July Movies

This July there’s no shortage of fun summer movies coming out, which makes the dark and disturbing ones all the more dark and disturbing. 

I’m not sure how I managed to do this but I did not read The BFG in grammar school. I remember my classmates reading it and we all said BFG stood for Big Fat Guy and thought that was hilarious, so yeah, I never got around to reading it. Apparently it stands for Big Friendly Giant, so we were 1 for 3, and it is indeed about a giant who is friendly. But he is an outcast because, and remember this is a children’s story, he doesn’t eat children. People love this book and it’s directed by Steven Spielberg, so this one might be a pretty darn good nostalgic tear jerker. 

Much like the little engine, The Purge series is the little action/horror series that could. Made on a small budget the first one takes place on ‘Purge’ night, a night where all crime is legal and many, many people commit horrible crimes - legally. The first one is primarily a small, home invasion thriller. It made a lot of money on a small budget and since the Saw series had run its course, the industry, and viewers, needed a new [SR1] low budget series that yielded big results in theaters. So The Purge: Anarchy was made. This time it was focused on one man, only known as Sergeant, who tries to survive the night while gunning for the man who killed his son. Each film touches on the fact that the rich stay protected in their homes while the poor are left to fend for themselves on the street. The Purge: Election Year brings back Sergeant who is now in charge of security for a presidential nominee who wants to do away with the Purge. As with any presidential nominees big claims she is met with resistance and the group in charge of the Purge wants to do away with her and thus begins another violent night out on the streets on Purge night. You know what you’re getting into when watching these films. They’re fast and brutal and most certainly not for everyone.

I like the idea of a film beginning in the middle of a story. It’s an interesting approach but ultimately it’s just a set up for prequels and we all know how Star Wars wound up.  In The Legend of Tarzan our titular hero, Alexander Skarsgard, has put his limb swinging days behind him and is living in London but hears word of a mining job that disrupts his old home and goes off to save the day. I was initially very uninterested but the trailer for this is pretty cool, the cast is great and it’s by the director of several Harry Potter films (the mature darker ones, not the yay we’re kids and we can do magic ones) so tonally this might be a darker themed film. It’s also got Christoph Waltz in it and he just doesn’t know how to act poorly.

I’m a dog owner now so I’m now more likely to see a movie like The Secret Life of Pets, which is about an adventure pets embark (get it, bark) on when one of their group goes missing. Originally I thought it was just about pets hanging out at home while humans go to work, but I guess all of these goofy cartoons need to have a conspiracy subplot and that’s fine. The biggest selling point is from the trailer when a snooty dog owner leaves for the day and once he is out of the house the dog promptly turns on a System of a Down song and rocks out. If that part was just shot for the trailer and doesn’t wind up in the movie, I will be disappointed. 

If there was ever a time to make a raunchy comedy starring Anna Kendrick, Zac Efron, Aubrey Plaza and Adam Devine now is that time. They’re on the top of their game right now so they might as well have some fun before they either become character actors or have to do serious acting gigs. In Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Efron and Devine play hard partying brothers who are asked by their sister to find proper wedding dates for her wedding. They have a history of going overboard at family events so they promise to try and think they’ve found perfect dates, Kendrick and Plaza. When they get to Hawaii for the wedding they soon realize they’ve been tricked and Kendrick and Plaza are even harder partiers than Efron and Devine. I’m sure it all just gets more ridiculous and more R-rated from there.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a Viggo Mortensen movie right? He was a character actor in the 90’s, then became very popular with the Lord of the Rings films but since then he’s taken on smaller projects and Captain Fantastic is no different. Viggo plays a father who has raised six kids in isolation in the Pacific Northwest to be physically fit and very smart. When they are forced from their home they are not at all prepared for the real world because today in the real world being smart and in good shape doesn’t mean you’ll be successful. Kind of sad but that seems to be the point in what looks to be a poignant, charming little movie.

Every time there’s a reboot there’s going to be people who are against it, so it comes as no surprise that there is a large amount of disdain surrounding Ghostbusters - a reboot of a film that everyone I know enjoys. Some people just don’t like it when you remake/reboot a classic and that I can understand. But some pretend to feel that same way but really they’re just sexist jerks, since this time around the Ghostbusters are females. It’s from the same people that made Bridesmaids, The Heat and Spy, one of my favorite movies from last year so I’m looking forward to it. I do wish that it was a continuation from the original story and not a total reboot, but the cast is great and the ghosts look freaky so I’m thinking I’ll enjoy this one.

