05 July, 2013

DJ B-Clear's Summer Movie Preview - July

Here's what going on in July...

July 3rd

  • Despicable Me 2: Follow-up to the 2010 original that has Gru as the foster parent if you will but he's recruited by the Anti Villain League to thwart a new dastardly villain. I saw the original and it was good but since it's geared more towards families I will take a pass. Should be fun for the kids. The minions will probably steal the show.
  • The Lone Ranger: By now you've probably all seen the trailer for this potential blockbuster that features Johnny Depp as Tonto. If it looks like  Pirates of the Caribbean of the old west then you're probably right (same director, same producer & Depp). There's a lot of action, explosions and clever one-liners for the era. That said I am going to give this film a whirl.
  • A Girl And A Gun: Interesting documentary about the gun industry targeting women for gun ownership. The gun industry wants women to feel threatened so that they'll buy guns. It looks like they take both sides here; women who've been victims, women who are incarcerated for a gun crime, women who go to the gun range and probably a lot of statistics. Interesting subject matter and it should be interesting to watch.


July 5th

  • Stuck in Love: Schlocky dramedy about a divorced writer () who is sleeping with () but is still has feelings for his ex-wife (), who's sleeping with a younger more studlier dude (it appears that the wife here went younger but based what each one ended up with, I'd be hard pressed to say there was a loser). A difficult life indeed. Along the way Bell tries to modernize him (get an FB page and into on-line dating), Kinnear tries to reconnect with his teenaged daughter () who's discovering her sexuality. Kinnear is also an accomplished writer. Just by watching the trailer it seems hard to connect with anyone here on account their lives are still pretty enviable. If the worst thing is that Kinnear & Connelly have to deal with a teenage daughter then welcome to parenthood. Next!
  • The Way, Way Back: plays Duncan in a coming of age film that looks a lot like Meatballs (1st film that popped into my head after watching the trailer). Toni Collette plays Duncan's mom who's dating Steve Carell and suffice to say he & Duncan don't get along. The three go to spend the summer at the beach and of course Duncan is miserable because of Carell's doucheness. Enter Sam Rockwell, the unconventional mentor who works at the water park and gives Duncan a job (Rockwell is essentially playing Murray's role of Tripper in Meatballs and James is Rudy). Rockwell then proceeds to advise James about being a teenager and gives him the confidence needed to stand-up to Carrell and score babes. Being in my 40's, Meatballs is the first film that came to my head in terms of what this particular film is copying. Since I've seen this film as different titles before but it does have an all-star cast and it could be interesting to see Carrell as a d-bag.
  • The Look of Love: directs this biopic of Paul Raymond, the British version of Hugh Heffner & Larry Flynt rolled into one with a little Andy Warhol & Howard Hughes. is the title character it the film charts his rise to soft-porn power in the fifties and sixties. Since I like the work of Winterbottom, I will make every effort to see this film. The trailer looks solid and Winterbottom is an excellent director. It's worth a look.
  • Hammer Of The Gods: I saw this trailer and I'm not sure what's going on but it's the Dark Ages and its got a lot of shirtless, dirty dudes with anger issues. It's pre-Norman Invasion England and one guy has to look for his brother to rule a village or whatever. The brother has exiled himself into an area that's not easy to get to on account of all the pitfalls (warring tribes and that stuff). Hard to say what happens but there's a lot of dirty, well muscled men wielding swords and causing mayhem and carnage. I'm a sucker for a dark period piece so I may check it out.


July 12th

  • Grown Ups 2: Sequel to the 2010 film with Adam Sandler and his pals. I saw this trailer in a bar and even without sound it made me cringe. Sandler has been making the same movie (with the exception of Punch-Drunk Love) for nearly 20 years. I will avoid this like Black Death.
  • Pacific Rim: Earth is under attack from giant alien monsters that have been laying dormant under the ocean. Earth's only hope is to construct giant robots to combat the alien menace. Essentially they build a real life version of a Super Robot or Shogun Warriors. Admittedly the trailer looks pretty cool but it seems to have similarities to last summer's mega-bomb, Battleship. Despite the fact that directs, there's no rating as of yet on Rotten Tomatoes so that could very telling.
  • The Hunt: plays a former teacher who has been accused of molesting a little girl in the town where he lives. This Danish film directed by , paints a picture of what happens when people turn against a friend based on a child's accusation. The trailer looked real intense. Since it's foreign it will most likely be hard to find and there's people who don't like to read their films. If it comes to Chicago, I would like to give it a try.
  • Crystal Fairy: Here's a shocker, stars as a geeky guy who agrees to go on a trip to Chile to impress a girl. So it's a fish out of water story or just another Cera film. (she played Costner's choking daughter who was rescued by 'Moonlight' Graham in Field of Dreams, remember her?) is Crystal Fairy (that's her name) a free spirit who takes Cera and some pals on a road trip to find a certain cactus so they can cut it open, drink from it and experience its alleged magical properties. If I'm going to take a this for a test drive I want to see what the buzz is first. The trailer doesn't look all that fantastic.
  • Pawn Shop Chronicles:  I wouldn't call this an all-star cast but this film has got some notable talent starring and making cameos. There appears to be several different story lines gong on here; a planned heist, inept criminals, revenge and an issue with a missing wedding to name a few. The trailer contains violence, explosions, screaming and a lack of IQ. Tee film has no rating as of yet on Rotten Tomatoes. The film is directed by , who did a nice job with The Cooler  but his last two releases haven't fared well. You might want to wait until this hits Redbox.
  • The Hot Flashes: , , , , and play a group of menopausal women who try to remember their youth by reforming their decades old State Championship High School basketball team to play the current reigning HS women's team in a charity game. main stars are all very talented but this seems like beyond slumming. Shields plays the leader of the group, Madsen is the sexed-up member, Hannah is in used car sales, Sykes is the token diverse member and Manheim just kind of fills out the group (because you need 5 to field a basketball team). Quite frankly, the actual girls team they play against look , more like a junior high team than a senior high team. The trailer is almost not believable in any sense.

