interesting mix of in-person screenings and on-demand virtual ones, and as in the past, it’s almost impossible to see everything. I think my only issue with Fantasia is that there are so many great genre films played there every year that it’s very hard to figure out which ones to watch when you’re not actually there on the ground.

And then closer to home in New York, another personal favorite, the New York Asian Film Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary in a combination of virtual and in-person screenings running between Friday, August 6 and August 22. Sure, there can be a bit of overlap between the NYAFF and Fantasia, particularly in the Asian content, but there are also a few distinct things, like the festival’s opening night film, Escape from Mogadishu from South Korea’s Ryoo Seung-wan, which covers the same Somali civil war as Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down but from another perspective. It will also be released in theaters this Friday. Chinese actor Chan King Long’s directorial debut, Hand Rolled Cigarette, will also premiere this Friday, as will Aimee Long’s directorial debut, A Shot Through the Wall, both of them debuting at the Walter Reade Theatre (the latter on Sunday).

And there’s just a slew of virtual screenings of some of the latest and most recent Asian films, many of which will never get any sort of release in the United States. That is probably the best aspect of the NYAFF, because while there are many filmmakers like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho, who will eventually break out here, many of the biggest Asian filmmakers first got their start with movies at NYAFF. That’s why those interested in international cinema should definitely be giving the NYAFF some of their time and money every year, since it’s such a terrific discovery festival… plus it’s also a lot of fun. I’m half tempted to go up to see some of the in-person screenings myself, this weekend.

I’ve never attended Geena Davis’ 2021 Bentonville Film Festival, but thanks to it also going semi-virtual or hybrid, I’ll have a chance to see a few movies I might not have otherwise. There are a few great films by women directors that have already played at other festivals and will be released soon, such as Sian Heder’s Sundance award-winning Coda (which opens next week!) and Natalia Morales’ Language Lessons, both excellent films that have played festivals this year. Other films I’ve seen and liked that are playing Bentonville, including the Van Jones doc, The First Step, and the comedy, 7 Days.

I’m also interested in the World Premiere of The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu, directed by Anna Chi; Waikiki, Christopher Kahunakana’s feature debut about a Native Hawaiian hula dancer trying to escape an abusive boyfriend; Edson Jean’s Ludi; and Andrew and Joe Erwin’s doc, The Jesus Music, which looks at Christian Music. Bentonville tends to be another great discovery festival. This is obvious when I look at winners from past festivals like Yellow Rose and The Garden Left Behind.

As mentioned above, there’s only one new wide release, and it’s James Gunn’s THE SUICIDE SQUAD (Warner Bros.), a semi-sequel to the 2016 blockbuster Suicide Squad directed by David Ayer that includes a few of the original actors but a few not of others, although it’s still the same general principle, only done in a far more comedic way. Got it?

In case you missed all that (or the original movie), The Suicide Squad is based on the DC Comics superteam, of sorts, made up of DC villains who are seen as expendable as they’re sent on missions by Amanda Waller (played again by Viola Davis). If they fail or try to escape, their heads get blown up by explosives planted at the base of their skull. Fun, huh?

The original movie opened with an amazing $133 million and grossed $325 million In North America alone and another $422 million overseas, although reviews were less than kind and the fans, maybe a little less kinder. Sure, some people liked parts of it, but there were other parts that were just a disaster, so the movie grossing over $300 million was astounding (similar to the “Transformers” movies, in fact.)

Along comes James Gunn, freshly fired from the third Guardians of the Galaxy, which he will be doing next…. After a Christmas Special next year, and a Peacemaker HBO spin-off from this movie that hasn’t even been released yet. Warners snapped up Mr. Gunn, hoping that he could do for their property what he did for Guardians. While this may not be the most important IP in their drawer but has already proven to make enough money that you couldn’t just leave it in there forever. Fortunately, Gunn convinced Warner Bros. to let him make the R-rated Suicide Squad movie that the first one should have been and without the reins of a PG-13 Disney-released movie, Gunn could go absolutely nuts, and he did.

Some might be worried about WIll Smith not being in the sequel, because let’s face it, Big Willie is indeed an A-list star with a wide variety of fans of different ages, creeds, and colors. The fact that Will Smith could help turn an Aladdin movie directed by Guy Ritchie into a significant hit for Disney, well, that shows his power.

Even without Smith, Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn, who was last seen in last year’s Birds of Prey, a movie that was expected to do a lot better than its $33 million opening last February, before it got completely hobbled by the rise of COVID in March. It ended up grossing just $200 million worldwide, less than half of that in North America, and it might have put a damper on DC doing another R-rated superhero movie… except The Suicide Squad was well under way. Also back is Joel Kinnaman as Col. Rick Flag, a regular in the comics, and a decent actor but not someone anyone could seriously consider a box office draw. Other than Suicide Squad, Kinnaman has starred in quite a few bombs including a Robocop remake that tanked with $58.6 million domestic (it did better overseas), and then Run All Night, directed by Jaume Collet-Sera of last week’s Jungle Cruise, which made half that amount.

More importantly, the movie introduces a lot of new characters, including Idris Elba as Bloodsport, replacing Will Smith’s Deadshot, which might seem like a bit of a stepdown considering that Smith may be one of the top A-list stars on the planet, while Elba is popular but nowhere on the same level. Hey, it’s truth. Granted, Elba played Heimdall in Marvel’s Thor and a bunch of his sequels, and he’s provided his voice in quite a few Disney hits, while also appearing in a few odds and ends in terms of genre films like Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim (which hit the $100 million mark) and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, which did a little better. Still, Elba has created quite a fanbase around him for shows like Luther and The Wire, and his role in The Suicide Squad should help him line up more leading roles in bigger movies. I wouldn’t expect him to play James Bond but he’ll be around a long time.