I forget just how busy an actor John Leguizamo is, but looking at his film credits he has had a small role in lots of movies that I’ve seen -some pretty recent ones, too - and he’s been busy as Sid the Sloth in the Ice Age series (which I’ll get to in a little bit). He’ll also have a supporting, and hopefully bigger than usual, role in The Infiltrator. The film stars Bryan Cranston, an actor who gets a lot of well-deserved praise, as an undercover customs agent who’s tracking the money flowing to and the drugs flowing from Pablo Escobar. We’re over-due for a well-made, well-produced, period piece true crime story so I have high hopes for this, as long as the story is kept interesting and it doesn’t become a depressing mess or an over the top action film that so many drug dramas turn into.

Now that J.J. Abrams has left the Star Trek universe and joined the Star Wars universe, we can expect some different things in Star Trek Beyond, the first installment in the newly rebooted franchise. I didn’t mind the 2^nd, but it sort of lived up to the ’Into Darkness’ subtitle so I believe this one will be lighter and more fun. It’s from the mastermind Justin Lin (I recognize that I’m over editorializing here) that turned the Fast and Furious series into the giant that it is today. This time around the crew of the USS Enterprise gets stranded on an alien planet and must survive the elements. Kirk must round up his crew and fight a whole new enemy. It sounds vague but the trailer and available descriptions don’t give a lot of information. It will be the first of many films to come out featuring Anton Yelchin after his unfortunate passing, so that might take a toll on the tone, but the producers did make a wise choice and gave Scotty, Simon Pegg, a shot at co-writing the screenplay. Since he helped make Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, I’m thinking we’ll have a good time at the movies. 

In the first Ice Age, the film not the actual age, the creators apparently reached out to the American Museum of Natural History so there might be some accuracy in the depiction of the creatures and environments shown in the film. That’s a nice bit of effort put forth for a kid's movie right? Well after 4 movies they’ve given up on accuracy because now in the 5^th (did you know they made that many?!) entry in the series, Ice Age Collision Course, the little acorn chasing creature featured in all of the films blasts off to space somehow and begins a world ending event. It’s wild that given enough time many film series nowadays will eventually deal with a world ending event. So now that the world is in danger Ray Romano, Denis Leary and John Leguizamo have to save the day. Yay. I haven’t seen any of these since the first one.

Is everyone afraid of the dark or is that just something I, and many movie producers, assume to be true? Well those movie producers are banking on it with Lights Out, another film that deals with a creature that attacks when the, well I’m sure you can guess. A sister and brother are tortured by a being that appears once the lights are out, it is somehow connected to their mother. They need to figure out why this thing is attacking them - and keep the lights on. The trailer for this is super creepy so if you’re looking for some good jump scares, I think this is the movie. 

Mike Birbiglia is on a real short list of comedians I’ve seen live so I think the fact that he also makes movies is pretty cool. His first one was Sleepwalk with Me, which was a sort of docu-comedy about his standup career, his relationships and his battle with sleepwalking. It’s real charming and funny. He’s again writing, acting and directing in Don’t Think Twice, a comedy about an improv group and the one member who goes on to make it big. I really like the cast they have for this one. It’s got Birbiglia, Keegan-Michael Key, Kate Micucci and Gillian Jacobs. It might not get a wide release but I think this one is worth finding.

Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell were stars of two T.V. shows I loved and starred in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but they weren’t friends in that one. Fortunately in Bad Moms they do play friends. The two of them join Kathryn Hahn as fed up, over-worked mothers who haven’t had a good time in a long time and decided to let loose and party. This goes against stereotypes and angers the PTA leader, Christina Applegate, and well, it’s from the writer of The Hangover, so I imagine things escalate to comically over the top levels. 

After 3 pretty cool movies and one not starring him, Matt Damon has returned to his action franchise with Jason Bourne and so has Julia Stiles. I always forget she’s in these movies. Bourne suffers amnesia and cannot fully remember his past as a government agent, so he digs deeper and deeper and every stone he turns reveals yet another secret, along with some hired killer trying to stop him. He always manages to escape and find out more secrets about his past - and anger another government organization. These movies are pretty unique in that the style of action is quick cuts, but it actually looks good. The actors, directors and editors really put together cool movies and even after all of these years Damon, looks like the action star we always forget he is.