August movies

August is a strange month. It’s not quite the dumping ground that January is for movies but it’s the end of summer so there’s maybe like two movies coming out this month that studios are banking on. The rest are smaller films that might have a chance of being a sleeper hit or bigger films that didn’t turn out that great and an end of summer release is the best chance they have at getting an audience.

Many of our favorite comic book heroes are anti-heroes of sorts. They break the rules and disobey authority and live by their own moral code for some sort of greater good. Well, the members of the Suicide Squad are not like those guys. They are all villains that have crossed the law and/or Batman and have been placed in a government prison for their deeds. Now the government has some problems of their own and for one reason or another they can’t get help from Batman, so they decide to put these imprisoned baddies to work. With a cast of colorful characters with names like Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Katana, Slipknot, Killer Croc, El Diablo, Enchantress and Captain Boomerang you might think this is all very strange. You’d be right. This is all very strange. It’s from a director known for making gritty, hard “R” cop movies, so the fact that he is tackling a quirky super villain ensemble cast has me very excited, and confused, but mostly excited. 

Kevin Spacey, Christopher Walken and Jennifer Garner have all been in good movies, but I don’t think Nine Lives will go down in history as their greatest film. Spacey stars as an over-worked businessman and distant father who needs a last minute birthday gift for his daughter and walks into a weird shop owned by, of course, Walken, who gives him a cat. On his way home to his wife, Jennifer Garner, and daughter he becomes trapped inside the cat. Now, curiosity got the best of me (but I didn’t care enough to turn this into a pun) so I wanted to know exactly how he got trapped inside the cat. The film description simply says ‘a bizarre turn of events’ so yeah, this is a thing. 

We’re long past the days of an animated cartoon character being edited into a live action film, and that’s a bummer because I’m a huge fan of Roger Rabbit. I was not such a big fan of Pete’s Dragon which I continually mix up with Puff the Magic Dragon. Pete’s Dragon is getting the big budget remake but this time instead of a pink animated smiling dragon, it’s a photorealistic (well, as realistic as you can make a dragon at least) CG dragon that hangs out with a kid named Pete and the two go on an adventure of some kind. Robert Redford pops up in this one. Either they had money lying around because CG is getting cheaper and cheaper these days or it’s a good script and he wanted to be part of it. He doesn’t need the work right?

Seth Rogen must be having the time of his life right now and somehow he has not spread himself too thin and had some sort of public breakdown - so good for him. He’s had recent forays into Academy Award nominated movies like Steve Jobs, unnecessarily controversial films like The Interview, strange television like Preacher and now he’s taking a stab at writing and starring in the animated feature Sausage Party. He plays Frank, a hot dog in a pack of hot dogs, who spends his days sitting on a shelf waiting for the day when he gets purchased and can go onto the great beyond. One day he and the love of his life Brenda, a hot dog bun voiced by Kristen Wiig, along with several other food items voiced by a good chunk of Hollywood, get picked up - and boy are they excited. That is until they finally come to discover exactly what it is that humans do to food. I briefly thought this movie might be a comical film pushing a vegetarian message but the first food item seen comically slaughtered is a potato, so there goes that theory. This just looks to be a hilariously profane adventure about food items trying to stay alive in a world where they all share the same possible fate. 

A southern crime flick with a title like Hell or High Water has my attention. Then there’s the added bonus of Ben Foster and Jeff Bridges, who are no strangers to the crime genre, and I’m even more excited. Then you toss in Chris Pine, who is mostly new to this genre, and I’m very excited. Foster and Pine play brothers who, in an attempt to save the family business, start robbing banks and catch the attention of the local law. It doesn’t sound like anything too new but all you need to make a film like this interesting is a decent cast who is up for some shoot outs and tension. I think this film will deliver.

The director of The Hangover, Road Trip and Old School really enjoys putting man-children into stupid and over the top scenarios and have them walk away mostly unscathed. He’s been pretty successful with it and I like those movies for the most part, although I haven’t seen the latter two Hangovers. This time around his man-children have a whole new situation to tackle: weapons dealing. In War Dogs, Miles Teller, an actor who is so good at being a pretentious jerk that I’m convinced he truly is one, and Jonah Hill, an actor who is pretty good at being a pretentious jerk but can also be the laid back guy and can also be the best friend, play two guys who find a loophole that allow them to bid on U.S. weapons contracts so they can cash in on the war in Afghanistan. It’s based on a true story but I have to imagine what happens on film might be a bit more fantastic than what happened in real life. 

