Ah, summer. Such a great time of year. The days are longer. It's warm outside. Schools are out. I can switch back to sandals...Except, it isn't really summer yet, is it? It sure feels like it though. DC and Marvel both have major releases this month. Thanks, year-round scheduling. Blockbusters, even the biggest movies of the year can happen any month. It is still April though, and the depth of the month isn't great.
After the Snap, the remaining Avengers attempt to
stop Thanos and save the world world from a future with no MCU sequels.
Working For It: You can choose to hate the Marvel machine if you want,
but I'd rather enjoy it for what it is. This movie is the culmination of
something. The same people who praise the commitment of a project like Boyhood
really should laud the work Marvel has put in to get to this point. The cast
has an embarrassment of riches. I fully expect action and laughs - the Russo
brothers are great with that balance. This is the "event" movie of
the year.
Working Against It: That doesn't mean it will be the best movie of the year.
It'll probably be overstuffed and predictable. Popcorn over prestige.
2. Shazam! (4/5)
A young boy
gets powers that turn him into an adult superhero.
Working For It: Zachary Levi is one likable guy. I'm still not sure how
roles like this weren't already waiting for him the second Chuck ended,
but they're here now. I can't wait to see what DC with a funny bone looks like.
Working Against It: I have almost no idea what the plot of the movie is.
It's being sold entire as Superhero Big and the comedy to be milked out
of that idea. This could be a complete mess with a few laughs for all I know.
3. Little (4/12)
An overworked woman's abusive boss is turned into a
little girl.
Working For It: I didn't keep up with the show Insecure, but
after watching only a few minutes of it, it was obvious that Issa Rae is a
star. This is her first big break in a movie and she looks more than up to the
task. Marsai Martin has been a stand out on Blackish for a while now.
Regina Hall is great in everything I've seen her in. It's funny that between
this and Shazam!, this month has two inversions of the movie Big.
Working Against It: I'm a little worried by how heavily they're advertising
that BMW (Black Momma Whoopin') joke. It's my least favorite part of the
trailer and they are treating it like the centerpiece joke. I sure hope the
comedy is more along the lines of the rest of the trailer.
4. Pet Sematary (4/5)
A family moves to a country house with a graveyard
capable of bringing anything buried there back to life.
Working For It: It's a simple and effective premise that can get a lot
of scares easily.
Working Against It: I really disliked the original movie and the directors
of this one don't have any feathers in their filmography cap that excite me.
This is getting the It bump, which could be giving it a higher profile
than it deserves. We'll see.
5. Under the Silver Lake [Limited] (4/19)
A man investigates the disappearance of a woman he
met and fell for.
Working For It: This looks wacky and ambitious. It has Andrew Garfield
in odd-ball mode, which he's pretty good at, and puts him in the middle of a
strange world, putting together clues of a massive conspiracy. This is a big,
risky swing for the sophomore effort from It Follows director David
Robert Mitchell.
Working Against It: The film's release was delayed several months while they
tinkered with it. From what I hear, it falls very short of its ambitions - more
glorious mess than glorious success.
6. The Curse of La Llorona (4/19)
A woman and her children are terrorized by some
supernatural creature.
Working For It: The main appeal of this is Linda Cardellini in a lead
role. I'll never understand how she was unable to turn Freaks & Geeks
into something bigger, like so many of her costars. She's great and should be a
fine horror movie lead.
Working Against It: I don't care for major studio horror a lot of the time.
The focus is more on jumps and cuts than simmering unease. I'm sure it will do
pretty well though in the box office. Hispanic audiences love horror and the
title should help with that.
7. Hellboy (4/12)
Hellboy is a creature pulled from Hell to fight
evil, but, you know, in a funny way.
Working For It: David Harbour (Stranger Things) looks alright for
the role. Humor is a good way to endear me to any comic [book] franchise.
Working Against It: This feels like such a second tier effort. A cast
including David Harbour, Ian McShane, Milla Jovavich, and Sasha Lane sounds
like they got the second choice for every role. The trailer looks like
Lionsgate trying to pass off a mid-tier budget as a blockbuster.
8. The Best of Enemies (4/5)
A black woman and the head of a local KKK chapter
become unlikely allies as their children's schools are desegregated.
Working For It: I like the idea of Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell
going head to head. This kind of movie is often ham-fisted in its messaging but
very watchable.
Working Against It: I haven't researched this movie, but I'm assuming it was
made with Oscar hopes in mind. That it ended up with a March release tells me a
lot about how effective the studio thought it was. Coming off a - let's just
call it - contested Green Book Oscar win, I don't have much of an
appetite for another version of this story yet.
9. Teen Spirit [Limited] (4/5)
Elle Fanning is an aspiring pop star who competes in
a major TV singing competition.
Working For It: Elle Fanning is on the shortlist of best performers who
can't legally drink* yet. After getting out of her sister's shadow with a few
major studio movies, she's moved into artier films lately. I'm having the
hardest time describing this as anything other than "The Neon Demon
but music instead of modelling". I liked The Neon Demon (kind of),
so maybe I'll like this too.
Working Against It: I have no reason to trust writer/director Max Minghella
as a director yet. This seems quite ambitious, and the trailer looks light on
story and heavy on visuals.
*Her 21st birthday is this month, actually.
10. Little Woods [Limited] (4/19)
Two sisters work outside the law to secure a better
life.
Working For It: Tessa Thompson and Lily James play these sisters in a
movie that looks a lot like a gender-reversed Hell or High Water. I
loved that movie, so maybe this will follow suit.
Working Against It: If memory serves, I wasn't looking forward to Hell or
High Water at the time, because there's a lot of room for this kind of
movie to go nowhere. And it's a first time director. I don't trust those.
Other Nationwide Releases
After (4/12)
This story of a nice girl falling for a bad boy at
her college looks like Nicholas Sparks trying to write a 50 Shades movie.
No thank you.
Missing Link (4/12)
A bigfoot goes looking for his cousin (the Yeti) in
the mountains of Nepal. I've mostly loved these Laika Animation movies, but
they've all had to prove me wrong going in.
Breakthrough (4/19)
A woman prays for her son to come back to life after
drowning in a frozen lake for 15 minutes. I really don't know how they'll fill
a whole movie if that is the premise.
Penguins (4/19)
Disney Nature film about a penguin. So, if you love
Penguins, maybe you should see this.
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