Critical Mass

Blockbuster bonanza

It’s a hot summer at the cinema for fans, for critics not so much

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette summer movie photo illustration.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette summer movie photo illustration.

"Feature films are suffering a kind of bad time right now, in my opinion, because the feature films that play in theaters are blockbusters. That seems to fill the theaters, but the art-house cinema is gone," David Lynch told Variety recently, by way of explaining his enthusiasm for cable television, which he called "a new art house."

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The heist is on: Ansel Elgort (from left), Jamie Foxx, Eiza Gonzalez and Jon Hamm are ready to do the deed in Baby Driver.

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Tom Holland portrays Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

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Zoe Kravitz (from left), Jillian Bell, Scarlett Johansson, Illana Grazer and Kate McKinnon star in Rough Night.

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Annabelle Wallis and Tom Cruise star in a new take of The Mummy.

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It’s apes versus humans in War for the Planet of the Apes.

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The mass evacuation of Allied soldiers from Dunkirk, France, during World War II is the subject of director Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.

Maybe he's right. If you're of a certain age you probably find it hard to imagine your favorite movies being made these days, at least not with the intention of them playing on our biggest screens. Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet would confuse too many people.

Part of it is economics. It's expensive to see movies in theaters, and if you're dropping a day's pay on a movie date you probably want something less challenging than the intense engagement drama can provide. What you're looking for -- what you've been trained to expect -- is a frictionless escape from what Walker Percy called your "everydayness." You want to forget yourself for a while, you want to zombie out.

There's a reason a lot of film critics, including this one, prefer not to say too much about so-called summer movies. Mostly it's because there's usually not that much to say; the pleasures of these films are overt and broad. I once said trying to review Avatar was like trying to critique a beach ball. That's how most of these things are. If you like them, fine. They don't lend themselves to critical deconstruction.

But they're coming. Heck, they're already here. The summer movie season kicked off more than two weeks ago when the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel came roaring into 4,300 theaters. Maybe we should have run this preview a month ago -- it's like we're walking into the theater 15 minutes late. But don't worry, you haven't missed much.

FRIDAY

Baywatch -- Reportedly a self-aware meta-take on the old David Hasselhoff TV series with always watchable Dwayne Johnson, Kelly Rohrbach and Zac Efron in the key roles. The British trailer is a hoot.

Paris Can Wait -- The feature directorial debut of 81-year-old Eleanor Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola's wife, stars Diane Lane as a woman married to a Hollywood producer who takes a road trip through France with one of her husband's business partners after the Cannes Film Festival. Of course we're interested.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales -- The fifth time around for Johnny Depp and company (Geoffrey Rush, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom). It has been six years since the lifeless On Stranger Tides; maybe the hiatus will help.

JUNE 2

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie -- Animated superhero comedy features the voices of Kevin Hart, Ed Helms, Nick Kroll, Thomas Middleditch and Jordan Peele.

Wonder Woman -- Are we still interested in this one after last year's Batman v. Superman? Some have high hopes for Gal Gadot.

JUNE 9

Beatriz at Dinner -- Salma Hayek, as a spiritual health practitioner from Mexico, argues with billionaire John Lithgow and other rich folks over dinner.

It Comes at Night -- The second feature film from Trey Edward Shults, director of last year's Krisha, is a post-apocalyptic horror thriller starring Joel Edgerton with Riley Keough, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Griffin Robert Faulkner.

The Mummy -- Tom Cruise rides again.

JUNE 16

47 Meters Down -- Sisters (played by Mandy Moore and Claire Holt) are trapped underwater, surrounded by scary sharks.

The Book of Henry -- Naomi

Watts is a single mother raising two boys, one of whom happens to be a genius. After she discovers a neighbor with a dark secret, she becomes a sniper. (At least this is what the trailer suggests.)

All Eyez on Me -- Tupac Shakur bio-pic stars rookie actor Demetrius Shipp Jr.

Cars 3 -- Much as I love Pixar, it's hard to get excited about the continuing story of Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson).

Rough Night -- I have high hopes for this depraved, drunken comedy about a bachelorette party that brings Scarlett Johansson, Zoe Kravitz, Kate McKinnon and Jillian Bell into proximity with a dead male stripper.

JUNE 21

Transformers: The Last Knight -- Maybe the final Autobots-Decepticons showdown? Director Michael Bay says it's his last go-round.

