2015
2014
2013
7/3
Working For It: We all know some form of the Terminator story by now. I'm not sure how this story is going to fit into the larger continuity, and I mostly don't care as long as it's a fun action movie. The cast is all over the place in what I think is a good way. Arnold is back and I'll never begrudge him for having a presence in the series, no matter how much he doesn't look like a super soldier anymore. Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) and Matt Smith (Dr. Who) maintain the nerd-cred. No one should ever dislike seeing J.K. Simmons show up in anything. There's even a couple of those guys that Hollywood keeps telling me should be action stars despite no supporting evidence (Jai Courtney, Jason Clarke).
Working Against It: How many more iterations of this story do we need? I kind of respect their refusal to not do an outright reboot of it all, but it's now reached a point where it's more convoluted than the average fan can follow.
Interest Level: Curious to see what they're doing.
Working For It: Say what you will, but I thought Magic Mike was a solid movie. I can't fault it for the "hot guys dancing" appeal because, well, Hollywood is far more skewed the other way in general. Attacking that would be hypocritical. Beneath the surface appeal though, it was a pretty interesting story. The performances were fine. Especially Tatum and McConaughey.
Working Against It: Magic Mike was never intended to have a sequel. The Steven Soderbergh of it all was a big selling point. With Soderbergh gone, it's looking like all that remains is a story about a dance off. A Step Up with less clothes. That's stripping [pardon the phrasing] it of the parts that interested me.
Interest Level: I don't begrudge it or intend to see it immediately
7/10
Working For It: People love the minions. Getting Sandra Bullock to play an early lady-Gru is a smart bit of casting. The ads have been very effective leading up to this.
Working Against It: I do not love the minions. Getting Sandra Bullock is not enough to convince me to watch to see this. The ads haven't been very effective on me.
Interest Level: Eventually I'll see it. I have trouble seeing how it gets me to a theater to see it.
Working For It: It's a horror movie getting a nationwide release despite starring unknowns on either side of the camera. A lot of really good horror movies start that way (Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity). It has something to do with a high school play being put on in honor of a tragedy that happened two decades before, when the school last did that play. This sounds just generic enough to intrigue me.
Working Against It: The complete lack of credentials worries me. Blumhouse Productions has just a many misses as they do hits, so this feels like a coin toss.
Interest Level: Low, with the possibility of increasing with sneaky good reviews.
Working For It: Ben Kingsley takes over Ryan Reynolds' body only to discover that someone had a life in that body before him. I like Ben Kingsley. I like Ryan Reynolds.
Working Against It: I don't necessarily like a lot of the role either chooses.
Interest Level: Moderate to low
7/17
Working For It: I like Paul Rudd and Marvel puts out a consistently entertaining product. I don't fully know the idea behind this story. Rudd is some sort of former criminal who gets a suit that makes him small. I'm not sure how it ties into the larger cinematic universe, but as Guardians proved last year, working in the periphery isn't so bad.
Working Against It: There is so much potential for this to be the punchline of a joke (Think Cowboys & Aliens). It already feels like Disney is trying to reduce the hype for the movie. Phase 2 of the Marvel movies has swung in quality so much that it's hard to predict where this will land.
Interest Level: Passively high
Working For It: Directed by Judd Apatow. Written by and starring Amy Schumer. Based on the NBA Finals previews, it's filled with Lebron James cameos. I mean, I'm on board. The story sounds simple enough: A commitment-phobe finds herself in a relationship and doesn't know if she wants to make it work.
Working Against It: I love Judd Apatow movies and even I have to admit that they continually run too long. This is the first full-length movie he's directed but not written. It's been a while since I've seen him handle other people's words. I have few worries about it.
Interest Level: It's definitely the most anticipated comedy of the year so far for me.
Working For It: I'll always consider a Woody Allen movie. This one has Joaquin Phoenix playing the Woody Allen character as a professor going through an existential crisis or something. Emma Stone is back too.
Working Against It: Last year's Magic in the Moonlight left me pretty cold. I tend to wait on Allen's movies until I hear something like "It's looks like he just won _____ an Oscar". Without that, I'll wait until what he comes out with the next year.
Interest Level: Low until proven otherwise
*Btw, has Allen ever adapted one of Philip Roth's books? That seems like a perfect pairing.
Working For It: Ian McKellen playing an old Sherlock Holmes and looking dapper as hell in the poster. What more do you need?
