Summer Movie Season: WINNERS and LOSERS

It is the Summer Movie Season and because the Summer Movie Season now begins in late spring that means we have already reached its halfway point. And though logic might dictate allowing the Summer Movie Season to see itself all the way through and then, and only then, ruminating on its issuing proclamations about its Bigger Meaning, well, the in vogue mode of content is declaring immediate Winners and Losers. Winners and Losers were declared on the first day of NBA free agency; Winners and Losers were declared after the Democratic Primary debates; Winners and Losers were declared in The Mueller Report; Winners and Losers were declared in the wake of What’s-His-Spray-Tanned-Face’s trip to London (Meghan Markle won and everybody else lost). And because Cinema Romantico, given our ultramodern blogspot design and just, like, you know, being a blog in a world of YouTube influencers, is nothing if not on-trend, the staff thought it would be wise to declare a few Winners and Losers where the in-progress Summer Movie Season is concerned.

Summer Movie Season: WINNERS and LOSERS 

LOSER: Box Office. Through the end of June, as numerous outlets have reported, U.S. box office grosses were down nearly 9% from the same point in 2018. What any of this means, nobody knows, because nobody knows anything, a famous phrase proffered by the late William Goldman that people tend to quote at the beginning of so-called think pieces before deliberating about what it all means anyway. Speaking of which...

WINNER: Box Office Analysts. If the dawn of every new weekend has brought us the release of yet another ho-hum, under-performing sequel, so too has it brought us the dawn of another round of pieces about, well, what all these ho-hum, under-performing sequels mean. Time will tell if this is merely a boom period for Box Office Analysts, or if they will gradually replace critics, kind of like how sportswriting now is less about describing the action of a single game and more about big picture speculation, quoting sources and utilizing data to predict the future, completing the film de cinema’s transformation from art to content. Can’t wait!

WINNER: “Avengers: Endgame.” If box office has generally suffered, the culmination of the 22-film MCU (Marvel Comic Universe) did not, earning the top spot for 2019 box office so far going away, raking in a little less than $3 billion worldwide.

LOSER: “Avengers: Endgame.” Alas, that box office haul still left it short of “Avatar’s” worldwide box office record, prompting Marvel to order a re-release to try and push it over the top only to still come up short, no doubt leaving Jim Cameron cackling from the cozy confines of his Na'vi Blue Humvee.

WINNER: “Avatar.” Not only has “Avatar” thus far retained the all-time top box office slot, but after her recent Democratic Debate, ah, performance, we, along with so many others, were intrigued to learn that Future President Marianne Williamson once decreed that Mr. Cameron deserves the Nobel Peace Price (sic) because of it. I don’t see anyone arguing for the Brothers Russo to get a Nobel.

WINNER: Rose Dewitt Bukater. “Avengers: Endgame” and its abundance of superheroes may have passed “Titanic” in the all-time box office tally but Cinema Romantico’s Superhero Emeritus nevertheless remains Rose Dawson.

WINNER: “Booksmart.” 97% on Rotten Tomatoes! 😊

LOSER: “Booksmart.” Only $20 million at the box office. 😕

LOSER: Sequels. Monetarily, sure, as we have already established, but also in terms of artistic quality, which is of less concern to the boardroom suits who now rule Hollywood with their data sets than IP (Intellectual Property).

WINNER: “Angel Has Fallen” Trailer. Look, I’m surprised as you that a trailer for late August release starring Gerard Butler as a secret service agent framed for trying to assassinate the President is a Winner. But this looks exactly like a mid-level 90s thriller and, my heavenly God, in these dark days of endless superhero sequels I get down on my knees and pray for mid-level 90s thrillers.

LOSER: John Grisham Movies. Mid-level 90s thrillers like these! Remember how the 90s were awash in John Grisham cinematic adaptations that were not good, per se, but still entertaining because each one had, like, a dozen really good actors collecting paychecks by chewing up scenery? We can keep the MCU, fine, but bring my JGU back. Dude had a novel come out last year! Buy the rights!

WINNER: “Speed 2: Cruise Control.” Any of these overpriced 2019 cinematic summer siestas would have been markedly better by including a scene where Willem Dafoe covered his body with leeches, lemme tell ya.

