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ao3feed-snape · 5 years
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A Gathering Storm
read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/2LkYIxh
by almanera4, Tarpeia
As Voldemort gradually gains power, Albus Dumbledore finds himself besieged with pleas for help. But after the harsh sentence the Ministry has dealt to his lover, Gellert Grindelwald, there are much darker thoughts on his mind.
Words: , Chapters: 1/1, Language: English
Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: M/M
Characters: Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald, Aberforth Dumbledore, Bathilda Bagshot, Eugenia Jenkins, Severus Snape, Horace Slughorn, Fawkes (Harry Potter)
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Additional Tags: Community: grindeldore
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2LkYIxh
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arco-rc · 5 years
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Paradójicamente, cuando los cambios sociales y culturales se aceleran, el interés por el conocimiento del pasado se revitaliza. En las últimas décadas hemos experimentado el fenómeno de la explosión de la memoria, la expansión vertiginosa del interés por el pasado, especialmente por el pasado reciente, que ha tomado forma de museos, exposiciones, cine histórico, documentales televisivos, recreaciones de eventos del pasado, publicación de memorias y, por supuesto, de libros y artículos, tanto de ámbito académico como divulgativos. El estudio de la historia de la historiografía está también gozando de un boom análogo. Relegado durante mucho tiempo a la periferia de los intereses por los propios historiadores profesionales, este tema se ha vuelto mucho más nuclear y generalizado durante la última generación, gracias a lo que ha sido llamado el «giro reflexivo» en el estudio de las humanidades y de las ciencias, así como el énfasis que el posmodemismo ha puesto en algunos puntos de vista. La importancia del conocimiento de las tendencias del pensamiento histórico no sólo para cualquiera que aspire a la escritura de la historia, sino también para los lectores de historia en general es incuestionable (Aurell, 2013) 
Historiografía: https://nordlich.blogspot.com/p/historiografia.html
ABRIL, G.; LOZANO; J.; PEÑA-MARÍN, C. Análisis del discurso. Hacia una semiótica de la interacción textual. Cátedra, Madrid, 1982.   ANDRÉS ANTÓN, P. «Manuales de historia contemporánea. Un estudio comparativo de libros de texto de la editorial Vicens Vives» TFM a cargo de la tutora: Victoria Eugenia Martínez del Cerro. UNIR (dic., 2011).   AURELL, J. (et al.) Comprender el pasado. Una historia de la escritura y el pensamiento histórico. Akal, Madrid, 2013.   BOLUFER, M. «Multitudes del yo: biografía e historia de las mujeres», en Ayer, n.º 93 (2014), 85-116.   BURDIEL, I. «Historia política y biografía: más allá de las fronteras», en Ayer, n.º 93 (2014), 47-83. CASADO QUINTANILLA, Blas (coord.) Tendencias historiográficas actuales. UNED, Madrid, 2004. CASTILLEJO CAMBRA, E. Mito, legitimación y violencia simbólica en los manuales escolares de historia del franquismo. UNED, Madrid, 2014.   — «Análisis del contenido ideológico de los manuales de historia», en Bordón, 61 (2), 2009; 45-57.   COHEN AMSELEM, Aron; PEINADO SANTAELLA, R. (eds.) Historia, historiografía y ciencias sociales, Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2007.   FERNÁNDEZ SÁNCHEZ, A. «La enseñanza de la historia a través de los textos escolares (1975-2000): historiografía, metodología y formación de identidades». Tesis dirigida por Juana Anadón Benedicto, Univ. Complutense de Madrid, 2016. FOSTER, R. «Biografía de una generación revolucionaria», en Ayer, n.º 93 (2014), 117-135.   GARCÍA MONERRIS, C. «El Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior: otra manera de enseñar y de aprender (la experiencia de la titulación de Historia de la Universitat de València)», en Ayer, n.