Each Thursday we look at what is going to be coming out in theaters this weekend, show you the trailers for the big releases, predict the box office winner and just generally give you enough of a carrot to pull you through the rest of the work week. October 14th brings three new wide releases, but nothing of the caliber still we saw in September.
Accountancy makes its biggest move toward screen glory with Gavin O’Connor’s action-thriller The Accountant. Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, JK Simmons, and company make for a great cast, but the reviews aren’t backing the promise of the trailers (44% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing). In fact, none of the major releases this week have good reviews. The Cuaron brothers Desierto is the best-reviewed of the bunch, but is still divisive, and Max Steel was not screened for critics (which, unless you’re a Star Wars film, means the studio knows it has a bomb).
The Accountant (Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, R, 2hr 8min)
Desierto (Jeffery Dean Morgan, Gael Garcia Bernal, R, 1hr 30min)
Max Steel (Ben Winchell, Andy Garcia, PG-13, 1hr 40min)
HOW DID WE DO LAST WEEK?
KT was on hiatus for last week’s column but we made our pick in the hiatus site note, so two weeks ago we picked Miss Peregrine and last week The Girl on the Train, and both came through to keep our five month streak rolling along. The Girl on the Train underwhelmed for the popularity of the novel, but won the weekend with $24.6 million. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children dropped to second with $16.2 million. (Lifetime prediction record 29-3).
WHO WILL WIN THE WEEKEND?
With The Girl on the Train opening so poorly and with a B- Cinemascore audience feedback score, it’s going to drop big in its second weekend. The Accountant, with the star power involved, will win in a really weak weekend for October, underscoring again that oddly September had a higher-quality line-up of films this fall. Jack Reacher 2 and Inferno aren’t exactly generating mounds of buzz either, but once we hit November, things look extremely promising for quite a while.
I hope I can squeeze in Deepwater Horizon this weekend. I’m assuming this is one of those Biggest Screen Possible movies.
I honestly don’t know what they were thinking making The Accountant. Personally I thought the trailers were interesting and they grabbed me, but they were also vague and disjointed. Also, a protagonist who’s a math savant working for the mob is not a Hollywood trope for a reason (though I believe Jimmy Stewart embodied the archetype any number of times) and basically this looks to be the kind of high-minded film that needed solid reviews to bring people in. I was considering it, but now I think I’ll wait and stream it, especially since I’m not Affleck the Actor’s biggest fan (though I admire him greatly as a director).
This is a non-sequitur, but are you a fan of the movie Being There? I recently rewatched it and realized it’s probably one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s definitley the most subtle, poetic, and oblique social satire ever put out by Hollywood, and would never fly today. But it was oddly prescient, and the last shot is a thing of beauty.
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Hmm, Being There really didn’t stick with me, though I love Sellers. Deepwater I would recommend on the big screen simply because it helps sell Berg’s totally immersion in the crisis.
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To each their own I suppose.
DWH is a lock this week.
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