The first month of the summer movie season has been a bit of a damp squib. But June, ah June! strikes me as looking very promising. It is, in fact, the month with the most representation on our Top 5 Most Anticipated Summer Movies podcast, so it appears that I’m not alone in that belief.
2.6.2017
Speaking of that podcast, here comes Carrie’s #1: Wonder Woman, which is seriously threatening to be the first generally-regarded-as-great film in the DC cinematic universe. I’ve been nervously excited about this one basically since it was announced, and the extremely impressive reviews have removed most of those nerves. Fingers crossed that working with a proper director will have helped Gal Gadot’s performance since Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, because everything else about it looks pretty great. And yeah, Warner Bros. is unmatched for giving shitty movies great ad campaigns, but still…
Can I also admit that, God help me, I’m a little bit excited for Captain Underpants? DreamWorks Animation has been on a hot streak, and the character designs look really unusual this time around. Just saying the title out loud is slightly humiliating, but I do have my fingers cross that it’s cleverer than it looks.
9.6.2017
Another one of Carrie’s picks: at #5, It Comes at Night, an intra-apocalyptic horror film. Honestly, the vibe I get feels a little “it’s been done”-ish, but the execution does look pretty impressive from here.
Bad timing, though, that it’s opening against another horror film, this one with a much bigger cast and stars: The Mummy, third film of that name, apparently trying to triangulate between the spookiness of the 1932 film and the swashbuckling of the 1999 film. As the blatantly desperate attempt to kick-start a monster movie universe of the sort last put to bed by House of Dracula back in the 1940s (or Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, if you want to be a dick about it), I would ordinarily view this with unmixed hostility, but for one thing: the last several years have taught me not to dismiss any films with Tom Cruise in them out of hand. Say whatever one will, there’s no big-name star who makes more consistently interesting popcorn movie choices right now.
And at last, we arrive at a film that I’m not looking forward to: Megan Leavey, a biopic about a Marine and her dog, for those of you who’d have been all sorts of interested in that Max movie from a couple of years ago, if only it had been superficially feminist.
16.6.2017
A crowded weekend, but there’s no question that the big-name release (thank you, Disney marketing dollars!) is the newest film in Pixar Animation Studio’s least-beloved franchise: Cars 3. As a genuine, if not hugely enthusiastic, fan of the first Cars, I’m a little bit hopeful about the direction this one is taking to correct from Cars 2: racing as a soft little metaphor for life instead of a spy parody, and the trailers have very clearly failed to show any of that horrible tow truck Mater. I am not, of course, expecting top-tier Pixar; I don’t even know that I’m expecting The Good Dinosaur or Brave. But it does seem likely to be at least enjoyable.
The other wide releases are a clutch of uncertain counter-programming: a raunchy comedy for the ladies, or the “Bad Moms” slot, in Rough Night; the first-ever (but not the last) Tupac Shakur biopic, All Eyez on Me; and 47 Meters Down, a killer shark movie that was pulled just days before a planned 2016 VOD release and given this theatrical slot. Not a personal history that fills one with much confidence, but the hook is sufficiently reminiscent of last year’s delicious The Shallows that I have enough optimism that I might actually be surprised when this turns out to be terrible.
In limited release, it’s another film from Carrie’s top 5! This one is her #2, The Book of Henry, which sounds a little contrived and manipulative to me – and director Colin Trevorrow gets absolutely no benefit of the doubt from me – but I pledge to go in with an open mind.
21.6.2017
Oh, hip-hoo-fucking-ray, it’s the fifth Transformers movie. This one is subtitled The Last Knight, includes a subplot about robots in King Arthur’s court at Camelot, and the current rumor is that it is three motherfucking hours and two motherfucking minutes long. There is no real-world possibility that a movie about giant robots that turn into cars needs to be longer than The Godfather. I don’t care if Michael Bay has suddenly turned into Jacques Rivette’s long-lost son. That is some world-class bullshit. Edited to add: Apparently this is very untrue, thank God. So now, we’re just left with wondering why in the hell King Arthur got dragged into this.
23.6.2017
Since the crowds attending the opening Wednesday night showings of Transformers: The Last Knight will only just be getting out come Saturday morning, there are no other wide releases. But in the limited releases, there are TWO films from our collective most-anticipated lists: Carrie’s #3, the interracial dating comedy The Big Sick, and my #2, Sofia Coppola’s recently Cannes-awarded remake of The Beguiled. Lord knows when either of us will get to see them, but hopefully our hopes and dreams will go well-rewarded.
28.6.2017
All the cool kids are super-excited for Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, but I just can’t get there. Wright has certainly never done me wrong in the past, so I should have faith, but something about the story concept is a turn-off (we needed yet another riff on Walter Hill’s The Driver, and so relatively soon after Drive?), and casting Anson Elgort is an out-and-out red flag. Points for anyone who can explain why I am wrong, and point me to that Mint Royale music video Wright did in 2003 is definitely not sufficient.
30.6.2017
Unwilling to choose between hackneyed clichés, Despicable Me 3 picked two: the former criminal drawn back into his dissolute ways, and the long-lost twin brother. That being said, after the dreadful Sing, this practically looks like a return to dignity and class for Illumination Entertainment, so whatever, live goes on.
Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler tag-team an R-rated comedy together, with The House, and as a fan of half of those people, I suppose I can be vaguely interested, though Poehler’s live-action film track record isn’t terribly impressive. And for right now, this day marks the looooooong-awaited release of Amityville: The Awakening, a film currently on its fifth scheduled release date, going back all the way to when it was finished in late 2014 (not counting two other release dates when it was a completely different concept, since scrapped). I tend to think of it as a mirage, always receding and not really there, and the last time, it fell off the schedule only three weeks out. But let’s be hopeful that maybe we’ll actually finally get to see what the hell could possibly have occasioned that much distribution drama. Anything less than the best movie ever made will be a disappointment.