WINNER: Keanu Reeves. As surely as “Batman” won the Summer of 1989 and “The Phantom Menace” won the Summer of 1999 with ad nauseam marketing campaigns a la Coca-Cola, Keanu Reeves has already won the Summer of 2019 on the strength of his own brand, a modern Samurai ethos, taking root in all his roles, from “John Wick 3” to “Toy Story 4” to his electrifying two-scene cameo in “Always Be My Maybe” for which he should earn an Oscar nomination (and will not). And rather than milking or trading in on the media frenzy, he has mostly just gratefully acknowledged it from afar and then continued on his way, Keanu to the last, which only makes his 2019 Summer victory that much more true and triumphant.

LOSER: “Speed 2: Cruise Control.” “Speed 2: Cruise Control” already lost in 1997, of course, but such is Reeve’s domination that 22 years later he has managed to make it lose all over again even though we just, one paragraph ago, declared it a WINNER. That’s because now, 22 years later, we can see “Speed” should have waited to release its sequel now by getting Reeves to commit by having Jack Traven not physically defeat Willem Dafoe’s scorned cruise ship employee but spiritually redeem him before becoming his sponsor and finding him work as entertainment director at Carnival®.

Summer Movie Preview: Best/Worst Case Scenarios

As a kid, summer break was the axis around which everything turned. The months leading up to the freedom of June, July and August felt less never-ending to me than as if week by week, from late April to late May, a little more godawful baggage accumulated over the preceding months was being jettisoned by the side of the road. That last week, even when you still had to go to school, afforded bliss, the long year about to be over which, even if you didn’t realize it yet at that age, was always just as good as the long year actually being over. Of course, all of this is precisely why the eventual return to school at the end of summer was so excruciating, the thought of having to go through another nine months simply being too much to bear. The start of school generally coincided with Labor Day which generally coincides with my birthday and is partly why, to this day, the anniversary of my birth still triggers an ache of melancholy, just as the end of May triggers an anticipatory tingle as if, for a few fleeting hours or days, I have lulled myself into thinking summer break is about to start. But it doesn’t start because it never starts because summer break is long gone because time is a straight line with no end in sight except for the end I don’t want to think about.

Yet even as summer break became defunct in my world, remnants of those three months off could still sometimes be found in the space of a summer movie season. When I would catch glimpses of the Entertainment Weekly Summer Movie Preview issue on the rack at Borders, I’d get the flutter like I’d get when I’d catch the first glimpse of the clay at Roland Garros for the French Open which meant just one more week of school. I’d buy that magazine and devour it, mentally mapping out the blockbusters that I found most appealing, memorizing release dates. And even though at younger ages, when I was less discerning, or less critical, I could still sometimes see these movies and come away underwhelmed, there was nevertheless always a sense of escape intertwined with those cinematic experiences, settling into an air conditioned theater during a muggy Midwestern summer, my own personal Tastee-Freez. In there, in the dark, away from it all, I could get the sensation of summer break two hours at a time.

These days that sensation is gone. It’s no longer escape I feel at most summer movies; it’s apathy; it’s like being in school and wanting to be out. I terribly miss the erstaz summer break that summer movies once provided. I miss it so much that when a friend remarked that he rarely reads this blog’s reviews because they are not movies that interested him, I strongly considered upping my game this summer movie season. I would see them all, I decided! I would stay on top of the trends, review my feelings and wake up the summer break echoes by way of summer movie season echoes. Then I got a look at the summer movie season schedule which felt like the summer break when I didn’t even really get break because I had to go to driver’s ed and was therefore given the driver’s ed manual on the last day of school which made me want to cry. Everything is awful. Except, of course, for the traditional Best Case scenarios for each of this summer movie season’s biggest names. This is all we have left.

Summer Movie Preview: Best/Worst Case Scenarios

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (May 12). Best Case: Keira Knightley makes a surprise appearance, in blue paint, to bequeath, in a sense, the title of Guinevere to Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, revealing that the Guinevere of these movies is sort of like the Dread Pirate Roberts, a rotating cast of Dread Pirate Roberts’ in which the role is passed along from generation to generation. Worst Case: Keira Knightley does not appear. David Beckham does appear, but without Victoria. The whole thing is less “Excalibur” and more “A Knight’s Tale”, with Arthur and Lancelot doing kung fu and the round table re-imagined as less a table than a Robinson Crusoe-ish gathering place in the trees of Brocéliande.

