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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December 16th, 2017
Both the first installment First-run Releases and the second installment, TV on DVD releases, were shorter than I would have liked, as this hasn’t been a great year for either wide releases or TV on DVD releases. That said, the third installment of our Holiday Gift Guide deals with limited releases, classics, and foreign imports and this list can get out of hand rather quickly. There will more releases on this list than the previous two, starting with...
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November 22nd, 2017
The Independent Spirit Awards nominations were announced yesterday and thus the 2017 Awards Season begins. The movie with the most nominations is Call Me by Your Name, which opens on Friday. This is amazingly good timing. It’s not the only film that should get a financial boost.
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October 18th, 2017
It is one of those weeks. There’s a massive release coming out, which has scared away nearly all of the competition, so it is a really shallow week. Fortunately, that huge release is Spider-Man: Homecoming, which is not only one of the biggest hits of the year, it is also one of the reviewed. It isn’t the only contender for Pick of the Week, but the Blu-ray Combo Pack wins that honor.
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October 3rd, 2017
It is not a great week for home market releases. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is the biggest release of the week, but it is far from the best. As for the Pick of the Week contenders, they are all horror themed. Cult of Chucky is surprisingly good, especially for a franchise that’s lasted seven installments. Don't Torture A Duckling is a giallo film, and an important one in its director’s career. Up next is iZombie: Season Three, which is amazing, but it is always on the edge of being canceled. Finally, there's Vampyr: Criterion Collection Blu-ray. In the end, I went with the Don't Torture A Duckling: Special Edition as the Pick of the Week. Meanwhile, Goon: Last of the Enforcers Blu-ray Combo Pack earned Puck of the Week, for the best Canadian release.
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August 23rd, 2017
It was a shallow week on the theater average chart with only three films with averages above $10,000 and none that topped that mark by a serious margin. Gook topped the chart with an average of $13,522 in two theaters. Ingrid Goes West is arguably more impressive, as it earned an average of $10,284 in 26 theaters during its second weekend of release. The only other film in the $10,000 club was Crown Heights with an average of $10,058 in three theaters.
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July 18th, 2017
War for the Planet of the Apes earned first place on the weekend box office chart and the theater average chart with $13,989. The only other new release to come close to that was Lady Macbeth with an average of $12,907 in five theaters. Last week’s winner, Spider-Man: Homecoming, slipped to third place this weekend with an average of $10,167. It is still quite rare for a wide release to stay in the $10,000 club two weeks in a row, so this is a reason to celebrate.
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July 16th, 2017
A weekend estimate just ahead of our prediction for War for the Planet of the Apes, and a one just below our prediction for Spider-Man: Homecoming means there’s a clear winner at the box office. War will come in with $56.5 million, per Fox’s Sunday morning estimate, while Homecoming will finish second with $45.2 million.
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July 14th, 2017
There’s not a wide selection of films coming out in limited release this week, but there are number of them that are worth checking out. This includes To The Bone, which is playing on Netflix right now. Endless Poetry is about the early life of Alejandro Jodorowsky and fans of his movies should be very interested. Lady Macbeth is a costume drama and that’s a genre that tends to do well in limited release. Finally there’s Swallows and Amazons, a family film that will likely do much better on Video on Demand than in theaters.
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