After that, there’s sometimes-wrestler John Cena as Peacemaker, another less-than-known DC character, but Cena also brings his fanbase (sort of) from wrestling, to which he’s returning for WWW SummerSlam in a few weeks. Cena hasn’t necessarily made huge waves on the big screen, although we can’t forget that he was just in F9: The Fast Saga, the latest in the unstoppable franchise that’s one of the biggest movies of the pandemic year. He also starred in Paramount’s Bumblebee, adding to his franchise cred. As mentioned above, Cena already has warranted his own HBO Max series, so obviously, someone at Warner Media felt he was doing something right.

Other key roles include Sylvester Stallone voicing King Shark, David Dastmalchian from Ant-Man playing “Polka Dot Man” (about as D-list a DC character you can possibly get but used hilariously in the movie), as well as Ratcatcher 2, played by Daniella Melchior, not be confused with her father, Ratcatcher 1. Oh, and of course, Viola Davis, the Oscar-winning goddess who should have won another Oscar for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, but no, I’m not bitter that it screwed up my oscar pool. There’s a lot of other actors, many from Gunn’s other films like Mike Rooker, brother Sean Gunn, and Nathan Fillian, and if they were in the movie for very long, I would consider them something to consider, though their presences does insure that this is indeed a James Gunn movie.

As has been the case quite a bit since I revived this column to discuss box office, we have to take two things into account, one being COVID and the fears surrounding it that have kept many otherwise sane people away from movie theaters. Also, The Suicide Squad will be premiering concurrently on HBO Max, so anyone who has the WM streamer could literally just turn it on Friday and watch the movie for no extra charge beyond whatever they pay per month. Unlike other movies that had this kind of release, Warners is allowing theaters to play the movie for Thursday night previews, so there’s a lot of money that can be made there (and all weekend) from those who choose to see it in theaters. (Honestly, I have no idea why anyone would want to watch this movie, especially it’s absolutely enormous last act, on a computer or television, but welcome to 2021. Whine whine whine.)

I was ready to go north of $60 million on this one because it seems like the kind of movie that could get people back out into theaters, especially when you realize how much the original movie made and how the idea of heroes whose heads can be blown up at any moment (and in that case, the R-rating helps). Then I remembered Birds of Prey and how that came out pre-COVID and couldn’t even open over $40 million, so I had to lower my expectations, although I still think this will fare very well even with HBO Max and COVID in play, so I’m going with somewhere in the mid-$50 million range.

You can read my review of The Suicide Squad over at Below the Line.

This is how I see the Top 10 playing out at the box office:

1. The Suicide Squad (Warner Bros.) - $55 million N/A

2. Jungle Cruise (Walt Disney Pictures) - $17.5 million -50%

3. Black Widow (Marvel/Disney) - $3.6 million -45%

4. Stillwater (Focus) - $3.1 million -40%

5. Old (Universal) - $3 million -56%

6. The Green Knight (A24) - $2.8 million -58%

7. Snake Eyes (Paramount/MGM/Skydance) - $2.1 million -52%

8. Space Jam: A New Legacy (Warner Bros.) - $2 million -53%

9. F9: The Fast Saga (Universal) - $1.5 million -45%

10. Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (Sony) - $1.3 million -42%

Hitting Netflix on Friday is the animated musical, VIVO (Netflix), which was produced by Sony Pictures Animation but then sold to Netflix rather than trying to make it work in theaters. Directed by Kirk DeMico (The Croods) and Brandon Jeffords, in features the voice of Lin-Manuel Miranda as the voice of the title character, an organ grinder’s monkey in Havana, Cuba with his organ grinder Andrés, voiced by Juan de Marcos González (Buena Vista Social Club), who desires to be reunited with his long-separated love Marta (voiced by Gloria Estefan), who went off to fame and fortune as a singer because Andrés didn’t want to express his feelings for her in fear of her giving up her singing career. Vivo ends up in Miami and decides to try to find Marta and reconnect the lovebirds.

Just really catchy numbers written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, so if you like his work from In the Heights and Hamilton and Moana, etc. etc, then there are more songs he wrote, which he sings… mostly in the body of an animated monkey. The story itself isn’t particularly great, as the movie takes what would be a unique and novel setting i.e Cuba and introduces a number of animated movie stereotypes, including the weird girl Gabby (Ynairaly Simo), who gets increasingly more annoying as the film goes on.

In general, I loved most of the songs and the musical production (other than Gabby’s theme, which I was not crazy about), more than the story or the actual animation. Because Vivo is a monkey, there’s a weird section of the film that talks about vaccines and quarantines, probably written before the pandemic, which just makes it that much weirder.

Vivo has some decent emotional beats and terrific songs, but otherwise, it seems very cookie-cutter in terms of the storytelling. It’ll be just fine for kids, but adults may have trouble staying very interested.

Speaking of musicals, the rock opera ANNETTE (Amazon), written by, and with music and songs from Russell and Ron Mae AKA Sparks, will hit theaters this Friday in advance of its debut on Amazon Prime Video on August 20. Directed by Leos Carax (Holy Motors), the movie stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard as stand-up comic Henry McHenry and opera singer Ann, respectively, who get married and have a baby girl named Annette, who is actually a puppet that sings. (I did warn you that this is from Sparks and Leos Carax, right?)