Alien: Covenant (May 19). Best Case: Katherine Waterston lives ‘til the end. James Franco is revealed as the evil android and dies early by falling down an elevator shaft, soap opera style. Worst Case: Director Ridley Scott takes so much time explaining what happened between “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant” that he realizes he has foregone his promised return to old school horror movie roots. So, with ten minutes left in “Alien: Covenant”, a piano falls from the spaceship ceiling and kills everybody except James Franco. Billy Crudup is revealed as the evil android.

Is “Baywatch Nights” the inspiration for “Baywatch” rather than “Baywatch”?

Baywatch. Best Case (May 26): Best Case: In a twist, director Seth Gordon employs spinoff “Baywatch Nights” as his true inspiration with Dwayne Johnson as Mitch Buchanan as Private Detective hired to investigate a case of identity theft which leads him to a Mitch Buchanan impersonator played by David Hasselhoff who also covers “One of These Nights” by The Eagles over the closing credits. Worst Case: In a twist, director Seth Gordon employs “Baywatch” episode 9 from Season 3, “Masquerade”, as his inspiration, in which, and here I quote Wikipedia, “Mitch and Stephanie go undercover as two wealthy individuals to stop murderous pirates from taking over Baywatch.” Wait. Was this “Worst Case”? Sorry. I meant, Best Case. This is a Best Case too. Best Case Pt. 2.

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” (May 26). Best Case: With the movie partially taking place in the Bermuda Triangle, upon its arrival there, every showing of the movie, not unlike the USS Cyclops, suddenly vanishes right in the middle of itself. Worst Case: A surprise late movie cameo of a bald Matt Damon as John Glenn immediately ignites speculation that the next “Pirates of the Caribbean” will go to space. “Pirates of the Caribbean: Leaving Orbit.”

Wonder Woman (June 2). Best Case: Placing Wonder Woman opposite Superman, director Patty Jenkins melds Marvel D.C. Comics with “His Girl Friday”, shrewdly disassembling the various social binaries that define all superhero movies until each one of them lays in figurative ashes. Worst Case: The movie is a success but not, in the words of Marvel D.C., a “smashing success.” What’s a “smashing success”, Marvel D.C. is asked. “Oh,” replies Marvel D.C., “you know it when you see it.” Marvel D.C. therefore forgoes a proper “Wonder Woman” sequel for a sequel titled “Bride of Superman” making Superman the focal point.

The Mummy (June 9). Best Case: In a twist, the 2017 “The Mummy” takes place in 1926 wherein Tom Cruise is led to Hamunaptra by hapless Beni (Kevin J. O’Connor) of the 1999 “The Mummy” where, sure enough, Cruise comes face to face with, well, The Mummy, yes, but also Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah who reprise their roles even as they are “Rogue One”-d to look like their 1999 selves. Fraser and Cruise jockey over who gets to save the day. Getting bored, Weisz, in a “Blazing Saddles”-ish twist, leaves mid-movie to start work on her own version of “Cleopatra” one set over.  Worst Case: Ethan Hunt begets Jack Reacher begets Nick Morton.

Monochromatic Michael Bay?

Transformers: Last Knight (June 23). Best Case: “You know,” explains Michael Bay at a press junket, “for ‘Last Knight’ I was very influenced by Yasujirō Ozu. And so I decided to accentuate my framing as opposed to obscuring it with my vomit bag vérité. I wanted to emphasize my cuts by making them fewer and farther between, while also allowing the Transformers themselves to be more a product of their natural environment.” True to his word, “Last Knight” chronicles the death of Optimus Prime as a stunningly emotional blend of CGI and neo-realism. Bay wins an Oscar. He and Megan Fox bury the hatchet. They make a Peggy Shippen movie together that is so good this blog is forced to issue a public apology for all the mean things it has ever said about Mr. Bay. Worst Case: “Last Night” does so much business that Bay, despite pledging that this would be his final “Transformers” movie, decides to bring “Transformers” to Broadway as a musical! He announces Aerosmith has already agreed to do compose and perform all music and lyrics.

