August movie overview

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.

July Movies

July Movies

There is a pretty wide variety of films coming out this month. Some big, some small and one where Pac-man is big and one where Paul Rudd is small. To kick off the month of July we have a sequel, a prequel and a pre-sequel. Sounds confusing right? Well it is!

Arnold is back in the prequel/sequel Terminator Genisys (I know, it’s not a real word) which is the 5th in the series and seems to erase all previous Terminator films with that confusing tool of time travel. I tried writing an article about this film, but went on for two paragraphs about how the Terminator series works. If you haven’t seen the first two then SEE THE FIRST TWO. They are legit American classics. I own them. I will lend them to you. In the first Terminator a cyborg time travels to kill Sarah Connor who will one day give birth to John, who is the future leader of the resistance against the cyborgs of the future. Another future soldier, Kyle, also time travels back in order to stop the time-travelling cyborg. He does. The sequel takes place years later and features a new evil shape shifting cyborg going to kill teenage John and a good cyborg shows up to protect him. He does. Genisys begins with Kyle receiving the mission to save Sarah. When he arrives in the past he finds that the good cyborg beat him to the punch by going back decades earlier and raising Sarah to be a warrior. She is played by Danerys - a.k.a. dragon lady - from Game of Thrones. Action mayhem ensues along with time travel nonsense.

My write up for Magic Mike XXL will be noticeably shorter than my Terminator write up because I did not see the first Magic Mike. I’m sure it was entertaining because it has Channing Tatum in it and right now he is one of the more entertaining people out there. Seems like he wears little clothing in these films. I imagine there’s a market for that.

Then we have the prequel to the Despicable Me films called Minions - because apparently there was a call to tell the tale of the short little creatures that speak gibberish. I never saw the Despicable Me films, although I do intend to, but from the trailer I can see that they are just hysterical. Even without seeing the first movies, I want to see this one. It has them searching for the best villain to serve because that is their reason for existing, which is pretty cool.

We enter some bizarre territory with Self/Less where a dying Ben Kingsley signs up for an experiment that puts him into a new body. That new body is Ryan Reynolds, so that’s not too bad. Of course, the origin of where the body came from is shady and things get out of control when he learns too much. This is the 5th film from Tarsem Singh and while not exactly a household name, he did make The Cell, that super weird dream movie with Jennifer Lopez 15 years ago, and he made Mirror, Mirror. So he jumps genres but makes films that have an interesting look to them if nothing else.

The Bronze features Melissa Rauch, Bernadette from Big Bang Theory, as a former Olympic Gymnast (I’m guessing a bronze winner) who feels threatened when a young local athlete begins to steal her thunder. Rauch’s character is described as being foul mouthed and as an interesting side note, she wrote the film with her husband. I’ve seen a lot of episodes of Big Bang Theory and can’t imagine Bernadette cursing. This intrigues me.

Because it’s summer we have a Marvel film coming out and this one is Ant-Man, brought to you by the director of Bring It On, a writer of Shaun of the Dead and a writer of Anchorman. There are a lot of personalities coming into this film and there was a lot of Hollywood drama leading up to it being created. Making it a Paul Rudd Marvel action comedy was probably a decent idea. The character of Ant-Man can shrink down to the size of an ant and control the ants and other small insects around him. It’s no more ridiculous than a man in a flying metal suit or a guy who turns into a green monster when he’s angry but, like those characters, I’m sure Marvel will find a way to make him interesting and exciting. It’s been an uphill battle with this one but, like all other Marvel films, the end result is to have the character fit into the bigger Marvel Universe. I’m wondering how the little guy stands out.

Trainwreck is Amy Schumer’s debut as a lead in a feature film and I’m surprised that it’s taken this long. My guess is that she’s been too busy making quite a name for herself with stand-up comedy and her TV show. Teaming her with Judd Apatow and making Bill Hader the second lead is awesome. Hader is rarely anything more than a minor character in any of the films he’s been in and usually is the funniest part of any scene he’s in. The film is about a magazine writer (Schumer) who never had any interest in being in a relationship and enjoys leading a single life. When she meets a sports doctor (Hader) and finds herself happy around him, she begins to think it might be time to end the single life. Lebron James co-stars as does John Cena. Should be hilarious.

