February 26th, 2019
This week’s list includes a number of releases that are worth picking up, mostly of the smaller variety. There’s a foreign-language import, Border; a mostly forgotten comedy from the 1980s, Used Cars; a good movie that is busted Oscar-bait, Mary Queen of Scots; and an Anime slice of life, Love Live! Sunshine!!: Season Two. However, for most people, it’s the two biggest releases that are also the best: The Little Mermaid and Ralph Breaks the Internet. For me, Ralph Breaks the Internet on Blu-ray or 4K Ultra HD is the clear Pick of the Week.
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February 24th, 2019
It’s Oscar night and we will be live blogging the show. We will announce the winners and have our reactions as they happen, while keeping track of how our readers did in predicting the outcomes.
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February 24th, 2019
It’s Oscar Day, and we will be live blogging the show. Before that, let’s take a last look at the nominations with a few annotations. in Italics are those that have received the most votes from our readers so far in our Oscar contest (which is open to new entries until noon, Pacific, today—enter now!). Bold films are those films I think will win. Meanwhile, those that are Underlined are those I want to win. Not all categories have underlined nominees, because not all categories have someone I’m cheering for, or because there are two nominees I couldn’t pick between. For example, I would be happy with half of the Best Picture nominees winning.
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January 23rd, 2019
The Oscar nominations were announced yesterday starting at just after 5 am Pacific time. They do this every year for reasons no one has been able to adequately explain to me. Because it was the day after a long weekend, it took a bit of time to get all the normal work done and digest the results. And there were some interesting results to digest. No one film led the way with total nominations, as two films, The Favourite and Roma tied with 10 nominations each.
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October 31st, 2018
Suspiria led the theater average chart both over the weekend and for the year earning just over $180,000 in two theaters for an average of $92,019. This tops the previous average of $73,572 by Free Solo, although that movie was playing in four theaters. Up next was Can You Ever Forgive Me? with an average of $14,255 in 25 theaters during its second weekend of release. A couple of foreign-language films were next with Burning earning an average of $13,066 in two theaters and Border earning an average of $10,529 in seven.
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October 26th, 2018
It is a little difficult to figure out which limited release has the best shot at box office success. Suspiria has the loudest buzz, but its reviews are only good and not great. Shirkers’ reviews are great, but it is playing on Netflix, so it likely won’t go anywhere in theaters. Life & Nothing More, Border, Burning, and others could pick up the slack, but none jump out as guaranteed hits.
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