Annette is exactly what anyone should expect from this collaboration between the quirky L.A. avant-rock duo and the French auteur, even if you believe the FFS song that “Collaborations Don’t Work” -- which you would know not to be true if you went to see Edgar Wright’s documentary, The Sparks Brothers, as I recommended last month! But instead of dubbing this a musical, it’s gotta be called for what it actually is… a ROCK OPERA. Annette reminded me a lot of ‘70s musical movies like Tommy and Godspell, where you knew there must have been some drug use involved (cause it was the ‘70s).

Driver’s stage performances are definitely some of the aspects that will divide audiences, because he veers from being an outrageous shock comic (think a mopeyer Sam Kinnison) to just being an insane and abusive jerk who drives even his devout fans away. The two extended sequences show Driver at his most emotive, but he’s also the kind of character that could push the movie’s audiences away as effectively as he does his fans. On the other hand, Cotillard is absolutely brilliant, even if she isn’t singing her own opera, as is Simon Helberg -- yes, that guy from The Big Bang Theory -- as her piano accompanist who later becomes a conductor, and then more.

The movie’s mood constantly shifts gears and direction, although it never is quite funny enough to be considered “comedy,” and if one really needed to categorize it, it would be placed in the realm of dark thriller… with music.

One thing that Sparks fans should know is that this is not a movie full of new Sparks songs, even if it is full of Sparks music. In other words, other than a couple actual songs -- like the opening overture -- there isn’t much of the music that might work separately or out of content with the movie or the story. Like in opera, almost everything is sung with very little spoken dialogue persé, and this was clearly a decision.

I’m not quite sure Annette will find either Sparks or Carax many new fans -- I definitely liked it more than Holy Motors, that’s for sure -- but for many, it’s going to be a strange experience to get through and maybe one they won’t necessarily need to see in theaters.

I finally got around to watching Jamila Wignot’s documentary, AILEY (NEON), which has been playing in theaters in New York the past few weeks and is expanding to other areas this Friday. Of course, the film is about legendary New York choreographer Alvin Ailey, whose work spanned six decades before his death in 1989 but not before he helped many dancers and other choreographers beak it into the contemporary dance scene.

It’s a little weird writing about this movie now, because just two weeks ago, I was writing about another dance doc called, Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters, about another specific work by a choreographer and the message it was sharing about AIDS. In fact, Jones also appears in this doc talking about the influence and assistance Ailey gave him earlier in his own career.

Ailey is a much more straight-forward portrait doc about Ailey’s life and career, and because of that, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as Can You Bring It, but the two movies actually end up acting as nice companion pieces to each other despite being made by different filmmakers in different environments.

Lucy Walker’s documentary BRING YOUR OWN BRIGADE (CBSN) will play in theaters starting Friday and then on Paramount Plus and CBSN starting August 20. It looks at the 2017 fires that absolutely destroyed Paradise, California, and unlike Ron Howard’s Rebuilding Paradise, this is as much about the fire and how it affected people as the aftermath and figuring out how to rebuild. I thought it was pretty good, although it’s tough to

Incidentally, I wrote about and reviewed Edson Oda‘s NINE DAYS (Sony Pictures Classics) last week, but it’s going to expand into a few hundred more theaters this weekend, as well.

Legendary character actor Udo Kier stars in Todd Stephens’ SWAN SONG (Magnolia Pictures), which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival back in March, and I quite enjoyed it. It will get a limited theatrical release this weekend and then will be released digitally. In this comedy, Kier plays Pat Pitsenbarger, a flamboyant hairdresser who escapes from his Ohio nursing home in order to grant a former client her dying wish of having him design her hairstyle. Also starring Jennifer Coolidge, it will be in theaters this Friday and On Demand August 13, and hopefully I can write more about it next week, because I did quite like it but didn’t have time for another viewing.

Another movie from Sundance that’s finally hitting theaters (and digital) this Friday is Pascual Sisto’s JOHN AND THE HOLE (IFC Films), written by Nicolás Giacobone, who wrote Alejandro Iñárritu’s Birdman and Biutiful. It stars Charlie Shotwell as the title character, John, who traps his family in a bunker that he finds in the woods behind their home. I wish I could tell you that there’s more to the movie than that or that it offers something riveting or thought-provoking or something unforgettable, but I’d be lying. It’s not good.

It stars Michael C. Hall as John’s father and Jennifer Ehle as his mother, but Shotwell plays such a bland character that I just had a hard time finding anything that could really maintain my interest. The characters were boring, the writing was bland (which says a lot about how great a director Innaritu is), and there was just nothing I could glom onto. In that sense, the movie reminded me a bit of the first time I saw M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable in terms of all the boring conversations that dragged that movie down, and this has a similar issue.

There’s just no way around declaring that there really wasn’t very much that I liked about this movie, and honestly, the fact I tried to watch it a THIRD time after my first two attempts tell me that I’ve done more than my share of trying. It’s just not a good movie.

Unfortunately, my schedule this week got derailed quite tragically, so there were a few other foreign films I hoped to get to but just didn’t have the time…

From Korea (via the New York Asian Festival, as mentioned above) is Ryoo Seung-wan’s Korean war thriller, ESCAPE FROM MOGADISHU (Well GO USA), as the movie is in Korean, but it’s about two Korean war correspondents caught up in the Somali war.

From Uruguay, Maxi Contenti’s THE LAST MATINEE is about an audience attending the last showing of a horror film in a downtown cinema that’s terrorized by a murderer killing them off one by one. (This is actually my kind of jam so I’ll try to watch and write something about it once I do. I just ran out of time this week.)

