A Few Fine Films Keep The Summer Movie Season From Sucking

Although summer doesn’t officially start until later this week (Friday, June 21st), the summer movie season has been long underway. So far we’ve had a slew of big ass sequels (IRON MAN 3, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, FAST & FURIOUS 6), a few flops (AFTER EARTH, THE INTERNSHIP), and a couple of surprise hits (NOW YOU SEE ME, THE PURGE).

Some okay popcorn picture action there (and some suckage), but nothing that notable.

But this last weekend, while all eyes were on the mammoth Superman re-boot, MAN OF STEEL, one of the best films of the summer (and of the year so far) snuck into local theaters: Richard Linklater’s BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

The art house indie, which as the third in a series is actually another sequel, is a charmingly talky romantic drama that continues the story of Jesse and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy), a couple of star-crossed lovers who first met in 1995’s BEFORE SUNRISE.

Read my review of BEFORE MIDNIGHT in the Raleigh News & Observer last week: “‘Before Midnight’ talks a blue streak and that’s a good thing” (June 14, 2013).

Another movie that opened last week that I quite enjoyed, albeit in a completely different way, is Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s THIS IS THE END.

Unless you’ve been hiding out in a hole in the ground you should know from the massive advertising that the outrageous and über crude comedy concerns Rogen and a bunch of his Hollywood player pals, including James Franco, Jonah, Hill, Craig Robinson, Jay Baruchel, and Danny McBride, playing themselves dealing with the world literally going to Hell while they’re all partying at Franco’s fortress of a mansion.

Read how funny I thought it was in the Film Babble Blog review: “The Apocalypse Hilariously Hits Seth Rogen & Gang In THIS IS THE END” (June 11, 2013).

The summer movie season continues this week with the most expensive zombie movie of all time, WORLD WAR Z, a Pixar prequel, MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, and a few interesting looking indies: Zal Batmanglij’s ecological thriller THE EAST, and Josh Whedon’s modern-day adaptation of William Shakespeare’s MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Here’s hoping that there’s something there that will join BEFORE MIDNIGHT and THIS IS THE END in keeping this summer movie season from being a suck-fest.

More later...