I am looking forward to summer movie releases. There doesn't seem to be much as far as movies that won awards at film festivals or are critically acclaimed, which are usually the movies I hold up on a pedestal. However, I have been excited for months about a film that comes out in just days; The Great Gatsby opens on May 10. This film was directed by Baz Luhrman, who also directed such fast paced flicks as Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Moulin Rouge (2001). I recently read the book for the first time and loved it. The story is so compelling and the characters are so complex and mysterious.
I read an article entitled, "34 Movies to Watch Out For," and I agree that the films listed will bring in big money. However, I do not want to see nor am I excited for all of them, or even most. The list gets off to a nice start with Iron Man 3, which opened on May 3. This is a movie that I am looking forward to, although I have not decided if I will be making a trip to the theaters for it. It appears the story line picks up where it left off and in this installment of the action hero tale there is much more plot development within the various areas of Tony Stark's life. Apparently, according to the article, that's because Stark has fended off enemy's who have tried to destroy the world and now he's taking on an enemy that wants to destroy his world. According to early reviews, the movie starts out slow but consistently picks up steam and momentum.
If you travel down the summer preview list and skip over several movies, you'll find Monsters University, which comes out June 21. The first of the Monsters movies was adorable. I thoroughly enjoyed Monsters Inc. (2001) and I'm looking forward to this prequel delivering the same level of enjoyment.
World War Z comes out June 21st and I had been excited about it, but now I'm not so sure. The trailers for the movie look exciting and action packed; a great way to beat the summer heat (in the air conditioned theater). However, the review that's given in the article is lukewarm, at best. It makes it seem as though the producers had several identity crises during the making of the movie and couldn't decide which direction they were traveling. The segment of the article did end by saying, "We saw some footage at CinemaCon which blew our heads off with its non-stop brutal action."
Despicable Me 2 comes out on July 3 and if you want to know how I feel about this one see the above paragraph about Monsters University.
I am hoping there are some award winning-type releases that are slated to come out as well. Otherwise, my summer movie watching days might be confined to Redbox and Netflix. I look for more in a movie than the stars or a trend (the Vampire trend we've seen recently is given new life this summer with several fresh takes on the undead). I prefer quality to quantity of money spent on a film. So far, this year has been terrible for new films. There haven't been
many great stories released, and those that I think qualify as great
movies have not gone nationwide and I am left to wonder if there is any
hope for cinemas. There is one theater in town that I can usually count
on to show me some offbeat, critically acclaimed films that have not
seen big box office success. However, even that theater has succumb to
pressures to show more box office heavyweights in order to rake in
money, regardless of their quality.
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