From Afghanistan comes Mariam Ghani’s doc WHAT WE LEFT UNFINISHED (Dekanalog), which takes a look at the state-funded filmmaking program during the country’s Communist era with a bunch of writers, actors and filmmakers talking about five unfinished and unedited projects made between 1978 and 1991.

The Film Forum in New York City is starting another film series (or rather, continuing it from when it started before COVID in March 2020) called “The Woman Behind Hitchcock,” starting this Friday, which is fairly self-explanatory, but it should be a great series with a lot of rare films being shown.

Also hitting Apple TV+ this Friday are the first few episodes of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s MR. CORMAN, in which he stars as the title character, produces, directs and writes a bunch of the episodes. In it, he plays an elementary school teacher in L.A., who is trying to come to terms with a lot of portions of his life. I’ve seen about half the episodes in the first season, and it’s quite a different show than anything else out there. I’ll have an interview with the Cinematographer, Jarod Presant, over at Below the Line later today.

A few movies that I just didn’t get to this week, include: THE MACALUSO SISTERS (Glass Half Full) MATERNA (Utopia) FIREBOYS NIGHTDRIVE (Dark Sky Films)

Next week, it’s August 13, and we have three new wide releases! (See what I mean?) We get Ryan Reynold’s Free Guy, the horror sequel Don’t Breathe 2, and the Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect.

#The Weekend Warrior #Movies #Reviews #Box Office #Suicide Squad #Annette #Vivo #John and the Hole #Ailey #swan song

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tocinephile · 5 years ago

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The Morning After - The Golden Globes 2020 Edition

Morning/Afternoon/Night have lost meaning to me in this post holiday stupor, but I assure you I watched Sunday night’s awards. Our methods of media consumption have altered every so slightly each year that at least 1/3 of the celebrity outfits I was checking out this year came from my Twitter app compared to the big TV screen in front of me (which often had a split screen happening to begin with). No matter, it made it all the easier to share via my own twitter and to send to friends who sent me their comments and input through the pre-show and ceremony.

Even more than usual, the Globes felt like a warm-up to me this year. I’ve barely digested the turkey and finished my Top Films of the Decade list and we’re already off to the award season races. As a result, I’m not quite prepared to comment on every single win/loss, but what I can say I have embedded in the list below:

Best Motion Picture — Drama

“The Irishman” (Netflix) “Joker” (Warner Bros.) “Marriage Story” (Netflix) “1917” (Universal) (WINNER) “The Two Popes” (Netflix)

1917 has rocketed to the top of my movies to see list as a result of last night’s Best Drama and Best Director win. Need to see this before the SAG Awards.

Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy

“Dolemite Is My Name” (Netflix) “Jojo Rabbit” (Fox Searchlight) “Knives Out” (Lionsgate) “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (Sony) (WINNER) “Rocketman” (Paramount)

Let it be known here and now, 2020 is going to be the first (and hopefully only) time I speak out against Quentin Tarantino winning an award. I don’t dislike Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood, not at all, I just didn’t think it was anywhere near his best and in the awards race, there were far better this year. I’ve seen all the films in this category with the exception of Rocketman and I liked Jojo Rabbit and Knives out much more, and Dolemite is My Name equally as good as Once Upon A Time.

Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama

Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”) Scarlett Johansson (“Marriage Story”) Saoirse Ronan (“Little Women”) Charlize Theron (“Bombshell”) Renée Zellweger (“Judy”) (WINNER)

I’ve actually only seen Marriage Story and Judy in this category. Renee is phenomenal no doubt, but part of me did question whether her performance would shine through an otherwise mediocre film. Turns out it did.

Best Actor in a Motion Picture — Drama

Christian Bale (“Ford v Ferrari”) Antonio Banderas (“Pain and Glory”) Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”) Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”) (WINNER) Jonathan Pryce (“The Two Popes”)

Joaquin was the favourite in his stacked category, but I recommend all of these performances (though The Two Popes slightly less as a film, not my cup of tea). I was really on the fence about his acceptance speech though, the delivery was channeling too much Joker though the message was in the right place.

Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy

Ana de Armas (“Knives Out”) Awkwafina (“The Farewell”) (WINNER) Cate Blanchett (“Where’d You Go, Bernadette”) Beanie Feldstein (“Booksmart”) Emma Thompson (“Late Night”)

Another stacked category (I’m gonna make the assumption that Emma Thompson was great in Late Night), these are all movies to see. Awkwafina being recognized in a non-comedic role is a boon for the Asian community. Sidenote: I seem to be in the minority when it comes to Where’d You Go Bernadette, but I quite liked that movie.

Best Actor in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy

Daniel Craig (“Knives Out”) Roman Griffin Davis (“Jojo Rabbit”) Leonardo DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) Taron Egerton (“Rocketman”) (WINNER) Eddie Murphy (“Dolemite Is My Name”)

I’ve not seen Taron Egerton’s performance but predicted he would win anyway.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture

Kathy Bates (“Richard Jewell”) Annette Bening (“The Report”) Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”) (WINNER) Jennifer Lopez (“Hustlers”) Margot Robbie (“Bombshell”)

Should have been J. Lo. (opinion based on having seen 2 of the 5 performances) Not that Laura Dern isn’t spectacular in everything she does, but is her character in Marriage Story not identical to her role in Big Little Lies?

Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture

Tom Hanks (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”) Anthony Hopkins (“The Two Popes”) Al Pacino (“The Irishman”) Joe Pesci (“The Irishman”) Brad Pitt (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) (WINNER)

Brad Pitt’s good, and this is one of the awards that I’m cool with Once Upon a Time picking up, but was he better than Pesci and Pacino? I mean, is anyone??

Best Director — Motion Picture Bong Joon-ho (“Parasite”) Sam Mendes (“1917”) (WINNER) Todd Phillips (“Joker”) Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”) Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)

Again, the winner is the only film I haven’t seen. I can vouch all the other directors were great.

Best Screenplay — Motion Picture Noah Baumbach (“Marriage Story”) Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin Won (“Parasite”) Anthony McCarten (“The Two Popes”) Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) (WINNER) Steven Zaillian (“The Irishman”)

Ok, it pains me to say this, but Tarantino should not have gotten this one. Give his film any other award but this one! He did a decent job of directing, his cast gave great performances, the wardrobe and production design was fabulous, the editing is solid, even the music was alright (ok, fine, don’t nominate the film for its music neither)... but the weak link in Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood is the story. It’s so beneath what QT can do, it’s like QT made palatable. So please don’t recognize him for this script out of all his scripts. Don’t encourage him to write more scripts like this one. Nevermind that every other film on this list had a better script than his. If I got to pick, I’d have chosen The Irishman, but would have accepted any of the other three as winner.

Best Motion Picture — Foreign Language

“The Farewell” (A24) “Les Misérables” (Amazon) “Pain and Glory” (Sony Pictures Classics) “Parasite” (Neon) (WINNER) “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” (Neon)

“Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films” Preach Boon Joon-Ho! I’m actually very impressed with the list of nominees this year and I’m even more pleased the best film won.

Best Motion Picture — Animated

“Frozen 2” (Disney) “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” (Universal) “The Lion King” (Disney) “Missing Link” (United Artists) (WINNER) “Toy Story 4” (Disney)

Best Original Score — Motion Picture

Alexandre Desplat (“Little Women”) Hildur Guðnadóttir (“Joker”) (WINNER) Randy Newman (“Marriage Story”) Thomas Newman (“1917”) Daniel Pemberton (“Motherless Brooklyn”)

I don’t know that any score in particular stood out for me this year, but now that you mention it, Joker did have a pretty great score. It was mentioned that Hildur Guonadottir also wrote the score for Chernobyl and that one was affecting.

Best Original Song — Motion Picture

“Beautiful Ghosts” (“Cats”) “I’m Gonna Love Me Again” (“Rocketman”) (WINNER) “Into the Unknown” (“Frozen 2”) “Spirit” (“The Lion King”) “Stand Up” (“Harriet”)

Why don’t I know a single one of these songs?

Best Television Series — Drama

“Big Little Lies” (HBO) “The Crown” (Netflix) “Killing Eve” (BBC America) “The Morning Show” (Apple TV Plus) “Succession” (HBO) (WINNER)

I should watch Succession.

Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy

“Barry” (HBO) “Fleabag” (Amazon) (WINNER) “The Kominsky Method” (Netflix) “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon) “The Politician” (Netflix)

I should really watch Fleabag.

Best Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

“Catch-22″ (Hulu) “Chernobyl” (HBO) (WINNER) “Fosse/Verdon” (FX) The Loudest Voice (Showtime) “Unbelievable” (Netflix)

Everyone should watch Chernobyl. I stood in front of Reactor 4 shortly before the series aired and when I shared my photos from overseas people were freaking out. I got home and watched the series for myself and truly understood why.

Best Actress in a Television Series — Drama

Jennifer Aniston (“The Morning Show”) Olivia Colman (“The Crown”) (WINNER) Jodie Comer (“Killing Eve”) Nicole Kidman (“Big Little Lies”) Reese Witherspoon (“The Morning Show”)

Best Actor in a Television Series — Drama

Brian Cox (“Succession”) (WINNER) Kit Harington (“Game of Thrones”) Rami Malek (“Mr. Robot”) Tobias Menzies (“The Crown”) Billy Porter (“Pose”)

Best Actress in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy

Christina Applegate (“Dead to Me”) Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) Kirsten Dunst (“On Becoming a God in Central Florida”) Natasha Lyonne (“Russian Doll”) Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”) (WINNER)

Best Actor in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy

Michael Douglas (“The Kominsky Method”) Bill Hader (“Barry”) Ben Platt (“The Politician”) Paul Rudd (“Living With Yourself”) Ramy Youssef (“Ramy”) (WINNER)

Best Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Kaitlyn Dever (“Unbelievable”) Joey King (“The Act”) Helen Mirren (“Catherine the Great”) Merritt Wever (“Unbelievable”) Michelle Williams (“Fosse/Verdon”) (WINNER)

Michelle Williams for best acceptance speech for the night - amiright?

Best Actor in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Christopher Abbott (“Catch-22”) Sacha Baron Cohen (“The Spy”) Russell Crowe (“The Loudest Voice”) (WINNER) Jared Harris (“Chernobyl”) Sam Rockwell (“Fosse/Verdon”)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Patricia Arquette (“The Act”) (WINNER) Helena Bonham Carter (“The Crown”) Toni Collette (“Unbelievable”) Meryl Streep (“Big Little Lies”) Emily Watson (“Chernobyl”)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Alan Arkin (“The Kominsky Method”) Kieran Culkin (“Succession”) Andrew Scott (“Fleabag”) Stellan Skarsgård (“Chernobyl”) (WINNER) Henry Winkler (“Barry”)

Well, that’s me and my two cents. Between the SAG Awards being a couple weeks away and us being in the midst of our January 30 Films in 31 Days film challenge I gotta get back to watching more films stat!