Spider Man: Homecoming (July 7). Best Case: Peter Parker and Tony Stark, whose superpowers have mysteriously been lost for the duration of the film, are forced to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon to make to Peter Parker’s high school reunion at homecoming in time. Worst Case: Boldly forgoing the structure of a Hollywood blockbuster, director Jon Watts, a longtime Rick Reilly fan, imagines his film as a feature length episode of the ill-fated ESPN “Homecoming with Rick Reilly”, in which Tony Stark interviews Peter Parker in his hometown.

Dunkirk (July 21). Best Case: Surprise! The movie opens with Christopher Nolan explaining he bet Joe Wright that he, Nolan, could make a better Dunkirk movie in over two hours than Wright could manage in five minutes. “Alas,” Nolan says, “I lost the bet. So here’s the five minute Dunkirk scene from ‘Atonement.’” Worst Case: An ardent proponent of the expositional flashback, Christopher Nolan, concerned about conveying all the necessary backstory leading up to Dunkirk, makes a movie that just is an expositional flashback, two and a half hours of 65mm expositional flashback.

The Emoji Movie (July 28).

An Ode to Ronin's Most Unlucky Extra

There’s the immaculately comical moment in “Bowfinger” when the titular character and his ramshackle crew are filming Jiff, the hapless double for mega-star Kit Ramsey, for an action shot on a rush hour L.A. freeway. He has to run from one side of the interstate to the other, dodging cars, across the median, to reach the arms of the lady he loves. “That seems kinda dangerous,” Jiff earnestly observes. Bobby Bowfinger laughs. “No, no, no,” he says, “we have professional stuntmen doing the driving so you’ll be completely safe.” It’s technically funny, of course, because, obviously, they are not professional stuntmen, they are normal everyday L.A. drivers suddenly dealing with a maniac running through traffic.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? It makes me think of “Who’s Harry Crumb?”, the oh-right-I-sorta-remember-that John Candy comedy from the 80’s in which the star gets caught crawling in air ducts with a considerable breeze that generates hijinks. My Dad loved that detail, that a ludicrous John Candy comedy was the only movie that ever actually showed air ducts being put to their intended use while so many action films sacrificing joy for solemnity would revel in the air duct ruse solely to advance plot. And it’s no less incredible that an absurdist romp like “Bowfinger” would be the movie to willingly indulge the fantasy that every driver on a freeway is, like, you know, just a commuter.

It’s easy to look at a movie car chase and immediately deduce its inherent fantasy. I mean, take my favorite movie car chase, “Ronin”, the one through the streets of Paris that spurs the third act and contains our dueling automobiles going against traffic for a while. Find it on the Youtubes and the first comment is calling it out over an inane inaccuracy. Them’s the movies these days. You make them to move the world and people watch them to spot continuity errors. It’s so much fun!!! I remember someone telling me, derisively, with a roll of the eyes, that the cars coming in when they were roaring down the tunnel against, as stated, the traffic looked suspiciously far apart, like the director was cuing them up off screen on a headset. And I guess he probably was. Wasn’t he? Or was he not? Or were they, like “Bowfinger”, only the illusion of professional stuntmen? (I, of course, don’t mean this literally, only abstractly, but only abstractly in the context of cinematic truthfulness, by which I mean illusory as the reality.)

This brings me to “Ronin’s” most unlucky extra. What if his name’s Martin? What if he’s a contractor from Chartres? What if he had to take a trip up to Paris to pick up a few supplies? What if he’d just picked them up and was starting on his way back home? What if he was just listening to some MC Solaar and daydreaming about that mademoiselle in the Bugatti EB110 whose eye he’d briefly caught?

And then, suddenly, a car zooms past to his left, going the wrong way, just as another car swerves up alongside him to his right. “What the-”

Godspeed, Martin. We hardly know ye.

Summer Movie Preview: Best Case/Worst Case

It’s April. And though it’s thirty-nine degrees with a chance of snow, well, the summer movie season waits for no weather report. After all, this is why the planned “Poseidon Adventure” remake starring Kate Middleton as herself leading the ENTIRE SHIP to safety is now slated to open Groundhog Day 2019. Gotta make that money, son.

The summer movie season of 2015 looks no different than any other summer movie season. Sequels, remakes and reboots, oh my, proving yet again that Hollywood is not creatively bankrupt, okay? Because creativity is about more than creativity, you whiners. Creativity is about weekend grosses and advertisements on the sides of trains and “test(ing) story concepts”. Duh. Even so, summer movie season is a way of life whether we like it or not and so we here at Cinema Romantico thought it might be fun to examine a few of the more extensive tentpoles from the viewpoint of what their best and worst scenarios could be. Join us, won’t you?