º 58 (2005), 307-329.   GRACIA CÁRCAMO, J. «Microsociología e historia de lo cotidiano», en Ayer, n.º 19 (1995), 189-222.   GUERRERO ALONSO, P. «"Historia a debate" y la historiografía del siglo XXI», en El futuro del pasado, n.º 2, 2011; pp. 313-334.   GUTIÉRREZ SÁNCHEZ, J. «Presencia y tratamiento de la mujer en los libros de texto: ¿Invisibilidad, transversalidad o patchwork políticamente correcto?». Trabajo Fin de Máster a cargo de M.ª Jesús González Hernández. Univ. de cantabria, Santander, 2012.   GUITTON, Jean. El trabajo intelectual. Consejos a los que estudian y a los que escriben. RIALP, Madrid, 1999.   HERNÁNDEZ SANDOICA, Elena. Tendencias historiográficas actuales: escribir historia hoy, Akal, Madrid, 2004.   HOBSBAWN, Eric. Sobre la Historia, Crítica, Barcelona, 1998.   JENKINS, Keith. Repensar la historia, Siglo XXI, Madrid, 2009.   LE GOFF, Jacques. Pensar la historia: modernidad, presente, progreso. Paidós, Barcelona, 2005.   MARTÍNEZ MARTÍN, J.A. «Historia de la lectura (Presentación)», en Ayer, n.º 58 (2005), 11-14.   MARTÍNEZ MOLINA, M.ª Elena. «La evaluación de Historia de España en COU y Bachillerato». Tesis dirigida por Nicolás Martínez Valcárcel. Univ. de Murcia, 2011. MOLERO GARCÍA, J.M.; RODRÍGUEZ GONZÁLEZ, D.; SANZ CAMAÑES, P. (eds.) «La historia en el aula. Innovación docente y enseñanza de la historia en la educación secundaria», en Historia y Memoria de la Educación, nº. 6 (ejemplar dedicado a: Enseñanza de la historia, análisis de libros de texto y construcción de identidades colectivas), Milenio, Lleida, 2017; págs. 553-555.   PARDO RODRÍGUEZ, L.; GUTIÉRREZ, R. «Perspectivas historiográficas de las prácticas de lectura», en Revista Interamericana de Bibliotecología, 2011, vol. 34, n.º 2; 221-232.   RAUSELL GUILLOT, H. «¿Cómo se enseña la Ilustración en 2.º de Bachillerato? Un análisis de los libros de texto, sus contenidos y la cuestión de género», en Panta Rei, Revista Digital de Ciencia y Didáctica de la Historia (jul., 2017), 109-122.   RUIZ TORRES, P. «Las repercusiones de los cambios culturales de la modernidad en el modo de pensar la biografía», en Ayer, n.º 93 (2014), 19-46.   SÁNCHEZ GARCÍA, R. «Morfología del texto y producción de sentido en la lectura», en Ayer, n.º 58 (2005), 57-86. STEINER, George. Pasión intacta. Ensayos, 1978-1995. Tradución de Menchu Gutiérrez y Encarna Castejón. Siruela, Madrid, 2012.  [vid. Steiner, G. «A new meaning for meaning», en El Urogallo, Madrid, febrero de 1987 (Trad.: Enrique Lynch)]. TROUILLOT, Michel-Rolph. Silenciando el pasado. El poder y la producción de la Historia. Trad.: Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco. Comares, Granada, 2017.   VILLALAÍN BENITO, J.L.  «El proyecto MANES: una aproximación sistemática al estudio de los manuales escolares de los siglos XIX y XX (1812-1990)», en Revista Educación y Pedagogía. Medellín: facultad de educación. Vol. XIII, n.º 29-30 (ene.-sept., 2001), 85-91.  
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sciencenetlinks · 6 years
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AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books Longlists
AAAS and Subaru are pleased to announce the longlist for the 2019 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize. The prize, sponsored by Subaru, has been celebrating outstanding science writing and illustration for all age groups since 2005. Awards are presented in five categories: Children’s Science Picture Book, Middle Grades Science Book, Young Adult Science Book, and Hands-On Science Book. Beyond honoring these books with an award, AAAS and Subaru partner to bring them into the community. Through the #SubaruLovesLearning initiative, the finalists and winning books are donated to schools all over the country. Additionally, we creates free K-12 teaching materials based on the books. AAAS believe that, through good science books, this generation, and the next, will have a better understanding and appreciation of science.