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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Golden Globes Nominations: What to Watch For

Will Netflix dominate with ‘The Irishman’ and ‘Marriage Story’?

LOS ANGELES — It is Netflix’s world. Hollywood just lives in it.When nominations for the 77th Golden Globes are announced Monday morning, Netflix is expected to dominate the film categories to a jaw-dropping degree. The streaming giant has only been a competitor on the film side of the Globes since 2016, when it received a sole nomination for Idris Elba in “Beasts of No Nation.” This time around, handicappers at Gold Derby, an entertainment honors site, predict that Netflix will receive at least 18 nominations in the 11 film categories alone.“The Irishman,” Martin Scorsese’s lavish gangster yarn, and “Marriage Story,” Noah Baumbach’s unnerving portrait of divorce, will almost certainly receive best drama nominations, with Fernando Meirelles’s Vatican succession dramedy “The Two Popes” possibly taking a third slot. Those Netflix movies and others from the service, including the Eddie Murphy vehicle “Dolemite Is My Name,” are expected to monopolize the actor, supporting actor and screenplay categories.Sprinkle in expected nominations for films from Amazon Prime Video (“The Report,” “Late Night”), and a cascade of TV entries from Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV Plus and possibly even Disney Plus (“The Mandalorian”), and it could be the year that streaming services and their seemingly bottomless checkbooks topple the Hollywood power structure: Out with the old.Or not.The group behind the Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has shed some of its reputation for eccentricity, but it still makes calculated choices — spreading nominations far and wide to ensure that every studio boss attends; honoring younger stars in an attempt to boost ratings. Members continue to split their top film prize into two categories, drama and comedy-musical, often in bewildering ways. Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” will compete as a comedy, perhaps landing a nod alongside the Nazi-themed “Jojo Rabbit.” Because what is funnier than the Manson murders and the Holocaust? In another puzzler, especially for an awards contest adjudicated by journalists from overseas, foreign-language films are ineligible for the marquee best-picture categories. So don’t look for much guidance on the Oscar hopes for Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell,” one of the few bright spots in indie cinema this year ($17.6 million in ticket sales), or “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho’s acclaimed tale of economic inequality ($18.3 million).In truth, the Globes do not predict much. The press association only has about 90 voting members; roughly 9,000 film industry professionals vote on the Academy Awards. The top winning films at the Globes have only gone on to win the Oscar for best picture 50 percent of the time over the last decade. (They matched last year, however. “Green Book” was the big winner at both ceremonies.)NBC will broadcast the Globes on Jan. 5. Organizers decided to bring back the British comedian Ricky Gervais for a fifth time to host. Here are five more things to consider before Globes nominations are unveiled starting at 8 a.m. Eastern time.

The nominations could give films a shot in the arm.

The Globes are mostly coveted as marketing tools. Studio advertising executives will immediately roll out new TV commercials and digital billboards based on the nominations. Multiple nods for Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” could help Sony generate interest in the film’s Christmas Day release in theaters. Ditto for Clint Eastwood’s “Richard Jewell,” which looks at the bombing at the 1996 Olympics and arrives from Warner Bros. on Friday.As a stop on the road to the Oscars, the Globes could focus fresh attention on Taron Egerton, who seemed like a lock for the best actor race in the first half of the year for his risk-taking performance as Elton John in “Rocketman.” But now that heavy hitters like Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro have entered the fray, he finds himself in the middle of the pack. Similarly, Globe voters could push Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”), Alfre Woodard (“Clemency”) and Lupita Nyong’o (“Us”) deeper into the Oscar conversation.

The male acting races will be competitive.

Ahh, the year of the man. It seems strange given the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements.But take a look at this year’s films. The number of notable male performances is rather staggering. Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”), De Niro (“The Irishman”) and Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”) are favorites for best actor in a drama, but where does that leave Antonio Banderas (“Pain and Glory”), Jonathan Pryce (“The Two Popes”), Adam Sandler (“Uncut Gems”), Christian Bale (“Ford v Ferrari”) and Paul Walter Hauser (“Richard Jewell”)? Best actor in a comedy or musical is only slightly less competitive. Murphy is a lock for a nomination for his outrageous “Dolemite” performance, as is DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”). Egerton (“Rocketman”) should nab a nod. Vying for the remaining two slots are Daniel Craig (“Knives Out”), Himesh Patel (“Yesterday”), Shia LaBeouf (“The Peanut Butter Falcon”) and Roman Griffin Davis, the young “Jojo Rabbit” star.

Get ready to scratch your head over the best comedy and best drama categories.

Remember when the press association deemed the Matt Damon stranded-in-space odyssey “The Martian” a comedy? This kind of thing happens when studios try to game the system, submitting films and stars in categories sized up as more winnable. The press association received so much ridicule when “The Martian” was named best comedy in 2016 that members amended the rules to state that “dramas with comedic overtones should be entered as dramas.”That didn’t stop A24 from submitting its jeweler thriller “Uncut Gems” as a comedy this year. The press association bounced it to the drama group. But Sony’s submission of “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” as a comedy was allowed to stand.

A nomination for ‘Cats’ could be a boon for the movie.

