Dunkirk conquers Emoji, Atomic Blonde at box office
This sports drama centres on a fictional famous soccer academy (Thunder U21), based in Montreal. Enjoy the on-andoff field antics and scandal in a drama that bills itself as, “a story of love, crime, race, sex and athletic glory.”
The magnetic Canuck actor Colm Feore guest stars as a crime boss with family ties to a rising, young soccer star.
Meanwhile, “it’s raining sharks, hallelujah!” After destroying most of America, falling sharks are devouring everything from the Great Wall and the pyramids to Big Ben. Tara Reid and Ian Ziering return as the heroic couple that always stops the toothy menaces (the actors, after all, must earn their once-a-year pay cheques). New guest stars include Olivia Newton-John, skateboarder Tony Hawk, and Fabio (playing the Pope.)
Another is always reason to dive into your comfy chair. It’s the ultimate summer silliness in the silliest of TV seasons. I’m already looking forward to Thorogood Crook
Legendary guitarist/vocalist, George Thorogood, goes solo with the aptly titled
The acoustic-driven album features covers of traditional and hit blues songs, including John Lee Hooker’s and The Rolling Stones’
Meanwhile, up-and-coming Canadian roots band, Johnson Crook, releases its full-length debut. Harmony-filled roots rock is welcome in today’s music scene, and fans should be ready to embrace a new homegrown talent. Moreover, the Toronto band just released the song
for Canada’s 150th birthday.
Who knew Canada needed its own blues-rock song? I assume the alternate titles for the track included
On a side note, veteran Tom Cochrane turns up for guest vocals on the band’s new song Mr. Nobody, he ain’t. Party on, George. People will be listening.
Randy Newman This album includes Newman’s 2016 song, a brassy and sardonic number about the Russian leader that Newman was inspired to write after seeing a picture of Putin without a shirt. (Thank god Newman isn’t a visual artist.)
LINDSEY BAHR
LOS ANGELES —
survived negative reviews but couldn’t conquer which had enough fight left to conquer the box office for a second weekend in a row.
Down only 44 per cent from its first weekend, director Christopher Nolan’s Second World War film earned $28.1 million to take first place, according to studio estimates on Sunday. has grossed $102.8 million domestically to date. Sony Pictures Animation’s
finished second with $25.7 million. The film featuring the voices of T.J. Miller and Anna Faris as anthropomorphized emojis got pummelled by critics. It’s currently resting at a dismal 8 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences still turned out.
“It’s great when the critics and audiences are in sync but in the end it comes down to: Has the film reached the intended audience?” said Adrian Smith, Sony’s president of domestic distribution. “Seeing these results, it clearly has.”
Sony is expecting the film, which cost an estimated $50 million to produce, to play well for the rest of the summer.
The divide between reviews and a film’s success has been a continuing topic this summer, as some films, such as capsized under poor reviews, and others like seemed immune.
“Kids don’t care about reviews, and there is a severe lack of family films in the marketplace,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst for comScore.
But, also fell at the box office throughout the weekend after a strong Friday when it placed No. 1, which Dergarabedian thinks could be due to negative word of mouth on social media. By contrast, the extremely wellreviewed rose throughout the weekend.
Also holding on quite well is Universal Pictures R-rated comedy which fell a miniscule 36 per cent from its debut weekend to take third place with $20.1 million.
Eveninweekendtwo,GirlsTripbeat out the splashy new Charlize Theron actionflickAtomicBlonde,distributed by Universal’s boutique label Focus Features. opened in fourth with $18.6 million.
“We think it’s a really solid opening for the movie and think that the film is going to have a nice long life at the box office for the summer,” said Lisa Bunnell, president of distribution for Focus Features.
Theron produced and stars in the film about a British spy on a mission in Berlin near the end of the Cold War. It cost an estimated $30 million to produce. While reviews were generally positive, audiences gave the film a middling B CinemaScore, which could affect its word-of-mouth potential. In fifth place was
now in its fourth weekend in theatre. The new web-slinger added $13.5 million which bumped its domestic total to $278.4 million.
has now officially passed both movies at the North American box office, although it is still lagging significantly behind the Tobey Maguire films.
While the summer box office remains down from last year, audiences are still turning out for some of the buzzier specialty releases. Annapurna Pictures rolled out the Kathryn Bigelow film about an incident during the 1967 riots, a week before its nationwide launch in 20 theatres in 10 markets including Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore and Atlanta.
“We were doing early word of mouth screenings, and they were very strong. People were hanging in the lobby of theatres after talking and talking. We decided to kick-start the conversation early,” Annapurna distribution president Erik Lomis said. “We’re really excited to launch this picture.”
earned a strong $365,455 from the limited launch.
Also playing well in limited release is the Al Gore-led climate change documentary which took in $130,000 from four locations.