Summer Movies We Want to See

by AJ and Lani

If the robin is a harbinger of spring, then the first superhero sighting of the year must be a sign that spring has given way to summer. And so, with the arrival of Iron Man 3 in theaters last weekend, summer movie season has officially begun. We've looked at all the  films scheduled for release from May through August and picked out a few that we can't wait to see.

Star Trek Into Darkness (May 16)
A.J.: Large chunks of the internet bemoaned the delay of the next "new" Star Trek movie due to script problems, but I would always rather wait and have a good movie. I'm less suspicious and more excited about Star Trek Into Darkness than the 2009 reboot. Into Darkness follows the crew of the Enterprise as they track down a rogue Starfleet officer (that may or may not be Kahn) played by Benedict Cumberbatch. J.J. "lens flare" Abrams is in the director's chair again and with Star Trek and Super 8 he has proven himself to be a solid filmmaker. From the trailers it looks this is sequel has been given the same care as 2009's Star Trek. I suspect that the action sequences and special effects won't upstage the story and characters. 

Now You See Me (May 31)
Lani: The story follows an FBI agent and Interpol detective as they struggle to make a case against magician supergroup The Four Horsemen, who carry out elaborate bank heists while performing on stage, then give the loot to needy people in the audience. The assembled cast sounds great: Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, Mark Ruffalo, Melanie Laurent, and Michael Caine. Plus, director Louis Leterrier, the man behind The Transporter and Transporter 2, knows how to combine action with unabashed foolishness. The moment in the trailer that got me was when Jesse Eisenberg is being interrogated by Mark Ruffalo and Eisenberg magically "throws" his handcuffs onto Ruffalo, then looks at him smugly and says, "First rule of magic, always be the smartest guy in the room." It was so ridiculous that I laughed out loud. I may be alone on this one, but this film looks so silly, so beyond all sense, that I have to believe it will be entertaining.




The Internship (June 7)
Lani: Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn star as salesman who made their careers during the analog age, but find themselves out of job in today's digital landscape. They manage to land internships at Google and find themselves competing with tech-savvy college students for a coveted permanent position. Some of the jokes in the trailer were a bit stale, but it made me laugh, too. Remember Wedding Crashers? Remember Old School? Those were funny movies, right? I'm optimistic that the formula of Vince Vaughn + a Wilson brother will equal comedy once again.

The Bling Ring (June 14)
A.J.: This movie is based on the true story of a group of not-too-bright, fame-obsessed teens that broke into different celebrities' houses and robbed them. The Bling Ring is written and directed by Sofia Coppola; her last film, Somewhere, was big step towards the, unfortunately, dull end of the "art house" movie spectrum. However, The Bling Ring looks like it has more of the lively spirit of Coppola's previous movies. Coppola also brings out the best in the her female leads, so I'm excited to see Emma Watson in this movie, especially after her great performance in The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

The Lone Ranger (July 3)

A.J.: Despite the dubious casting of Johnny Depp as Tonto and way, way over-the-top action sequences in the trailers, I'm still interested enough to give Disney's big budget, big screen adaptation of The Lone Ranger a watch. I'm interested in seeing Armie Hammer in his first leading role in a major movie. He definitely has the screen presence to carry a movie, and I hope that the material doesn't let him, or the audience, down. It's the summer, so big action-packed movies can't be avoided, but with any luck this will be the right kind of summer action movie: pleasant to look at and listen to, and entertaining.

The Wolverine (July 26)

Lani: I'm fully aware that with each pick my cred as a serious cinephile continues to diminish. However, I will not apologize. X-Men Origins: Wolverine wasn't that good; however, this film has kept what worked about the last one -- Wolverine as a character and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine -- and changed everything else. The setting is modern-day Japan, where Wolverine meets someone from his past who offers him mortality at long last. The trailer has ninjas, katana swords, Yakuzas (maybe?), weird medical equipment, a blond mutant lady, and, of course, Jackman waving his claws around and yelling. I think these are all good things. Maybe I'm just a Jackman fan, maybe I want the X-Men to take back the spotlight from the Avengers; nevertheless, I remain cautiously optimistic.

Allen Abroad

by AJ

I would have loved to have been around during the late 1950s/early 1960s: all the men wore sharp suits and skinny ties, women wore dresses, the music was great, movie musicals were actually good. Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to go to the better movie theater in my hometown because it was for “whites only.” But that's not part of my 60s, that is to say, my dream of the 60s.
In Midnight in Paris, the latest film from Woody Allen, an unsatisfied screenwriter/aspiring novelist played by Owen Wilson is visiting Paris with his fiance and her parents. Gil's (Owen Wilson) idea of a great time in Paris is different from his fiance's, which includes spending a lot of time with a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual played quite well by Michael Sheen. Gil pines for the Paris of the 1920s, when you might find people like F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Picasso at the same party on any given night.
A lot of reviews have tried to step around the actual plot of this film, describing it instead as a movie about a "young engaged couple forced to confront the illusion that a life different from their own is better." That plot description comes from IMDB and is similar to descriptions on other websites and periodicals. But it really isn't a spoiler to tell you that late one night as Gil takes a stroll an older model car pulls up next to him and he's invited for a ride by some revelers on their way to a party. At the party, after meeting Zelda and her husband "Scott," Gil realizes that, somehow, he's been transported to the Jazz Age Paris that has been the focus of his nostalgia. That's not a spoiler because Woody Allen is a genuine auteur and storyteller. He could make a whole movie about a couple dealing with illusions of the life they want to be living which takes place entirely in the real world, but I'm glad he didn't and chose to add magic to Midnight in Paris. But Gil wandering into 1920s Paris is the just the tip of the iceberg.
It's the not the actual historical Paris of the 1920s Gil finds himself in, but what we think that time and that city would be like. The movie is a dream of that time period. There are so many great moments with the personalities Gil runs into during his nights in Jazz Age Paris. You should recognize the names of the people he encounters from prerequisite college courses you may have taken. The most notable of these names are Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, whom Gil gets to help him with his book. Now that's an aspiring novelist's dream if I've ever heard one. I won't say too much else about his nights in bygone Paris since the charm and humor of those scenes comes from who he just happens to run into at parties and cafes. The movie doesn't go into how it is that Gil is able to wander back in time. I think the movie, like Gil, is too thrilled to bother asking how or why.

The movies Allen has made abroad have all dealt with heavy themes, even the comedies. Match Point, Scoop, and Cassandra's Dream involved murder; You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger was interesting look at people's plans and schemes; Vicky Christina Barcelona, which I enjoyed very much, was a comedy in that it wasn't a straight drama. Midnight in Paris is filled with romance, nostalgia, magic, and whimsy. It's an entirely enjoyable experience. You wouldn't think that Owen Wilson would be a great stand-in for the Woody Allen-esque character in a Woody Allen movie, but his cadence and energy are great fit for Allen's dialogue. Come to think of it, Wilson's struggling thief in Bottle Rocket isn't that far off from Allen's characters in Take the Money and Run or Small Time Crooks.

I get to watch a version of my dream of the early 60s in American Graffiti and Mad Men, though the latter downplays any nostalgia for that time period. If I ever was able to wander back to that time I'd like to be able to come back to my time as well. If I spent all my time back there what would I have to be nostalgic for?