Woody Allen makes at least one movie a year and this year’s film is called Irrational Man. It’s labeled a mystery. The description of the film is vague, to say the least, but I don’t see where the mystery fits in. Joaquin Phoenix plays a tormented, and therefore popular for some reason, philosophy professor who ‘commits an existential act’ (not sure what that means) and begins to see the world more positively. The film also stars Parker Posey and Emma Stone. It all sounds very strange to me - but then again so does Woody Allen.

We get another variation of Sherlock Holmes in the film Mr. Holmes, where he is now played by Ian McKellen. Take that Downey Jr. and Cumberbatch - McKellen gets to add another name to his repertoire (oh my God, I spelled that right on my first try) since he’s already played Magneto and Gandalf. In this version, Holmes is obviously a little older than we’re used to seeing him in recent interpretations but he is probably wiser and is now looking back on an unsolved case of his. In my opinion, McKellen is one of those actors who doesn’t know how to act poorly and I doubt he would disappoint as Sherlock.

Pixels is the latest Adam Sandler film and while I may not love every film he’s made, I do enjoy a lot of them and I will definitely see this. It’s directed by Chris Columbus who, after discovering America, also founded the first two Home Alone films and the first two Harry Potter films - so he’s awesome. In this film, aliens receive a message from earth that includes images from classic arcade games like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders (HA!) and others. The message is interpreted as a threat so the aliens use supersized versions of these video game characters to destroy earth. The president, Kevin James, calls on video game experts played by Adam Sandler, Josh Gad and Peter Dinklage to save the day. Like I said, awesome.

If you’ve seen picture of Jake Gyllenhaal lately you might notice that he is freakishly muscular. He’s huge. It’s scary. He got this way for Southpaw, which is written by the creator of Sons of Anarchy and directed by the director of Training Day and several action movies, so aggressive is probably a fair description of this boxing drama. In it, Gyllenhaal plays a boxer who is dealing with a tragedy and falls from grace as a top contender. He then figuratively and literally fights his way to the top.

June Movies

June Movies
Dun, dun, dun, it’s time for summer movies! It’s so nice out now (well not right now, it’s like 50 degrees - what’s up with that?!) so why don’t we totally ignore the nice weather and go hang out in a theater instead? That’s what I’m going to do!


So full disclosure some movies, like Spy and Insidious Chapter 3, that I said were coming out last month are actually coming out this month so please accept my apologies. That said, I hope you aren’t using my lists to tell you what movies are coming out at what time. That’s why the internet was created - as far as I’m concerned, it is the main purpose of the internet.  


To kick things off we have the Entourage movie - a movie I couldn’t pretend to care about. Sorry to start things out so negatively, but I mean come on. A movie? Really? We can’t get a second Firefly movie off the ground, but we can get an Entourage movie? Oh well, I guess we’re stuck with it. In this film I’m sure the most spoiled guy in the world and his buddies get to hang out with celebrities, pretend like the difficulties they face are more important than anything else going on in the world and get yelled at by Jeremy Piven. That last part was the only reason I watched the show in the first place when it first aired and that got boring pretty fast. Then I got bored. Then I stopped watching all together. For those who are fans, sorry for the rant. Maybe it got better and a movie is justified?


Then we have Jurassic World! This looks pretty awesome, just saying. Normally if a film has 4 screen writers it is not a good sign - too many cooks in the kitchen and all that. But if the trailers are any indication, this movie will be a lot of fun. This film takes place many years after the first disaster. If you recall, Jurassic Park was not open in the first film. The purpose of the first visit by doctors Grant, Sattle and Jeff Goldblum was to see if the park was ready for civilians to enter. Spoiler alert: It was not. Then we had two mediocre at best sequels that took place on the dinosaur breeding islands or something. Now we’re back to basics and we’ve got scientists messing with Dino DNA (if you said that in a silly southern accent, then you’ve seen the first film and are a friend of mine) and things go terribly wrong. You discover the park has been open for years and after all this time, public interest has declined so they must engineer a new thing to reignite that interest! Well that new thing is a monstrosity the likes of which only Chris Pratt can take on! And we are all better for it because he is just fantastic.
 

