April 3rd, 2018
It’s a short week for one reason: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which came out last week, but it is still scaring away top-notch releases. There are only a couple of first-run releases coming out this week, Father Figures and Insidious: The Last Key. However, there are also a few films in the main section that wouldn’t even be included in the secondary releases on a normal week. There are a trio of Pick of the Week contenders, including Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, but that’s a late review. The best of this week’s releases are Jane and My Hero Academia Season Two, Volume One. Both are absolutely worth picking up, but in the end, I went with My Hero Academia.
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March 14th, 2018
It’s Oscar week on the home market with several Oscar nominees and winners. Many of these films, like Call Me by Your Name and I, Tonya, are contenders for Pick of the Week. The actual winner of this title is The Shape of Water on Blu-ray Combo Pack or 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack. It’s not the biggest release on this week’s list, as that honor goes to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but that’s only coming out on Video on Demand.
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February 15th, 2018
With our annual Oscar Prediction contest underway, now is the best time to look at the nominees and try to figure out who the favorites are and which films should just feel honored to be nominated. Today we look at Best Feature-Length Documentary. This category had an overwhelming favorite, Jane, but then it wasn’t even nominated. This left the category wide open. Has a new favorite emerged? Or is it still a tossup?
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February 11th, 2018
The Writers Guild of America have announced their winners. There are many categories that WGA hand out awards in, but only three of them are theatrical releases. The list of winners include a couple of major Awards Season players and not a lot of surprises.
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January 23rd, 2018
The Oscar nominations were announced starting at just after 5 am Pacific time. They do this every year and no one has been able to adequately explain why to me. At least there were some interesting results this year. The Shape of Water led the way with 13 nominations, which is one below the current record and nearly as many as the next two films combined. Overall, there were seventeen films that earned two or more nominations.
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January 22nd, 2018
It’s a really slow week on the home market. There are only a few releases that went anywhere at the box office, led by Jigsaw, which is a bad movie. Meanwhile, Geostorm is so bad it’s good. It’s fun, if you are into B movies, but it’s not Pick of the Week material. The only real contenders are Jane, which is only coming out on Video on Demand, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, which is getting a Two-Disc Special Edition. In the end, I went with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, mainly because Jane doesn’t come out on DVD / Blu-ray until next month.
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January 20th, 2018
The Producers Guild of America awards were handed out last night. There are only three theatrical awards, plus a special award previously announced, and none of the results were truly surprising. In fact, two of them were completely predictable.
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January 11th, 2018
Directors Guild of America is one of those awards groups that spread out their nominations, but the last of them were announced today. There are some pleasant surprises and what is possibly the biggest shock of Awards Season so far. The only film to earn two nominations was Get Out.
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January 11th, 2018
The BAFTA nominations were announced and this time The Shape of Water led the way with 12 nominations. The same films appear on many of the lists of nominees, but so far no one film has come to dominate the list. This makes it interesting, to say the least. There’s a good chance no one film will win the majority of prestige awards and that multiple films will have lots of reason to celebrate on February 18th when the awards are handed out.
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January 5th, 2018
The Producers Guild of America finally finished announcing their nominations. (They spread out their announcements for reasons I’ve never quite understood.) It is a strange year for the PGAs, as there was a tie resulting in 11 films being nominated for the top prize.
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January 4th, 2018
The Writers Guild of America is the latest group to announce award nominees. There are a lot of categories that WGA hand out awards for, but only three of them are for theatrical releases. The list of nominees include several major Awards Season players, and not a lot of surprises. The Big Sick, Lady Bird, The Disaster Artist, Get Out, The Shape of Water… We've seen almost all of these films appear on lists of nominations before.
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November 21st, 2017
Justice League topped the theater average chart with $23,165 in just over 4,000 theaters. This is in the top ten best theater averages for any wide release that has come out this year, but it is about 25% lower than it needed to be. Last week’s winner, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri was pushed into second place with an average of $20,796 in 53 theaters. Its strong hold plus its early success during Awards Season should help it stick around in theaters for a long time. Roman J. Israel, Esq was next with an average of $15,500 in four theaters. This would be a good start for a limited release, but it is scheduled to expand wide on Wednesday, so I’m not sure it is good enough. Finally, Lady Bird rounded out the $10,000 club with an average of $10,573 in 238 theaters. It has already earned a significant measure of mainstream success and it still has room to grow.
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November 5th, 2017
Thor: Ragnarok continues a remarkable record for the Marvel Cinematic Universe this weekend by posting a $121 million opening weekend, according to Disney’s Sunday morning estimate. That’s a significant increase from the $85.7 million of Thor: Dark World, and means that each sub-franchise based on an individual character has had increasing open box office from film to film: Iron Man’s openings went from $102 million, to $128 million, to $174 million; Captain America went $65 million, $95 million, $179 million; and now Thor has gone $65 million, $86 million, and $121 million.
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October 25th, 2017
It was a good weekend with three films earning more than $10,000 on the theater chart, led by The Killing of a Sacred Deer, with an average of $28,780 in four theaters. Its Tomatometer Score is merely good, but its average is even better at 8 out of 10. An average score of 8 out of 10 is close to award-worthy. Meanwhile, Jane did even better with an average of $19,449 in three theaters, which is amazing for a documentary. Its reviews remain 100% positive and the average critic simply loves the movie and it could be an Oscar winner. Wonderstruck rounded out the $10,000 club with an average of $16,471 in four theaters. Its reviews are merely good, so its might have trouble growing. That said, it is more accessible and mainstream than most other limited releases, so that could help.
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October 22nd, 2017
Boo! 2 is arguably slightly under-performing this weekend, with Lionsgate projecting a weekend total of $21.6 million as of Sunday morning, a figure that is down about $7 million from the debut of Boo! A Madea Halloween. But, in the bigger picture, it represents the continuation of a remarkable run for the Madea franchise that stretches now to eight films, all but one of which have opened with more than $20 million, and which have all topped $50 million, so far. Boo! 2 will be helped by Halloween, which should be just enough to take it over $50 million, and put the franchise close to $500 million at the box office. The only other comedy franchises with close to this longevity at the box office are The Pink Panther, and The Muppets, although neither of those have relied on a single actor (take a bow, Tyler Perry) for the entirety of their run.
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October 20th, 2017
There isn’t a huge selection of limited releases this week, but there are several earning excellent reviews, such as 120 Beats Per Minute, Jane, Tragedy Girls, and others. Additionally, films like The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Wonderstruck are earning merely good reviews, but have enough buzz that they could still do well in theaters.
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