February 15th, 2014
With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try and figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at Best Feature-Length Documentary, which is probably the hardest category to predict, because some of the previous winners of major awards were not even nominated for an Oscar. When the nominations were this unpredictable, the winner could be any of the five films.
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February 1st, 2014
WGAs handed out their awards on Saturday and depending on who you talk to, there were a couple of major upsets. There was certainly at least one upset, but the other awards are less surprising.
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January 26th, 2014
The Directors Guild of America handed out the awards over the weekend, including two for theatrical releases. There were no true upsets, but it didn't go exactly as I anticipated it would go.
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January 19th, 2014
Producers Guild of America announce the winners tonight, but it seems I forgot to upload the story when they announced their nominations. In my defense, they announced them on January 2nd. You don't make an announcement on January 2nd, not unless you are trying to bury a story. As for the actual nominations, there are very few differences between this group and others, except when it comes to documentaries. Then again, that's been the norm this year. No one seems to agree on what the best documentaries were.
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January 16th, 2014
The Oscar nominations were announced this morning and there are some surprises mixed in with the predictable results. Gravity and American Hustle led the way with ten nominations each while 12 Years a Slave was right behind with nine. The fact that 12 Years a Slave wasn't the leader is the first of the surprises.
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January 14th, 2014
The Directors Guild of America finished its theatrical nominations yesterday with the Documentary category. I'm of two minds with the list of nominees. On the one hand, I feel like I should be surprised, because a number of documentaries thought to be Oscar favorites were left off the list. On the other hand, they've been left off the list a number of times. I think it is time to rethink who is and is not an Oscar favorite.
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January 5th, 2014
WGAs announced their nominations this weekend and there were a couple of surprises to talk about. The top of that list is 12 Years a Slave, which was deemed ineligible because it wasn't written under WGA jurisdiction. This makes using the WGAs as an Oscar guide less reliable. On the other hand, several Oscar favorites showed up as well, including American Hustle, Nebraska, and others that have picked up major nominations this year.
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December 19th, 2013
Part III of the Holiday Gift Guide is a little late due to reasons you probably don't want to hear the details about. (I believe I've developed a food allergy to something in Eggnog.) The third installment of our holiday gift guide includes independent films, classics, foreign films, etc. The fastest way to find gifts is to go to the Independent Spirit Awards nominations and find any film that is on that list that is already out on DVD / Blu-ray (Frances Ha, Mud, etc.). Unfortunately, most of the films competing for Awards Season glory are still in theaters and not available as gifts. But there are still many films worth picking up, starting with...
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September 3rd, 2013
It's a really slow week on the home market. There's only one first-run release of note, Now You See Me, while the best-selling TV on DVD release is from the CW, The Vampire Diaries: The Complete Fourth Season. That doesn't mean there are no new releases worth picking up. In fact, there are a couple of contenders for Pick of the Week. Blancanieves is one such contender, but while the DVD or Blu-ray is worth picking up, I think the target audience is a little too limited for Pick of the Week. Instead, that honor goes to From Up on Poppy Hill on Blu-ray Combo Pack.
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June 12th, 2013
Much Ado About Nothing lived up to the hype earning first place on the per theater chart with an average of $34,388 in five theaters. This is enough to suggest significant expansion, but I think it is too "art house" to expand even semi-wide. Dirty Wars opened in second place with an average of $15,876 in four theaters. This is an excellent start for a documentary. The overall box office leader, The Purge, earned third place with an average of $13,430. The final film in the $10,000 club was Before Midnight with an average of $10,123 in 52 theaters during its third weekend of release.
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May 15th, 2013
Iron Man 3 again earned first place on the Per Theater Chart, but this time it was closer with an average of $17,053. The second best film on the per theater chart was the second best film on the overall chart, The Great Gatsby, which earned an average of $14,168. The best limited release was Stories We Tell with an average of $13,527 in two theaters. It had previously opened in Canada, where it made $360,000. One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das earned $11,515 in one theater.
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May 12th, 2013
To no-one's great surprise, Iron Man 3 will top the box office chart again this weekend, with a very creditable projected $72.4 million, the 4th-biggest second weekend of all time. The more notable number this weekend, however, is the $51 million projected opening for The Great Gatsby. That's Baz Luhrman's best weekend by a huge margin -- in fact, only Moulin Rouge earned more than that in total domestically (and only by a small margin, with $57 million). It's also Leonardo DiCaprio's second-best weekend, behind Inception. In short, it's a great weekend for a movie that looked like a tough sell.
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May 10th, 2013
Most summers there is at least one limited release that manages to find enough success to expand truly wide. There are quite a few new limited releases this week, but most of them are earning weak reviews and will likely fail to find an audience in limited release. There are three films that are earning 80% positive reviews or better: Sightseers, Stories We Tell, and Venus and Serena. Unfortunately, the last two are documentaries and the first one is a Black Comedy, so it is unlikely we will have a true break-out hit this week.
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