Then there’s a new Pixar movie coming out, which usually is huge news, but I feel people don’t know about this yet. At least I haven’t talked to anyone about it yet. It’s called Inside Out and it is about a young girl named Riley and her emotions. Sounds simple right? Well it isn’t, you see. We go inside the girl’s mind and are introduced to her characterized emotions. We have Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness. They operate within Headquarters and help Riley get through everyday life. When a move to a new city sends Riley in a tail spin of emotions, she starts to lose it. Joy, the main emotion, fights to keep things in order. Sounds like a metaphor for puberty, but I’m not sure Disney would go for that. I might get sued just for making that comparison…please don’t publish this. They are a powerful entity.


Infinitely Polar Bear is the name of a movie. In it Mark Ruffalo plays a manic depressive father who turns into a raging green polar bear when made angry. Ha, just kidding. He’s a manic depressive mess of a father who is trying to win back his wife and daughters. Not nearly as exciting as my proposed movie, but whatever, he’s a great actor. Zoe Saldana, another alum from the Marvel Cinematic University, (see Guardians of the Galaxy, seriously see it) plays the wife he must win back - and she’s always fantastic.
Manglehorn is a drama starring Al Pacino from the director of Pineapple Express, David Gordon Green, who was an aspiring indie director that has worked on various projects. In recent years, Green has gone back to the indie genre and distanced himself professionally from the indie-stoner-comedy genre he was made famous for with Pineapple Express and Your Highness. In this film Pacino plays an antisocial lock smith/recluse/cat lover. He meets a bank teller played by Holly Hunter and she develops an interest in him. Has all of the makings of an indie film.

Ted 2 was an inevitability after a lot of people went to go see a walking, talking, cursing, drinking, teddy bear hang out with man child Mark Wahlberg. I’m not sure who I’d want to hang out with more. So in this we have another ridiculous set of circumstances. It probably plays out like a live action R-rated Family Guy episode (not a complaint) that leads Ted to the court of law to prove that he is a person so that he and his wife can adopt a child. If you saw and liked the first one then I imagine you know what to expect from this high concept sequel.

Big Game is the film that finally shows us Samuel L. Jackson portraying the President of the United States. I feel like this is a long time coming. When Air Force One is shot down it is up to a young boy on a solo hunting trip in the woods with a bow and arrow to protect the POTUS from the assassins trying to kill him. If you’ve seen any action movie involving the President’s plane (Escape from New York, Air Force One) then you know he’s got his own escape pod and would survive a plane crash. If this is merely a competent action adventure I’m pretty sure I’m going to love this movie.

If the story of Batkid doesn’t put a smile on your face it is because you are an evil comic book villain. Batkid Begins: The Wish Heard Around the World is the true story of a 5 year old cancer patient who wished to be Batkid. His wish was heard and granted by the mayor, police force and many volunteers as the city of San Francisco erupted into a crime zone and Batman came to the rescue. Of course there was too much for one Batman to handle and he requested the help from Batkid for the day and he and Batman, with their Batmobile, saved the city. Seriously the story is just precious look up news articles on it.

May Movies

May Movies

By: Kyle Davidson

 

The month begins with a big movie, perhaps the biggest of the summer. It ends with so many films I want to see that I will be broke going into the month of June, which is a shame because my mom’s birthday is in June. Avengers: Age of Ultron I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Artificial intelligence will be the end of us all. We don’t live in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but if we did, we would be saved by The Avengers. When Tony Stark thinks he has a good idea, he goes for it full steam. In this story he has the plan to create a peacekeeping program that goes wildly out of control, becomes a robot named Ultron and takes on The Avengers. We’ve seen them take on aliens from another dimension and now they’re taking on robots. This film brings back the original crew and all the actors that made it through the first Avengers film, in addition to more characters! I could go on and explain, but I would go down a rabbit hole that I just can’t dig my way out of. This will probably be the biggest movie of the summer, enjoy!

Far from the Madding Crowd I just learned about this story while reading about this movie. Apparently it’s pretty old because it has been made a few times - 1998, 1967 and 1915. That last date gave me the clue that this was an old story. It is the story of a woman with a unique name falling for several men with not so unique namesthat is portrayed by an actress with a not so unique name and several actors with unique names. We have Bathsheba Everdene falling for Gabriel Oak, a sheep farmer played by Matthias Shoenaerts, Frank Tony, a Sergeant played by Tom Sturridge and William Boldwood, a rich guy played by Michael Sheen (okay that’s not too crazy but that first one is a doozy). Ms. Everdene attracts these different suitors and learns about love and relationships and overcoming hardships. It’s probably another on a long list of classic tales I have not heard of… I need to read more.

