I may be a day late, but I’m sure not a dollar short (because I don’t get paid.) There are a lot of great movies coming out this summer but this week is going to be the hardest for me. It’ll be hard because I’ll have to see 3 movies OR pick which one I see and write about. It was hard enough deciding what my pick was going to be. Here are the movies coming out the week of June 10th. Hopefully your decision will be easier than mine.
Billiam’s Pick of the Week
The Conjuring 2
Synopsis: The Warrens are back but this time they’re called to London where a family is being haunted by particularly nasty spirits. This time, Lorraine Warren has a terrible premonition. She believes this will be the case where Ed dies..
Thoughts: I love horror. Not as much as Raz though. He eats, sleeps, and breaths horror. I bet you when he has a nightmare it’s not about ghosts or monsters. It’s about Michael Bay remaking Halloween. Raz knows about every horror coming out. But this movie is big enough that it creeps into my territory. I loved The Conjuring, it’s my favorite scary movie. It was the first movie to scare me as an adult and actually scare me, not just cheap jump scares. It set this fantastic atmosphere of terror the put me in the palm of James Wan’s hand. Even if you don’t know James Wan’s name, you probably know some of his other work. He was an executive producer and occasional writer for the Saw franchise as well as Insidious, Annabelle, and Furious 7. Vera Farminga (The Departed, Up in the Air) and Patrick Wilson (Insidious, Watchmen) return as Ed and Lorraine Warren. I’m really excited for this movie but unfortunately none of my friends are into horrors, so I’ll have to find some time to catch this on my own.
Warcraft
Synopsis: Azeroth is in danger. Orcs are escaping their dying planet and are wanting to make Azeroth home.. The humans must stand and fight alongside a unlikely ally, an Orc warrior who sees that his people are being manipulated.
Thoughts: I loved Warcraft 2. It’s still one of my favorite RTSs to date. Warcraft 3 was fun and upped the game, but my heart stayed with 2. Then Blizzard made World of Warcraft and lost me completely. I never jumped on the MMORPG bandwagon because they’ve never interested me. Now this movie comes out after the heyday of MMOs. Sure, they have a huge following still, but no one really cares anymore besides those who play. The good news is that this movie focuses on the lore of the world and actually takes place before/during Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. This movie looks good and would have been my pick if it wasn’t for the fact that most video game movies suck. It’s already getting bad reviews from websites like Kotaku, but those guys are dbags so who cares? I’ll be seeing this one, the question is just when.
Now You See Me 2
Synopsis: The Four Horsemen are back and are forced to work with an evil tech mogul who wants them to pull off a heist even more impossible then their year old bank robberies.
Thoughts: Another movie that I thought didn’t need a sequel. Especially when one of the four main characters couldn’t return. This time Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex) and Daniel Radcliffe (Duh) join the cast. Caplan plays a whole new character which makes me happy. I’m glad they didn’t recast Isla Fisher’s character Henley Reeves and give some BS explanation as to why she looks different. I don’t know what reason they’ll give in the movie for the change, but in real life it’s because Fisher was pregnant the time of filming. The rest of the cast returns so you already know those players. This movie looks good. It looks like a mild action comedy that’s going to have impressive visuals and dumb, but fun, stunts. If you saw Now You See Me, you didn’t see it because of it’s gritty realism and serious nature. You saw it because it looked silly and fun. Number two looks like it’s going to have more of the same, which is exactly what I’d like to see. It’s not a sequel I asked for, but at least it’ll be better than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.
Genius
Synopsis: This is the story of Max Perkins, an editor as Scribner, who has worked alongside such masters as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. The movie focuses on the part of his career where he works with Thomas Wolfe and tries to edit the writers latest work, which he keeps adding to.
Thoughts: It’s a shame when movies like this come out in blockbuster movie season. Sure, there are a whole community of people who wouldn’t go see movies like Captain America: Civil War or Warcraft even if they were offered a free ticket. But there are also people who would be interested in seeing both. At least five of my friends and I have shown interest in Genius but we would much rather see any of the movies I mentioned above instead. But I digress. It stars Colin Firth (The Kings Speech, Kingsman) as Perkins and Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes, Gattaca) as Wolfe. Nichole Kidman (Moulin Rouge), Laura Linney (John Adams), Dominic West (John Carter), and Guy Pierce (L.A. Confidential) join the cast give me high hopes for this one. I’m not going to see it quick enough to do a review, but I will see it. Who knows, maybe I’ll bring back my Movie Night reviews and have this be one of them.
Also Coming the Week of June 10th
King Jack: A “coming of age” story about a young boy in a small town who has to deal with bullies, summer school, young love, and watching over his cousin. Looks interesting, but not nearly interesting enough to make it above the fold into the top part of this blog. Could be great but the trailers don’t do enough to make me want to skip any of the above movies.
Careful What You Wish For: A young man has an affair with a married woman and she gets him to kill her husband who may or may not be abusing her. Yeah, this movie has been made before. It’s the kind of movie that on a cable channel at noon on a Sunday. Nick Jonas stars in this, but I’m thinking he should stick to music.
Puerto Ricans in Paris: This is a comedy starring Luis Guzman and Rosario Dawson. It’s about two NYPD detectives who are sent to Paris to solve the crime of a missing one of a kind purse… because Interpol would really turn to two NYPD detectives. Looks kind of funny.
Diary of a Chambermaid: This is a remake of a 1964 French film. It’s about a young woman who becomes a chambermaid for a rich family who is trying to solve the rape and murder of a girl in the nearby woods. I’m leaving a lot out of the plot, but this movie is below the fold for a reason. I don’t see why it’s being remade. It is a French film, so maybe it was such a classic there that they thought it needed to be remade.
From Afar: This is the happy go lucky story of a 50 year old man who seeks the “company” of young men in Caracas. One of these young men that he “befriends” just happens to be the leader of a gang and they form a happy friendship… not really. From Afar is a Venezuelan film that seems to be about as happy as a 2 hour loop of watching Bambi’s mother die. This film will probably be described as “gripping” and “powerful.” I have another description: avoided like the plague.
De Palma: This is a documentary about director Brian De Palma who was the mastermind behind such classics as Scarface, Carlito’s Way, and Carrie. I want to see this, but in the comfort of my own home. I can’t recommend going to see a documentary in theaters unless it’s an IMax documentary or something that could benefit from the big screen. Check it out if you’re a fan of his work, but check it out at home.