July Movie Preview

It's going to be tough for July to compete with the rest of the summer so far. June was huge thanks to Jurassic World's domination and Inside Out simply being fantastic. Spy was a solid, not spectacular comedy too. That followed a May that was every bit as loaded. July certainly looks busy. It may even be big enough to eclipse May and June. It could also continue a trend of underwhelming Julys (No chance it'll be as dire as last year). There's a plethora of options available.

2015

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2014

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2013

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7/3

Terminator Genisys
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.

Magic Mike XXL
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

Minions
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.

The Gallows
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.

Self/less
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

Ant-Man
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

Trainwreck
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.

Irrational Man
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.

Mr. Holmes
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

Pixels
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

Paper Towns
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"

Southpaw
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

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
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?

Vacation
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

The End of the Tour
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

Delayed Reaction: Saw III

What I Guessed It Was About: A bunch of strangers are forced to do a lot of horrible things to themselves and others as the thread to the original movie is lost even more than it already was.

How I Came Into It: I've covered this already. I don't like these movies. I get no thrill out of what they do. I'm watching them in part so that I can say that I gave them a fair chance, and I really am. The first movie was better than I thought. The second was not. If this one was great, I'd admit it. That doesn't mean I wasn't prepared for the opposite.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) This advances the larger story in a way that almost makes it look like it was the plan all along (as opposed to most horror franchises where the first was stand-alone and a mythology gets developed before making the second). The new tortures were plenty inventive and disgusting (the pig chopper, for instance) for the fans of that stuff.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I assumed the husband and wife story (aka "the twist") pretty early on, which killed the big reveal. The problem with being clever, which the first Saw was, is that it's hard to do. You can't be 90% consistent to be clever. You have to think it all through. As the Saw series progresses, Jigsaw leaves far too much up to chance. That it all worked out as he expected then isn't being a mastermind. It's being exceptionally lucky. I should be leaving this movie with a grin on my face at the thoroughness of it all, not thinking "It's sure lucky that he shot her at the end".

Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Me & Earl & The Dying Girl

Formula: The Kings of Summer + (1 / The Fault in Our Stars) + (The Way Way Back + The Perks of Being a Wallflower)/2

Why I Saw It: It won the Sundance Audience award this year.

Cast: On the younger side you have Thomas Mann (Me), RJ Cyler (Earl), Olivia Cooke (The Dying Girl), and Katherine Hughes. The adults include TV all-stars such as Nick Offerman (Parks & Rec.), Molly Shannon (SNL), Connie Britton (FNL), and Jon Bernthal (Tha Walking Dead).

Plot: Greg (Mann) is a teenage kid who values the fact that he's avoided belonging to any clique or group throughout high school. One day, his mom (Britton) makes him hang out with a girl in his class, Rachel (Cooke), who was just diagnosed with cancer. Despite the forced beginning, they become fast friends. Greg's only other friend is Earl (Cyler), who he calls his "coworker" because the two of them make really bad movies. All of these are parodies of classic movies, but with the titles changed to something stupid. We see plenty of these throughout the film. At one point, a hot girl in Greg's class, Madison, finds out about these movies and gets Greg to make one for Rachel. You can fill in the other blanks in the plot by calling it a coming of age story.

Thoughts: This movie blew me away. I can't say that will be the case for everyone, but it checked off basically every box I had. The cast, the type of movie, the way it's shot, and the story all meshed completely.
I didn't have much reason to care for the young cast. Mann has a poor track record with me. I've seen him in Project X and Hansel & Gretel, which both ranked among my least favorite movies the years they came out (2012, 2013). I haven't seen Bates Motel so Cooke was new to me. Cyler and Hughes are newcomers I haven't seen at all either. That said, I'll be following them closely now. Mann and Cooke in particular are amazing playing both sides of this strained friendship.
I'm a sucker for a good coming of age story and this is a very good one. The particular shading of Greg is dead on. He's not a social reject. He's just hiding. He's frustrating at times because he's a screw-up. He's likable at times because he's a sweet kid. He's funny at times because he's clever. He's everything you want for this movie.
I'm not one to notice how a film is shot very often. This is an exception. It's filmed it a pretty overt way. Some scene are shot as a continuous take so that you don't get a release from the tension of what's happening. Shots are constantly angled to show distance between characters too. I look forward to seeing what else I catch in future viewings.
I don't want to get into the story too much. There's not really anything to "spoil" per se, but it's better the more you let the story take you where it wants. What blew me away is that the message of the movie. Among other things, it's about the fullness of any person's life and no matter how well we know someone, there's always something new to be learned. It isn't quite what I expected, and when the movie makes it clear, that hit me harder than just about anything in recent memory. I'll be curious to see what other people take away from it.