JUNE 23

The Beguiled -- Sofia Coppola's remake of the old Clint Eastwood film, adapted from Thomas Cullinan 's Southern Gothic novel, stars Colin Farrell as a wounded Union soldier being nursed back to life at an all-girls' boarding school in the Confederate South during the War Between the States. Big cast includes Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning and Oona Laurence. May not open locally on this date, but watch for it.

The Big Sick -- Michael Showalter's indie romantic comedy/drama is about the real-life love story between comedian Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley) and Emily V. Gordon. Rave reviews at Sundance.

Dean -- Comedian Demetri Martin wrote and directed this mild but likable comedy, which we saw way back at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.

JUNE 28

Baby Driver -- Looks like a winner, with Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars) as a young getaway driver in way over his head. Written and directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz).

JUNE 30

Despicable Me 3 -- Gru (voice of Steve Carell) finds out he has a long-lost twin, Dru (also Carell).

The House -- Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler are bad parents who blow their daughter's college fund gambling and open up a casino in their basement.

JULY 7

A Ghost Story -- Casey Affleck haunts his old life in this strange Sundance favorite.

Patti Cake$ -- A chubby white girl from New Jersey (Australian actress Danielle MacDonald) dreams of becoming a famous rapper.

Spider-Man Homecoming -- I really hope the sequel is Spider-Man: Senior Prom. Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is back in high school in this reboot.

JULY 14

Lady Macbeth -- An intriguing adaptation of Nikolai Leskov's novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk set during the 19th century. It's a thriller that involves a young woman (Florence Pugh) sold into a marriage with a middle-aged man and her means of escape.

War for the Planet of the Apes -- Caesar (motion-capture expert Andy Serkis) and his fellow apes plot a showdown with the humans. Go monkeys.

Wish Upon -- Horror movie about a young woman who acquires a magic box.

JULY 21

Dunkirk -- Christopher Nolan takes on the great "miracle of deliverance," the mass evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbor of Dunkirk, France, between May 26 and June 4, 1940, during World War II. Promises to be epic in every sense of the word.

Girls Trip -- Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith and Tiffany Haddish as friends who decide to take a road trip together. Expect male strippers, presumably alive.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets -- Lots of anticipation building for Luc Besson's sci-fi odyssey starring Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne as Valerian and Laureline, agents of the Spatio-Temporal Service in the 28th century.

JULY 28

Atomic Blonde -- Charlize Theron is an undercover MI6 agent in Cold War Berlin.

The Emoji Movie -- A movie about emojis. Sigh.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power -- More climate change Cassandra-ing from former Vice President Al Gore.

Menashe -- Acclaimed indie drama filmed in secret entirely within Brooklyn's ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish community that tells the story of a widowed father of a young son, struggling to make ends meet and stay in his son's life after his rabbi requires the boy to live with his strict uncle's family. In Yiddish with subtitles.

AUG. 4

The Dark Tower -- Stephen King's opus finally comes to the screen with Idris Elba as the Gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black.

Detroit -- Director Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker) returns to features with this drama set against the massive outbreak of civil unrest in the summer of 1967. John Boyega and Anthony Mackie star.

Step -- Documentary focusing on teenage girls at a special high school in Baltimore who are part of a prestigious step dance program.

AUG. 11

Annabelle: Creation -- Creepy-dolls horror franchise continues with the dollmaker and his wife welcoming a nun and several girls from an orphanage into their home. Wha?

The Only Living Boy in New York -- Takes its title from a Paul Simon song, stars Pierce Brosnan and Kate Beckinsale, and is directed by Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer).

The Trip to Spain -- Third Michael Winterbottom-directed road movie starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. In this one they eat and drink their way across Spain, riffing all the way.

Wind River -- Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen investigate a murder on an Indian reservation in this thriller written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, who wrote last year's Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water.

AUG. 18

The Hitman's Bodyguard -- In this action comedy Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson kill people and break things as longtime adversaries who reluctantly join forces.

Logan Lucky -- Channing Tatum and Adam Driver are brothers pulling off a robbery at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature -- Will Arnett and Katherine Heigl pick up easy checks for voice work in an animated adventure.

AUG. 25

Polaroid -- From the Internet Movie Database: "Polaroid is styled in the vein of The Ring and Final Destination and centers on a high school loner, Bird Fitcher, who stumbles upon a vintage Polaroid camera. Bird soon learns that the camera houses a terrible secret: whoever has their picture taken by it meets a tragic and violent end."

Terminator 2 in 3-D -- James Cameron oversaw the conversion of the film into 3-D. Some care.

AUG. 30

Leap! -- A young orphan (voice of Elle Fanning) dreams of becoming a ballerina in this animated comedy-adventure.

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Style on 05/21/2017

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