 | By Danielle Dowling |
Hey there, film fans!
Swiftmas came a day early as "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" hit movie theaters yesterday. For the relatively paltry sum of about $20, fans are reliving the "Eras" experience or finally partaking in it. For another $20, they can buy a souvenir popcorn tin at AMC Theaters with the less-than-inspiring marketing line "Swifties Always Snack in Style." How about instead: "Let's all go to the lobby and have ourselves a Swack"? And what would this Swack be, you ask? Glitter popcorn. Imagine heaping piles of popped kernels lovingly dusted with golden butter-flavored flecks or pink sprinkles of Himalayan sea salt or both. How is this not a thing? (Oh, wait, it kind of is.)
Anyway, advance ticket sales for Swift's concert film exceeded $100 million, and analysts are having difficulty predicting just how much it will make in its first weekend. "The fever and scale is unprecedented," David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers, told Brooks Barnes.
Bringing a live music performance such as this one to the screen is no easy feat, Calum Marsh writes. He spoke with the directors and sound professionals involved in capturing that magic, including John Ross, the rerecording mixer on "The Eras Tour" and a veteran of several hit concert films. "The main thing we're trying to do is provide the theatrical audience with the best seat in the house," Ross said.
"The Exorcist: Believer," last weekend's box office winner, was released early to avoid getting lost in this Swift mania. Not so "Anatomy of a Fall," Justine Triet's rumination on perspective wrapped around a murder mystery, which is in select theaters today. Our reviewer Amy Nicholson found the film a tad inscrutable. "In a sense, Triet has mapped a path to nowhere," Nicholson writes. "You can respect her choice intellectually and still walk away grumbling in frustration — or appreciate the humor of this year's Cannes jury definitively awarding her film the Palme d'Or."
If you want to avoid the theaters altogether this weekend, the streaming platforms have several gems: "The Burial," on Amazon Prime Video, is "front-loaded with a sentimentality it ultimately doesn't need," but it "develops into a lively courtroom drama," with a first-rate cast and "bravura performances" from Tommy Lee Jones and Jamie Foxx, Glenn Kenny writes. Claire Shaffer recommends the "beguiling and terrifying" film "In My Mother's Skin," also on Amazon. "True to classic folklore, this is a story that delivers fantasy and queasiness in equal measure," she writes.
And if you have a hankering for other unique horror treats, Erik Piepenburg puts forth five candidates for your streaming consideration, including "Megalomaniac," an examination of generational trauma and mental illness that "looks like a Dior commercial but with stomach-churning violence swapped in for chic pantsuits." No matter where you go or what you watch, enjoy the movies — and don't forget the (glitter) popcorn.
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