Monday, April 29, 2013

Summer Movies Preview

There's like 56 big budget Sci-Fi/Doomsday/every-city-now-looks-like-Detroit blockbusters out this summer. Otherwise -- sequels, comic book heroes, and Ryan Reynolds' fifteenth attempt to open a movie. Here, as always, is my Summer Movies Preview. Full disclosure: I haven't seen any of these films. But when has that ever prevented me from judging them? Turn off your cellphones. Here we go:

MAN OF STEEL – Yet another reboot.  Amy Adams is Lois Lane and she's a redhead.  2,000,000 nerds will refuse to come out of their basements. 


THE HANGOVER PART 111 – It’s the night before Jorge Mario Bergoglio becomes Pope Francis and the gang takes him out to celebrate.

THE GREAT GATSBY – Baz Luhrmann directs so it's all about the pretty sets.  Hopefully the actors and story won't intrude on his vision

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS – The sequel of the reboot of several sequels of a reboot of several more sequels.

THE WAY, WAY BACK – Could be the sleeper of the summer. Festival darling co-written by Jim Rash. Keep an eye out for it.

IRON MAN 3 –  You got Robert Downey Jr. and WD-40  -- the Man of Iron could eclipse the Man of Steel. 

NOW YOU SEE ME – Magician heist film. If only they could make the FBI disappear.


EPIC – Animated film.  (pictured: right)  Essentially Alice in Leafland.

FRANCES HA – Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig re-team for a saga about modern dance in Manhattan. Guys will only see this when EPIC is sold out.

BEFORE MIDNIGHT – Ethan Hawke, Julia Delpy’s third or fourth sequel to BEFORE SUNRISE. All that’s left is BEFORE TRASH DAY.

AFTER EARTH –   Oscar grubber, Will Smith and his son go arm and Armageddon through the future. Wouldn't it be funny if his son won an Academy Award before he did?.

THIS IS THE END – Finally! An apocalypse comedy! Starring Seth Rogen, Oscar host James Franco, Jonah Hill, and all their friends entertaining themselves for ninety minutes.

THE WORLD’S END – Finally! A better apocalypse comedy! Stars Simon Pegg and the HOT FUZZ bunch entertaining you for ninety minutes.


WORLD WAR Z – For Generation X & Y.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING – Joss Whedon follows up his mega hit THE AVENGERS with a black-and-white modern adaptation of a Shakespeare play.  The studio wanted to call it AVENGERS 2 but Whedon said no. 

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY – Not the Rutgers story. It’s those lovable Pixar monsters seeking higher education and $200 million domestic.

More tomorrow.

21 comments :

RJ Hope said...

Iron Man 3 is probably the only film I'll go see with any interest. I'll bring my 10 year old son.

Man of Steel? It's just been rebooted too many times for me.

Hanover III? I mean that just have to make a trilogy, right?

Any film about a Shakespeare play just bores me to tears.

I love Star Trek, but I will wait and see what others think. Reboot issue like the Man of Steel.

Marie said...

No way either Smith is wining anything except maybe a Razzie -- their accents are so hilarious that the theater where I saw the trailer (and a dozen or so others, WTF, AMC) erupted into laughter about halfway through. And we were waiting for "42" on a weekday, not exactly a mean-spirited crew!

PABLO said...

After Earth will bomb at the BO. Come on! M. Night Shymalan has been virtually trashed by every Internet troll after his last flops. Jaden Smith is loved by nobody, (that includes his own father). And nobody, I say it again, NOBODY is talking about this movie. There's no buzz, positive or not. Nothing. Nada. Niente. Shame on you, Shyamalan. Shame on you.

Sean D. said...

A reheaded Lois Lane is not a deal breaker. In fact, it can only help. (Redheads are practically Nerd catnip.)

As far as RJ's "reboot" issue with Man Of Steel goes...HUH?

For the movies, this is the first "reboot" since 1978. ("Returns" was really just a continuation of the Christopher Reeve movies that ignored III & IV. A Superman II.5 is you will.)
The TV shows (Adventures, Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville) are really their own beasts working with smaller effects budgets. They have their pros and cons, but for the real SUPERpowered action, it's got to be on the big screen.

deanareeno said...

