july movies

The 3rd rendition of Spider-Man! A new attacking human’s movie! A Christopher Nolan War movie! Another huge sci-fi adventure! An 80's set action flick! A movie that will make you wonder if there are any original ideas left in the world of film!

If you ever wonder why producers are so quick to reboot/remake superhero movies here is my uneducated, unofficial answer: with the right team, cast and marketing every superhero film has the chance to make a billion dollars. How could you pass up that opportunity? Even if the last Spider-Man film was a critical failure and a domestic financial disappointment (made $202 mil, cost 200 mil) it's still worth making another one to try and hit that billion mark. Fortunately Sony, who owns the rights to Spider-Man, saw the writing on the wall, made a deal with Marvel and we the viewer get Spider-Man: Homecoming. After our friendly neighborhood webslinger popped up in Captain America: Civil War, he has to go back to high school. He fought alongside and against some of the world’s most powerful superheroes and he's supposed to just go back to school? Well he has a bit of a problem with that so when a weapons developer (Michael Keaton!!!) gets his hands on alien weaponry and starts messing up NYC, Spidey comes to help. He's still a kid though, and needs help from Tony Stark/Iron Man to save the day. The director has made some small thrillers and this is a big next step. He also worked for The Onion and the writing team has worked on several big comedies and TV shows. The cast also has its fair share of funny people so while the action is why people are going to come, I'm pretty sure the sense of humor will be pretty great too.

The original Planet of the Apes series went in a very different direction than this new series. It involved nuclear weapons and time travel. We're not there in this current series, not yet anyway. After Dawn and Rise, we are now at the War of the Planet of the Apes. The words 'of the' are very popular among movie titles and, barring the wordy titles of the Lord of the Rings movies, this is one of the only other time it's shown up two times, But I'm sure some satire will come out called 'Silence of the Pirates of the Shaun of the Raiders of the Return of the Masters of the Clash of the Apes’. But for now let's see how the War turns out. It's been years since James Franco and Tyler Labine wiped out most of human civilization (watch the first movie) and now the survivors are in a constant battle to remain on top of the food chain. There's some human-ape sympathy but for the most part there is tension and fighting between the two. Woody Harrelson (who is just so darn good at being very dramatic, very funny and very intense when he wants to be) is the leader of an army of humans leading the charge against the apes and their leader Caesar, played once again by Andy Serkis. These films tend to be lots of drama that leads up to a big action finale and being that this is called War, I figure this one won't be different - but it'll probably be exciting.

Christopher Nolan has made films about disorders, magic, space travel, dreams and three movies featuring a character named Batman. After nearly two decades and many hit films he finally has his first war film, Dunkirk. When Allied Forces found themselves surrounded by German forces, they had a very intense battle ahead of them. The battle was fought on land, sea and the air and rather than focusing on one group, Nolan is focusing on all fronts. Tom Hardy will be the pilot we see fight in the air, Mark Rylance will play a civilian who ventures into the battle to help evacuate soldiers and Harry Styles, that kid from One Direction, will play a young soldier on the ground. Nolan loves film and loved practical effects, at one point he wanted to destroy an actual WW2 plane for a scene. This film will most likely be exciting, moving and look great.

The Fifth Element is one of my favorite movies. My wife and I love it so much we named our dog after the lead character. I'm a huge fan and I was very excited when the director, Luc Besson, decided to make another big space adventure. Between Guardians and Star Wars, I'm afraid that American audiences are all spaced out but I still have high hopes, quality wise, for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Valerian, Dane Dehaan, and Laureline,Cara Delevingne, are a pair of government agents sent to the planet of Alpha where representatives of all planets come together in harmony and work together for the better of the galaxy. So of course someone wants to ruin that and the pair must find out who before all is lost. Every movie should stand on its own, but I would be very happy if Fifth Element heavily influenced Valerian and judging by the trailers, that looks to be the case. There are flying vehicles, musical numbers, action galore and weird looking creatures. I can't wait.

