August Movies
By: Kyle Davidson
It’s August and this month
there’s no shortage of big summer movies and not ones just for kids! There’s
also 3 reboots. Not surprising.
Reboot number one is Fantastic
Four. The tale of four people who, in this version anyway, travel to
another universe and each come back with various powers. There’s a guy who can
stretch, a girl who can turn invisible, a guy who can burst into flames and a
guy who can turn into a giant rock monster. From the director of Chronicle, a
super cool low budget super hero movie, comes a new interpretation of these
characters than the ones from a few years ago that featured Jessica Alba and
the man who would be Captain America. This one is probably a bit darker and not
as goofy as the other series so I’m thinking it will be less fun. For some
reason every comic series outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe thinks that
the best route is to make dark movies.
Batman ruined it for everyone.
Masterminds is a new movie from the creator of Napoleon Dynamite,
so it shouldn’t surprise you that it looks super weird. It’s the story of an
armored truck driver, played by Zack Galifianakis, who gets roped into a scheme
and steals a whole lot of money. Where there’s a lot of money there’s a lot of
characters involved with said money. In this film those people are played by
Kristen Wiig, Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis. The plot may sound standard but
the execution will probably be odd and all of these characters have the
wonderful ability of looking quite fitting in odd movies.
What do you get when you bring
together the director of Silence of the Lambs, the writer of Juno and Meryl
Streep? A film called Ricki and the Flash, that’s what! Streep plays a
rock and roller who left her family for a life on the road and has now returned
to right some wrongs. She is not all that welcome because she pretty much upset
everyone she ever knew. Her band is the only thing that helps her keep it all
together and Mr. Jessie’s Girl himself, Rick Springfield, is one of her band
members and has a thing for her. That guy has a surprising IMDB resume - I had
no idea. Streep’s daughter is played by her real life daughter and her husband
is played by her real life Sophie’s Choice co-star Kevin Kline. Is that in poor
taste making a pointless Sophie’s Choice reference? I could have easily gone
with A Prairie Home Companion.
There is apparently a TV series
called Shaun the Sheep; it’s from the Wallace and Grommit creators. If
you don’t know what that is, it’s made by the same people that made Chicken
Run. If you don’t know what that is, Mel Gibson is in Chicken Run. If you don’t
know who he, is it’s because you only recently learned to read and this is the
first thing you read. I suggest you start elsewhere. This is the first full
length feature of the titular sheep who one day decides to wander off his farm
because he’s tired of the monotony of farm life. Aren’t we all? So it seems
like he goes all Ferris Bueller (you better know who Ferris Bueller is) and
takes the day off and gets into all sorts of trouble. By the way, this is a
British series so that might be why you (and by you I mean I) haven’t heard of
it.
Reboot number two
is The Man from U.N.C.L.E., another in a long line of old school spy TV
show reboots like Mission: Impossible, Get Smart and I Spy. Guy Ritchie
used to direct small budget crime films, some that were super cool, then he
made Sherlock Holmes and has yet to go back to his smaller roots. This one
stars current Superman, Henry Cavill as C.I.A. agent Napoleon Solo and past
Lone Ranger/ current trust fund kid Armie Hammer as KGB agent Illya Kuryakin.
The two work for different governments but they must join forces to stop a
criminal organization from taking control of nuclear weapons. The thing that
separates this one from the other reboots is that it is a 60’s period piece so
if nothing else it will look very cool.
Stand by Me,
American Pie, Drive Me Crazy, Pretty Woman, Footloose, Sixteen Candles, Sweet
Home Alabama and Straight Outta Compton. What do all of these films have in common? Hardly
anything except that each film is named after a song. That’s where the
comparison ends. Straight Outta Compton is the true story about the rap
group NWA. The most popular members of the group being Dr. Dre, whose name is
attached to those headphones people were going crazy about, and Ice Cube, who
was in those family comedies. Before this they were young men trying to survive
their tough neighborhood and their way of handling it was to put a rap group
together and make music based on the way they lived. It was tough, it was real,
it was violent and it was pretty good stuff. Straight Outta Compton is one of
their most famous hits. Another hit has a word I can’t write in here; the point
of the song is to say they don’t appreciate the police. That’s probably the
best way to put it. These songs made them a target and they made some waves
when all they were trying to do was make music. This is from the director of Friday,
which is probably the funniest movie about growing up in a tough neighborhood.
Judging from the trailer it looks like he knows how to take things seriously.
Ice Cube’s character is portrayed by his real life son and Paul Giamatti plays
the producer who helped make them stars.
Kristen Stewart and
Jesse Eisenberg are pretty well known actors who, from what I can tell, are
disliked by the public. Stewart can be too dry, Eisenberg can be too jerky. So
is it a good idea for them to star in American Ultra together? This is
actually the second movie they’ve starred in together, the first being a little
film called Adventureland, which was in no way related to Eisenberg’s
Zombieland. In this film the two of them play small town stoners who are one
day targeted for elimination by government agents. Eisenberg’s character
discovers that before he settled into his humble existence he was a trained,
programmable killer and it seems that he just forgot about that for one reason
or another. When people come into his town to kill him he is able to put all of
his skills to use and get into action mode. This is written by Max Landis, son
of the guy who brought us Animal House, Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf
in London. Not to say this movie will be as good as those but it’s interesting
nonetheless.
Reboot number three
is Hitman: Agent 47¬, based on a video game series about a bald, sharp
dressed hired gun known as Agent 47 who sneaks around and dispatches his
targets silently and professionally. In 2007 they made a movie called Hitman.
It kept the name and aesthetic but instead of a craftily made thriller it was
just a shoot em’ up. Financially it did okay but the movie was an incoherent
mess, one that I kind of enjoy. The video game series is apparently still
popular because here we have this new movie which, from the trailer, is another
shoot em’ up - not that that’s a problem. The lead does all of the action and
Zachary Quinto is a man trying to uncover the secret behind Agent 47.
After Birdman, I thought we’d see
more films about Broadway. From what I can tell we haven’t but here’s one at
least. In She’s Funny That Way, Owen Wilson is a director of a play,
Will Forte is his playwright, Imogen Poots is his girlfriend, Katherine Hahn is
his wife, Rhys Ifans is his wife’s ex and Jennifer Anniston is dating his
playwright and is his girlfriend’s psychiatrist. All of these people work their
way into the story of putting on the play and a love hexagon develops. This
probably will be nothing like Birdman, but it’s another ensemble cast putting
on a play so the comparison was easy.
