Time for a quick summer report card as we head into the endgame: as of the final week of July, my three favorite wide release films since the first weekend in May have been Love & Friendship, The Conjuring 2, and The Shallows. And I think, as a list of movies worth seeing there's nothing wrong with that trio; but good Lord, as a top 3 of the summer? Only the third of those movies is unambiguously a proper summer popcorn movie, and it's one of the lowest-budgeted major releases of 2016 to date, so it's not like we're talking one of the big E-ticket tentpoles. And all of those have been almost impossible for me to gin up any more enthusiasm towards than to recall that yep, I saw them. I sure did.
The point of all this being, I think it's fair to say that 2016 is shaping up to be an enormously bland summer - not the same as a bad one. There have been more fair-to-decent films and fewer outright terrible ones than last year, for example. But this is shaping up to be one of the least-memorable summer movie seasons in all my days as a blogger, and the question stands: can August do anything to keep this leaky boat above water?
5.8.2016
Maybe not, but if Nine Lives is anything to go by, it can sure drive a few more holes in the bottom. Kevin Spacey turns into a talking cat!?! And Barry Sonnenfeld has been dragged into direct? This is what family movies looked like back in, I don't even know, 1966 or something. What in God's name is someone doing making an "absent dad turns into a cat" movie this far into the 21st Century?
As for the weekend's slightly more prominent new release: despite having arguably the best trailer of 2016 to date, I will confess that I've never been terribly excited for Suicide Squad as an actual movie. I have, to date, liked a grand total of none of the movies for which David Ayer has received either a directing credit, a writing credit, or both, and watching him try to fashion a movie out of Warner Bros.' flailing attempt to will a comic book universe into being has never seemed that it was going to do the trick. That being said, I'm hopeful that there will be at least a couple of good performances hanging around in there, and as one of the few people who didn't hate Batman v Superman, I guess I count as a DCEU apologist, or some such. But yeah, best case scenario is probably "not the year's worst comic book adaptation", hardly an act of salvation for a dodgy summer.
12.8.2016
For the first time all summer, I think it's legitimately impossible to tell which new release is going to be the biggest. I will say that the one I'm most excited for is Florence Foster Jenkins, almost entirely by default: a Meryl Streep character comedy directed by Stephen Frears is one of those things where you can predict with almost 100% confidence exactly how good it's going to end up being, and it's not terribly impressive. By the same token, it should at least be pleasant to watch, and everybody needs something to see with their grandma.
As for the other two films, I can't muster up anything positive. In the abstract, I suppose I'm rooting for Sausage Party, since the idea of an adults-only animated film is one that I am very much in favor of. But not this adults-only animated film: the Seth Rogen cohort making a Pixar parody which, to judge from the trailer, derives every scrap of its humor from the incongruity of seeing cartoon characters say "fuck". 17 years after South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, surely we can do better than that. But the early reviews are uniformly strong, which comes as a titanic surprise to me - if this actually turns out to be good, I will be knocked senseless, but hope should always spring eternal. Anyway, it's one of those movies that, good or bad, I feel like my purpose in live is to see and review it.
About the new dark & gritty remake of Pete's Dragon I can think of nothing to say, other than that Disney has become such an unstoppable powerhouse at the box office that they're just starting to taunt us. Also that I think little enough of the 1977 original that I'll probably still end up liking this one better.
19.8.2016
All my chips - all of them - go on Kubo and the Two Strings, because if we can't hold out hope for Laika, there's no point in hoping for anything. That said, the more the trailers reveal of the plot and characters, the more generic and tediously jokey it seems to be. The animation, by all means, looks stunning. And hopefully that will be enough.
Elsewhere, Jonah Hill and Miles Teller co-star in War Dogs, and boy did that movie lose my attention in record time.
On the "let us pray that it's so bad it's good" side of things, Timur "Night Watch" Bekmambetov - Timur "Wanted" Bekmambetov - Timur "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" Bekmambetov - Timur fucking Bekmambetov has wrangled the job of directing a new Ben-Hur. "Why a new Ben-Hur?" isn't even the most pressing question in that reality. It's maybe third, in fact, after "Why is Morgan Freeman wearing an old mop on his head?" Whatever the case, this promises to be the season's choicest hate watch, and I'm honestly kind of even more excited to see this than Kubo.
26.8.2016
And so does summer finally get its neck snapped and we can all go on with our lives: Robert De Niro plays a boxing trainer in Hands of Stone, and Jason Statham plays Jason Statham in Mechanic: Resurrection. Raising the question, I daresay, as to whether even Statham has positive enough memories of the 2011 The Mechanic to go to all the trouble of making a sequel to it.
There's also a horror thriller with the magnificently nondescript title Don't Breathe, about three young thrill-seekers attempting to steal from a blind man, and astoundingly, he's meant to be the bad guy.
