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The independent movie business always seems on the verge of collapse, and yet, every year, it generates a number of wonderful films — both fictional and documentary — that manage to find their way to grateful audiences.
Here are 10 of 2015’s most noteworthy indie movies. Seek them out, not just because the Oscar conversation is likely to involve several of them, but because they’re rewarding experiences that will refresh your movie-loving soul. 
She has starred opposite acclaimed actors like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Liam Neeson and Paul Giamatti, but it is her latest co-star, Sir Ian McKellen in “Mr. Holmes,” who has impressed Laura Linney the most.
“I was working with one of my favorite directors and with an actor who I long admired and has a skill set way beyond 99 percent of the actors working,” she reveals to Made in Hollywood.
In the Bill Condon directed mystery-drama, Linney takes on the part of Homles’ widowed housekeeper Mrs. Munro. Set in 1947, Holmes is now 93 years old with his sharp skills in decline. As the frail former detective attempts to solve his latest mystery—dead bees—with help from Mrs. Munro’s young son (Milo Parker), he recalls the facts of his final case through flashbacks.
20067736Sherlock Holmes has been reincarnated many times over since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gifted the literary world with the infamous sleuth in his late 1800s book series.
Basil Rathbone set the pipe-and-deerstalker standard. Recently, there’s the butt-kicking, muscly Holmes portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. in the Guy Ritchie-directed actions films and the Benedict Cumberbatch BBC version with a modern twist.
“More than 100 actors have played Sherlock Holmes with great success, some of them on stage, TV, film, on radio,” Ian McKellen, who tackles the role in “Mr. Holmes,” tells “Made in Hollywood.” “I was comforted by the fact that this is a different Sherlock Holmes.”
In “Mr. Holmes,” the conceit is that the detective is a real person, now retired at 93 years old, his sharp skills are in decline as he attempts to solve his latest mystery — dead bees — with help from a boy. The investigation brings him back to his final case, which happened three decades earlier since his retirement, through flashbacks.
“The real Sherlock Holmes wasn’t quite like the Sherlock Holmes you think you know or that I thought that I knew,” says McKellen “So I didn’t feel I was trampling over anybody else’s territory. This is unique — 93 years old out solving the mystery of the heart.”
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Who won the box office this week? Depends on how you look at it.
We treat the box office like a horse race every weekend, as if the new and old movies were all competing on the same playing field. But the truth is, on any given weekend, every new release is more like a stock IPO, each with its own unique background and set of expectations. They all just happen to be launching at the same time.
So you could view the weekly winner, not necessarily as the movie that sold the most tickets, but the movie that did the best on its own terms. Here’s a look at the movies that made the biggest splash at the ticket counter this weekend, depending on which measure you use.
“Ant-Man“: Yes, “Ant-Man” sold the most tickets in absolute numbers, an estimated $58.0 million worth. But considering how high Marvel has set the bar for its films’ opening weekends, is that really a good number? It’s their lowest opening weekend since 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk.”
Given that most pundits projected a weekend premiere of about $60 million, “Ant-Man” opened a little below expectations. Then again, the tiny hero is a fairly obscure Marvel character, so you can argue that the movie was lucky to do as well as it did, proving (as did “Guardians of the Galaxy” last summer), that, no matter how unfamiliar the superhero, the Marvel brand name alone is enough to conjure up a No. 1 box office debut.
“Minions“: At an estimated $50.2 million, the cartoon did almost as well on its second weekend as “Ant-Man” did on its first.
In 10 days, it has zoomed past $200 million (to $216.7 million) and surpassed by nearly 10 percent the take of predecessor “Despicable Me 2” over its first 10 days ($197.9 million). But then, that film opened on a Wednesday, so its first 10 days included just one full weekend. Also, “Minions” had a sharper drop in its second weekend (57 percent) than pundits predicted. (Some thought it would hold on to enough of last weekend’s business to defeat “Ant-Man.”) That steep drop-off doesn’t bode well for the film’s prospects of out-earning “Despicable Me 2,” which grossed $368.1 million.
“Trainwreck“: The R-rated comedy’s estimated $30.2 million debut, good for third place, is a vindication for first-time movie star/co-screenwriter Amy Schumer, for producer/director Judd Apatow, for the marketers at Universal, and for R-rated comedies targeted toward women.
Despite the growing popularity of the Comedy Central-bred comic actress, the movie was expected to be a tough sell, at least to men. (Indeed, only 34 percent of the audience were guys.) It probably helped that Universal’s ads emphasized Apatow’s role (“from the guy who brought you ‘Bridesmaids,’” said the ads, even though Apatow merely produced that film), or that the filmmakers stocked the cast with LeBron James and other guy-appeal sports stars. But it also suggests that Schumer’s humor has more appeal to men than experts thought.
After all, some pundits predicted the movie would open only in the high teens or mid-20s. In fact, the movie opened on a par with Apatow’s biggest opener yet, “Knocked Up” ($30.7 million), and higher than all the other movies he’s directed.
“Jurassic World“: It’s in fifth place this weekend, with an estimated $11.4 million. But its total to date is $611.2 million, making it only the fourth movie in history to cross $600 million in North America. And it did it in only six weeks.
“Irrational Man“: The new Woody Allen movie opened on just five screens and earned just $188,000. But that’s an average of $37,600 per screen, the highest per-theater average of any movie currently playing.
That doesn’t mean “irrational Man” would have done “Ant-Man” sized numbers if it had opened on thousands of screens, but it does bode well for the movie once it expands onto a few dozen, then a few hundred screens as the summer progresses. Meantime, it’s earned solid bragging rights.
“Mr. Holmes“: The revisionist take on Sherlock Holmes, with Ian McKellen playing the sleuth as a very old man who’s losing his memory, opened on just 363 screens, but it took in an estimated $2.5 million, enough to crack the Top 10 in tenth place. It averaged $6,857 per screen. All those numbers are very good for an independent movie, especially one with a 76-year-old leading man.
It wasn’t all rosy news at the box office. In their third weekends, “Terminator Genisys” and “Magic Mike XXL” both continued to languish. So did four-week-old “Ted 2.”
The lessons? Not every franchise reboot is a guaranteed success, there may not be room in the marketplace for more than one or two films whose primary audience is women, and there are some movies that not even the Universal marketers can sell. Overalll, the box office was down 10 percent from last weekend, which is understandable, given how huge “Minions” was when it debuted with $115.7 million a week ago.
Still, there are many movies this weekend that have reason to celebrate with a toast. Raise your glasses, even if they’re thimble-sized.
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No bad blood here — it’s all mad love!
Ian McKellen sat down with Yahoo to promote his new movie “Mr. Holmes,” and what better way to do that than to read off lyrics to Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars songs? Because Sir Ian can make anything and everything sound important and *Dramatic* — even when wearing some kind of floral print shirt and beads — here he is reciting Taylor’s “Bad Blood” and Bruno’s “Uptown Funk”:
There’s something almost melancholy and wistful about his repetition of Bruno’s “Don’t believe me, just watch.” He’s imploring you. Come on.
But you know who wants in on this? Patrick Stewart. Skipping over Bruno Mars, Sir PatStew tweeted a very polite request to Taylor Swift to join her squad, citing his and Ian’s qualifications:
So @IanMcKellen recited Bad Blood and I did Blank Space on @NPRAskMeAnother. May we join the squad, @taylorswift13? https://t.co/liKBfSzIaU
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) July 16, 2015
Well, as it turns out, there was a Blank Space in Tay’s squad, so she tweeted a fangirl message of her own:
Thanks for reciting my lyrics, @IanMcKellen and @SirPatStew! You’ve made my day. You two are ULTIMATE Squad Goals: pic.twitter.com/pJZY6T5Lq8
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) July 16, 2015
Here’s Sir Patrick’s ridiculously cute response:
OMG I DIE!!! (no really, I might. I’m old.) https://t.co/q4u7FIcMYr
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) July 17, 2015
These kings truly are the ultimate squad goals — and you should check out Moviefone’s gallery below for more examples of how they have set the bar for the rest of us. Don’t believe me, just watch.
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Actors and BFFs Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart aren’t shy about showing their affection for one another, whether it’s McKellen officiating Stewart’s wedding or the pair bro-ing about town in matching bowler hats. But the pair took things to the next level during the recent premiere of McKellen’s latest film, “Mr. Holmes.”
On Wednesday, Stewart attended the London premiere of the flick to support his longtime pal, and ended up performing some serious PDA with his fellow actor. The twosome embraced on the red carpet (which was really a cobblestone walkway), and then locked lips, delighting Stewart’s wife, Sunny Ozell, as well as McKellen’s costars and the fans and media that gathered for the event.
It’s heartwarming to see two men share their platonic love for one another so openly (even if that love is sometimes misconstrued), and it’s even better when it’s two gentlemen as delightful as McKellen and Stewart. Cheers to the “X-Men” costars, and here’s to many more years of their awesome bromance.
Photo credit: Getty Images
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The new film “Mr. Holmes” is a fresh take on the Sherlock Holmes character known the world over, which picks up with the famous detective years after the height of his fame, as he’s grappling with aging and one last, seemingly unsolvable case.
Ian McKellen plays the titular character, who sneers at depictions of his life on the big screen and denies ever donning a deerstalker cap or smoking a pipe (he prefers cigars, thank you very much). Yet despite the legend that he’s become, Holmes still can’t shake the last case of his career, one he failed to solve and which haunts him daily.
He strikes up a friendship with Roger, the young son of his housekeeper (Laura Linney), and re-opens his files, all the while coming to terms with what may be the last chapter of his life. This is treacly territory — old man befriends little boy, feelings ensue — but the cliche seems to be in good hands with McKellen at the helm. The actor, himself in the twilight of his career, is tailor-made for this part, and his soulful performance should imbue this visually-stunning film with even more beauty.
“Mr. Holmes,” directed by Bill Condon (who also directed McKellen to an Academy Award nomination in “Gods and Monsters”), is due in theaters on July 17.
Photo credit: YouTube
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Move over, Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey, Jr. – there’s a new Sherlock Holmes in town.
Ian McKellen plays the famous fictional detective in the upcoming film, “Mr. Holmes,” from director Bill Condon. A new teaser trailer gives us a glimpse at the story: An aging, 90something Holmes is in retirement, living with a housekeeper (Laura Linney) and her young son, when an old unsolved case comes back to haunt him. But the whip-smart detective’s memory isn’t what it used to be, and completing the puzzle won’t be an easy task.
The trailer looks gorgeous, and McKellen seems to be in top form – all in all, a potentially very satisfying piece of Prestige British Filmmaking.
“Mr. Holmes” opens in theaters later this year.
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What happened to Sherlock Holmes after he retired from the private dick biz? Did he ever retire? The upcoming movie “Mr. Holmes” catches up with Sherlock as a 93-year-old man who’s more interested in bee keeping then solving crimes. At the prodding of young Roger, the son of his housekeeper Mrs. Munro, Holmes reflects on his early years, why he retired, and one last unsolved case.
Although “Mr. Holmes” is billed as a mystery, it looks like it will tug a few heartstrings too. After all, who can resist Ian McKellen as an elderly gent contemplating his mortality? The film reunites McKellen with his “Gods and Monsters” director Bill Condon. Incidentally, Laura Linney, who plays Sherlock’s housekeeper Mrs. Munro, was in Condon’s film “Kinsey.” In any case, although Condon’s come to be more famous for his work on the “Twilight” flicks, “Mr. Holmes” looks like a promising venture.
“Mr. Holmes” is due out this summer.
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