I never saw Ben Hur, but I did see Gladiator and I thought that was a remake of Ben Hur or Spartacus. Turns out it isn’t a remake at all - it’s just that I can’t tell sword and sandal epics apart. This new Ben Hur stars John Huston’s nephew, Jack, who will take over the role played by Charlton Heston. And while I don’t know if John Huston and Charlton Heston ever worked together, I’m sure they bumped into each other at Hollywood parties. This has nothing to do with the movie. The story is about a prince being falsely accused of treason and then returning years later to seek revenge and become a champion on a chariot, or so the pictures lead me to believe.  Because we live in a post 300 world, you can’t just have people fighting with swords and riding chariots, you need to make it flashy. This remake is coming to us from the director of Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and he likes to shoot his action scenes with an unnecessary flair that I feel sometimes works. But I can’t see it working in a period piece that features Jesus as a character (the actor portraying Jesus played the antagonist in 300- that’s my last bit of useless trivia).

I’ll watch any action movie with Jason Statham. He’s a personal favorite of mine, but one film I wasn’t crazy about was The Mechanic starring him, Ben Foster and Donald Sutherland. With a cast like that my expectations were high but it wasn’t that great, didn’t make all that much money yet, somehow, we’re getting Mechanic: Resurrection. With a hackneyed sub-title and a plot that involves him being forced to kill targets and make the deaths look like accidents (which is the exact plot to another Statham film called Killer Elite) it gives me cause to worry, but it’s got Jessica Alba and Tommy Lee Jones in it so I’m kind of excited. The action scenes in the trailer look pretty cool and like I said, I will watch any Statham action film.

Say what you will about Mel Gibson but the man is a great actor. He may be a crazy person but a great actor none the less. Fortunately for us Gibson fans he saw the writing on the wall and hopped on this ‘older hard edged loner has to rescue daughter’ craze that Taken kick-started. In Blood Father, Gibson plays and ex-con (it’s either a con or a spy, there’s hardly any middle ground) who has to protect his daughter from criminals. Why are they trying to kill her? Well I don’t know, but I imagine the film will not be very plot heavy. William H. Macy is in this as well and apparently Gibson and Macy play old friends. Even if this wasn’t an action film I’d watch this.  

So that’s August, anything you’re interested in?

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.

June movies

June 2016 is the month of sequels. We’ve got 5 coming out!

Sequel 1: When the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles remake came out a couple of years ago people were annoyed because it was another remake. It was produced by mega producer Michael Bay who stopped caring about quality long before he got in the game and the turtles just looked really weird. While I’m not going to praise it, I will say that it was pretty fun and got me excited for more Turtle adventures. Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles: Out of the Shadows looks to up the ante in a big way, more heroes, more villains and more ridiculousness. Of its many problems, one of the bigger ones is that the Transformers series takes itself too seriously, almost as if it doesn’t realize it’s about vehicles that turn into cool robots. Turtles, on the other hand, is very aware of how silly it is and embraces it and I respect that. Plus this new one features Casey Jones, who wears a sweet hockey mask and helps the turtles, Tyler Perry as a mad scientist who creates Bebop, a mutant warthog, Rocksteady, a mutant rhino, and the alien Kraang who is an alien brain creature that lives inside a giant robot to cause destruction and is voiced by the wonderful Fred Armisen. Length of time since original: 2 years.

Sequel 2: If you want to kill some time, look up the supposed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. They have been involved in some pretty popular ghost stories and some became movies, the most famous of which would probably be The Amityville Horror. They’ve been in the business of ghosts since the 70’s. Ed passed in the early 00’s but Lorraine is still alive and even had a cameo in the film The Conjuring, where she was played by Vera Farmigia and Ed was played by Patrick Wilson. It’s a pretty fun, scary film and the sequel, The Conjuring 2, brings them to Enfield, England where they investigate a poltergeist that has been haunting a single mother and her four kids. The director, James Wan, started off with the first Saw film, followed that up with a few horror movies and then made last year’s biggest movie, Furious 7, so I appreciate that he went back to his original genre before making another huge film - which could potentially be Aquaman. Length of time since original: 3 years.

Sequel 3: Movies about magicians aren’t that popular but with a solid cast and some fun marketing, Now You See Me was a pretty decent hit when it came out. In the first one a group of con artists use illusions and tricks to pull heists and eventually attract the attention of an F.B.I. agent who chases them around. In the end they ruin the career of a corrupt business man and the agent chasing them was actually secretly helping them the whole time because he too is a magician or the son of a magician or something. It was silly. In Now You See Me 2, the men they stole from are after them and they get caught up in a scheme run by Daniel Radcliffe to pull of what is considered to be an impossible heist. Heist films are all about misdirection but in the last one it really seemed like these characters can control magic. I think that’s fun and I hope they capitalize on that. Length of time since original: 3 years.