Longlist for 2019 Children's Science Picture Book Award
The Brilliant Deep: Rebuilding the  World's Coral Reefs, by Kate Messner. Illustrated by Matthew Forsythe. Chronicle Books, 2018.
The Great Rhino Rescue: Saving the Southern White Rhinos, by Sandra Markle. Millbrook Press, 2018.
A House in the Sky: And Other Uncommon Animal Homes, by Steve Jenkins. Illustrated by Robbin Gourley. Charlesbridge, 2018.
Iqbal and His Ingenious Idea: How a Science Project Helps One Family and the Planet, by Elizabeth Suneby. Illustrated by Rebecca Green. Kids Can Press, 2018.
It Starts with a Seed: Watch a Tiny Seed Grow into a Wildlife Wonderland, by Laura Knowles. Illustrated by Jennie Webber. Quarto Group/words & pictures, 2017.
Living Things and Nonliving Things: A Compare and Contrast Book, by Kevin Kurtz. Arbordale Publishing, 2017.
Many: The Diversity of Life on Earth, by Nicola Davies. Illustrated by Emily Sutton. Candlewick, 2017.  
What Do They Do with All That Poo?, by Jane Kurtz. Illustrated by Allison Black. Simon & Schuster, 2018.
Longlist for 2019 Middle Grades Science Book Award 
Champion: The Comeback Tale of the American Chestnut Tree, by Sally M. Walker. Henry Holt and Company, 2018.
Impact! Asteroids and the Science of Saving the World, by Elizabeth Rusch. Photographs by Karin Anderson. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.
Itch! Everything You Didn't Want to Know About What Makes You Scratch, by Anita Sanchez. Illustrations by Gilbert Ford. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018.
My First Book of Quantum Physics, by Sheddad Kaid-Salah Ferrón. Illustrations by Eduard Altarriba. Button Books, 2018.
Rewilding: Giving Nature a Second Chance, by Jane Drake and Ann Love. Annick Press, 2017.
She Found Fossils, by Maria Eugenia Leone Gold and Abagael Rosemary West. Illustrations by Amy J. Gardiner. CreateSpace, 2017. [Also available in Spanish.]
Trash Revolution: Breaking the Waste Cycle, by Erica Fyvie. Illustrations by Bill Slavin. Kids Can Press, 2018.
The longlists for the Hands-on and YA categories will be announced later this week. Learn more here.
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weekendwarriorblog · 6 years
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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND 8/17/18 – Crazy Rich Asians, Mile 22, Alpha and More
I’m going to do things a little different this week, because one of my absolutely favorites from Sundance is coming out this weekend, and after seeing it again last week, it’s probably going to end up in my Top 5 for the year, and that is…
JULIET, NAKED (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions)
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I’ve been a fan of Nick Hornby’s writing for a very long time, but when I received a copy of his new book in 2009, I was immediately caught up in its story of a has-been musician, his diehard fan and his ignored wife. I was really excited to hear that it would be adapted by director Jesse Peretz, who had been making big waves (and got an Emmy nod) for directing shows like Girls, New Girl and GLOW. The general story revolves around Rose Byrne’s Annie, a woman living in a British seaside town married to Chris O’Dowd’s Duncan, an avid fan of an American singer-songwriter named Tucker Crowe. Duncan runs a website dedicated to his idol, but when he receives a previously unheard demo recording called “Juliet, Naked,” he gets into a squabble with Annie, because she is quite vocal about how much she hates it (mainly to get Duncan’s goat). When Duncan sleeps with a co-worker, Annie kicks him out, but then the real Tucker Crowe (played by Ethan Hawke) gets in touch with Annie (over her negative review of the rare demos), they begin a transatlantic correspondence that leads to them meeting and more. It’s another great story from Hornby in the vein of About a Boy and High Fidelity, one that creates an amazing portrait of this woman who feels she’s in a rut and how she connects with the famous musician who walked out of a concert 20 years earlier and has been raising a young son in upstate New York.