“Cats,” set for release by Universal on Dec. 20, should be a shoo-in for best comedy or musical. But the filmmakers have been scrambling to finish the movie … err, make the fur visual effects less traumatic than they were in that infamous trailer. To make the movie eligible for consideration, Universal showed voters a rough version last week.Does the foreign press association go out on a limb and include “Cats” in the (meow) mix? It could certainly boost ratings to have Taylor Swift walking the red carpet, even if she leaves her Bombalurina tail at home. But voters could also be opening themselves up to disparagement.

The TV contenders include Baby Yoda.

The big question in the television categories is whether two new streaming services, Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus, can break into the best drama race.Globes voters have never been very keen on the “Star Wars” franchise, but Disney Plus hit a critical and cultural nerve last month with “The Mandalorian,” which introduced Baby Yoda. Apple’s centerpiece series, “The Morning Show,” received middling reviews from most critics, but there has recently been a backlash to the backlash. The soap, which stars Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, has a 94 percent approval rating among Rotten Tomatoes users.Globes voters have a habit of falling in love with new shows — they like to be seen as cultural arbiters — but more established series may be impossible to resist. “Succession” wrapped up its rapturously reviewed second season on HBO in October. “Game of Thrones” has never won best drama at the Globes — it has won a record-tying four times at the Emmys — and it will have one final Globes shot this year. “The Crown,” which won best drama at the Globes in 2017 and has adroitly reimagined itself with a new cast, is also a favorite. And don’t count out “Killing Eve,” “Big Little Lies” or “Pose.”On the comedy front, Amazon’s “Fleabag” and its creator and star, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, are the heavy favorites. The show already won big at the September Emmys ceremony. Not that many people noticed: the Emmys hit a new ratings low, attracting just 6.9 million viewers. Honoring “Fleabag” would also be a redemption move for Globes voters; last time around they inexplicably named “The Kominsky Method” best comedy.Best actress in a drama is another category to keep an eye on. It could shape up as a battle of the titans: the Oscar winners Olivia Colman (“The Crown”) and Nicole Kidman (“Big Little Lies”), the Emmy winner Jodie Comer (“Killing Eve”), the singer-actress Zendaya (HBO’s druggie ��Euphoria”) and Aniston, who last won a Globe in 2003 for “Friends.”John Koblin contributed reporting from New York. Source link Read the full article

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Ava DuVernay to Take One Perfect Shot for HBO Max

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HBO Max has given the greenlight to a new docuseries called One Perfect Shot, inspired by a popular Twitter account of the same name. According to Deadline, Ava DuVernay will narrate and executive produce the series, in which celebrated filmmakers will take deep dives into the most famous shots of their careers.

The show is being produced by Warner Horizon Unscripted Television and DuVernay’s ARRAY Filmworks, with DuVernay saying, “I’ve long wanted to create a series about the art of directing. To chronicle the craft of great filmmakers is a dream come true for me and all of us at ARRAY Filmworks. We’re thrilled that our partners at Warner Horizon Unscripted Television embraced this idea and look forward to fully geeking out over movies with our friends at HBO Max.”

A statement from HBO Max described how the series will operate, saying, “Using state of the art technology, the directors will literally enter each shot, walking through the scene in 360 moments that allow viewers to join an immersive exploration of moviemaking. Filmmakers will share their obstacles, challenges, lessons and triumphs as they detail how they created their crowning cinematic achievements.”

Each episode will focus (so to speak) on one director, with HBO head of original content Sarah Aubrey commenting, “There is nothing more fascinating than witnessing the passion and creativity of a filmmaker discussing their craft and dissecting how they pulled off that jaw-dropping shot.” The list of directors who will appear on the show remains undisclosed for now.

Some of the more recent compositions featured on the One Perfect Shot account on Twitter are from Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, and Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark.

DuVernay, who started out in public relations before transitioning to filmmaking, made her feature debut in 2008 with the documentary This Is The Life. She followed that in 2011 with her first narrative feature, I Will Follow, while her second, 2012’s Middle of Nowhere, made her the first African-American woman to win the Best Directing prize at that year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Her 2014 film Selma was the first movie helmed by an African American woman to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, although notably she was overlooked for Best Director. DuVernay next directed A Wrinkle in Time for Disney and the documentary 13th for Netflix, with the latter nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. In 2019, she created, wrote, produced and directed the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning limited series, When They See Us.

At one time in talks to direct Black Panther for Marvel before the job went to Ryan Coogler, DuVernay has also been linked to a film based on Jack Kirby’s New Gods property for Warner Bros. Pictures and DC, although little has been heard about it since it was announced in March 2018.

The post Ava DuVernay to Take One Perfect Shot for HBO Max appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3ikLY8N

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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kansascityhappenings · 5 years ago

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In 2019, the box office belonged to Disney

NEW YORK — Every movie year offers up a parade of hits and flops. But in 2019, no winner was in the same galaxy as the Walt Disney Co. And the biggest loser might have been anyone less thrilled about the box-office domination of franchise films.

When the year closes out Tuesday, the top 10 films in U.S. and Canada theaters will all be intellectual property-backed movies. That, in itself, isn’t new. It’s the third year in a row that the year’s 10 biggest ticket-sellers have all been sequels, remakes and superhero films.

But in today’s IP-driven movie world, one studio is in a league of its own. In 2019, Disney dominated American moviegoing more than any studio ever has before — roughly 38% of all domestic moviegoing.

The year’s top five films were all Disney movies, and it played a hand in the sixth. Disney’s Marvel Studios produced the Sony Pictures release “Spider-Man: Far From Home.”

