Melania documentary struggles in UK cinemas as Vue admits sales are ‘soft’

Only one ticket sold for premiere of film about US first lady at Vue’s flagship London branch as insiders question launch strategy As film exhibitor strategies go, counter-programming is one of the most reliable. It worked for The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia!, released in the US on the same day in 2008, as well as for Dunkirk and Girls Trip in 2017 . In 2023, Barbie and Oppenheimer leveraged the tactic to the tune of $2.5bn in combined box office takings. This week we could see another example as Amazon releases its authorised documentary about Melania Trump in more than 100 UK cinemas. There it will compete against an already-eclectic slate of releases including the Jason Statham action film Shelter, the ape horror Primate , Bradley Cooper’s comedy-drama Is This Thing On? and Richard Linklater’s Jean-Luc Godard fictionalisation Nouvelle Vague . Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/KZHyf0R via IFTTT

Drive-Away Dolls review – Ethan Coen’s lesbian road trip is a cheerfully nonsensical caper

Geraldine Viswanathan lends a quiet seriousness to her role that anchors this otherwise flimsy, silly story

Here is a saucy, silly, queer road-movie caper from director Ethan Coen and his partner, co-writer and co-producer Tricia Cooke; it’s Coen’s second film without his brother, Joel, following his Jerry Lee Lewis documentary in 2022. Drive-Away Dolls is a flimsy lark wrapped up smartly and economically in 84 minutes with a perfunctory (and cheerfully nonsensical) MacGuffiny premise that makes it look like a Xerox of Coen brothers classics such as No Country For Old Men or Fargo. Lead player Margaret Qualley’s twangy down-home accent is moreover something that could have been re-thought in rehearsal. But it rattles along watchably enough. Geraldine Viswanathan nicely underplays her part and Beanie Feldstein delivers the gags with resounding gusto. There’s a nice sprinkling of A-lister cameos, including Colman Domingo, who I wished had been in the action a bit more.

Jamie (Qualley) has just broken up with her formidable girlfriend Sukie (Feldstein) and needs to get away for a while. So she goes on a road trip to Tallahassee, Florida with her strait-laced friend Marian (Viswanathan), having hired a car on a one-way “driveaway” basis from a rental company run by a stolid fellow played by character stalwart Bill Camp. Jamie is on a mission to get Marian laid. But they’ve accidentally got a certain something in their boot, which some very unsavoury characters want to get their hands on.

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