For most people, the decision to make a sequel to 2015’s Fifty Shades of Grey is probably the punchline to a bad joke. But have you actually stopped and looked at the box office numbers for Fifty Shades of Grey recently? We’re not talking about $100 million at the global box office; we’re not even talking about $200 million. We’re talking about $571 million worldwide, more than Mad Max: Fury Road and Creed combined and the eleventh highest-grossing movie of the year. With those kind of numbers, you pretty much have to make a sequel. I don’t blame them.
Early in 20th Century Women, Elle Fanning’s rebellious teenager Julie asks, “Don’t you need a man to raise a man?” With little pause, Annette Bening’s single mother Dorothea assuredly responds, “No, I don’t think so.” The latest from Mike Mills (Thumbsucker, Beginners), finds three women helping raise a teenage boy. It’s a premise that could easily crash and burn in the wrong hands by sacrificing nuance for stereotypes or marginalizing female voices to emphasize a male perspective. Yet 20th Century Women avoids all of that. Instead Mills has made not only one of the best films of the year, but one that unabashedly celebrates the feminine spirit.
’Tis the season for images of movies that none of us will be able to see until months from now! The latest was a kind of Christmas present from the folks over at the remake of Stephen King’s It, but unfortunately it’s more awkward than scary. The image shows Pennywise — who else? — lurking inside a larger-than-life sewer pipe, seemingly floating somehow above the ground.
Sundance isn’t always about the new stuff. Every year, the Sundance Institute picks a few films to screen as special events, and this year, among the choices are Amir Bar-Lev’s Grateful Dead documentary Long Strange Trip and Quentin Tarantino’s classic Reservoir Dogs.