Sequel 4: After losing nearly his entire family in an attack, a man goes to great lengths to protect his only surviving son until his son is kidnapped and he is forced to partner up with an amnesiac to track him down. That’s the story of Finding Nemo. While not as dark as I might make it seem that really is the story, It’s also a really good movie and Ellen DeGeneres voicing the amnesiac Dory really steals the show, so all these years later we get Finding Dory. Disney/Pixar productions usually yield some solid entertainment and for them to take a long time to make a sequel leads me to believe they have something good in store. Cars 2 is their lowest rated and was probably their most rushed film- these things take years to make. The focus in this sequel is obviously on Dory this time around as she reunites with her family. Length of time since original: 13 years.

Sequel 5: Before destroying NYC in Godzilla, most of the world in The Day After Tomorrow and all of the world in 2012 (or so I assume, I never saw it) Roland Emmerich focused mostly on destroying popular monuments in Independence Day. In the mid 90’s when aliens invaded earth it was up to a computer programmer, an air force pilot, Randy Quaid and the President to save the planet, which they did awesomely. The rest of the world’s armies also pitched in. Independence Day: Resurgence finds us living in post alien invasion world where we have been using alien tech to update our military and the world is prepared and ready for when the aliens return! Except we’re totally not ready when massive ships invade and it is once again up to Jeff Goldblum to save the planet  - since he decided to return and Will Smith had better things to do. Length of time since original: 20 years.

Anytime Andy Samberg is on screen, I end up laughing. I find him hilarious and since he is the lead in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, I imagine that anyone in the theater with me while this is playing is going to hate me because I will be laughing throughout the entire movie. In Popstar, Samberg’s group comedy/musical The Lonely Island finally put together a comedy based around music, fitting isn’t it? He plays Conner4Real, a grownup Beiber type who used to be part of a Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch rap group (I’m guessing), who’s most recent album bombs and he has to re-evaluate his life as a celebrity and probably wind up doing a reunion tour. I get kind of a Zoolander vibe because he is playing an over the top character who thinks he’s the greatest and it’ll be loaded with celebrity cameos playing themselves. I don’t think that’s a bad comparison, but I think this will be funnier. 

Did you know the late great David Bowie has son named Duncan Jones who is a pretty darn good director? His first two films, Moon and Source Code, are smaller thrillers that have some really smart sci-fi elements and are both great. His most recent film is a massive film based on the hugely popular videogame series Warcraft. Admittedly I know nothing about the game, except for what I learned in a South Park episode, so I can’t be sure how accurate the film is to the game (films are rarely accurate portrayals). The story here is that ogre like creatures called orcs are being forced out of their land and enter a human world where they are viewed as a threat, which starts a war between the orcs and the humans. I’m pretty sure there’s a bigger villain with whom the orcs and humans have to join forces to fight. The video game incorporates lots of magic and sword play so comparisons to other popular book/film series might hold this back.

Right now anything with Dwayne Johnson or Kevin Hart in it is pretty much a guaranteed hit, the two actors are on a roll. Putting them in a film together is probably a producer’s dream come true, so that’s what they did with Central Intelligence. The story looks like a very typical spy film where the top spy, Johnson, gets framed and his hunted by his employers and other dangerous people, so he recruits an outsider, Hart, and the two go on an adventure and try to solve the case without getting killed in the process. The mixture of the charismatic Johnson and the manic Hart will help this rise from a generic spy thriller to a fun summer action hit.

A few years ago no one would take a historical drama starring Matthew McConaughey seriously, but times change. Based on a true story the Free State of Jones stars McConaughey as a Mississipi farmer during the Civil War who leads a fight against the Confederacy with the help of rescued slaves and other farmers. Why this isn’t being released closer to awards season is beyond me but maybe they feel like they have a hit on their hands. The subject matter is interesting and the trailer does make it seem like this will be an exciting film.

There are weird movies out there and then there’s Swiss Army Man. I wish I could give an apt explanation but it’s really worth watching the trailer. Paul Dano gets stranded on an island and a dead body, played by Daniel Radcliffe, washes up. Dano may be losing his mind and he begins to communicate with the lifeless Radcliffe and the two begin their journey home together. Its looks very odd but also strangely charming and I really can't wait to see it.

When was the last time we had a good shark thriller? They are pretty rare but, as far as shark thrillers go, I have high hopes for The Shallows. From the director of a few Liam Neeson thrillers comes the story of a surfer, played by Blake Lively, who has found a beautiful island known as paradise to the locals and soaks up the sun and catches some waves (is that a thing surfers say?) until a shark comes by and eats a few fellow surfers and traps her on a rock that is only 200 yards from the shore. She uses her survival skills to try and outsmart the shark and make it to safety. The trailer for this is one of my favorite recent trailers. It’s real tense and exciting and perfect for a little summer movie.