Disney banked about $13 billion in worldwide box office in 2019, including a record number of $1 billion releases. Once “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” ($724.8 million through Sunday) inevitably reaches that milestone, it will mark the studio’s seventh such $1 billion movie in 2019. The others were: “Avengers: Endgame” (the highest grossing release ever, not accounting for inflation, with $2.8 billion), “The Lion King,” “Captain Marvel,” “Aladdin,” “Toy Story 4” and “Frozen II.”

Disney’s unprecedented market share includes films from 20th Century Fox, the 84-year-old studio that Disney gobbled up in March in a $71.3 billion acquisition.

Despite Disney’s considerable firepower, overall ticket sales in U.S. and Canada theaters were down 4.4% from the year before through Sunday, according to data firm Comscore. The upper echelons of the box office may be stratospheric, but the lower realms — where critics’ scores are rotten and word of mouth is faster than opening weekend — are dismal. The movies are increasingly a zero-sum game. You’re either “The Lion King” or you’re “Cats.”

“There’s plenty of capacity to bring people to the movie screen,” says Cathleen Taff, distribution chief for Disney. “What I think we’re doing is competing for their time. If it’s not great, they do have other options. But when it is great, people show up. And we’ve seen that this year with seven $1 billion movies.”

Disney’s considerable role in today’s moviegoing hasn’t been without critics. They have lamented its mega-blockbusters as products, not cinema. Before Martin Scorsese’s criticisms of Disney’s Marvel movies sparked headlines, he lamented the monopolizing of the multiplex, disturbed by the sight of “Avengers: Endgame” playing on 11 of a theater’s 12 screens.

If the big-screen experience is narrowing, the small screen is expanding. Streaming services proliferated in 2019 with the launch of Apple TV Plus (although it pushed back its first big movie release ) and Disney Plus. Amazon also reshaped its release strategy, shortening the theatrical window for some of its movies to just two weeks. Netflix rolled out its most ambitious release slate, including a host of awards contenders, led by Scorsese’s “The Irishman” and Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” that played in only limited theaters. The so-called streaming wars will only grow in 2020 when NBCUniversal launches its service, Peacock, and WarnerMedia debuts HBO Max.

While some may see a downturn in ticket sales as indicative of streaming’s impact, John Fithian, the president and chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners, believes streaming is disruptive to broadcast TV, cable and home markets like DVDs, but not to movie theaters.

“This may sound counter-intuitive, but with the launch of Disney-Plus, HBO Max and Peacock, we’re more confident of the symbiotic relationship of streaming and theatrical than we were before,” says Fithian. “The people who stream also go to the movies a lot.”

Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. also remain devoted to the traditional theatrical window. Netflix will soon be competing with studios that can offer both a robust theatrical release and a streaming life — albeit not one with the same number of viewers at home that Netflix can promise.

Those services have certainly added pressure to the theatrical release, and quite a few in 2019 weren’t up to the challenge. The year’s most glaring bombs included bold bids at technological innovation ( “Gemini Man” ), mishandled franchise finales (“Dark Phoenix”), remakes that failed to connect (“Charlie’s Angels”), prestige dramas doomed by controversy ( “Richard Jewell” ), toy movies that didn’t click (“Playmobil: The Movie”) and, you know, “Cats.”

But some Hollywood executives point to successes suggesting a vibrant medium. Jordan Peele’s “Us,” for Universal, was the highest grossing original movie. Others like Lionsgate’s “Knives Out,” Fox’s “Ford v Ferrari,” STX’s “Hustlers” and Sony’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” were also both critical and global hits. Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” and Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell” gave the art house a boost.

“I don’t think that the four-to-five percent drop means the domestic audience wants to stay home on the couch. I think it’s just like everything else in this industry since it began: We have cycles,” says Jim Orr, distribution chief for Universal. “Generally, the box-office is still trending up and I think that will continue over time, especially because you can do films like ‘Us’ and films like (the R-rated comedy) ‘Good Boys’ and people will still come out in force.”

Last year’s box office, which followed a two-decade low in 2017, set a record with $11.9 billion in ticket sales. Disney, the market leader for the last five years, again led the way with “Black Panther,” “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Incredibles 2.”

Revenues have largely been on the rise thanks to increasing ticket prices. 2019’s estimated $11.4 billion in ticket sales rank second all time, not accounting for inflation. But admissions have been gradually declining since 2005.

Overseas business, however, is booming. International box office for the first time crossed $30 billion in 2019. Either next year or in 2021, China will likely surpass North America as the world’s top movie market.

Lately, homegrown movies have been China’s top draws. This year, only two U.S. productions — “Avengers: Endgame” and “Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw” — cracked the country’s top 10 films. A pair of Chinese blockbusters led the way, each with about $700 million in box office: the science fiction adventure “The Wandering Earth” and the animated fantasy “Ne Zha.”

All of these factors — a rare alignment of Disney juggernauts, expanding home-entertainment options, a more inward-looking China — mean a potentially dimmer outlook for 2020. Many in the industry expect the year’s ticket sales to drop of a few percentage points again. No one forecasts a similar year from Disney. The studio will still have a strong slate but one without an “Avengers” or “Star Wars” movie.

“2020 is going to be a more typical year, where the wealth will be spread quite a bit more,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “The sky is not falling but we’re definitely going to have to change our expectations for 2020. It’s not going to be just about one studio dominating but it’s going to be about all the studios bringing some of their biggest brands.”

James Bond, Wonder Woman and The Rock are coming in 2020. But greater volatility may be on the way, too.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/12/31/in-2019-the-box-office-belonged-to-disney/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2020/01/01/in-2019-the-box-office-belonged-to-disney/

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