This is a fantastic romantic comedy from Peretz that’s produced by Judd Apatow and others with all-star writing team including Peretz’s sister Eugenia, Jim Taylor (Sideways) and his wife Tamara Jenkins (The Savages), who all did an amazing job adapting Hornby’s work.  
Here’s my interview with Jesse Peretz over at NextBestPicture... Enjoy!
INTERVIEW WITH JESSE PERETZ
Juliet, Naked will open in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, expand to more cities next week and then hopefully be fairly wide on August 31.
But that isn’t the only Ethan Hawke movie this week, nope. The actor is having quite a good year indeed...
On top of that, Hawke’s latest film as a director, Blaze (Sundance Selects), will be released in Austin on Friday, as it slowly rolls out to arrive in New York City on September 6 and then in L.A. later in September.
Blaze tells the story of Blaze Foley, played by musician Ben Dickey, who was the lesser-known blues singer who collaborated with his friend Townes Van Zandt. Not knowing much about the Austin native, this is a fascinating film by Hawke that shows a lot of his dysfunctional relationship with his Jewish writer wife (and the film’s co-writer) Sybil Rosen, played by Alia Shakat (who is simply fantastic in the role). Musician Charlie Sexton pulls off a respectable version of Van Zandt, and look for cameos by the likes of Sam Rockwell, Steve Zahn, Kris Kristofferson and Hawke’s long-time collaborator, Richard Linklater.
This is another great music-based film from Hawke, and a much better narrative feature than his earlier features, 2006’s The Hottest State and 2001’s Chelsea Walls. There’s also a connection between Foley and Hawke’s Juliet, Naked character, because the fictional Tucker Crowe similarly became the subject of urban legends after vanishing from the public eye following a concert. (Foley was actually killed in a scuffle after recording a live album at one of his club performances, which acts as the framing device for the film.)
And now, back to our previously scheduled wide releases, and how ironic that the proverbial “Dog Days of Summer” would begin last weekend with an actual movie called Dog Days, and it bombed? And a giant shark movie starring Jason Statham opened with almost $45 million… crazy times! Yeah, these last few weekends of August have never been known as a good time to release movies, and most movies that end up here are ones that studios just want to get off their coffers before their even slower fall months. That would normally be the case, but that is definitely not the case with…
CRAZY RICH ASIANS (New Line)
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The first August anomaly is this romantic-comedy based on Kevin Kwan’s best-selling book, which is the first major studio movie since The Joy Luck Club25 years ago to feature a predominantly Asian cast. This one is about an Asian college professor who takes his Asian girlfriend to Singapore for his best friend’s wedding where she discovers that his family is super-rich and he’s a very in-demand bachelor.
The movie features an amazing cast that includes Constance Wu from the hit ABC sitcom Fresh off the Boat, veteran Chinese actress Michelle Yeoh, comic superstar Ken Jeong (Dr. Ken) as well as fresher talent like rapper Awkwafina, last seen in Ocean’s 8, Gemma Chan and newcomer Henry Golding as the male lead. The movie is directed by Jon M. Chu, who has directed an odd number of movies from G.I. Joe: Retaliationto Step Up 3 and the Jem and the Holograms movie, the latter a huge bomb despite being made for not so much money.
Crazy Rich Asians is a romantic comedy, and obviously, there’s a limited audience for the genre normally, but possibly even more when you have Asians in every role, because you’re never sure whether women of other ethnicities will be as interested in this as they might be with Valentine’s Day or other rom-com hits like The Proposal or Pretty Woman. Of course, we can also look at the long-standing legs of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which drew in a large Greek audience at first, but word-of-mouth helped lead it to $241 million domestic, the highest gross for a rom-com ever.