July 19th

  • Turbo: The latest release from Dreamworks Animation gives us the tale of a snail that magically gets super speed and eventually races in the Indianapolis 500.
  • Red 2:  , , and are back as retired assassins (Mirren's character is still active, think of her as an older from Wanted. In fact there's probably very similar action sequences) including character is back as Willis' full-time girlfriend (essentially re-doing role from The Whole Ten Yards). Also joining the group are as an old flame of Willis and as the insane scientist whose atomic bomb they all must find before some unsavory character can use it. Lots of action and old folks jokes. I never saw the original and never lost sleep over it so I probably won't lose too much sleep if I miss this.
  • R.I.P.D.: and (I say Cogburn here because that's essentially who he's playing) star as paranormal cops trying to keep the undead at bay here on earth. The catch is that they're both dead, Reynolds being the newly deceased and his grizzled partner who's been dead a long time, if you think that sounds a lot like Agents Kay and Jay from the MiB franchise, then give yourself a cigar!If you watch the trailer, just picture the undead as aliens or vice versa. The hitch is that while on Earth hunting undead fugitives, they don't appear as themselves. Reynold's avatar is and Bridges' avatar is . Since I've seen all 3 MiB films and I didn't think that much of the 3rd, I will sit this one out.
  • The Conjuring: Director brings us the tale of real life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by and the Nite Owl. The Warrens are called out to the 1970's New England home of and to investigate some strange happenings. Well as expected, things get creepy and Formiga starts to get effected by the occurrences. There's some pretty chilling scenes with some of the young children (if you want to sell chilling and creepy, you MUST have children involved), Formiga is a great actor and Wan has got a solid background for these types of films but these types of films come out by the dozen each year. It's just hard to pick the right one.
  • Only God Forgives: is a underground boxing promoter and smuggler living in Bangkok. His partner and brother is killed and he needs to protect his crime lord mother ( ) from a rival gang. There's a very good chance I'm going to see this film, it seems dark, gritty, it's got gangsters and it's in Bangkok! But I can't help but feel Gosling is playing the Driver once again (an emotionless, cold blooded sociopath when the situation requires it) which is fair considering directed this film and Drive.
  • Girl Most Likely: stars as  the "most likely to succeed" in high school type girl whose once promising life takes a turn for the worse. Her career as a playwright takes a nose dive after he socialite boyfriend dumps her and for some reason she goes back to live with her less than ideal mother played by (think of a working class Lucille Bluth). also stars as Bening's live-in boyfriend who is Wiig sees as a bad kiar but her mother can not. Oh by the way Bening rented out Wiig's old room to a 20 something stud, which leads to sexual situations. There's a lot of humor here but I can't help but feel that Sandra Bullock has done a "you can't go home again" film. Wiig is a solid talent and hopefully she can find the right vehicle to propel her career.
  • Broken: Heavy drama about a young British girl coming of age/loss of innocence in a London suburb. She witnesses a violent neighbor on neighbor attack and suddenly she sees the world in a different light. 
  • Evidence: A bus load of diverse good looking passengers gets stranded in the desert, one of the 2 places where bad things happen, the other being the woods) and they're are bruatlly killed. After an explosion, the police try to piece together what happened through "found footage" because of the video cameras that the passengers had and a few that the killer may have used. This looks a lot like Saw meets Paranormal Activity.

July 26th

  • The Wolverine: Despite the lousiness of 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I will be seeing this film for sure. The preview looks really cool and hopefully they've learned from the mistakes of the last film. The plot deals with Logan's time in Japan (touched on in the comics I used to read when I was growing up in the 80's) so it looks like there's a Silver Samurai sighting in addition to Mariko Yashida (his true love in the comics) and Yukio (another old flame). Lots of action for sure and the story looks to be interesting. directs.
  • The To Do List: 29 year-old plays a" goody two shoes" high school senior who decides she needs to do all of the fun things you're supposed to experience in high school (like french kissing, administering/giving a hickey and motorboating which she thiks actually involves a boat) before going off to college. The coup de grace of her list is to lose her virginity. Since she's a bit of a social misfit, she decides to go for the hottest dude around, the public pool lifeguard and local stud, Rusty Waters. Hilarity ensues. The standard "fish out of water" teen angst film, nothing new.  For those who may not remember, the last time we saw Plaza, this happened...

  • Blue Jasmine: latest film has going through a crisis when her sleazy husband () leaves her in a bit of a financial bind. He leaves her or get indicted and all that she thought she had is now gone. So she heads to San Francisco to see her sister (really move in as she has nowhere to go) who's married with a family. Since Blanchett has tasted the good life, she's a little judgmental of her sister's working class life. The last Allen film I saw was  You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and I thought it was really good in fact borderline great. Allen isn't as prolific as he once was but he can still tell a story that relates to people. If possible, I will see this film.
  • Frankenstein's Army: Nazi experimentation taken in a different direction when Soviet troops advancing into Germany in the latter stages of WWII discover Nazi laboratory where gruesome things took place. What they discover is about as mad scientist as one would get. SS doctors creating nightmarish "super-soldiers" by piecing together dead troops (there's obviously no shortage of corpses to pick from). Some very gruesome images, think of the creations as a combination of one of Pinhead's evil minions and a Nazi version of Edward Scissorhands. The trailer is pretty creepy but if you're into this type of thing and you can find it near you, why not take it for a spin. It looks like it will be grizzly and bloody.

July 31st

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