May Flowers Bring...Pilgrims? European Diseases? Terrible June Movies?

To understand today's subject line, thou shalt watch the videos on Sean's new interactive video blog that he is dutifully updating weekly with his cohort/enemy Ryan. Hilariousness and judgingness times a thousand. What's not funny though is a reflection back on May's filmic offerings (I have no idea whether that segue was awesome or totally killer): of those covered in last month's preview, I saw Iron Man, The Life Before Her Eyes, and Indy 4. How pathetic. One was fun, one was groanworthy, and one was both. Guess which applies to which. I did also manage to see Standard Operating Procedure, a quasi-insightful curio that was way too gorgeously filmed to be what it was: a documentary on Abu Ghraib. It pecked at interesting topics like the lack of accountability in the higher levels of the military, the duplicity of photographs, and the Lord of the Flies-esque atmosphere of the prison full of 18-year-olds in charge, but never really got deep with any of them, unfortunately. Qualler and I are hitting up The Fall tomorrow, which looks like a sentimental and sensical version of The Cell (at least visually) and I hope to see The Strangers on my lonesome sometime soon, which has shockingly been getting good reviews from people I respect (phrases like "brilliant use of the widescreen lens to convey suspense" make me all excited for a potentially awesome horror movie). But let's not dwell on the present, let's look into...the future:

Tomorrow, June 6th, hits us in our tender faces with You Don't Mess With the Zohan. Everyone has been saying it already, but I can't help but reiterate: what's funnier than gay panic jokes a la last year's I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry? Gay panic jokes being conveyed through a personified Middle Eastern panic joke. And I don't get what the deal is with languid and lengthy Adam Sandler movie titles. It's a Hollywood movie for crying out loud, not a Tim Kinsella song (please tell me if you understand that joke!). Then there's Kung Fu Panda. I almost thought it was hilarious that this was an actual movie, like the producers were doing this as a goof, until I read one sentence of some interview with the director who very seriously was trying to explain how important it was for them to make the CGI panda do realistic Kung Fu. In the MPLS indie theaters, we have Stuck, a supposedly enjoyable romp about Stephen Rea getting literally stuck in Mena Suvari's windshield (I feel like that was the plot to an episode of Family Matters) and The Foot Fist Way, where one of David Gordon Green's crew faux-improvises a DIY comedy about not so bright people running and attending a strip mall dojo. I'd see both if asked, though I don't have incredibly high hopes for either.

The obligatory (almost feels like a chore nowadays?) Friday the 13th begrudgingly creeps in with The Happening. And while I typed that, it doesn't mean that I'm not totally insanely excited for M. Night's new movie. Lady in the Water was wretched, but I loved every minute of it. I believe I blogged about the strange feelings that sponged up in my loins during that film, so no need to retell the giddy details that make me excited for his first R-rated event (hilarious that they keep making this a selling point!). The Incredible Hulk will surely be ho-hum. Some of my students heralded Ang Lee's Hulk as an underrated masterpiece, so I almost would rather Nerdflix that again to see if they're right (I remember the opposite) than go see the new one. Independent films Quid Pro Quo and Jellyfish open as well, the former turning an incredibly interesting doc subject (people voluntarily seeking out amputation services - Blogulator friend Katie's aunt actually did an amazing doc on it) into a sleek and slimy thriller, and the latter an Israeli ensemble picture about abandoned children and a disaster wedding. Once again, neither momentously exciting, but I'd throw down 8 bucks because I don't know how to say no.

June 20th provides us with more retreads of pop culture past: Get Smart actually took the footage from the Eddie Murphy/Owen Wilson redux bomb I Spy and just replaced their bodies with that of Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway with computer technology, or so I've heard. Similarly, the team behind the sure to be gut-bustingly astonishing The Love Guru simply spliced together scenes from Austin Powers, The Guru (saw it in the theater!), and that educational video they showed us before we visited The Dump for our 4th-grade field trip (is that a diss or what?). Indie-wise, we could treat ourselves to the Colin Firth (snooze alert with a dash of meow!) starrer When Did You Last See Your Father?, the recently Oscar-nominated foreign film Mongol, or the movie where John Cusack falls for Hilary Duff in Iraq because she puts a scorpion down her pants (true story, saw the clip on Leno), War Inc.

Last and most certainly least, Wanted arrives on June 27th. Bullets galore, Jolie, and McAvoy, oh my. And yet, many bloggers are getting excited for it, all because of an ultra-violent, super-stylized red band trailer that's been floating around that I'm too uninterested in to even watch. Yawn-a-ROO. Speaking of adorable, Pixar will indubitably make mad cash with WALL-E, even though there's supposedly only 17 lines of dialogue throughout the whole deal. Sounds perfect to me. More documentaryfest 2008 with Surfwise as well to close out the month, where we find out just how screwed up or perfectly healthy a bunch of kids have become after spending their childhood living in an RV and surfing, never going to school, only letting Mother Nature form their world view. We all know how I feel about hippies.

What are you people looking forward to the most/least? Far and away, The Happening and WALL-E are the only Hollywood release with even a slight chance of being fantasgreat. For the indie movies, I have the most hope for Stuck. Both prospects make me sad, because of the three, only the cartoon seems to forebode year-end contender possibilities.

This entry was posted by chris, on Thursday, June 05, 2008. You can leave your response.