Summer Movie Preview: Best/Worst Case Scenarios

Avengers: Age of Ultron (May 1). Best Case: The film turns out to be an Agatha Christie-ish murder mystery set entirely within the confines of The Algonquin Hotel. Worst Case: Its runaway success causes an Avengers and Ant Man crossover. (Full Disclosure: I still don’t know who or what Ant Man is.)

Blackhat. (May 12.) Whoops! This is a blu ray release! My bad! Well, as long we're here, why don't you read my review and THEN, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SEE IT.

Mad Max: Fury Road (May 15). Best Case: A confused Tom Hardy winds up in an actual on set thunderdome run by Katy Perry where he finds himself in an accent-off with Will Ferrell. Worst Case: Its runaway success causes a “Mad Max” and “Fast & Furious” crossover - “Mad Max vs. Dom Toretto.”

Poltergeist (May 22). Best Case: The film turns out to be found footage in which the poltergeist of the original “Poltergeist” is so peeved by this remake that it wreaks havoc. Worst Case: Its runaway success causes a “Poltergeist” and “Silent Night Deadly Night” crossover - “Poltergeist” vs. Santa Claus.

This isn't Bradley Cooper in "Aloha", but it could be.

Aloha (May 29). Best Case: It’s Cameron Crowe's Elvis Movie. Worst Case: It’s “We Bought A Zoo” 2.0.

San Andreas. (May 29.) Best Case: It features Kylie Minogue as a super-heroic seismologist who saves the day by reversing the rotation of the earth. Worst Case: It turns out Kylie Minogue was not actually in the movie and the studio simply employed her name to draw the all-powerful Kylie demographic to the theater to inflate its opening weekend box office.

Entourage. (June 5.) Best Case: Vincent Chase is hounded by a scandal in which he’s paid $19 million more than his co-star Amy Adams (as herself) despite the obvious fact that she’s carrying his can’t-act ass in every single frame of the whole film. Eventually, Adams earns equal pay and wins an Oscar. Vincent is given bad notices and forced to act in a movie filmed in Bulgaria where Drama has the lead. Worst Case: It's, like, you know, exactly what it's going to be.

"Macklin, you son of a bitch."

Jurassic World. (June 12.) Best Case: The entire film turns out to be a “Bowfinger”-esque production in which Chris Pratt as Special Agent Burt Macklin attempts to film an unwitting Laura Dern (as herself) amidst a gaggle of stuffed toy dinosaurs in her own backyard. Worst Case: Feeling as if all types of actual dinosaurs are, like, played out and a little boring, director Colin Trevorrow invents a dinosaur - the gigawattasaur, capable of “harnessing 1.21 gigawatts of Jurassic-ness.”

Magic Mike XXL. (July 1.) Best Case: No one remembers it wasn’t directed by Steven Soderbergh until the “directed by” credit appears. Worst Case: Everyone remembers it wasn’t directed by Steven Soderbergh when the “directed by” credit appears.

Terminator: Genisys. (July 1.) Best Case: The film begins on July 5, 2015, only four days after its release, in which James Cameron (as himself) is so distraught by the actual finished product that he builds a T-2722 (Michelle Rodriguez) and sends it back in time in order to prevent the production of “Terminator: Genisys” which leads to an unheard of cinematic event in which the film we’re watching is literally erased before our eyes. Worst Case: James Cameron’s attempts to send the T-2722 back in time fail, prompting another sequel, Terminator: ExUdUs, in which Cameron attempts to send the T-2824 back in time to the set of “Terminator Salvation”, thus forcing us all to re-live “Terminator Salvation.”

Help us, Michelle Monaghan, you're our only hope.

Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation (July 31.) Best Case: It turns out the “Rogue Nation” of the title refers to Scientology and Michelle Monaghan (as herself) assists Tom Cruise (as himself) in escaping David Miscavige’s clutches. Worst Case: It is so successful that David Miscavige officially declares Tom Cruise as Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the Thetan Empire. A crossover of “Mission: Impossible” and “Battlefield Earth” ensues.