02 August 2016
21 comments:
Just a few rules so that everybody can have fun: ad hominem attacks on the blogger are fair; ad hominem attacks on other commenters will be deleted. And I will absolutely not stand for anything that is, in my judgment, demeaning, insulting or hateful to any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. And though I won't insist on keeping politics out, let's think long and hard before we say anything particularly inflammatory.
Also, sorry about the whole "must be a registered user" thing, but I do deeply hate to get spam, and I refuse to take on the totalitarian mantle of moderating comments, and I am much too lazy to try to migrate over to a better comments system than the one that comes pre-loaded with Blogger.
My running theory about Nine Lives is that Spacey et al. were either blackmailed into it, or they made it really quickly as part of some money laundering scheme.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing from the runtime that the Ben-Hur remake is going to be like most of the Hebrew translations of the Lew Wallace book: Judah Ben-Hur goes through the 1st century Jewish hero motions, then the film ends, and the Tale of the Christ part gets cut out. I guess it's a valid adaptation strategy, and, if I'm honest with myself, the Christ parts are nobody's idea of the best parts.
ReplyDeleteStill (and I know Tim doesn't agree with this), the very idea that Ben-Hur needs to be remade with CGI horses and kinetic nonsense, when it was done so outstandingly well with real horses and real stuntmen (and that sea battle is pretty cool too--and arguably even cooler in the silent original), and when the '59 remake stars Charlton fucking Heston in what is almost certainly his best performance in a role practically tailor-made for all his strengths...
Yeah, I kind of feel about Ben-Hur like how misogynists felt about Ghostbusters. Maybe Tim can get aboard the Remake Hate Train when it makes its next stops, in Magnificent Seven Town.)
P.S.: Don't Breathe looks like good, solid thriller fun.
P.P.S.: If Robbie and Smith can bring the energy from Focus into Suicide Squad, that movie's gonna be fantastic.
P.P.P.S.: Okay, last thing--I'm counting Knight of Cups as a summer movie. So, with that on my list, I have to say that enjoyed the summer of 2016 (cinematically speaking, anyway, Pittsburgh PA is a garbage town and life is a garbage life). However, Tim ain't wrong when he says that the blockbusters were exceptionally mediocre this season.
Sean- Money laundering is my bet.
ReplyDeleteHunter- Hey now, I agree with almost everything you said: the chariot races in both films are practically perfect, the sea battles are very good (but the silent version is better), and Heston... okay, I said agree with almost everything.
About your PPPS - I'm making "wide release" do a bit of work there; Knight of Cups and The Lobster would both do a lot to make the summer seem much, much better.
I feel like the editing of the Kubo trailer betrays that it's overemphasizing the jokeyness - but I could be reading in too optimistically. Laika distinguishes itself amongst the major studios not just through medium, but by being somewhat outside of Disney's monolithic approach to storytelling, and I expect Kubo to deliver something more than "appealing characters joke around, have a bit of adventure.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate it will be the most ambitious and technically accomplished stop-motion movie ever made, so that right there, that's plenty of reason to go see it.
I do not intend to see Suicide Squad, do not want to see Suicide Squad, and, to be entirely honest, am not sure that trailer particularly good job of convincing me that Suicide Squad, as a whole, longer-than-two-minutes movie, would be particularly worth watching.
ReplyDeleteBut good goddamn, that trailer. <3
It's obvious the producers of Nine Lives only went with Kevin Spacey because Tim Allen was too expensive. This has all the hallmarks of a DTV Disney project.
ReplyDeleteI'm kind of really looking forward to Sausage Party. Somebody had to explore the terrifying ramifications of the " what if EVERYTHING is alive?" concept of the Pixar universe, and I'm glad it's somebody with the enthusiasm of Seth Rogen as opposed to, say, the producers of Nine Lives. I predict a middling-to-decent 6or7/10 that's going to be blown to impossible proportions by its defenders while knee-jerk opponents fan themselves in horror and make it worse than it really is. Also, dots you guys hear a California theatre accidentally showed the trailer to a packed horse waiting to see Finding Dory?
I can't wait for Kubo. I'm not worried about what the trailers are showing - the trailers for The Boxtrolls were abysmal, promising a movie I would only ever see on a rainy day when my children were driving me up the wall and there was literally nothing else to watch, and that movie was a near- masterpiece.
"Also, dots you guys hear a California theatre accidentally showed the trailer to a packed horse waiting to see Finding Dory?"
DeleteSometimes my autocorrect creates a little piece of brilliance.
A packed HOUSE waiting to see Finding Dory.
Yeah, I just... Nine Lives makes no sense, does it? Maybe Spacey was tired of all the gravitas and respect he has earned through House of Cards, and thought fuck it, I'll show 'em the dreck I'm still capable of!