Elephant in the Room: It looks quirky? Is it quirky? Is someone going to be talking on a hamburger phone? It's a quirky movie. There's no two ways about that. This is a strange world. Greg has an odd point of view. He shoots homemade parodies of The 400 Blows and A Clockwork Orange. Offerman as his father is a cartoon. The quirks work though. The joke-movies become an emotional through line for Greg and Rachel. Offerman's lunacy completely informs how Greg is the way he is. Personally, I look at all the quirks as details and this movie is incredible at building characters through these details.

To Sum Things Up (in 57 Words or Less):This is a great movie and surely one of my favorites for the year. Thomas Mann and Olivia Cooke are fantastic (on par with Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley in The Spectacular Now). This does a coming of age and a high school story right.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: V/H/S: Viral

What I Guessed It Was About: Given the structure of the other movies and the title of this one, I can only assume the next story of this movie is about finding a Youtube for snuff.

How I Came Into It: I love the first two V/H/S movies. They'd been in my top five of the years they came out without question. They are inventive, scary, disgustingly beautiful at times, and linger with you. Being an anthology, I realize that there's not a lot of connective tissue from one to the next, but the hit percentage of those movies is exceptional. As soon as I heard about Viral, I was as excited for it as anything I've seen in the last year.

Why I Saw It: There's still an attempt to be inventive in the style that each story is told. I quite enjoyed the Spanish story in the middle, told through a series of handheld cameras. I don't know how much the experience would be changed if I knew what was being said, but I loved that it didn't have subtitles. The performances spoke for themselves. Even the other mini-movies, which I enjoyed less, were different from what had been done before.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I've heard that the plan is for this to be the last V/H/S movie and after seeing this, I'm glad. For as much as I liked the first two, this was a major let down. The magician story looked like a violent episode of Goosebumps. The skateboarding story wasn't very engaging. The bridging story didn't really make sense. I'm not sure what all the viral stuff was about (Were they trying to make a point? Was that actually supposed to be scary? I don't know!). Unless you are really hard pressed for a new horror movie, I'd strongly recommend stopping after V/H/S 2. This is too much of a drop in quality.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Saw 2

The Pitch: It'll be just like Saw, but with an actual budget.

How I Came Into It: I don't like the so-called "torture porn" movies. They don't scare me. They just make me feel nauseous (See my Evil Dead Reaction). I've been putting off these movies for a while as a result. I knew secondhand that Saw is the high point of the series and from there, it gives into the impulses to make it more shocking than clever. So, I made sure I had an empty stomach, a small screen, and ample distractions if necessary and gave this one a try.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) This is a competent entry in the franchise. It has the exact things I was expecting: melodrama, a good twist or two, and plenty of inventive ways to torture people. If the thrill for you is to see something that makes you look away, then this is for you, pit of needles and all.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: On a physical level, I am not built for these movies. I just can't do it. If not for this damn project of mine, I'd never consider watching these (Sorry Hostel. You should've made more money). There's worse movies I'd happily watch over this. Naturally, that means I still have two more of these to suffer through. Fuck my life.

Verdict (?): Strongly Don't Recommend

Weekly 10: 6/19-6/25

So far, I've been wrong about every week I've said that I'll have trouble coming up with ten things to represent my week. That again applies to this week. A lot of good stuff happening and plenty to see. I'm still predicting next week will be a bit harder.

Inside Out
Quickly one of my very favorite Pixar movies and certainly one of the best movies I'll see this year. And now I can say things like "that $200 million movie starring Phyllis Smith" which is pretty cool.

