Fantastic Four
Dir. Josh Trank
August 7
I really want Fantastic Four to be good, in large part because the premise is just so out-there. One guy literally turns into flames, another is made of rocks, a third serves as the human equivalent of a rubber band and the group’s female member turns invisible. I mean come on, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t pass out, wake up, and pass out again if even one of those things happened in real life.
Moving on from the idea itself, I’m a fan of Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara and Miles Teller, a trio of actors who account for a full 75% of the titular superhero team, and given how little I’ve cared for the majority of the summer’s blockbusters it sure would be nice to close out the season with a bang here, no matter how unlikely that is. Also it sure would be nice to see Jordan haters who said a black man couldn’t play Johnny Storm.
A reboot of the mid-2000s Fantastic Four movie series, Josh Trank‘s film centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy. Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell and Tim Blake Nelson round out the cast.
Diary of a Teenage Girl
Dir. Marielle Heller
August 7
The only reason I even know about The Diary of a Teenage Girl is because I’m an avid listener of the Fighting in the War Room podcast, and the only reason the film found its way onto this list is because it has received solid reviews over the course of its festival run, standing at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and 86 on Metacritic as of this writing. Based on a graphic novel and centered on the sexual coming-of-age of a teenage girl, the film sounds a lot like Blue Is the Warmest Color on paper, but considering The Diary of a Teenage Girl is listed as a comedy-drama and is also a full Woody Allen movie shorter than Blue Is the Warmest Color, I’m hopeful Marielle Heller offers something worthwhile here.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl tells the story of Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley), a 15-year-old aspiring comic-book artist coming of age in the haze of the 1970s in San Francisco. Insatiably curious about the world around her, Minnie is a pretty typical teenage girl, except that she’s sleeping with her mother’s boyfriend. Kristen Wiig, Alexander Skarsgard and Christopher Meloni round out the cast.
Straight Outta Compton
Dir. F. Gary Gray
August 14
Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Drake, A$AP Rocky, Earl Sweatshirt, Vince Staples and other artists like them have found their way into heavy rotation on my Spotify account over the last couple years, and while I wouldn’t call myself a rap expert I do like the genre quite a bit. But those guys wouldn’t have the careers they have without the groundwork laid by Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, DJ Yella and MC Ren — five men who banded together in the late 1980s to form N.W.A., arguably the most controversial group of rap’s early days and the one that truly popularized the genre.
[yt id=”kIJeJK0iZDE” width=”320″ height=”160″]
That in itself is enough to generate a passing interest in Straight Outta Compton, F. Gary Gray‘s film centered on the group and named after its debut album. Containing lyrics that protested police brutality, criticized racial profiling and painted the worldview of inner-city youth, “Straight Outta Compton” earned N.W.A. its reputation as the world’s most dangerous group, and given the couple trailers I’ve seen it seems Gray’s film attempts to tell N.W.A.’s story in a bold and honest way, perfectly befitting the values espoused by the revolutionary rap quintet. O’Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Neil Brown Jr., Aldis Hodge and Paul Giamatti star.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Dir. Guy Ritchie
August 14
Quite a few people around the internet really seem to love Guy Ritchie; I’m not one of them. In spite of that, I can’t help but want to see The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Ritchie’s spy movie that once had Tom Cruise attached to star but ultimately wound up with Henry Cavill in the lead role. It just looks like a lot of fun, and sometimes I need something fun to fill in the gaps between sobering dramas and heartrending indies. Probably helps, too, that Alicia Vikander stars alongside Cavill, as she has given not one but two excellent performances already this year in Ex Machina and Testament of Youth.
Set against the backdrop of the early 1960s at the height of the Cold War, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. centers on CIA agent Solo (Cavill) and KGB agent Kuryakin (Armie Hammer). Forced to put aside longstanding hostilities, the two team up on a joint mission to stop a mysterious international criminal organization, which is bent on destabilizing the fragile balance of power through the proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology. The duo’s only lead is the daughter of a vanished German scientist, who is the key to infiltrating the criminal organization, and they must race against time to find him and prevent a worldwide catastrophe.
American Ultra
Dir. Nima Nourizadeh
August 21
I haven’t seen the trailer for American Ultra but I did sneak a peek at the clip I posted for the site a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed what I saw. Together Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart are greater than the sum of their parts, and if director Nima Nourizadeh can in any way tap into what those two brought to the table in the underrated Adventureland, I think I could walk away from American Ultra feeling pretty satisfied.
In American Ultra Eisenberg plays Mike Howell, a dopey, shaggy-haired store clerk about to pop the question to his girlfriend Pheobe (Stewart), but then the clandestine government operation that has totally “Manchurian Candidated” him to be a super-soldier comes calling. The major buzzkill turns into actual kills as Mike must defend himself from enemy agents and stay sober enough to rescue Phoebe, too. Walton Goggins, Connie Britton, Bill Pullman, Topher Grace, Tony Hale and John Leguizamo co-star.
Phew! That’s it guys — done, fin, we out. Wasn’t so bad, was it? Despite the mostly unappealing list of movies coming out this month, I do think there could be a few bright spots, with Straight Outta Compton and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. likely my own “most anticipated” if I had to choose. I am however getting really sick of typing out “U.N.C.L.E.” every time I type The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Guess that means it’s time to wrap up…
I hope you all have a great month at the theater this month, that you find a few diamonds in the rough among the barren August slate and that you don’t spend too much money on popcorn and drinks and the like; save those hard-earned dollars for the fall months, and if you’re in a desert like me maybe just bring a massive jug of water to the theater instead. But I digress. If there is one thing I’m sure of with the new month upon us, it’s that August is going to be a very interesting month at the movies. I’m curious to see how it pans out but until then, welcome, everyone!
