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4/6
Three parents try to stop their daughters from
losing their virginity on prom night.
Working For It: Leslie Mann, John Cena, and Ike Barinholtz have all been
comedy weapons in other movies and have proven that they are game for just
about anything. This could be a good showcase for all three of them. There
aren't many movies of this ilk told from the parents' perspective, so that
could be a nice change of pace.
Working Against It: I can't deal with the movie's name and all the winking
and nudging about it in the advertising. I get it. [Cock] Blockers. The
three leads are all known for stealing scenes, not necessarily leading movies.
I worry the least about Mann, because she impressed me so much in The Other Woman
and her husband (Judd Apatow) has given her plenty of juicy roles over the
years*. Cena tries really damn hard, and that eventually pays off. However, I'm
not convinced that enthusiasm has developed into comedic timing yet. Barinholtz
will be the most telling. He can always get a laugh from me, but I do worry
that too much of him could get exhausting. I'm a little worried as well about
who is behind the camera. This is Kay Cannon's (a terrific comedy writer)
directing debut and she didn't write the script. I'd think she'd be more
prepared to direct a script if which she wrote it. However, for all I know, she
may have completely rewritten it but credit went elsewhere due to WGA rules.
Still, I'm concerned.
My Stance: I'm going to see it for the talent on screen but I'm not
that optimistic.
*That's not to say she owes her career to him or
anything. He's just ensured that she's gotten as many opportunities as her
talent deserves.
A speculative take on the Teddy Roosevelt scandal
that derailed his hopes of ever becoming president.
Working For It: I mentioned this one a few months back. I rightly
assumed that its release would get pushed back since there was almost no
information I could find about it at the time. I've got a little more
information about it now. The Chappaquiddick scandal is a great topic for a
director with a clear vision for how to handle it. There are enough holes in
the story to interpret it however you want.
Working Against It: What's the nice way to say this is a second-tier cast? I
like Jason Clarke a lot, but he isn't good enough to look past some unnatural
makeup they put on him. I've liked Kata Mara and Olivia Thirlby in plenty of
movies and shows, but they've never been the draw of those movies and shows.
Jim Gaffigan and Ed Helms could be serious actors if they want. Just look at
Steve Carrell. This isn't the right venue to break into that though. Try
Sundance a little more first. The trailer just made Bruce Dern look silly.
There's no one behind the camera that excites me either.
My Stance: As much as I like stories based on historical events,
this looks very skippable.
A volleyball teams tries to save their season after
the death of one of their teammates
Working For It: It's nice to see someone other than Disney getting in on
the inspirational sports movie game. It even has a few "I like them. Why
don't they work more?" actors like Oscar winners Helen Hunt and William
Hurt. I'm sure someone in the young cast will break big and increase this
film's profile in about 10 years. Erin Moriarty or Danika Yarosh, maybe?
Working Against It: I don't care much for volleyball. When the stakes are as
obvious as in this film, I'm going to need a little more to draw me in. Maybe a
really interesting performance or a quippy script. Like, imagine what The Winning Season
would've been like without Sam Rockwell.
My Stance: I'm ready to forget about this movie as soon as I finish
this sentence.
A family must stay completely silent to avoid
detection by creates that have overrun the Earth.
Working For It: It stars real-life delightful married couple John Krasinski
and Emily Blunt. The pitch is immediately compelling. That's all I really need
for a 90 minute horror thriller.
Working Against It: Krasinski hasn't directed anything at all like this
before. The major studio PG-13 horror movies almost always find a way to pull
back at the end and stop the film from really being scary. This looks an awful
lot like I Am Legend in that way.
My Stance: It's really going to come down to how much of an Emily
Blunt mood I'm in at the time.
Two men return to visit to the cult they used to
belong to and are given possibly supernatural reasons to reconsider it.
Working For It: This is right up my alley. A mystery with some horror
elements. Elements of found footage. A bunch of unknown actors who I'll
probably recognize a lot of in about 5 years.
Working Against It: This feels like a lot is going to be riding on how it
ends. That makes me nervous.
