Crap! I am so tired of July already. I just want August to get here so that we can see “Guardians of the Galaxy”. Luckily and fortunately, this week we have the other remaining most anticipated geek movies of the year – “Dawn of the Rise of the Morning of the Breakfast of the Planet of the Apes”.
This BSR! Weekend Movie Previews is for the weekend of July 11, 2014. Happy Post Independence Day!!
Per usual, before we get started, a quick disclaimer. I write these over my lunch at my day job, all of the film information presented here, including the plot summary, has been pulled from the Opening This Week page of IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/nowplaying/). I have not seen any of these movies at the time of this writing.
Join us this week as we preview “Boyhood”, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”, “A Long Way Down”, and one more.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
PG-13 130 min – Action | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller
Director: Matt Reeves
Stars: Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Andy Serkis, Kodi Smit-McPhee
Summary: A growing nation of genetically evolved apes led by Caesar is threatened by a band of human survivors of the devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier. They reach a fragile peace, but it proves short-lived, as both sides are brought to the brink of a war that will determine who will emerge as Earth’s dominant species.
Thoughts: Holy… Can this be anything other than a flat out masterpiece of Ape cinema? The bar is set pretty high. For the most part. The original “Planet of the Apes” is a classic. Sci Fi Film doesn’t come much better than that. The following installments were all good to varying degrees, but none approached that first one in brains and scope. Ok, so maybe it isn’t a very deep bench of great films. “Congo” was okay, but like every Michael Crichton story it ended with a big explosion. “Monkey Shines” was creepy and a treat in that George Romero had strayed briefly from his Zombie gravy pot. Helena Bonham Carter gave us nightmares from her performance in Tim Burton’s hugely miscalculated Apes re-boot. Peter Jackson forgot the word restraint in his remake of the classic “King Kong”. But this… This one looks like the one.
Boyhood (2014) – [Limited]
R 166 min – Drama
Director: Richard Linklater
Stars: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Elijah Smith
Summary: The life of a young man, Mason, from age 5 to age 18.
Thoughts: I adore Richard Linklater and I have never ever met him. He is the kind of artist I wish we all could be. He has a muse that he follows and figures out how to feed it in every project he works on. And “Boyhood” looks like it all comes together for him. Conceptually, I cannot stop smiling about how wonderfully wonderful it is. And that, by all accounts, he has pulled it off without betraying the soul of the vision is miraculous. I can’t even stay true to my lunch plans (never eating at Beto’s ever again), let alone something that spans 12 years. It just looks marvelous and I cannot wait to see it. It is a movie I would travel distances to go see, which I don’t say easily anymore.
Land Ho! (2014) – [Limited]
R 95 min – Adventure | Comedy
Directors: Aaron Katz | Martha Stephens
Stars: Earl Lynn Nelson, Paul Eenhoorn, Daníel Gylfason, Þrúður Kristjánsdóttir
Summary: A pair of former brothers-in-law embark on a road trip through Iceland.
Thoughts: I hope this is good, but based solely on the trailer, it is everything I hate about movies, art, and treacly pop entertainment.
A Long Way Down (2014) – [Limited]
R 96 min – Comedy | Drama
Director: Pascal Chaumeil
Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots, Aaron Paul
Summary: Four people meet on New Year’s Eve and form a surrogate family to help one another weather the difficulties of their lives.
Thoughts: I take back everything I said about “Land Ho!” This is everything I hate about movies, art, and treacly pop entertainment.
Now, it’s your turn – if you have seen any of these movies, let us know your thoughts in the comments.