2017
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2016
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2015
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2016
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2015
2014
2013
7/7
Spider-Man adapts to living life as a normal teenager after getting his powers.
Working for It: Tom Holland won a lot of people over with his brief appearance in Civil War. After Sony tried to stuff the world-building down our throats with Amazing Spider-Man 2, this appears to be taking a step back and taking a small-scale approach instead, like Ant-Man (tee-hee) a couple years ago. While having six writers attached to the script is somewhat alarming, the names in the list are impressive, such as Chris McKenna (who probably wrote your favorite episode of Community) and the team of John Francis Daly & Jonathan Goldstein (Horrible Bosses, Vacation). Disney looks committed to giving the movie support help from Robert Downey Jr. in particular. Oh, and Donald Glover, Martin Starr, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Angourie Rice (the daughter from The Nice Guys), and the list keeps going, not to mention Michael Keaton as the villain.
Working Against It: So many writers worries me. I'd like a director with some more familiar credits to his name, although I do recognize that Marvel movies are produced more than they're directed.
Verdict: I know I'm too committed to the Marvel movies to start missing any now, and this one looks like a lot of fun.
A documentary about ISIS protesters living anonymously in an ISIS-controlled region of...(I forgot to check what country).
Working for It: This looks like a natural follow up to Cartel Land for director Matthew Heineman. He excels at ground-level filmmaking and appearing to put himself in danger to get access and footage. This looks like it will be an invaluable glance into a part of the world we don't see much of from this perspective.
Working Against It: Cartel Land was a case of the topic being more interesting than the filmmaking on display. I think there's no way that the story of ISIS protesters will be boring, but it would be nice for the editing and filmmaking to do some of the work.
Verdict: It's probably worth finding eventually if it stays around for the awards circuit or critics lists at the end of the year.
A white sheet ghost stalks an old house and the people living in it.
Working for It: It's a Sundance film from David Lowery (Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Pete's Dragon) starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck. This certainly looks more like Ain't Them Bodies Saints (which I still need to see) than Pete's Dragon. Either way, I'm calling that a good thing. I like the lead actors and I'm a sucker for Sundance films.
Working Against It: The trailer looks downright Terrence Malick-ian. I'm not convinced about if I like Malick though. That trailer is cryptic in content and filled with pull quotes about how great it is without saying all that much about it. In short, it's a mystery and perhaps a pretentious one.
Verdict: I won't be risking a movie ticket on it, but it will go in a streaming service queue when it gets to one of them.
7/14
The conflict between man and ape escalates further.
Working for It: I assumed Rise of the Planet of the Apes would be as false a start as the 2001 Planet of the Apes was. Instead, it was a contained and heartfelt movie. I assumed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was an ill-fated attempt to raise the stakes that was relying too much on ape characters that the audience would have trouble connecting to. Instead, it was an exciting action movie that deftly handled themes of the delicate nature of maintaining peace and fear of "the other". In other words, I'm just going to trust that War will be pretty good instead of doubting it. It bringing back one of the writers and the director of the last movie. It still has Andy Serkis as Caesar. It adds Woody Harrelson, who improves more movies than he hurts.
Working Against It: But, real talk for a minute. The trailer makes Harrelson look really hammy. And, looking at the cast, this is the least reliant they've been on a human cast (Harrelson is the only human actor who I recognize at all), which worries me some.
Verdict: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was too good to not see what the third act will bring.
A girl finds a box that grants her wishes at a deadly cost.
Working for It: If supernatural horror movies about teens with a PG-13 rating is your thing, this looks fine. Joey King is the lead, and other than Ryan Phillippe, the only person in the cast I recognize*.
*Scratch that. It also has Dong from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, so...
Working Against It: Is Joey King well known? I know who she is. I've seen her in a bunch of movies and TV shows. I know she's not a Dakota Fanning or even a Chloe Moretz. Is she like a Bella Thorne who everyone under the age of 20 knows but adults don't? Regardless, this doesn't look like a great vehicle for her.
Verdict: This is not for me.
A 19th century English woman who has been sold into marriage begins an affair with a worker on her estate, kills her husband, and tries to hide it.
Working for It: ...At least, that's the impression I get from the trailer. Visually, it looks like The VVitch, although it doesn't appear to be a horror movie. It has that indie film circuit vibe that I normally respond well to.
Working Against It: It's the debut film for the director and screenwriter. The lead actress has few credits, none all that notable. If this is good, it has to be taken on faith to see it. I can't point to anything drawing me in on their past experience.
Verdict: Realistically, I'll forget that this exists, but I would appreciate it if I saw it.
7/21
Allied WWII soldiers are pinned down by the German on a beach and must be rescued by civilians.
Working for It: Christopher Nolan's biggest creative "miss" was Interstellar and that was still pretty good. I trust him to deliver a good movie. He pairs frequent collaborators like Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy with the likes of Kenneth Branagh and Mark Rylance. That's enough to feel pretty good about this.
Working Against It: I don't know how we haven't run out of WWII stories by now. If it wasn't for Nolan, I wouldn't be excited for this.
