As the superhero film has declined in overall excitement and quality since Avengers: Endgame, I grow less and less excited about the summer movie slate. Even the usually reliable Disney is on real shaky ground during this school break (see: red flag section).
Not all is lost though: The tippy top has two bangers. A bunch of great directors who hadn’t made movies in a while have new releases too. But the big saving grace is Anne Hathaway, herself alone a part of 4 of my top 10 most anticipated films. What a return for one our unjustly maligned greats!
The Backrooms/Exit 8 – The 2 closest to the Top 10 are really cool looking video game adaptations…a phrase I NEVER thought I would say about a video game movie adaptation.
No superhero movies are on my Top 10 most anticipated list. So what’s left you might ask? Well, let’s take a peek shall we?
Hathaway #1. This is one of the big hitters this summer, and I’m here for it. Everyone’s back: writer, director, and most importantly the 3 leads. Anytime you can get Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Meryl Streep in a movie together, built around sniping at each other and clothes? Even the boys will come hang out and have a great time.
2 big reasons this is here. 1) The crazy, but now uplifting story of how this Looney Tunes movie made it to the big screen, thanks to a groundswell of support, and 2) because The Day The Earth Blew Up rocked. I hope this “tax write off” makes $800 million dollars to show David Zaslav that art demands to be seen!
It’s the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, essentially the birth of the US. We will get some great Ken Burns stuff, but as long as Angel Studios can stick to the facts, I’m very excited at an epic biopic of one of our Founding Fathers, hopefully starting a new trend of big blockbuster movies that bring people into the theaters.
Boots Riley has had my attention when he shoved me and said in his “white voice” Sorry to Bother You. This movie looks as loopy as that one, with Keke Palmer and other shoplifters taking aim at a fashion mogul. I hope Riley’s latest is as acidic and pointed in its commentary as his other stuff, making us angry laugh over & over again.
No one is better at making music cinematic than John Carney. Here he takes a weird swing, having Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas team up to write power ballads. Even though this one looks darker than his other tales, I imagine we will get another great Carney gem about the music making process, with some banger songs along the way.
Hathaway #2. She stars in this David Lowery film as pop star Mother Mary, mounting a comeback and dealing with a torrid relationship she once had with Michaela Coel, her costume designer. Lowery’s films always look incredible, but they also feel like fables being told generation to generation when they’re great; here’s hoping this once gets to that fable status.
A great martial arts movie is my catnip. All signs point to this one being stellar. Joe Taslim and Yayan Ruhian’s involvement. Setting the movie in Southeast Asia, where the last 15 years of great martial arts have been happening. And Kenji Tanigaki at the helm, a legendary stunt coordinator, meaning this movie is gonna be balls to the wall with actional choreography, the likes of which Vin Diesel and the Rock wish they could accomplish. I’d see this Fast & Furious movie before any lame car ass one any day of the week.
Hathaway #3. Here she teams with David Robert Mitchell. That’s the guy who made the great It Follows, and the stays in my head Under the Silver Lake. I have no idea what to expect with this one, with its 80s setting and dinosaurs on posters. Regardless, it should be a fun ride, that stays with us long after its over.
Steven Spielberg is making a movie about aliens. Good enough for anyone right? At this point, for all of us, less we know the better, and Josh O’Connor and Emily Blunt will help Steven lead us to movie nirvana from it.
Hathaway #4, though she’s just a small part of the ensemble. By ensemble, I mean Christopher Nolan asked for 90% of Hollywood’s most famous/best actors. Matt Damon stars, but Tom Holland, Zendaya, Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron and a zillion others follow Nolan into the Cyclops’s lair, and on the epic journey this is for sure going to be.
