Yeah, yeah, I know, I missed last week. I apologize. I was out on a work trip and where I was there were a lot of awesome dinosaur bones and very little good data bandwidth to get online. It was terrible. It was like the dark ages. They even had a JB Bigboys. ‘Nuff said. This BSR! Weekend Movie Previews is for the weekend of August 1, 2014.
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 “Guardians of the Galaxy”, and some other stuff that aren’t as important.
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
PG-13 121 min – Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi
Director: James Gunn
Stars: Chris Pratt, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana
Summary: In the far reaches of space, an American pilot named Peter Quill finds himself the object of a manhunt after stealing an orb coveted by the villainous Ronan.
Thoughts: Thoughts? I have no thoughts. Only bestial impulses to see this as soon as possible. Those savage impulses fighting against my more civilized tendencies have left me with a stress headache over the last week, worrying that I wouldn’t get to see it, but I just bought a ticket for tonight’s (Thursday) 7:30 showing, and I have a ticket waiting for me for tomorrow’s (Friday) 9:15 showing. I think that says it all. Feige is batting 1000 (is that good, batting a thousand is really good right? Or is that bad? Is batting 500 good? Why can’t they just use percentages or letter grades? He is batting A+, because then it would be pretty obvious – Kevin Feige is batting A+ and 100% and that is obviously really, really good.) Be sure to check out the awesome CitizenBot‘s review here.
Get on Up (2014)
PG-13 138 min – Biography | Drama | Music
Director: Tate Taylor
Stars: Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Aykroyd, Viola Davis
Summary: A chronicle of James Brown’s rise from extreme poverty to become one of the most influential musicians in history.
Thoughts: Man, if there was a bio-pic of a famous artist that deserved to be approached from left field and be full of personality and a deep funk soul, then it would be this – but seriously, this looks awful. It looks like a parody of “Walk Tall”. If you are doing anything in anyway slightly associated with James Brown, don’t you think you would try to capitalize on that visually, and in the energy of the film. Maybe the actual movie does and the trailer was cut together by a cloister of Nuns, but I just don’t think this is going to work in any way.
Calvary (2014) – [Limited]
R 100 min – Drama
Director: John Michael McDonagh
Stars: Brendan Gleeson, Chris O’Dowd, Kelly Reilly, Aidan Gillen
Summary: After he is threatened during a confession, a good-natured priest must battle the dark forces closing in around him.
Thoughts: I have no real idea what this movie is about, and I’ve watched the trailer twice, but man it looks great. I love almost everyone involved, and it is especially good to see Brendan Gleeson in a starring role. Plus Chris O’Dowd is awesome – if you haven’t seen “Moone Boy” yet, then you should jump out to Hulu.com and get figured out.
Now, it’s your turn – if you have seen any of these movies, let us know your thoughts in the comments. Especially about “Guardians of the Galaxy”.