Thursday, August 25, 2016

Riske Business: Random Thoughts About 2016 Movies (September-October)

by Adam Riske
After a spotty summer, it’s time to turn the page to the Fall Movie Season.

Morgan reminds me of Splice and Species. Just the kind of trashy fun I want to see Labor Day weekend.

The Light Between the Oceans seems super boring, but I like director Derek Cianfrance and want to see the two leads (Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander) hook up. I mean...who wouldn’t? They’re Adonis.

• As much as I don’t want to support that shithead Clint Eastwood anymore, I’ll see Sully because the story is fascinating and the lead is Tom Hanks.

When the Bough Breaks is like a throwback to early '90s domestic thrillers like The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. But this one looks pretty damn bad.

• I wanted to see Adam Wingard’s Blair Witch when it was just called The Woods. Now that I know it’s a new Blair Witch film my anticipation is through the roof.

Bridget Jones’s Baby. Ugh! The first one is fine. I was forced to see the second one and it was awful. I don’t need to return to this franchise.
• Even though it looks pretty corny, I’ll see Snowden because Oliver Stone is a director whose work I still find very interesting.

• I’ve seen Goat. It’s about fraternities and gets it all right from my experience. Powerful stuff.

• I love the cast to The Magnificent Seven and it looks really fun but I only trust Antoine Fuqua a teeny bit. He hasn’t hit a home run in a long time.

• I saw My Blind Brother at the Chicago Critics Film Fest as well and it’s meh. Only big-time Jenny Slate fans (which you all should be) need apply.

• I don’t have kids so I will not be seeing Storks, which is all poo-poo, pee-pee pratfalls.

Queen of Katwe is a Disney sports movie about chess. It looks harmless but I’m not compelled to see it in theaters.

• There is no reason to take anything other than a wait-and-see approach to a new Tim Burton movie. #MissPeregrine’sHomeforPeculiarChildren
Deepwater Horizon’s best chance of me seeing it is that it co-stars the great Kurt Russell. My hang-up is it’s the new Peter Berg movie, who somewhere along the way decided he just wanted to do heroism-porn instead of interesting movies.

Masterminds looks not very good at all and it has been delayed and delayed and delayed. Big pass on this one.

• Because it’s from the same director as Fish Tank, I can’t wait for American Honey.

• If you would have asked me a little while back if I wanted to see The Birth of a Nation, I would have said yes. But in light of the Nate Parker controversy, I want nothing to do with supporting that scumbag. I don’t care how good (or important) his movie is.

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life is a movie I would have seen the shit out of in 1993. Now not so much. I am happy it exists, though, because kids get very few live-action movies that aren’t Disney remakes these days.

The Girl on the Train wants to be Gone Girl sooooo bad. I roll my eyes every time I see that trailer. Then I roll them back because Emily Blunt and Haley Bennett are wowsers.

• I had the opportunity to see The Greasy Strangler and skipped it. It looks disgusting and I mistrust the quality control of its production company. We are on different wavelengths.

The Accountant looks crazy and I’m excited to see Ben Affleck back on screen not wasting his time on playing Bruce Wayne/Batman.

• Despite me not liking Kevin Hart movies, I will say his stand-up is pretty funny. So……maybe (?) to his next concert film Kevin Hart: What Now?

• I loved the original, so f-yeah Jack Reacher: Never Go Back! The trailer is sort of underwhelming but that doesn’t mean anything. The first one had a bad trailer too.

• The cast of Keeping Up with the Joneses repels me more than attracts me, so I think I’ll skip it despite it being directed by Greg Mottola, who has made two pretty great movies in Superbad and Adventureland.
• The trailer for A Monster Calls doesn’t really hook me but it looks sincere. I’ll wait to see what the reviews are like and maybe catch up with it after Scary Movie Month.

• Mike Flanagan is a director I want to support after Oculus and Hush and the whole drama surrounding his film Before I Wake (which was supposed to come out in September but was delayed AGAIN), so I’ll see Ouija: Origin of Evil even though the first Ouija is a total piece of boring crap.

• The closest I will ever come to seeing a Madea movie is Tyler Perry’s Boo!: A Madea Halloween and that’s only because I think I can get an “I’ll Watch Anything” column out of it.

• I will see any Tom Hanks movie. The fact that I saw A Hologram for the King in theaters proves that. I will see Inferno, but only under noted protest.

Rings is the third movie in The Ring series and it’s supposedly coming out on October 28th despite not having a trailer or a legitimate poster yet. I can’t say I’m too excited about it because I thought the first one was just ok and The Ring Two is one of the worst sequels of the 2000s.

What are your thoughts on the next two months of movies? What tops your must-see list?

31 comments:

  1. I'll never read anything about Snowden and not think of the Snowden voice you guys were doing on the podcast a couple weeks ago. Anyways,

    Snowden - will see opening weekend. Love Oliver, but this one will be weird because its the first Stone movie that I might not be on board with the message.

    La La Land - looks pretty magical. Could be Great or just mediocre.

    American Pastoral - looks great

    Arrival - its Denis Villenueve, or D-Ville as I like to call him, so its going to be interesting and awesome and trying to make me think really hard.

    Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk - Ang Lee is shooting the battle scenes, or war scenes, in a higher frame rate, so its going to look like a Go Pro, basically. Interested to see how that works.

    Loving - the trailer makes me teary eyed every time - or at least the three times i saw it last weekend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. it's Villeneuve (you made a typo there)

      and it literally translate to New Town (Ville=town, Neuve=new)

      Delete
    2. These are November-December releases (outside of Snowden). You are going off the grid!

      Delete
  2. I, too, keep feeling like The Girl on the Train is striving to be Gone Girl. But then, I liked Gone Girl, so I'm not going to complain too much about that. I HOPE to get something good from that movie. It, along with Arrival, and then La La Land and Rouge One in the Winter season, are the movies I think I am most looking forward to for the rest of the year.

    I can't tell if Sully is going to be awesome or terrible awards bait.

    Side note: Riske, have you seen the original Japanese version of The Ring? I think it's pretty cool.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't remember if I've seen Ringu or the Japanese version of The Grudge (Grudgu).

      Delete
    2. Ah, can't help you there. I've never seen Grudgu, but I do tend to think the Japanese (and Koreans) do almost everything better in the film world.

      Delete
    3. Did you know they remade What Women Want in China in 2011?

      Delete
    4. I had no idea, haha....From my research, it doesn't look like that is one of Chinese cinema's best moments. :-\

      Delete
    5. I second your GotT opinion. Gone Girl was one of my favorites of 2014(?) I'm really in it to see Emily Blunt though.

      Delete
    6. Ju-on was pretty good. The remake -- The Grudge -- I thought was laughably bad. Ringu, and the Ringu series, I like. The Ring, I thought was OK. Ring Two? Eh. Rings looks... okay... the girl pulling that whatever it is out of her throat and those gagging noises? I hate the sound and I have to turn away when it comes to that point in the trailer. But I must say, I'm a lot more interested in the Japanese The Ring vs The Grudge movie.

      Delete
    7. https://youtu.be/OcYDSkZKD4w

      Delete
    8. I like this comment on that video:
      "Do you bleed? You will in 7 days!"

      Delete
  3. I'll be seeing The Accountant opening weekend. Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick together? Sploosh.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sploosh? Did you type that and then jump into a pool?

      Delete
    2. Sploosh: v. Denoting arousal or excitement.

      Delete
  4. I can confirm that the trailer for Rings has been released, as I stumbled across it on YouTube. It looks....fine? Pretty generic, but nothing terrible or off-putting. At least not in the first 45 seconds.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah. I wrote this pre-trailer release. Otherwise I would not have written that because WHAT AM I? AN ASSHOLE??

      Delete
  5. Deepwater Horizon raises so many red flags for me, but for some reason I really want to see it. I feel the same way about Sully, but at least Tom Hanks is more appealing as a lead than Mark Whalberg.

    Any other year these movies would seem pretty bland to me, but this summer has made me excited for anything.

    ReplyDelete
  6. A Hologram for the King was in theaters?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was by me for about 2 weeks. And what a two weeks those were.

      Delete
  7. Never thought I'd hear myself say this (see myself type this?) but I'm most excited for mother-f'in Jack Reacher. Whodathunk that a guy saying what he was going to do and then doing it would work so well for me, but I had a blast with the first one and I've got the kind of enthusiasm for the sequel as I usually reserve for new Fast & Furious movies.

    Second choice is the new Blair Witch - I'm always going to be down for the new Wingard/Barrett joint.

    And along those lines, one you may have overlooked - In the Valley of Violence yo! Can't wait for a Ti Western!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dude, I'm pumped like crazy for Jack Reacher. Love Tom Cruise. Love the first one. Bring it on.

      Delete
    2. Oh yeah! In the Valley of Violence! Saw it. It's good and really fun.

      Delete
  8. I'm waiting for Girl on the Train even though I know it wants to be GG, partly for the jealous wife/nanny/husband triangle.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Adam, please do not go to inferno. Please. It is 100 percent guaranteed to be atrocious. I went to angels and Demons on premise of Hank's and Howard rompathon. I was so excited I took marijuana cookie. I fell asleep about half hour in and woke up to see ewan mcgregor dressed as a priest scooting around in the air in a jet pack. Exsquisitely reckless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The fact that you told me not to go makes me want to see it more. I'm sorry.

      Delete
    2. Adam, please don't marathon all the Madea movies in preparation for the new one. I did that once on a coke binge and accidentally skipped over I Can Do Bad All by Myself.

      Delete
    3. I respect your decision Adam. Will you watch the first two again before you see the third? It is something I do religiously before a new installment. Terminator Genisis. The worst part of the best weekend of my life. #riseofthemachinez

      Delete
  10. If Bridget jones is in a jet pack in the new episode of that show then I will probably go. The cgi interspersed with the shocked reactions of the English folk on the ground would be one heck of a set piece.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I wanted to see Adam Wingard’s Blair Witch when it was just called The Woods. Now that I know it’s a new Blair Witch film my anticipation has completely dropped.
    The original just didn´t worked for me at all.
    Right now the only thing that makes this still a little bit interesting is the involvement of Wingard and his writer Simon Barrett.

    ReplyDelete