Brad Pitt has done a few action movies and we've seen him fight before, well it was all an illusion! Thanks to his stuntman, David Leitch, he has never been in any actual danger of getting punched by Ed Norton. After years of taking Pitt’s punches, he joined forces with the guy that takes Keanu Reeves punches and the two made John Wick - and the action world rejoiced. Leitch was uncredited, probably due to SAG rules, but now he is the sole and credited director for the new Charlize Theron action film Atomic Blonde - and I'm pretty sure the action world will rejoice again. Theron's action career has really taken off since Mad Max: Fury Road, where she totally stole the show. She didn't have much to do in F8 of the Furious but, judging by the trailer, she will have a lot to do in this 80's Berlin Cold War action thriller where she goes undercover with James McAvoy to save the lives of fellow agents. The story could be thin, or it could be complex, but it's the action I'm looking forward to. The key here is long-take action scenes, the days of quick cut
Jason Bourne action is over. John Goodman also appears, he's usually entertaining especially in an action film that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Sir Patrick Stewart is a respected actor of film, television and stage. In The Emoji Movie he'll be voicing the Poop emoji because why the heck not? The film posits that in our phones exists a world called Textopolis where all of the Emoji's live waiting to be used. Looking through the emoji's on my phone I think I've used like 2% of them. I mostly stick with the smiley two handed wave, beer and heart eyes emojis, so my Textopolis would be more of a ghost town. In this town lives Gene, an emoji of many expressions. Gene, voiced by T.J. Miller, wants to be normal and only have one expression like all of the rest. Along with his best friend Hi-5 (who would probably be everyone's best friend) they travel through the apps on the phone to find a way to become one singular expression. I'm sure the producers didn't have to put up any of their own money, the movie was probably completely funded by all of the apps wanting to get in on the movie game. It worked for Angry Birds, after all.  Steven Wright is the Meh emoji. Now that's perfect casting.

june movies

Happy June all! We have a few superhero movies, plenty of comedies and a new movie from the creator of Shaun of the Dead which I'm very much so looking forward to.

The best part of Batman v Superman was when Wonder Woman showed up. Her entrance music played as she helped the bickering heroes put an end to their fight and take on a bigger foe. By the time she appeared many already knew that her solo film would be coming soon. Diana Prince a.k.a Wonder Woman is played by Gal Gadot, who was previously a member of the Fast and Furious family. Her origin story takes place long before the events in BvS during World War 1. Chris Pine plays an American pilot who crash lands near her isolated island home where she was raised and tells her people about the war. She feels she can help and joins him on a quest to put and end to the fighting. I'm a bit wary because it's from the DC camp who just can't seem to make a coherent or entertaining movie but I like the cast and the action looks great. Plus this is starring directed by a woman, that's big for the action genre.

I'm not sure if all schools had this but I remember once a year we had book fairs. For a week books would arrive at my grammar school library and class by class we would rush in and buy books that looked cool or were part of a series we loved. I would always go for Goosebumps but my younger brothers would always go for Captain Underpants. It was the story of two young students who hypnotized their principal into becoming the titular hero and it seems that Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie retains that ridiculous premise. The title and premise seems like it would attract younger viewers, especially if the books are still popular, and turn away adults so hopefully there's some stuff to entertain the older viewers. The writer wrote several R-rated comedies but he also wrote the recent Muppet movies so he might have a decent grasp on balancing comedy for adults and kids

Universal Pictures sees the writing on the wall, the Fast and Furious franchise can only make billions for so long (even as a true fan I see this running out of gas within a decade, especially if The Rock becomes president in 2020). They need to find a way to continue making their precious billions so one day an exec looked in the 'stuff we own the rights to' closet at Universal and realized that they still owned the rights to a bunch of monster movies. The Marvel extended universe is clearly still doing well so why not make a Universal Monster extended universe? It's a stretch but I'm pretty sure that's exactly how it happened. A few years ago they tried with Dracula Untold and it did okay but it did not kick start interest in a Monster Universe so they're trying again with The Mummy. Tom Cruise plays a soldier who uncovers an old tomb, awakens a mummy and meets Mr. Hyde, played by Russell Crowe. The films to follow are supposed to feature Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man and Javier Bardem as the monster in Frankenstein. I don't know how much people want for a summer blockbuster monster franchise but I'm interested.

I don't usually go in for movies about dogs. THEY NEVER END WELL. We get it Hollywood, our pets will die someday but for the love of God can't they survive 90 minutes of screen time?! This is why I am wary about Megan Leavey, a true story about a solider and her dog. Cue water works. Kate Mara plays Leavey, a Marine sent to work with the K9 unit where she meets and bonds with Rex, an aggressive bomb sniffing dog. The two join forces and go on over 100 missions, taking care of explosives and saving a lot of lives in the process. I looked up the true story and there's a happy/sad ending here, so ready the Kleenex.

The first Cars movies is one of my favorite Pixar movies. It has a good message about slowing down and appreciating life rather than racing through it just to look the best, at least that was my take away, and it had some solid voice work by late greats Paul Newman and George Carlin. I didn't see the second one, I had heard it was the worst Pixar movie but that bar is hard to judge because as far as I'm concerned they're all pretty great plus it's a James Bond spoof so I imagine I'd like it. Cars 3 seems to completely go back to it's racing roots and feature the Owen Wilson voiced Lighting McQueen trying to prove that he's still got what it takes and is a better racer than these younger, faster cars. Sounds like any other classic sports tale but it's Pixar so I'm on board.