NBA Draft
I promise. This is the last I'll be mentioning basketball for a while.

Girl Meets World "Girl Meets Hurricane"
This is Boy Meets World fan fiction by now. I'm eating it up. I do wonder how much these call-backs isolate the new fans (See: the non-adults watching the Disney Channel). Even though the scripts are rubbish, the heart is there and it's impressive how many episodes I sincerely end up liking because of that.

True Detective Premiere
Season 1 was a singular experience. I'm glad that the second season is a massive departure. Since I like this cast so much, I'm staying optimistic that the season is going to be a slow-build like Fargo or Breaking Bad. This certainly didn't pull me in as immediately as Rust Cohle and Marty Hart did.

Battlebots Premiere
I ate the original show up so of course I'd give this a try. They need to inject some humor into it. Playing it straight feels wrong. Otherwise, this looks like a good formula. Just enough background of the competitors to be interesting and not stalling for time. It's going to be a short, six episode season, which sounds right. I'm excited for now.

American Ninja Warrior
This week, the course was in Universal Studios Orlando, which was very distracting. Something about this iteration of the course seemed more dangerous than normal. A lot more people getting hurt or nearly hurt.

Halt and Catch Fire "Play with Friends"
They are laying down more pipe to bring everyone back together. I liked seeing Joe and Gordon interact some more. Gordon is clearly suspicious of Joe. But, since he knows that Joe is always scheming he's more relaxed about taking part in it. It sort of reminds me of the advice "You shouldn't work with your friends" except I don't know which they are.

A Nightmare of Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
A friend promised me that this was the "subtly" gayest horror movie around and that's exactly what I got. That certainly made an otherwise ho-hum movie interesting.

Parks and Recreation
I recently popped in the last disk of season 4, the election season. That show is great! "The Debate". "Win, Lose, or Draw". Even "Bus Tour". So, so great!!!

Last Week Tonight
Never a bad episode. This week, he went after how shitty the internet is for women.

Delayed Reaction: Ladder 49

What I Guessed It Was About: This is the story of a fire department in New York (because it's always New York). Two brothers (because they're always brothers) are in the 49th precinct (or whatever they call them. Stations, maybe?) and are proud of their works. They have families, or at least one guy has a family. If they all have families, then one guy has a pregnant girlfriend. Regardless, that guy dies at the end. The movie ends with a funeral and I'm supposed to be crying. That's all I'm going to assume. Anything more, and I'll turn this even more into Backdraft than I already have.(As it turns out, I was assuming this was exactly the same as Backdraft although not entirely off base)

How I Came Into It: I remember hearing when it first came out that "the one guy dies" which I could've told you going in blind (who "the one guy" is being the only variable). It is no surprise that this movie comes out three years after 9/11: the day that firefighters became gods. Given that context, there's not a lot to expect out of this.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) I like Joaquin Phoenix, even when he wasn't so concerned with being an oddball and I miss the days when John Travolta's brand appeal gets him put on a poster for a movie despite having a very supporting role. The familiar structure of following Phoenix's whole career (a la American Sniper more recently) worked better than a snapshot view of a short period, at least for the effect the movie was hoping to have.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I don't necessarily have a problem with a movie manipulating my emotions (In fact, I loved About Time for it), but it has to be done really well for me to embrace the emotion and ignore the manipulation. This felt very familiar, like it was pitched as a movie to cash in on people's love for firefighters after 9/11 without directly referencing 9/11*. More importantly, I have issue with the wedding scene in the middle of the movie. You see, it uses a song that is used in Gilmore Girls all the time. The one that goes "la-la-la" that they use for scenes when no one is talking. I didn't realize this was an actual song and has lyrics. Ladder 49 uses it with said lyrics and I'm so thrown off now. True, this isn't really the movie's fault, but I'm blaming it anyway.

*The studios would wait until 2006's World Trade Center for that.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Blade 2

The Pitch: Blade, except this time, it's even more Blade-y than before. This time, it's some Mexican director.