What Ken, no ELYSIUM?

Elysium HD trailer

I dug DISTRICT 9, so I'm looking forward to this.

Scooter Schechtman said...

"As ye market,so shall ye reap."
MANNEQUIN 3: EXTREME DUMMY RELOAD
"It's EPIC"

Aaron Hazouri said...

Scooter's "Mannequin 3" comment made me chuckle, because one of my wife's favorite movies ever is Mannequin 2: On The Move. (I blame the fact that she's not from the US. Actually that might be grounds for deportation.) She would be in the theater opening night for a Mannequin 2 sequel.

Wayne said...

Red head Lois Lane? The good thing about super-vision is Superman can tell if she's a natural red head.

Mac said...

"Amy Adams is Lois Lane and she's a redhead. 2,000,000 nerds will refuse to come out of their basements."
*cough* 2,000,001. C'mon Ken! Any Adams as Lois Lane? What do I need daylight for?

I'll be amazed if "This Is the End" comes in at ninety minutes. If it's an Apatow Gang home movie there's probably ninety minutes of deleted scenes on the DVD.

Iron Man 3 looks great fun. Big bucket of popcorn and off we go...

Mac said...

I meant Amy Adams. Any Adams would be terrible. Like Gomez.

Charles H. Bryan said...

I absolutely love "go arm and Armageddon". (I might love more stuff further down but I haven't read that far yet.)

Thank you, Mr. Levine!

deanareeno said...

Also, there's that giant robot vs. giant monster movie you'll probably mention in the follow up post:

Pacific Rim HD trailer

Johnny Walker said...

It's looking like this year might just make up for the repeated disappointments of last year.

I saw IRON MAN 3 on the weekend, and it was great! If you enjoy witty banter you can do worse than a Shane Black script, and this was no exception. Probably my fave of the three.

gottacook said...

As much as I want to like the Star Trek sequel - because it's got to make more sense than the 2009 picture, right? - I'm afraid that the supposed secret identity of Benedict Cumberbatch's villain in the sequel will turn out to be a great disappointment.

BigTed said...

All of these $200-million blockbusters will look great on my big-screen TV when I check the DVDs out from the library next year.

Cap'n Bob said...

That Will "I Love Ron Hubbard" Smith film ought to be called AFTER BATTLEFIELD EARTH. I'll pass.

Pat Reeder said...

Looks like we're once again heading into the season of movies that are big, loud, dumb and blow up real good. So I'll be adding even more names to the ever-growing pile of $200 million movies I plan to die without ever seeing. I might watch the "Gatsby" remake on Blu-Ray to see the sets, clothes and cars, as long as I can mute the rap soundtrack and play my CDs of Annette Hanshaw and Helen Kane instead.

Storm said...

I'm with you, gottacook; you could not pay me to go see the new Trek movie, even though I do love me some Cumberbatch. I saw the first one once, and put it out of my reality completely, it was so unendurably awful. The ads are just all "CRASH! SMASH! POW! PUNCH! CHASE! EXPLODE! EMOTE! SCREAM!". Trek is about CHARACTERS, not fools running around screaming and crap exploding everywhere; that's just the frosting on the nerdcake.

And, lest you lot forget, I say this as a no-life woman that got married dressed as a Klingon (Five years ago Wednesday! WOOOO!), so if a woman that loves Trek so much that she dresses as a Klingon for the fun of it thinks it'll suck, think well on your ticket purchase.

Cheers, thanks a lot,

Storm

cadavra said...

I'll watch Amy Adams in anything--and have--but it does seem odd to cast a redhead as Lois when Lana Lang was always lurking about somewhere.

Andy Kaiser said...

No thoughts yet (except Ken's) about Monsters University? Call it anticipation of a studio that knows how to do storytelling right (and often does), but I'm looking forward to it.

It also helps that I'll be taking my 8-year-old daughter, and we both love Monsters Inc.

chuckcd said...

"Could be the sleeper of the summer."
Or, could just put you to sleep.