After a hiatus, it’s back to the movie beat for this reporter! Star Wars: The Force Awakens is still king, but believe it or not…there are other movies at the box office you might want to check out.

Hi everyone!

First off, HUGE apologies as this blog has been neglected so badly. I had a lot of shift changes over the holiday season, and was trying to learn all of that – so now that I’m back in my regular seat, I can go back to keeping the blog alive.

There are reviews of Daddy’s Home, The Revenant and The Hateful Eight en route. I’ll have those up in the next bit.

So what did Jon McComb and I talk about today?

Winners and Losers at the Box Office:

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is starting to slow down a little bit – but the pace was en pointe this week – enough for it to finally surpass AVATAR domestically. In fact, it’s sitting at a little more than $764 million dollars as of this moment. It’s also worth noting that, overnight, it had its release in China, and it’s expected to be massive there. China is the last country to release the movie. final release date.
Worldwide we’re honing in on about $1.6 billion dollars at the box office.

In other fare, Daddy’s Home is number two, and stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. It’s been out since Christmas Day, pulling in some solid dough, just about hitting the $100 million dollar mark. I’m pretty sure it’s going to surpass that after this upcoming weekend.

Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight is number three, and is fluctuating. The movie has had issues at the box office with some of the 70 mm projectors it’s been shown on breaking down during screenings. The domestic release has done about $33 million to date.

Numbers four and five, respectively: Sisters and The Big Short. Sisters’s comedic stylings a la Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have earned them a little more than $70 million worldwide ($66 million domestic), while The Big Short (Ryan Gosling, Steve Carrell, and Christian Bale) has made about $40 million worldwide ($36 million domestic).

Out in Theatres this Week:

Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (you may remember him from Birdman), The Revenant has actually been out in limited release since Christmas Day, with screenings in a handful of theatres so it could qualify for the upcoming awards season.

I’d argue that run is going to pay off – and I think this COULD be Leonardo DiCaprio’s year for a Golden Globe; even an Oscar.

I screened this last year, and I have to say I absolutely LOVED it. You have to go in there with a bit more of an artistic eye, though, because some of the editing is a little long, but the film is so beautiful. I’ll have more on that in an upcoming post.

Over to the other release for this week – The Forest, starring Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones) and Taylor Kinney (Zero Dark Thirty) – I’m not sure I want to see this one anymore. When the embargo was pulled overnight, most critics were quick to post their scathing reviews. Rotten Tomatoes has the film rated by critics at 15%. Ouch.

This film has seen some controversy, being based on a true story. A woman named Sarah (Dormer) finds out her twin sister, Jessica, has gone missing in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest. In fact, it’s a forest where people go to end their lives. I didn’t have a chance to screen this one, so I had a chance to listen to and read what some of the critics are saying about this film: avoid, avoid, avoid like the plague. Apparently it’s bland, boring, and a victim of poor writing – not scary at all. I’m still trying to figure out if I’m going to see this sometime this weekend.

This week, we talked about some of the trailers people are expecting during Superbowl weekend.

New Release Highlights:

Sicario (Emily Blunt), The Walk (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) The Visit – (directed by M. Night Shyamalan).