All posts by Alex Brannan

Box Office Predictions, Movie News

Weekend Box Office Breakdown: August 18 – 20

Box Office Breakdown: Weekend of August 18

  1. The Hitman’s Bodyguard – $21.6 million
  2. Annabelle: Creation – $15.5 million
  3. Logan Lucky – $8.05 million
  4. Dunkirk – $6.7 million
  5. The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature – $5.1 million
  6. The Emoji Movie – $4.35 million
  7. Spider-Man: Homecoming – $4.25 million
  8. Girls Trip – $3.84 million
  9. The Dark Tower – $3.72 million
  10. Wind River – $3.02 million

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Another grueling August weekend at the domestic box office in the books. Summer 2017 is looking to Continue reading Weekend Box Office Breakdown: August 18 – 20 →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Logan Lucky (2017) Movie Review

Steven Soderbergh marks his return to feature filmmaking after his reported retirement with Logan Lucky, a heist film in the same stylistic vein as his Oceans films. Instead of the lavish cityscape and bright lights of Las Vegas, however, in Logan Lucky we are treated with rural North Carolina. The high security casino: replaced by a low security NASCAR race track.

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The lead figure in this heist is Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum), who sees a crack in the system of pressure tubes that carry money from the race track to a nearby bank vault and decides to Continue reading Logan Lucky (2017) Movie Review →

Box Office Predictions, Movie News

Weekend Box Office Breakdown: August 11 – 13

Box Office Results: Weekend of August 11

  1. Annabelle: Creation – $35 million
  2. Dunkirk – $11.4 million
  3. The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature – $8.93 million
  4. The Dark Tower – $7.87 million
  5. The Emoji Movie – $6.6 million
  6. Girls Trip – $6.52 million
  7. Spider-Man: Homecoming – $6.1 million
  8. Kidnap – $5.22 million
  9. The Glass Castle – $4.87 million
  10. Atomic Blonde – $4.57 million

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August continues to be a slow month at the box office. The latest in the Conjuring franchise, Annabelle: Creation took number one, earning over Continue reading Weekend Box Office Breakdown: August 11 – 13 →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Glass Castle (2017) Movie Review

Based on the memoir by Jeannette Wells, The Glass Castle tells the story of four children raised in an inconstant, emotionally troubling household. The family, led by an alcohol abusing patriarch (Woody Harrelson), moves from squat house to squat house to avoid paying taxes. The children do not go to school. The family, at one point, resorts to showering at the public pool.

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The films feels most readily akin to last year’s Captain Fantastic. Only, it lacks the Continue reading The Glass Castle (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Girls Trip (2017) Movie Review

Four college friends reunite to party for a weekend, and there are unexpected consequences. It is a premise not unlike another Summer 2017 film: Rough Night. Only, in Girls Trip there is no dead body, and there is a much more conventional narrative.

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Ryan Pierce (Regina Hall) and her husband (Mike Colter) have made a brand name out of their marriage. They are traveling to the Essence Festival in New Orleans in order to Continue reading Girls Trip (2017) Movie Review →

Box Office Predictions, Movie News

Weekend Box Office Predictions: August 11 – 13

Last weekend was the slowest of the Summer, financially. The Dark Tower topped the list with an under-performing $19 million. Can it hold on to its crown with three new movies on the horizon: Annabelle: Creation, The Nut Job 2, and The Glass Castle?

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Box Office Predictions: Weekend of 8/11

Continue reading Weekend Box Office Predictions: August 11 – 13 →

Lists

10 Consistently Great Movie Podcasts

The podcast universe is an ever-expanding, increasingly inaccessible audio medium with many diamonds in the rough. The diamonds, however, can be hard to find. Even when discussing the subgenre of cinema-related podcasts, it is hard to narrow down the wheat from the chaff.

The upshot is that, for movie fans, it is hard to go wrong with any movie podcast. However, there are clear winners that rise to the surface and are consistently high quality. From the serious to the silly, the scholastic to the plebeian, these podcasts represent quality listening experiences for your drive-time commute or household chores.

 

Honorable Mentions:

The Black List Table Reads

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Only relegated to the honorable mentions column because it is recently defunct, “The Black List Table Reads” gave listeners something that no other movie podcast could: Continue reading 10 Consistently Great Movie Podcasts →

Box Office Predictions, Movie News

Weekend Box Office Breakdown: August 4 – 6

Box Office Results: Weekend of August 4

  1. The Dark Tower – $19.5 million
  2. Dunkirk – $17.6 million
  3. The Emoji Movie – $12.35 million
  4. Girls Trip – $11.41 million
  5. Kidnap – $10.21 million
  6. Spider-Man: Homecoming – $8.8 million
  7. Atomic Blonde – $8.24 million
  8. Detroit – $7.25 million
  9. War for the Planet of the Apes – $6 million
  10. Despicable Me 3 – $5.28 million

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August is off to a slow start in 2017, with a season low estimated cume. Newcomer The Dark Tower leads the pack with Continue reading Weekend Box Office Breakdown: August 4 – 6 →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Detroit (2017) Movie Review

Kathryn Bigelow, known most recently as the director of war films The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, depicts a different sort of war in Detroit.

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Told in three acts, Detroit covers the 1967 rebellion of Detroit citizens against a racist police force. Following the raid of an illegal club, riots against the Detroit police begin, escalating to the point where Continue reading Detroit (2017) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Western

The Dark Tower (2017) Movie Review

Over the course of his prolific pop-literary career, Stephen King has published eight novels under the heading of The Dark Tower series. The series is a dense genre-bending tale of The Gunslinger, brimming with a desolate Western vibe and fantasy tropes.

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The Dark Tower, the long-awaited film adaptation being helmed here by Nikolaj Arcel, is 95 minutes long. It merely skims over that Western vibe to focus on the six shooters and the giant lasers.

You might already see Continue reading The Dark Tower (2017) Movie Review →