There haven’t been that many successful rom-coms in recent years unless you include Mamma Mia: Here We go Again or Greg Berlanti’s Love Simon, the latter which grossed $40.8 million opening in March with $11.7 million. Crazy Rich Asians is likely to sway more towards the former, I’d imagine.
What’s interesting and maybe not unexpected is that the Asian-American community has been rallying around the movie, whether or not they’ve read the book or even like romantic comedy films, with many entire theaters/screenings being bought up in advance. It’s likely the community realizes that Crazy Rich Asians will need to succeed if they’re going to see more Asians and Asian-Americans in significant leading roles. Even so, you have to remember that Asians only make up 6% of the U.S. population and maybe a little more in Canada, so how much impact can a movie have even if every single Asian person in the country goes to see it? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Crazy Rich Asians is opening on Wednesday, which kind of throws a wrench in trying to project how the movie might do, because a.) people who desperately want to see the movie might rush out to see it on Weds if b.) some might not even realize it opens on Wednesday and will wait for Thursday or Friday. (There weren’t any Tuesday previews to give us any sort of hint of what’s to come.) One presumes the point of the earlier opening is to help drive word-of-mouth for the weekend, although New Line also gave the movie sneak previews last Wednesday, which might do the trick.  Reviews are excellent with it currently holding a respectable 96% on Rotten Tomatoes but there are many more reviews to come.
Expect the movie to do big business on Wednesday and Thursday, possibly $9 to 10 million, and then another $20 million plus over the weekend, although it shouldn’t be surprising if it does more than $30 million in its first five days. After all, we’re definitely entering new territory here. Even so, word-of-mouth should help it over the rest of the summer and into September, so don’t be surprised if it ends up making close to $100 million or more, especially if it’s as good as I’ve heard.
MILE 22 (STXfilms)
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A movie hoping to bring in the business that will have little to no interest in Crazy Rich Asiansis this new action-thriller from actor Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg, who now have made three movies based on real events: Lone Survivor (’13, $125 mil. Gross), Deepwater Horizon (’16, $61.4 mil.) and Patriots Day (’16, $31.9 mil.). That’s a fairly dramatic drop from their first movie to their last one, and Mile 22 is an original story not based on real events about a CIA task force who have to protect an asset from terrorists over the course of 22 miles. (And yes, that does sound a lot like the Bruce Willis-Mos Def movie 16 Blocksfrom 2006, thanks for noticing.)
Besides Wahlberg, it stars Lauren Cohan from The Walking Dead, John Malkovich (who also was in Deepwater Horizon), MMA champ and WWE contender Ronda Rousy, Indonesian martial arts star Iko Uwais (The Raid) and Berg himself. It’s a great cast but we’ve seen similar movies like this one with great casts that don’t do so well from Hotel Artemis earlier this summer to John Hillcoat’s Triple 9 in 2016, although both of them looked like they could be good.
Obviously, Wahlberg is going to be this film’s biggest draw, but his filmography has also run the gamut of hits and bombs. Last year, Wahlberg appeared in Michael Bay’s Transformers: The Last Knight, the comedy sequel Daddy’s Home 2 and the beleaguered Ridley Scott drama All the Money in the World, continuing his run of two to three movies a year with varying degrees of quality and success.
Like so many other movies in theaters and quite a few from STX, Mile 22 is a Chinese co-production, which doesn’t mean a heck of a lot for the film’s domestic success. Last year’s The Foreigner starring Pierce Brosnan and Jackie Chan is a good example as that topped out at $34.3 million domestic after a $13.1 million opening, although that movie did three times its domestic take overseas.
This might be why STX decided to dump the movie into late August, because maybe it isn’t as strong as some of the Berg-Wahlberg’s previous offerings, but is more of a throwaway action-thriller instead. The studio also isn’t screening for critics until Wednesday night, the day before it opens for Thursday previews, so I wouldn’t expect it to be one of “Da Bergs’” better-reviewed films.
On top of that, there’s also just too much competition for older males in theaters, so this might have a hard time doing more than $15 million this weekend, a third place showing, as it struggles to make $35 million by summer’s end.