My Stance: While I doubt I'll find it in theaters, I can almost
garuntee I'll watch it when it gets to a streaming site.
Lean on Pete [Limited]
I've covered this before. The
fact that the release date keeps changing doesn't worry me that much. I don't
think there's any natural release date for a movie about a boy and his horse.
A veteran who tracks down missing girls for a living
gets tied up in a dangerous conspiracy on one of his jobs.
Working For It: Joaquin Phoenix got a lot of praise for this at Cannes
last year and this is exactly the kind of role I'd expect him to be great with.
No one does the "raw nerve" thing better.
Working Against It: This looks unrelentingly brutal. I only have so much
tolerance for that.
My Stance: The odds that I'll need to take a break in the middle of
watching this will keep me out of the theater, I suspect.
4/13
A dramatization of the 1980 Wimbeldon showdown
between Bjorn Borg and Jon McEnroe.
Working For It: Shia LaBeouf is both a perfect and a poor choice to play
McEnroe. He can pull off the anger and explosiveness. He just doesn't look that
much like him. Or maybe I just know what McEnroe looks like too much. It'll be
a fun performance. I don't know much about Sverrir Gundnason, but he looks
intense as Borg.
Working Against It: I don't know the director or writer's work. The cast
isn't all that impressive.
A scientific experiment makes The Rock's ape friend
continue to grow until he's city-smashing big.
Working For It: Never underestimate Dwayne Johnson's ability to make a
movie watchable. I like Malin Akerman and Naomie Harris too. Oh, and Jeffrey
Dean Morgan. It's from Johnson's San Andreas director, so you no what to
expect.
Working Against It: I've been in no hurry to see San Andreas. In
general, I'm not sure why I should care about a knock-off King Kong.
It's like this movie was written by learning all the wrong lessons from Rise
of the Planet of the Apes.
My Stance: I'll probably end up seeing it, but I'm not excited to
see it.
An animated movie about a dog who becomes a WWI
hero.
Working For It: I've always found WWI to be criminally under represented
in film. I suppose this is my "put up or shut up" moment for support.
Working Against It: It's still so hard to make a CGI animated movie, that I
simply don't trust a non-major studio to come out with a good one. Eventually I
will be wrong about this.
My Stance: Just as soon as I get to The Wild Life.
A young woman is stalked by a deadly truth or dare
game.
Working For It: I like Lucy Hale whenever she shows up in anything. I'm
certain to like her in this.
Working Against It: I couldn't name another person in the cast, and haven't
I made it clear by now what my opinion of major studio PG-13 horror movies is?
Until proven wrong, I'll assume this isn't very good.
My Stance: It might be a slow enough weekend for Lucy Hale to be
enough to convince me.
Isle of Dogs [Expanding]
I'm pretty sure I covered this last month.
Even if I hadn't, I'd done talking about it. I've seen this trailer an unconscionable number of times before seeing other movies. I'm done.
A Korean found-footage horror movie about people
exploring a haunted abandoned asylum.
Working For It: I love found-footage horror. This is a simple premise
that's hard to mess up.
Working Against It: Subtitles in found-footage movies take me out of it
My Stance: Once I find out about a horror movie that sounds at all
interesting, it's basically a lock that I'll see it eventually.
A US Diplomat is called upon to negotiate after a
friend is taken hostage.
Working For It: Jon Hamm hasn't been able to make much of a movie career
yet, but anyone as good as he was on a show as good as Mad Men shouldn't
be counted out. Rosamund Pike also hasn't been able to use Gone Girl
as the launching pad I'd hoped it could be.The director of The Machinist
directed a script from the Rogue One scribe. I
can get behind that.
Working Against It: What's with all the 70s/80s Middle East movies lately?
Did the rest of Hollywood just find out about
Argo last year?
My Stance: Eh. I'm good.
4/20
After getting hit in the head, a woman wakes up
believing she the most beautiful woman in the world.
