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| Logan Lucky. photo courtesy of maxim.com |
Summer movie season may be winding
down, but there’s still plenty of reason to #gethyped.
THE DARK TOWER
(August 4th)
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| photo courtesy of screenrant.com |
After struggling in development limbo
for some eight years, The Dark Tower
is finally making its way to the big screen. Like him or not, Stephen King is
one of the most prolific and successful authors of our lifetime, so when an
adaptation of his self-described magnum
opus science fiction/fantasy/western series is on the table, it’s worth
paying attention to. The Dark Tower
takes place after the last novel in the series, and it follows a boy named Jake
Chambers (Tom Taylor), who gets tangled up in the conflict between the
gunslinger (Idris Elba) and the deadly Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey). Together,
Jake and the gunslinger must defend the tower—and, by extension, all of
existence—from destruction.
DETROIT
(August 4th)
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| photo courtesy of variety.com |
Detroit tells the story of the Algiers
Motel incident, in which several black teenage men were killed during the 1967
12th Street Riot. The film stars John Boyega of Star Wars fame and Will Poulter (famous for The Revenant and for generally looking mean at all times), and
Academy-Award Winning director Kathryn Bigelow directs. Early reviews (mostly)
herald it as a gripping and timely piece of historical drama, so it should be
one to watch come awards season.
WIND RIVER
(August 4th)
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| photo courtesy of teaser-trailer.com |
Set in a blistering Wyoming winter, Wind River looks suspenseful, a bit
creepy, and just Fargo-ish enough to
be really exciting. The movie unites Avengers co-stars Jeremy Renner and
Elizabeth Olsen, who play two agents tasked with solving a murder that took place
within Indian Reservation territory. Acclaimed screenwriter and relative
newcomer Taylor Sheridan (Sicario, Hell or High Water) not only writes the
script, but also makes his directorial debut.
GOOD TIME
(August 11th)
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| photo courtesy of indiewire.com |
This one’s getting a lot of buzz. Good Time follows Connie Nikas (Robert
Pattinson) after a failed bank robbery leaves his life—and his brother’s—on the
line. Connie has all of one night to rescue his brother and avoid being captured
by the police himself. Starring alongside Pattinson are Barkhad Abdi (from Captain Phillips) and Jennifer Jason
Leigh.
Early reviews praise the film as a
gripping and visceral descent into madness and violence, and if the trailer’s
anything like the final product, it should be visually stunning, wonderfully gritty,
and slightly trippy. If none of that excites you, you still might be interested
in seeing Robert Pattinson doing something altogether unlike what he’s done
before; he’s already received quite a bit of positive attention for his
performance in the main role.
Watch the trailer here.
THE GLASS CASTLE
(August 11th)
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| photo courtesy of teaser-trailer.com |
I’ll be honest: The Glass Castle doesn’t look like my cup of tea, but it made the
list mostly because it stars Brie Larson. Larson, who won Best Actress for her
role in Room and who will be Marvel
Studio’s Captain Marvel, has been acting for a while but only just recently
began to truly distinguish herself. Her performance in Room was easily the best thing about that movie, so I’m pretty
stoked to see where her career goes from there.
Castle is an adaptation of Jeannette
Walls’ best-selling memoir, and it stars Woody Harrelson (who’s apparently in
all the movies these days), and Naomi Watts alongside Larson. Based on the
clips Lionsgate has released so far, it looks like it should give you all the
folksy feels you desire.
ANNABELLE: CREATION
(August 11th)
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| Annabelle in action, a.k.a. sitting in creepy places. photo courtesy of joblo.com |
To say that I was skeptical about the
idea of an Annabelle sequel is an
understatement, but if early reviews are to be believed, the folks behind the Conjuring-verse have proven me wrong. 2014’s
Annabelle was a critical disaster, so
you can hardly blame me for not looking forward to another episode of
“Annabelle sits in creepy places.” But Annabelle: Creation is directed by David
F. Sandberg, who made waves with 2016’s Lights
Out. With him at the helm, I’m sufficiently intrigued to give Creation the benefit of a doubt.
LOGAN LUCKY
(August 18th)
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| photo courtesy of teaser-trailer.com |
If Baby
Driver wasn’t enough to satisfy your star-studded heist film needs, Logan Lucky should do the job. It’s a
story about a set of siblings (Channing Tatum, Riley Keough, Adam Driver) who
assemble a team to rob a NASCAR race. If that sounds vaguely reminiscent of Ocean’s 11, that’s probably because it’s
directed by Steven Soderbergh, who masterminded that whole trilogy. From the
look of it, Logan Lucky is quirky and fun, and I’m here for it tbh. If for no
other reason, it’s worth a watch to see Daniel Craig play a character who’s
essentially the opposite of 007.
THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD
(August 18th)
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| photo courtesy of youtube.com |
The Hitman’s Bodyguard, starring Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson, is an
upcoming buddy cop film and spiritual successor to Deadpool. The plot
doesn’t matter much here; the point of this movie is that it takes these two
stars and lets them be hilarious together for just under two hours (which,
honestly, sounds great). Thanks to the success of Deadpool,
it appears that Ryan Reynolds has gotten his chance to prove his comedy chops,
and it’ll be fun to see if he can pull it off without the superhero suit. Expect plenty of explosions and bawdy humor from this one.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
ENGLAND IS MINE and BIRTH OF THE DRAGON
(Both opening August 25th)
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| photo courtesy of retrologo.com |
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| photo courtesy of nextshark.com |
Interestingly,
both of these films are ostensibly biopics—the former about the early days of
The Smiths’ lead singer Morrissey and the latter about a young Bruce Li. Both
of the films have already been criticized for not doing their subject justice,
but if you’re into the 80s English music scene or Kung Fu action (respectively)
they might be worth a shot.
Watch the trailers here and here.
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