(Note: I may run a mini-review and make a few changes above after I see the movie tonight.)
ALPHA (Sony)
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The odd dog or wolf of the weekend is this big screen adventure epic set during the Ice Age starring Kodi Smit-McPhee (X-Men: Apocalypse), which looks a lot like Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 BC. Hopefully, it isn’t nearly as bad. (See my review below. It isn’t.)
Alphais the new movie from Albert Hughes, one half of the Hughes Brothers, who broke out with urban crime films like Menace II Society and Dead Presidents before making From Hell with Johnny Depp and The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington. After the latter, the two went their separate ways and after a couple failed projects, Albert decided to make this very different movie as his solo dramatic feature as a director. It’s a strange choice for sure, but Sony have doubled down by giving the movie an IMAX release to push its big-screen nature.
There should be enough awareness of this movie being that it was supposed to come out last November and then earlier this year – I was seeing trailers for this in front of Thor: Ragnarok in early November and over the Christmas holidays as well – but Sony clearly doesn’t have much faith in the movie as they moved it to the dumping ground of late August. The studio has also completely changed the marketing as the movie’s release neared, pushing it more for the wolves that might get women and kids excited to see it. Personally, I don’t see the switch in marketing gears helping much, as I was already tuning out about the movie after seeing the trailers too much last year. (Reviews, surprisingly, are STELLAR so far, but there are only eight on Rotten Tomatoes, so that might change?)
Although people might know about the movie, it really doesn’t look that appealing from the marketing, and it won’t help that schools have already started in many places cutting potential business for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Frankly, it will be a shocker to me if Alpha makes more than $7 million this weekend even with the higher incent and price for IMAX tickets.
Mini-Review: When I was younger, I used to love watching pre-historic epics like 1 Million Years B.C. on television. Hopefully, some young boys and girls will be as inspired by watching Albert Hughes’ solo narrative debut as a director, but Alpha is definitely not the type of movie that should be watched on a television set.
It gets off to a rough start with young Keda (Kodi Smit-Mcphee) not living up to his chieftain father’s hopes as a warrior. When the tribe takes on a herd of buffalo, Keda gets knocked off a cliff and he’s left behind for dead by the tribe. Trying to survive, Keda faces off against a pack of wolves and one of the wolf pack is injured in the melée. The caring young man brings the injured wolf along on his journey of survival as the two of them work together to catch prey and survive. 
This is where Alpha picks up greatly, becoming tale of a boy and his “dog” survival tale that’s charming and heart-warming and not nearly as corny or obvious as the earlier storytelling might lead you to believe. (It doesn’t take long to get over the awkward decision to begin with the buffalo hunt, then cut back a  week as Keda is about to go over the cliff, and then show the buffalo hunt again, throwing Keda over the cliff for real the second time.)
If nothing else, one needs to commend the impressive job by Hughes and team -- from the animal trainers to the visual FX department, sound and music – for bringing this tale to life in a way that keeps you glued to the screen and benefits greatly from the IMAX 3D projection. It might be good to note that all of the film’s dialogue is in some ancient prehistoric dialect, so if your kids are too young to read subtitles, then they may get frustrated by not understanding what is being said.
Though there are problems in the first third, the fact is that if Terrence Malick or Alejandro Innaritu made this exact same movie, it would be thought of as a revelation. The late August release and lesser status of Hughes as a filmmaker will mean this film will mostly be overlooked, which is a true shame.
Rating: 7.5/10
Either way, this weekend could be a close call for #1 between Crazy Rich Asians and the second weekend of The Meg  as both are vying for somewhere in the high-teens to low-$20 millions. Even so, I think the marketing/hype behind the New Line romantic-comedy will be enough to push it over the top to win the weekend.