Working Against It: Director Bill Condon is a wildcard right now. He's coming off directing the critically ignored The Fifth Estate and the last two Twilight movies. Before that, Kinsey and Dreamgirls were respectable credentials for him. And, he is currently working on the live action Beauty & the Beast. What I'm trying to say is that I don't know what to expect.
Interest Level: Not all that high. There's already enough Sherlock Holmes in the world right now.
7/24
Working For It: I've said for years that I still think Adam Sandler still has a great comedy or two left in him. I'm not sure if Pixels is that movie, but it's a step in the right direction. It's high concept as hell: Aliens take the form of 80's video games and try to take over the Earth. Sandler surrounds himself with some new people*, such as Josh Gad and Peter Dinklige who look to fit right it.
*I love that he's loyal to his friends, but it's nice to vary up the casts a bit
Working Against It: It's been a while since Sandler has looked comfortable in a movie. this is the first time he's looked comfortable in a while.
Interest Level: Surprisingly high
Working For It: John Green has a lot of fans out there. If this adaptation of his work can replicate what The Fault in Our Stars did, then many more will follow. This sounds like a pretty standard coming of age, road trip kind of story. Like Fault, it will succeed on the strength of the young cast. I'm not familiar with Cara Delevingne, Nat Wolff, Cara Buono, etc. the way I was Shalaine Woodley, so we'll see.
Working Against It: I simply don't know enough about this cast, story, or director to feel secure about this, in a genre that historically has as many misses as hits.
Interest Level: Not very high, but I have at least one friend who assures me "We are going to see that"
Working For It: A dark movie about a boxer played by Jake Gyllenhaal whose personal life is falling apart around him as his career is taking off. That's about all I need to know. Gyllenhaal is coming off a great run of movies (Nightcrawler, Prisoners, End of Watch). Rachel McAdams is there. Forest Whitaker, 50 Cent, and Naomie Harris keep it interesting too. Director Anthony Fuqua is at times someone I really like (The Equalizer, Training Day, and - what? - He directed King Arthur).
Working Against It: It's written by Kurt Sutter, creator of Sons of Anarchy: a show that I grew really tired of by the end, despite liking it at the beginning. I'm not sure how Sutter will transition to movie scripts.
Interest Level: Higher if this was released in September
7/31
Working For It: Ethan Hunt and the team are back for another stunt-heavy action fest. Mission Impossible is like Tom Cruise's Ocean's franchise: he makes one whenever he wants to have some fun. And, like the Ocean's franchise, except for an uneven second movie, it has yet to let me down. Tom Cruise has worked with director Christopher McQuarrie before on the underrated Jack Reacher.
Working Against It: It's hard to say how much of the success of Ghost Protocol was director Brad Bird's doing. I think the Mission Impossible franchise is only really dependent on having Tom Cruise, but who knows. I've been wrong before.
Interest Level: How could I miss it?
Working For It: You had me at "National Lampoon's Vacation reboot". Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, and some kids make a solid core cast, with names like Chris Hemsworth, Leslie Mann, Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Keegan-Michael Key, and Charlie Day populating the world. John Francis Daley (Sam from Freak and Geeks) and his writing partner Jonathan M. Goldstein make their directorial debut here. All the previews I've seen look very promising.
Working Against It: The later in the summer comedies are held, the more I worry about them. It's barely not an August release, which is traditionally a dumping ground for niche comedies that don't quite work. I'm pretty sure this release date is more to position it away from Trainwreck, Minions, Ted 2, etc. though. Also, as much as I am rooting for Daley and Goldstein, the screenplays they've penned so far (Horrible Bosses 1 and 2, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2) are not movies I've been wild about.
Interest Level: Pretty high, but I'm willing to let it get shoved out due to a busy schedule
Working For It: Jesse Eisenberg as a reporter getting an interview with Jason Segel as David Foster Wallace on a book tour. That's a strong enough pitch to interest me. Anna Chlumsky (My Girl, Veep), Mamie Gummer (mini-Meryl Streep), Ron Livingston (Office Space, aka "Not Kyle Chandler"), and Joan Cusack are all names that I like.
Working Against It: Nothing other than I have no sense of urgency to see this. It'll fall through the cracks commercially, critically, and in the awards season most likely. It feels a lot like something that will sit in my Netflix queue for a while until I see it one day when I'm bored and end up really liking it.
Interest Level: Not urgent
No comments:
Post a Comment