A Couple Good Things

Last week I was telling someone how few big-name movie releases this summer thrill me. I have been content to stay at home and stream middling thrillers (so many middling thriller reviews to come), but I also know that’s no way to live. I love watching the new June or July blockbuster in a packed air-conditioned theater in summer and I’m genuinely happy for people excited to see the new “Superman” in packed air-conditioned theaters. And though once I might have been excited for it too, the truth is, the superhero movie boom wore me out and I have yet to recover. (Besides, Superman peaked for me when Parker Posey was stomping around Lex Luthor’s pad.) When Zaslav the Great promotes his 10-year plan and when people who have seen this new movie say it spends ample time setting up more movies, I feel pre-exhausted, already tuning it out. It’s always just the beginning when I’m begging for someone, anyone to simply stick the landing in a cool two hours and ten minutes and then move on to something else. So, yes, I know, Grumpy Gus over here. But. Not more than 24 hours after I was telling someone how few big-name releases this summer thrill me, I learned that a new Kathryn Bigelow joint is on the way. 

How I originally missed the news, I don’t know, but almost a month ago it was announced that in October, Bigelow’s “House of Dynamite” will debut in theaters before streaming on Netflix in October. The logline: “When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond. As the kidz say, SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! While you’re over there discussing how David Corenswet compares to Christopher Reeve, I’ll be over here imagining Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson deliberating about a missile strike. That would have been all I needed to get me through three more months of this brutal summer and yet, on the same day I learned about “House of Dynamite,” Deadline reported that Hailee Steinfeld and Miles Teller are set to star in a romantic comedy called “Winter Games.” Deadline explains: “Set in the high-stakes arena of the Winter Olympics, the film follows a perpetually overlooked skier (Steinfeld) and a self-sabotaging hockey legend (Teller) who collide at their breaking points. Their unexpected connection threatens her chance for a medal and his shot at a comeback as they navigate romance and redemption in the Olympic Village.” As the kidz say, INJECT IT INTO MY VEINS!

I proposed an Olympic Village movie almost a decade ago, and though my pitch was a package deal with Richard Linklater attached to make it a “Dazed and Confused,” Everybody Wants Some!!”-ish comedy, I’ll happily take the counteroffer. I’ll be there opening day with my Milano Cortina 2026 t-shirt. We just have to hope it’s not merely set-up for a standalone sequel called Summer Games in which Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell play, respectively, inevitably, a beach volleyballer and a water polo player. In fact, forget I ever said that.