With a title like Transformers: The Last Knight you might not be surprised to find that part of this movie will feature King Arthur and have Transformers swinging swords during Game of Thrones like battle sequences. Now as far as I knew Transformers were just supposed to transform into cars and trucks. There would be no place for them in medieval times. I guess they'd transform into like a dragon or something? That might actually be cool. Hopefully that happens. So like all other Transformer movies this one has all sorts of action excitement and no shortage of 'why are they in this' actors appearing like Anthony Hopkins, Stanley Tucci and John Turturro (who's actually in a few of these movies). I'm not even sure if they 'transform' any more. The old theme song went, "Transformers-robots in disguise!" but if they're already known to the public, what are they hiding from? Why are they transforming? What are they hiding from? These are the kind of questions that will not be answered in this newest movie.

I'm pretty big into podcasts, I'm still surprised their not a huge medium. If you are a person and you like a thing then there is a podcast matched to that thing you like. Look it up, I'm serious. One of my favorite podcasts was called The Indoor Kids, it was hosted by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon and the name was taken from a line from Wet Hot American Summer, which was partially written by Michael Showalter. So that might be why he was chosen to direct The Big Sick which is based on the true story of how Kumail and Emily met. His parents wanted him to have an arranged marriage but he met her and she got sick and stayed by her side. In the film he becomes close with her parents, played by Ray Romano and Holly Hunter. It seems a lot of the entertainment comes from their interactions. This looks like the smaller scale, charming comedy that I wouldn't mind going out of my way to see.

Nearly 20 years ago a movie came out called Very Bad Things. It was supposed to be a darkly funny movie about a bachelor party gone terribly wrong. I found it to be disturbing and not all that funny but to be fair I haven't revisited it in over a decade. The bachelor party trope became popular again with the Hangover movies and their hi-jinks got pretty over the top but never got disturbing, just annoying, gross and repetitive. Rough Night looks to combine the fun of Hangover with the plot of Very Bad Things. Scarlett Johannson, Zoe Kravits, Kate McKinnon, Iliana Glazer and Jillian Bell play a group of friends out for a bachelorette party. Things take a turn and they spend the rest of the weekend trying to hide a dead body ( there might be some Weekend at Bernie's like humor). With McKinnon, Bell and Glazer this is sure to have a good amount of laughs.

DTV (direct to video) films are something we're all familiar with. They're the movies that you see posted onto the board of your local Redbox (it breaks my heart not be able to say ' local Blockbuster') that have a semi or very recognizable actor in a movie you've never heard of because either it's not that good or it was made on the cheap and didn't get much press. 47 Meters Down starring Mandy Moore was supposed to be one of these movies but somehow it managed to escape the realm of DTV and become a summer release. It's about two vacationers stuck on the ocean floor in a shark tank, their air is going fast and the sharks are getting closer. It sounds like the perfect Thursday night SyFy movie of the week but it'll be released to cinemas and might be a minor hit.

I haven't seen either Despicable Me movie or Minions but people seem to enjoy them so they're probably worth a watch. The series follows the exploits of a villain named Gru, from what I understand he adopts 3 adorable kids and has a group of talking bananas and tries to pull of crimes in comically unsuccessful ways. I'm not sure if anyone has tried to stop him or if a long the way he becomes a good guy but either way we are now up to Despicable Me 3 where Gru meets his long lost brother Dru. This, to me, sounds like it will be 2 hours of Steve Carell talking to himself as he voices both Gru and Dru. To mix things up they've cast Trey Paker of South Park and Book of Mormon fame as the main villain. This will be the first non South Park film he'll appear in over a decade and one of the first leading roles in a film he didn't also write in over 20 years. I'm more curious as to why he took the gig than the film itself but, like I said, people seem to enjoy these so I have to be missing out on something.

Amy Poehler, Will Ferrell and Jason Mantzoukas headlining an R-rated comedy about parents hosting a illegal casino sure sounds like a fun time to me. Written and directed by the writer of both Neighbors films The House follows a couple, Ferrell and Poehler, who lose their daughters college tuition money and with the help of a friend, Mantzoukas, create an illegal underground casino. As with most casino related stories I'm sure things get out of control. I like the cast and thought the Neighbors movies were hilarious and kinda heartfelt too. Not sure if this one will be heartfelt at all but I imagine I'll be laughing.

Edgar Wright is a master of film making. After pretty much perfecting the zombie movie, cop movie, apocalypse movie and video game movie he's now taking on the 'one last job' movie. Each of these are tropes and each of these have been done by many different directors with varying results but he nails it every time. I feel that Baby Driver will be another home run. When a get away driver named Baby wants out of the game the crime boss he works for, Kevin Spacey, gives him one last job to pull off. This of course goes way wrong and he becomes targeted by the likes of Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm. Now there's always something different about Wright's movies that make them stand out. In this one it's that Baby has a constant ringing in his ear from an accident years earlier, to drown it out he listens to music ALL THE TIME so there will be music going along with all of the car chases and gunfights and I am going to lose my mind. I already love this move. Needless to say, my expectations are high.