Verdict: A Nolan movie is always worth seeing.
Four lifelong friends take a trip down to New Orleans.
Working for It: I like Jada Pinkett Smith, Queen Latifa, Regina Hall, and Tiffany Haddish (some more than others). I'm encouraged by seeing Kenya Barris (showrunner of Black-ish) as a credited writer. I'm sure if I watch this, it will be decent enough.
Working Against It: It's from the director of The Best Man Holiday. I'm not a big fan of that movie and this looks pretty similar.
Verdict: This weekend will be busy enough.
A space opera based on a long running French comic series about a special operative duo tasked with stopping a dark force that threatens the giant city of Alpha.
Working for It: This is by far the most intriguing question mark of 2017. Will it do well in the US? Will it matter if it does well in the US? The Valerian and Laureline series, by my understanding, is an institution in Europe but not as well known stateside. I'm reminded of the 2011 Tintin movie in that respect, because that too is a property largely unknown by the US public, and that film underwhelmed in the domestic box office. Valerian is a massively expensive movie (>$200 million) with an ambitious marketing campaign. I have no doubt in director Luc Besson's ability to pull this off (just look at The Fifth Element), but let's not forget that 2014's Lucy is the only film of his to even break $100 million in the US Box Office. Stars Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne are familiar to some, but hardly big stars on their own. The supporting cast, including Ethan Hawke, Rihanna, John Goodman, Clive Owen, and Elezabeth Debicki, aren't pulling that many people in on their own. The movie looks really interesting and very well could be excellent. I just don't know, and that's what intrigues me.
Working Against It: This movie feels like a big gamble. I'm getting a lot of John Carter/Warcraft vibes, which is worrisome. The last time I remember a studio putting this much into a single unproven property that actually worked out was The Hunger Games, and even that only had a $78 million budget.
Verdict: I'm invoking the "Lone Ranger" rule, which roughly states that if I've seen trailers for a movie enough times in the months leading up to its release, I will see it. I don't know what "enough times" means exactly, but if the combined number would be the length of a feature film, it counts. It helps that I'm also very curious about it in general.
Three couples on a trip in the woods stumble onto some sort of alien invasion.
Working for It: This is a found footage movie, which is a style that I like to an unreasonable degree. That's about all this has going for it, since I don't recognize the cast or writer/director.
Working Against It: As much as I love found footage, it doesn't have many cards left to play. This film looks like a mix of the first and last stories in V/H/S 2, so it doesn't get points for originality.. At some point, found footage films work so hard to explain why or how this person would still be recording in this situation that's it's hard to buy into anything else in the film.
Verdict: This doesn't look like it's worth seeing.
7/28
Charlize Theron is an undercover MI-6 agent during the Cold Wars who kicks ass and doesn't take names.
Working for It: If Charlize Theorn kicking ass is enough for you, then don't even bother. This is being positioned as a female John Wick. The director of this even worked on John Wick in an uncredited role. It also has Sofia Boutella, presumably taking advantage of her physicality more than The Mummy did. James McAvoy and John Goodman too.
Working Against It: Recent hits like John Wick and Lucy have made us forget about all the Aeon Fluxes, Ultraviolets, and Jason Statham movies that aren't able to successfully employ the beat em' up formula. This is not a guaranteed hit.
Verdict: John Wick 2 has me too encouraged by the genre to skip out of this.
A failed 'meh' emoji looks for his purpose in the world.
Working for It: Sony Animation has assembled a fun voice cast including TJ Miller, Anna Faris, Patrick Stewart, and many others. There's a part of me that says, since there's no way that Sony isn't aware of how bad this idea sounds, there must be something special about this we don't realize yet that convinced them to make it anyway.
Working Against It: This is the movie that comedians like Mindy Kaling write about in their books with they talk about bad studio pitch meetings. There's no positive spin I can give on this. It looks like either Sony scraped from the bottom of the intellectual property barrel for this idea or made the least inspired rip off of Inside Out imaginable. Possibly both. This is the same family of companies that released the Angry Birds Movie last year, so this shouldn't surprise me. Is Farmtown or Candy Crush coming in 2018? Words with Friends in 2019?
Verdict: This is a hard and principled 'no'.
An Inconvenient Truth, 10 years later and in direct response to Trump.
Working for It: An Inconvenient Truth is a multi-Oscar winning documentary with a topic that is as timely as it was a decade ago. It seems like this one has a bit more production value.
Working Against It: The trailer makes this look too pointed toward Trump or like a big "I told you so" in response to the first movie. None of that is what I'm looking for in a documentary.
Verdict: If I didn't see the first one, what hope does this have?
Menashe [Limit]
An orthodox Jewish widow looks for a way to be allowed to raise his son on his own.
Working for It: This is known on the festival circuit as the film that's all in Yiddish. That's enough for me.
Working Against It: All unknown actors, from a documentary filmmaker taking a stab at fictional narrative, and it sounds more like an experiment than a fully realized film. There's a lot of reasons not to trust this.
Verdict: I'm not going out of my way to see this, but if I see it on a Netflix list one day, I'll probably watch it.
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