TGITDNMAR: 07/10/2015

It’s just like Pete Conway to come back for two weeks and then abandon us all once more. He’s such a big, fat abandoner!

In actuality, Mr. Conway is in the process of buying a house (he’s just full of adult decisions as of late, isn’t he?) and became a little bit too involved in that this week. SO involved, in fact, that I didn’t find out about the lack of a TGITDNMAR until there wasn’t one. So now he’s both an abandoner AND a flake. What am I going to do with that guy?!?!

While I ponder his consequences, I can safely report that Pixar’s Inside Out finally supplanted Jurassic World as the #1 film in the country over the 4th of July weekend (by a mere $500,000 – but a victory is a victory!). Noticeably absent from the Top-2 were both newcomers to the cinemas, Terminator Genisys and Magic Mike XXL, both of which opened to lower numbers than expected (which I actually expected, but there’s no proof of that – just believe me!). The sequels paled in comparison to their predecessors in both quality (mostly terrible reviews for both of those films) and quantity (Genisys had the lowest Terminator sequel opening, failing to even reach the opening numbers of T2, which opened nearly 25 years ago and, as you might know, movie ticket prices have gone up juuuuuust a tad since then; Mike 1 stunned with a nearly $40 million opening weekend while XXL earned just under $13 million for the three-day weekend).

All that to say, we’ll definitely have a kids movie at the top of the box office next weekend but it won’t be the emotional, heady Pixar film. It’s gonna be the exact opposite of that, actually. But let’s do this right and hit this weekend’s releases in alphabetical order.

Let’s get to it!

The Gallows

As has been established before, I’m a wuss when it comes to horror movies. So there’s really no way I would be checking something like this out. But that being said… this one looks completely ridiculous. They’re trying to bring forth a new big horror character in the vein of Freddy, Jason, or Michael Myers, only this one is called Charlie and is apparently a killing machine that haunts a high school. Or something like that.

The TV ads are going the way of the Paranormal Activity flicks by showing the green-hued footage of mostly young people being scared in the theater watching a (free) screening of the film. I mean, does this type of advertising work? We don’t know these people! They might all be terrible judges of films or, even worse, all teenagers!..

Actually, now that I think about it, nearly all of my students claim to LOVE all of these scary movies so there’s a good chance that the film does decently in the 16-23 age window. It’s another in a long line of cheaply made, highly profitable scareathons that are so very easily pumped out by Hollywood. It wouldn’t surprise me if this did somewhere just south of the $20 million range and challenged Inside Out and Jurassic World for 2nd place this weekend.

Justin’s Chances of Seeing This in the Theater: -3%: Yes, that’s a negative. No, you’re not surprised.

Minions

No amount of gibberish written here would make you laugh. I could use words like “papaya,” babo,” or “bananonina” and you’d think I was absolutely bonkers and had likely lost my mind. OR… I would be a minion and about to make at least $200 million at the box office. One or the other.

Somehow these little unintelligible yellow… things… have stolen the hearts of kids and adults alike and earned the right to a backstory film. Featured first in the hugely successful Despicable Me, the minions strive to follow the lead of the biggest, meanest bad guys that the world has to offer. This film will show their trek through all of time (well, the trailer shows them with the cavemen, so that’s pretty far back) to around 50 years ago. There, they meet up with Sandra Bullock’s Scarlet Overkill, a villain on the hunt for some new recruits. Enter the minions, namely Kevin, Bob and Stuart, three particular little guys who, apparently, will distinguish themselves from the rest of the clan. Somehow.

I’m not saying I think this film looks completely stupid, however. The trailers find a way to be clever (the way they mistakenly kill Dracula makes me laugh every time) while simultaneously being beyond ignorant (can we all just admit that the script might as well have been chucked into a blender and pulled out after a couple minutes of good pulsating?). But even if the story sucks (which it will, I’m sure) I have to believe there’s going to be some quality laughs mixed in to the 90 minutes of screen time.

(Read: my fiancé thinks these things are cute/funny and I’ll be very likely getting the chance to test that theory soon)

Justin’s Chances of Seeing This in the Theater: 75%: As stated above, the better half thinks these guys are just the cutest. And I am one who believes that sacrificing a mere hour-and-a-half to make her happy is worth it in the long run. Call me crazy…

Self/less

Just for brevity’s sake, let me say the following four things about the Ryan Reynolds/Ben Kingsley mind-switching, sci-fi-ish flick:

1) I don’t think there’s an actor working today that I want to succeed more while actually liking so few of his movies than Ryan Reynolds. There’s something about him that makes me really like him. I’m an unabashed fan of Definitely, Maybe (feel free to send all critical – and incorrect – emails my way about that one) and I always thought he rocked Smokin’ Aces and Safe House (the former being good and the latter being slightly above average at best) but I’ve either hated or missed just about everything else he’s put out there. It’s weird, I know.

2) I didn’t see the trailer for this SUMMER release until well into the SUMMER. That’s not a good sign. (Neither are the terrible early reviews)

3) Following the initial trailer viewing, I commented that this is one of those movies that has a tremendous amount of potential… to be awful. It wants to be cutting edge and cool and different but it’s going to end up biting off way more than it can chew. Don’t tell me how I know this – I just do.

4) Ok, this has little to do with Self/less and more to do with Reynolds’ decisions but here are the plot summaries for Self/less (An extremely wealthy man, dying from cancer, undergoes a radical medical procedure that transfers his consciousness into the body of a healthy young man) and next year’s Criminal, also starring Van Wilder himself (The memories and skills of a deceased CIA agent are implanted into an unpredictable and dangerous convict)… Um… maybe take a break from brain-altering flicks for a bit, dude!

(Note: he also has the villainous Deadpool film on slate for next year as well – no word yet on whether the film starts out with his Green Lantern character switching brains with Wade Wilson.)

Justin’s Chances of Seeing This in the Theater: 17%: I’m still a little intrigued by the idea and that Reynolds guy, man… he’s hard to resist.