David Gordon Green, a self-anointed “fringe filmmaker” I’ve loved for almost 20 years, has the biggest movie in the world right now. Amazing and heart-warming.

DGG’s new film, Halloween Kills, is the kind of franchise flick I love. Horror, silly, light, trope-heavy, and ultimately made simply to be fun (but with sneaky social commentary).

Props to David Gordon Green, who has made about a million films already (actually just 15), and he’s not even 47 yet. What a wonderful talent.

Halloween Kills, DGG’s second Michael Myers film, made a whopping $50 million over its first three days of release, topping juggernauts like Venom: Let There Be Carnage, No Time To Die, The Addams Family 2, and Shang-Chi. Impressive. I haven’t seen the film, but I hear it’s very satisfying.

The latest James Bond flick, No Time To Die, took the No. 2 spot at the domestic box office with $24 million in sales, upping the flicks 10-day worldwide sales total to $447 million. Foreign folks really love James Bond. But I’ve heard mixed things about the film.

Andy Serkis’ Venom: Let There Be Carnage took the No. 3 spot at the box, selling a decent $16.5 million over its third weekend of release, bringing the film’s 17-day domestic sales total to $115 million. So far, Venom has made $283 million worldwide, securing that, yes, we will definitely get a third Venom film. Fine. Whatever. Money talks.

The Addams Family 2 continued to roll, taking the No. 4 spot at the box with another $7.2 million in sales, upping the children’s flick’s 17-day sales total to $42 million.

And, finally, rounding out the Top 5 was Ridley Scott’s new film, The Last Duel, which sold just $4.8 million over its opening weekend. Ouch. This is a big film made by a big filmmaker starring big movie stars, and yet it bombed.

What do we learn here? Well, we learn that a whole lot of you aren’t going to the movies anymore. Those of you out there complaining about how superhero films are dumbing down America aren’t doing your part.

I hear The Last Duel is one of the best films of the year, and plan to see it ASAP.

I’m not gonna say “the movies are back” or anything wild like that, but the overall domestic box office has been well over $100 million per weekend over the last four weekends.

This is after well over a year in which the average weekend gross has been under $50 million. We’ll see if this continues as the prestige season continues.

This is a huge weekend at the movies for fellas like myself.

Not only do we finally get Denis Villeneuve’s much-discussed take on Dune, which looks like one of the most gorgeous films ever, but we finally get Wes Anderson’s new movie, The French Dispatch, which will almost certainly be one of the most gorgeous films ever.

So those two are out everywhere, as is children’s flick Ron’s Gone Wrong, which I’m sure will be silly fun for the kiddos. But this weekend will likely be mostly about Dune, Halloween Kills, and probably No Time To Die. I hope Anderson’s film does well but I doubt it.

As much as I want to talk about how I attempted to go to Todd Haynes’ Velvet Underground film in New York City this past weekend (it was sold out), I have to take this opportunity to rank the films of one of the most important filmmakers of my lifetime, Wes Anderson.

I first fell for Wes in 1998 when I saw his second movie, Rushmore, at the Coventry 13 theater. I ended up seeing that one several times, then eventually went to the Suncoast video store in Glenbrook and bought his first movie, Bottle Rocket. Both movies became obsessions for me.

When The Royal Tenenbaums, Anderson’s third film, was released, I took the day off from work and saw it three times that day.

Wes has been important to me ever since, and I’ve liked everything he’s done along the way.

Anyhow, in celebration of Wes Anderson having 10 feature films, here it is, my ranking of the Wes Anderson catalog before The French Dispatch hits theaters:

1. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, A+)

2. Rushmore (1998, A+)

3. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004, A+)

4. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014, A)

5. Bottle Rocket (1996, A)

6. Isle of Dogs (2018, A)

7. The Darjeeling Limited (2007, A)

8. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009, A-)

9. Moonrise Kingdom (2012, B+)