This week’s top 10 should look something like this…
1. Crazy Rich Asians  (New Line) - $21.5 million N/A 2. The Meg (Warner Bros.) - $19.5 million -56% 3. Mile 22  (STXfilms) - $15.3 million N/A 4. Mission: Impossible – Fallout  (Paramount) - $12 million -40% 5. Christopher Robin  (Disney) - $7.7 million -38% 6. Alpha (Sony) - $7.5 million N/A 7. BlacKkKlansman  (Focus Features) - $7 million -35% 8. The Spy Who Dumped Me  (Lionsgate) - $3.9 million -48% 9. Slender Man  (Screen Gems) - $3.7 million -67% 10. Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again  (Universal) - $3.5 million -40%
LIMITED RELEASES
While I gave some extra attention to Juliet, Naked above, there are a bunch of other limited releases worth checking out this weekend, especially as the wider releases become less interesting to the masses.
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First up is The Wife (Sony Pictures Classics), an amazing drama starring Glenn Close as Joan Castleman, wife of the elderly reknowned author Joseph Castleman (Jonathan Pryce), as the couple travel to Stockholm for him to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature along with their son David (Max Irons). Joe can be a handful and Joan finds herself caught in the middle of a domestic feud between her husband and David, while a pesky biographer played by Christian Slater tries to get info from both Joan and David about Joe, a known philanderer. Directed by Swedish filmmaker Björn Runge, best known for his film Happy End, this is a terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside. The Wife will open in New York and L.A., and there will be QnAs in both cities on Friday and Saturday. Glenn Close and screenwriter Meg Wolitzer will be doing QnAs at the Paris Theater in NYC on Friday night after the 7:30 screening, while Wolitzer will also do a QnA on Saturday night. In LA, actress Annie Starke (who plays the younger version of Close’s character) will be doing QnAs on Friday and Saturday nights at the Arclight Hollywood and the Landmark.
A terrific doc worth checking out is Megumi Sasaki’s A Whale of a Tale (Fine Line Media), which opens at the Quad Cinema in New York and then in L.A. on August 24. If you liked the Oscar-winning doc The Cove, this is sort of a follow-up as the filmmaker travels to the town of Taiji in Japan where the dolphin killings continue. AP journalist Jay Alabaster has embedded himself in Taiji since The Cove came out and along with Sasaki, they document the town’s attempts at making necessary changes without giving up their legacy of “whale-hunting” that’s hundreds of years old. This is the type of movie that might make you question your own ecological leanings even as it gives a fairly well-balanced overview of the situation, particularly between the townspeople of Taiji and the world at large.
Another worthwhile doc is Bing Liu’s Minding the Gap (Hulu/Magnolia), a very personal look at the life of the filmmaker over 12 years living in Rockford, Illinois, focusing on two of his skateboarder friends’ whose upbringings affect their lives, including 23-year-old Zack whose relationship deteriorates after the birth of his son, and 17-year-old Keire trying to deal with the death of his father. The film won a jury prize at Sundance for Breakthrough Filmmaking with Steve James acting as exec. producer. It will get a theatrical release at the Metrograph on Friday as well as being available on Hulu before screening on PBS POV in 2019. (I want to add that this is a fantastic film well worth seeking out... Liu is an amazing new and young filmmaker to watch.)
After premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, the self-explanatory doc Ed Sheeran: Songwriter (Apple Music/Abramorama) will open in select cities. I never got around to watching it, but I’m not really a fan of Sheeran other than him helping to bring the Electric Light Orchestra back together for the Grammys. It opens at the IFC Center on Friday, in L.A. on Aug. 24 and then will be available on Apple Music starting Aug. 28.
A venerable horror franchise returns with its 13th(!) installment Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (RLJE Films), co-directed by Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund from a script by S. Craig Zahler (Brawl in Cell Block 99). It stars Thomas Lennon from the State as Edgar, as a recently-divorced man who returns to his childhood home where he finds an evil-looking Nazi puppet in his brother’s room. For this one, the unmistakable Udo Kier plays the evil puppet master André Toulon, and it also stars Charlyne Yi, Barbara Crampton, Jenny Pellicer and Nelson Franklin. I hope to watch it soon, but I’ve heard some atrocious things about the overt racism in the movie.