How I Came Into It: Well, I saw Blade*. I continued to dislike Wesley Snipes and be indifferent about vampires. Guillrmo del Toro directing got my interest. The phrase "you can't polish a turd" comes to mind though.

*I saw it recently and I swear I wrote a Delayed Reaction for it, but for the life of me, I can't find it and I have no desire to revisit it.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) I like the cast assembled for this. I don't like Wesley Snipes but he is right for the role. Hellboy, poor man's Jeff Bridges, and the better Boondock Saint are nice and eclectic characters for this world. The action is all so very over the top in a mostly good way (I forgive some moments of dated effects).

Why I Wish I Hadn't: When you see Guillermo del Toro's name attached to something, you want it to be a Guillrmo del Toro movie and this wasn't one. He tried almost too hard to stick to the look of the first movie, which was fine but also something you'd want out of a rent-a-director type.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Jungle 2 Jungle

The Pitch: Tim Allen adopts Mowgli.

How I Came Into It: My Netflix account has been trying to get me to skip this for [no kidding] years. It's been at the top of my queue several times and delayed by the dreaded "Very Long Wait" each time. I don't believe in bad omens, but a force more powerful than me was clearly telling me something.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) I forget that Tim Allen was a big deal at one point. Home Improvement was a massive hit. He had movies like The Santa Clause and Toy Story making him the patron saint of Disney in the 90s. That means there's movies like Jungle 2 Jungle, and it's a fine movie. It's just Crocodile Dundee for kids, or for a new generation (whatever you want to call it). 

Why I Wish I Hadn't: Director John Pasquin and Tim Allen work together a lot. Their first movie, The Santa Clause, was a charming hit. Their next movie after this was Joe Somebody: not a hit bit but a movie that for some reason I've watched many times. While tonally, everything about Jungle 2 Jungle is the same as the other two, something isn't quite right in the final product. Allen's character is too unlikeable and nothing about Mimi makes sense. The climactic part of the movie was completely tacked on to try to give the movie some sort of plot (reminded me a lot of Man of the House, but far less effective).

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Inside Out

Formula: Sort of like...Osmosis Jones...except not really...and much better

Why I Saw It: When Pixar has an original movie, it's as excited as I'll get for any studio film.

[Voice] Cast: Amy Poehler (Joy), Phyllis Smith (Sadness), Bill Hader (Fear), Lewis Black (Anger), and Mindy Kaling (Disgust) all feel like Pixar got their first choice. Richard Kind, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan, and newcomer Kaitlyn Dias are all wonderful too.

Plot: The story works on two levels. The top level is that Riley is an 11 year old girl living in Minnesota. Her parents abruptly move to San Francisco for her father's job. Riley has trouble fitting in and wants to go home. The bulk of the story happens on the other level, in Riley's head, where her emotions, led by Joy try to navigate her through what going on. After the move, Joy starts to lose control of Riley. There's an accident in Riley's brain's control room, and Joy and Sadness end up in her long term memory. As those two try to get back to the control room, Anger, Disgust, and Fear have to run Riley. This doesn't go well. It's a pretty simple plot on either level, which is part of what makes it so good.

Thoughts: This is the smartest movie Pixar has ever made. It's not them trying to be too clever, which derails many animated movies. This is Pixar being as smart as they think they are. It's a wickedly clever concept and layered deeply while still being completely accessible. I don't know how they do it. The movie is also hilarious. It's sad. It's fun. Seriously, you have to be trying to not enjoy this film.

Elephant in the Room: Could I watch this movie in lieu of taking Psych 101? Probably. The more fitting thing to say is that anyone who has taken a basic psychology class (or some sort of cognitive-whatever class) will be able to smugly laugh at a lot of little jokes littered throughout the movie. It's designed for all ages, so it's not isolating with those jokes. It's just a case of knowing a little can help a lot to love the movie even more than you already will.

To Sum Things Up (In 57 Words or Less)
In a summer with so many great or big or satisfying movies, this may be the one to beat. Pixar has outdone itself, which is quite a feat. I don’t have a bad thing to say about this movie. I’m going to stop here, lest I slip into hyperbole.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend