Let’s start with Clint Eastwood.

The 94 year old director’s “Juror Number 2” made $5 million over the weekend…in Europe! It’s playing in France, Spain and the UK. So it’s a hit there. And we know that because box office numbers were reported.

But Warner Bros. is not reporting box office for the US, where “Juror Number 2” is playing in just 50 theaters. There’s an unconfirmed number of $300,000 for the US.

“Juror Number 2” is a terrific film and deserves marketing, wider release, and an Oscar campaign. But something screwy is going on. After
“Joker Folie a Deux” drove Warner’s into the ground they should be proud of Eastwood and celebrating him!

Also at the BO: Robert Zemeckis’s “Here” went nowhere. It made $5 million playing on 2,647 screens. It’s one of Tom Hanks’s lowest grossing films in which he stars. No one knows what it’s about, and no one wanted to see it. It’s a movie about technology, apparently. So strange.

“Conclave,” one of the best films of the year, is a hit. After a slow start, the Ralph Fiennes led thriller, directed by Edward Berger, is finding audiences. “Conclave” should be on every top 10 list of the year.

Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain” made $60,000 a apiece in four locations, two in LA and two in NY. Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin are phenomenal in this funny and emotional story of two cousins who reunite for a trip to see their grandmother’s home in Poland before she was taken to a concentration camp. It’s a satisfying if unnerving adventure, real filmmaking. Lots of awards coming.

Earlier this week I reviewed “The Outrun,” which is now on streaming. Saorise Ronan stars in this gem. By all means, for serious film lovers, check it out. Ronan must be nominated for Best Actress.

Sony Pictures Classics has at least three awards films including “The Outrun.” The great Pedro Almodovar’s “The Room Next Door” is a power punch with Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. I’ve reviewed that already. But I’ll have more tonight Walter Salles’s “I’m Still Here,” which also gets an Oscar run in November and is a sensational thriller ripped from the headlines, a true story from 1970 Brazil. Fernanda Torres also deserves a Best Actress nod.

Could SPC have three Best Actress noms — Swinton, Ronan, and Torres? And Supporting Actress for Moore? They should. Quite an achievement!

Election day is coming, but a few other things are happening on November 5th.

“The Outrun,” a movie whose title I can never remember — The Outset, The Upshot? — is coming to streaming after a four week run in theaters.

“The Outrun” made no money in its US theater release and didn’t get much attention, but it’s marvelous. Saoirse Ronan — Oscar nominated for four films including “Ladybird” and “Brooklyn” — gives the performance of her life as Rona, a 29 year old London girl with Scottish roots who is utterly lost. It’s up to Academy voters now to rescue it from oblivion.

The movie, directed by Nora Fingsheidt, takes place in the Orkney Islands on the northern most outstretch of Scotland. It’s winter, and dismal, but also gorgeous, and this is the place Rona (Ronan) lands to get sober after a wild time partying and drinking. Cinematographer Yunus Roy Imer captures of all it brilliantly, exposing the raw nature of Rona’s recovery in muted, washed out colors.

“I’m only happy when I drink,” she says at one point. She’s not kidding. She is dead serious. Her drinking lands in her some pretty tough spots, which we see in flashbacks in the non linear screenplay. Fingscheidt, an award winning German director, cuts back and forth as Rona comes to terms with her parents (the father is severely bipolar), her traumatized childhood, and her sometimes violent present in colorful London.

Saskia Reeves and Stephen Dillane are excellent as the parents. But the movie is all about Rona. You can’t take your eyes off of Ronan. She’s a beacon of light in a dark passage. even though “The Outrun” didn’t score an audience in theaters, I hope it’s embraced on streaming platforms like Apple etc. “The Outrun” is one of the best films of 2024.