Hot Pursuit Sofia Vergara has been one of the many highlights on Modern Family. She’s hilarious, but aside from small roles, has not really had a feature film. Reese Witherspoon, fresh off her Academy Award nominated film, Wild, is on top of her game right now. Putting these two together is some Hollywood producer’s idea to make easy money, but I like the two of them so I’m hoping for the best, silly outcome. Vergara is a drug dealer’s widow and Witherspoon is a cop trying to protect her from those out to kill her. It is tried territory for sure, but I’ll always give an action comedy a shot.

Mad Max: Fury Road It has been 30 years since Max Rockatansky (full name) escaped Tina Turner’s clutches in Thunderdome but he (the character, not Mel Gibson) and the director of the original Mad Max trilogy are back! What have they been doing for the past 30 years? Well the director, George Miller, made a few films, got some Academy Award nominations and even won one! He was nominated for Babe, yes that Babe, and he won for Happy Feet, yes that Happy Feet. Max on the other hand, well I don’t know what he’s been up to since this is apparently more of a reboot. I figure we should just go into this with a basic understanding that Max is a man with little to lose, trying to do some good in a barren wasteland and see where the film takes us. I for one am excited.

Pitch Perfect 2I love the first film. It is hilarious and the tunes are great. The whole crew from the first is back to do some a cappella singing and take on another team. This time it’s not just the leading team at their college. This time they’re fighting for America! Elizabeth Banks, who had a small role and produced the first one, has now stepped into the shoes of director in her first feature film. Hopefully she’ll have a bigger role because she was hilarious in the first.

Tomorrowland A very intelligent teenager and a former boy genius, who has given up on his pursuit of whatever made him a boy genius, go on a journey to find a place that exists between time and space that we on Earth are not supposed to know about. Somehow the two of them do know about it and they go on a journey in search of it. Sounds crazy right? Well someone at Disney didn’t think so, because visually they put a lot of money into this and got George Clooney as the former genius. This film looks pretty wild but I haven’t gotten a lot of information from the trailers, other than it looks good so I’m hoping for some surprises.

Spy I’ve already mentioned my appreciation for action comedies, but let me just say, after The Heat I feel that we turned a new corner. Fortunately with Spy, we continue to turn that corner. The same writer/ director takes the reigns and Melissa McCarthy is the lead again, which is a great thing. She plays a C.I.A. analyst who is outside of the action, but when a situation arises that forces her to go undercover, she leaps at the opportunity. With costars like Rose Byrne, Jude Law, Jason Statham and many others, I could not be happier.

San Andreas I’m always on the fence for disaster films. Although I see most of the big ones, it seems the market has become oversaturated with them and Americans have begun losing interest in robots and monsters causing destruction. But are we so tired of these films that we don’t want to see Dwayne Johnson try to survive during a disaster? Well I’m not - I’ll see it. In this film he plays a search and rescue helicopter pilot during a massive earthquake in California. Since he’s already in the helicopter, why doesn’t he just fly out of there and go to a safe place? Because he’s The Rock that’s why! And because his estranged daughter is somewhere amongst the rubble so he has to go save her.

Insidious: Chapter 3 Insidious 1 and 2 are really one big movie. It’s very cool. Moments that occur in the first one are explained in the second one and it works really well. They’re both very scary and the world they created was very interesting. So what’s next? Well they followed the formula of many other series and made a prequel. Several of the actors have aged though, so I can’t tell when this story takes place. It can’t be a period piece so I’m guessing it takes place a few years before the first film. Hopefully it all connects but it will definitely provide a few good scares.

Aloha Cameron Crowe has only made a few films, but some of them are pretty darn big movies, like Almost Famous, Say Anything and Jerry Maguire. You might not know the name but you’ve probably heard of some of these movies. His latest film could be a good film, who knows, but it sure does have a lot of people in it. The film stars Bradley Cooper as a military contractor who visits Hawaii, spends time with his old girlfriend played by Rachel McAdams and he also begins to fall for Emma Stone, who is in the Air Force. The film also features Bill Murray, Alec Baldwin, Danny McBride and John Krasinski. Crowe makes fun films with serious tones, which is the vibe I get from the trailer.