ReplyDeleteYay new Laika, I for some reason had no idea this movie was a thing, and it looks wonderful. Please be even half as good as it looks. I was very disappointed in Box Trolls, for whatever reason I am incapable of watching that thing the whole way through. I start playing around with my phone till I realize I missed half the movie and what is the point in even continuing?
I also kinda had hopes for Suicide Squad mainly because the law of averages dictates at least one of these fucking things has to be good, right? Even if by accident? But judging from the reviews we may have to wait for WW.
Sausage Party is actually getting GOOD reviews? When did we fall into the Bizarro Universe? Somehow I think that one's gonna be on a lot of "Worst Movies of 2016" lists, and many post-release reviews will include a phrase along the lines of "Foodfight with better animation". Again, looking forward to the reviews, and I'm guessing the Blockbuster History entry will be either the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie (talking food) or South Park:BLU or even Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat (adults-only animation)
ReplyDeleteAnd if by some quirk Sausage Party does manage to be good, at least there's still Nine Lives to satisfy my bad review bloodlust.
These are some of the adjectives I have stockpiled in advance of my review of Nine Lives, should it live up (down?) to them. I have added one to the pile with each unwilling viewing of the trailer:
ReplyDeleteCarnival of souls;
Monopoly of hate;
Cinematic denatured protein;
Catalyst for PETA investigation;
Catalyst for CPS investigation;
Film-like object;
2016's most beloved tax write-off;
An 87-minute long digital tapeworm, in search of an unknowing host and doomed to be absorbed invisibly into the folds of time and forgotten.
I stopped after that, because I realized I was investing good time and energy into appropriating terms for a movie that, for all its apparent idiocy, probably still isn't going to be as offensive to the senses as Norm of the North.
I think I prefer The Amazing World of Gumball for my "world where everything is alive" gags--especially since, as a kids' show, it has to find laughs through means other than saying "fuck" a lot. And which played on this same idea in 90 seconds instead of dragging the joke out for at 90 minutes:
ReplyDeleteMy friend described the Suicide Squad movie as 'the mallgoth version of Guardians of the Galaxy' after viewing the trailer.
ReplyDeleteI'm inclined to agree.
I'll probably end up seeing it but I just can't get over the fact that they cast Jared fucking Leto of people as the Joker. To be played by Jared Leto is cruel and unusual punishment for anyone, even a psychotic mass murderer like the Joker.
Jared Leto's only good role was in Fight Club where he was beaten to a bloody pulp. Also his band is just the fucking worst.
I was about to ask why everyone seems so to be so harsh on Nine Lives... and then I saw the trailer!!! Yeap, that looks pretty awful. I think the concept of an absent dad learning to connect with his family when he's turned into a cat could work, but not the way they're doing it here.
ReplyDeleteAs for Pete's Dragon, I've been looking at the early reviews and here's one I find encouraging: "Pete's Dragon is a remake in all the right ways, taking cues from the original but reimagining the story for a very different audience living in a very different era..." Terri Schwartz, IGN Movies. I always a good family movie (which are becoming increasingly rare), so we'll see.
I hope Kino is good, but I admit I can't get over the voices, which are soo whitebread American despite playing mythical Easy Asian (presumably all Japanese) characters, and just don't seem to line up or create the right atmosphere at all.
ReplyDeleteI'm still holding out hope for Suicide Squad.
And I think Pete's Dragon actually looks really good, like a better Spielberg movie than The BFG maybe. David Lowery is a very smart, talented guy, I'm hoping he's gonna go far.
Oh, and Mechanic: Resurrection actually looks way more wild and fun than the dour Mechanic. Not planning to see it, but I have a feeling it might be more entertaining than people are expecting.
Delete(I did type Kubo, above, but darn auto-correct got in the way)
DeleteThere is only one Hollywood History that would be appropriate for Nine Lives, and it is A Talking Cat?!
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/Y-h-KpG2tHM
You have no damn idea how badly I wanted to make A Talking Cat!?! this week's Blockbuster History, but I don't know that it's possible to do a better job of discussing it than Nathan Rabin did, and it feels incredibly disingenuous to use Nine Lives as this week's subject when Suicide Squad is more or less locked to set box office records.
ReplyDeleteBut I am not eliminating the possibility of a talking cat double feature happening anyway.
If you don't have the energy for a double feature, you could, nay, should title the Nine Lives review "A Talking Cat".
ReplyDeleteWas going to guess that Catwoman would be the BH for Suicide Squad (movies about supervillains), but it looks like that's been done.
Hey, we've got a feline theme going, counting my suggestion of Fritz the Cat for the Sausage Party BH.
Okay, you could title the Nine Lives review something like "One Freaky Friday When I Was Thirteen Going on Thirty I Got Transformed Into a Talking Cat!?!"
ReplyDeleteAV Club gave it a D, so I guess they're doing something right.
Much to my own surprise, and despite some dire editing, I quite enjoyed Suicide Squad.
ReplyDelete