How are you doing so far this movie season? Did the awesomeness of May melt your face off? I hope not because June is going to be even bigger than May was. Looking forward at even the first two weeks of June, I’m completely excited by what is coming out. While there are fewer movies, the level of anticipation for these is higher.
June 3
X-men: First Class – After the lackluster and sometimes outright painful movies that are X3 and X-men Origins: Wolverine I would understand if you wanted to stay away from this movie. I beg you not to pass this one by. This, by all accounts, is a return to X2form, which we never would have left in the first place if the man directing this one (Matthew Vaughn) had been able to make X3 instead of having to drop out due to family commitments, leaving us with Brett Ratner. The plot of this movie Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr going around the world finding mutants and then having the Cuban Missile Crisis break out and deciding that the need to do something about it. James McAvoy plays Xavier, Michael Fassbender plays Magneto and you get a whole passel full of other mutants some we’ve met and some we haven’t. I am hoping this does well and we can continue building the backstory of this world.
June 10
Super 8 – This summer is so full of movies I’ve been anticipating for a long time, it is hard to tell which one I might be anticipating most but this one is certainly in the top three. Written and directed by J. J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg the trailers for this movie have an E.T.sort of feeling. If this movie can bring that sort of movie back in any sense, I will be completely thrilled. The secrecy around this movie has been high and the knowledgeof the movie kept close to the chest – a hard thing to do these days. The offiicial synopsis reads: In 1979 in the fictional town of Lillian, Ohio a group of teenagers are making a movie with a Super 8 mm film camera when they witness a train crash. They suspect it was not an accident. There are disappearances and unexplained events around town, and the local deputy investigates the cause of the events leading to the discovery of something inhuman.
June 17
Green Lantern- I’ll come right out and say it as a preface. I love Green Lantern – most especially the mythos and the Corps. While Hal Jordan is not my favorite Green Lantern, he is the guy that things get started with (ignoring Alan Scott) even if we’ve seen much more of John Stewart recently via the DC animated universe. This will be an origin story for Hal Jordan with a story that seems to be following the recent re-launching in the comic books starting with the Secret Origin trade paperback and Green Lantern: Rebirth. Starring Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, Blake Lively as Carol Ferris, Peter Sarsgaard as Hector Hammond and Mark Strong as Sinestro. Check out this trailer and then check out the movie.
Mr. Poppers Penguins- Based on a children’s book written by Richard & Florence Atwater, the movie adaptation stars Jim Carrey. I am surprised that, as this is a Jim Carrey movie, that I haven’t seen much of anything in the way of a marketing campaign for this movie. That doesn’t inspire confidence. The general synopsis of the movie is a little different from the book as I remember it but the story is generally the same: The life of a businessman begins to change after he inherits six penguins, and as he transforms his apartment into a winter wonderland, his professional side starts to unravel.
June 24
Cars 2 – The sequel to Carsheads international as Lightning McQueen is competing in the first-ever World Grand Prix to determine the world’s fastest car and Mater is asked to take part in a supersecret spy mission. New characters include Finn McMissile and, in true James Bond fashion, Holley Shiftwell. Cars 2is the first Pixar movie other than Toy Story to have a sequel, though there is a prequel to Monsters Inc. coming in 2013. Seeing as Pixar is a money making, Oscar winning machine, I don’t have any fears that this will do well, even if it is the sequel to the only Pixar movie I’ve never seen. This just makes me look forward to seeing Brave(staring Pixar’s first leading heroine) all the more.
Bad Teacher- If there is one movie that I am absolutely not going to see, this is the one. The synopsis is: Elizabeth is a poor teacher who curses at her students and abuses substances. She plans to marry her wealthy fiance, but when he dumps her, she tries to win over substitute teacher Scott, who is also wealthy. Scott’s colleague Amy is also pursuing his affections, while the school’s gym teacher is making advances on Elizabeth. Elizabeth is played by Cameron Diaz, Scott is played but Justin Timberlake and the gym teacher, Russell, is played by Jason Seigel. If one of you does go an see it, let me know if they don’t have her hooked up with the gym teacher at the end.
June 29
Transformers: Dark of the Moon – What do I need to say about this movie? It is by Michael Bay, which will always remind me of this skit from Robot Chicken:
That said, this movie had one of the greatest fake-out trailers of all time, starting with astronauts on the moon on a secret mission, which seems really cool, and then… Oh. Transformers. In the space of one movie I watched and one I didn’t watch I’ve gone from being willing to follow Optimus Prime into Hell, to not really caring at all about these movies or Transformers at all. Bay has stated that this will be his last Transformers movie. Megan Fox’s character has been written out, replaced by a new love interested played by English model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. The synopsis of this one is pretty straight forward: The Autobots learn of a Cybertronian spacecraft on the Moon and must race against the Decepticons to find it and learn its secrets, which could turn the tide in the Transformers’ final battle.