Working For It: The duo the wrote and directed perfectly fine comedies
like Never Been Kissed and How to Be Single wrote and
directed this Amy Schumer comedy. I'll be honest, I'm considering seeing this
just for the possibility of seeing Michelle Williams and Busy Phillips (real
life best friends) on screen together. It's got SNL types like Sasheer
Zamata and Aidy Bryant too.
Working Against It: This sure feels like an Inside Amy Schumer sketch
that's been stretched into a 90 minute movie.
My Stance: I just need any evidence there's more to this than the
pitch.
The troopers are called on to establish a highway
patrol in a Canadian town that just found out it's actually American.
Working For It: Super Troopers is a massive cult hit. The people
who love it really love it. There's nothing about this humor that makes me
think it would lose anything as a sequel.
Working Against It: I didn't like Super Troopers at all. It's not my
kind of humor.
My Stance: I'm not sure what it would take to get me to watch this.
A couple on a country getaway are terrorized by a
biker gang.
Working For It: Omar Epps, Paula Patton, Missi Pyle, Dawn Olivieri,
William Fichtner, and Roselyn Sanchez is a group of actors I have nothing
against.
Working Against It: Any time a movie cast sounds like the cast of a CBS
pilot, that's a bad sign.
My Stance: Nope
The director of The Exorcist makes a
documentary about a priest performing an exorcism.
Working For It: William Feiedkin is leaning into his legacy pretty hard
and I'm OK with it. Can you think of anyone better to make a film about
exorcism?
Working Against It: I do worry that they are going to play up the scares
more than they need to. I'm actually more interested in a non-sensational look
at exorcism.
My Stance: It's certainly on my radar now.
A comedic account of Anne Wiazemsky's marriage to
legendary French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.
Working For It: It's a French film from the director of The Artist
and he brought his wife, the lovely Benenice Bejo, along with him again. I
wouldn't mind seeing a dramatization of Godard's life.
Working Against It: I think I'd need to learn a lot more about Godard to be
able to appreciate the humor in this, especially since I'll be dealing with a
language barrier.
My Stance: I'll probably forget about this movie, if I'm being
honest.
4/27
Everyone in the Marvel universe must join forces to
defeat a powerful being known as Thanos.
Working For It: Say what you will about the Marvel universe, but they've
collected an impressive group of actors. Karen Gillan, Elizabeth Olsen, Josh
Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Robert
Downey Jr, Linda Cardellini, Chadwick Boseman, Letitia Wright, Tom Holland, Tom
Hiddleston, Chris Pratt, Idris Elba, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jeremy Renner,
Benicio Del Toro, Bradley Cooper, Paul Rudd, Paul Bettany, Jon Favreau, Peter
Dinklage, Mark Ruffalo. Put any four of those people in a movie together and
that would be a movie I'm a lock to see. And that's not even the full list. The
Russo brothers are coming over from the Captain America
movies to direct this. Screenplay from the scribes of the Captain America movies as
well. I'm not expecting this to be a masterpiece, but it'll be fun.
Working Against It: This is the poster child of too many cooks in the
kitchen and too many ingredients in the soup. It's hard to get more overstuffed
than this. I struggle to see how it won't be a mess, or at the very least, not
worth all the build up.
My Stance: I'm looking forward to other movies this year more, but
it's hard to think of many that I'm more guaranteed to see.
After the death of her father, a woman returns to
the ultra-conservative Jewish community that shunned her years ago.
Working For It: I forgot to mention that it's a forbidden romance movie,
between Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams. What more do you need to know? It's
from the director of this year's Foreign Film Oscar winner.
Working Against It: Homosexual love in a strict religious community is a
cliche by now, right?
My Stance: You had me at Rachel.
A woman tries to hold her family together during the
LA riots of 1992.
Working For It: Halle Berry is the matriarch. Daniel Craig is the crotchety neighbor. I'm sure there will be some good melodrama.
Working Against It: I'm a little suspicious about a Turkish director's take
on the LA riots. There's a lot of things foreign directors are great at, but
understanding US race relations isn't always one of them.
My Stance: There are too many documentaries about the riots I need
to get to first.
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