As far as other and hopefully tamer genre films, if you’re in New York City, you can see The Ranger, the directorial debut by Larry Fessenden’s producing partner Jenn Wexler, when it plays at the IFC Center, following its Closing Night premiere at What the Fest?! and Fantasia in Montreal. It will also screen in L.A. on Sept. 7. It stars Chloë Levine as Chelsea, a girl who hangs out with her punk friends who get in trouble when her boyfriend stashes drugs in her bag, so they head to a cabin in the wilderness where they encounter a ranger. It premieres on Thursday night with many QnAs with Wexler, producer Heather Buckley and the cast over the weekend.
A movie that premiered at Sundance that I wasn’t that into was Jeremy Zagar’s adaptation of Justin Torres’ novel We the Animals (The Orchard), about three young boys going through their adolescence under the gaze of parents (Raul Castillo, Sheila Vand) who have their own tumultuous relationship, and are trying to protect the youngest Jonah from heading the same direction as his older siblings. It opens in New York Friday at the Angelika and Landmark 57 West, then will expand to L.A., San Francisco, Boston and Philadelphia next Friday. Although I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie, it is a nice fictional counterpart to Minding the Gap.
Ricky D’Ambrose’s Notes on an Appearance (Grasshopper Films) deals with the disappearance of a young man named David and the two people who go looking for him but become diverted by the strangers they meet on the journey.  It opens at New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center on Friday.
Opening in New York and L.A. on Friday and on Demand Sept. 4is Josh Crockett’s dark comedy Dr. Brinks & Dr. Brinks (Gravitas Ventures) about estranged brother and sister who reunite after the death of their parents.
Based on Lois Duncan’s Y.A. novel of the same name, Down a Dark Hall (Summit/Lionsgate Premiere) stars AnnaSophia Robb as Kit, a difficult girl set to a boarding school to deal with her temper via the headmistress Madame Duret (Uma Thurman) and the other four young women. Also starring Isabelle Fuhrman from Orphan, it opens in select cities, On Demand and on iTunes Friday.
Emmanuel Finkiel’s Memoir of War (Music Box films), opening in New York this Friday at the Film Forum and Film Society of New York and in L.A. at the Laemmle Royal and Regal Edwards Westpark 8 next Friday, adapts Marguerite Duras’ novel The War: A Memoir, and it stars the ever-present Mélanie Thierry as Duras. In 1944, Duras was a Resistance member along with her writer husband Robert Antelme. When he is sent to the Dachau concentration camp, she becomes friendly with a French collaborator (Benoît Magimel)to get information to help her group. (Interesting fact: Duras was the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima, Mon Amour.)
A few more odds and ends…
Shirley McLane and Gina Gershon star in a modernized live action adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid co-directed by Blake Harris and Chris Bouchard. Not sure what more can be said about that.
Opening in New York at the Cinema VillageFriday before its digital release on Sept 4 is the doc Davi’s Way (2B Films) about Italian-American Robert Davi, a Frank Sinatra enthusiast and stylist who prepares to recreate Sinatra’s famous 1974 concert at Madison Square Garden.
Actor Peter Facinelli makes his directorial debut with the dark comedy Breaking & Exiting (Kali Pictures / Freestyle Digital Media), starring Milo Gibson as house thief Harry who stumbles upon (film co-writer) Jordan Hinson’s Daisy and tries to save her from herself.
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Not a ton of repertory things on my radar other than a Winona Ryder retrospective at the Quad Cinema called “Utterly Winona,” including all her great movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s. I guess there’s a Truffaut retrospective at the Metrograph, but you know what I always say: Truffaut... Tru-cares? (I don’t always say that so don’t write me angry letters Truffaut-fans. I don’t mean to cause a Trufuffle for anyone.)
Last but not least, streaming giant Netflix offers the Spanish film The Motive from Manuel Martin Cuenca based on the novel by Javier Cercas, about an aspiring writer who seeks inspiration for his novel by manipulating lives.
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