Well, it’s finally August, and while the summer movie season isn’t completely over it might as well be. This article was a difficult one to put together, because there just isn’t much to recommend this month. But you know what, that’s okay, I think I managed to pull together five solid titles for the “must-see” section, and lucky for us the fall festival season is just around the corner, which means things are about to heat up exponentially on the prestige movie front just in time to compensate for things cooling down outside as the seasons change. (I should note here, it is currently 106 degrees fahrenheit here in the desert, and the thought of things cooling down is marvelous, but also very premature.)
We are coming off what turned out to be a pretty solid month last month, in my opinion, as I settled back into my routine after a couple months of travel throughout the Pacific Northwest and had a chance to actually watch quite a few movies, new and old. I was pretty surprised at how much I enjoyed Ant-Man and, if nothing else, Trainwreck proved LeBron James‘ acting abilities extend beyond the hardwood.
Elsewhere, Channing Tatum and his partners in crime pelvic-thrusted Magic Mike XXL across the $100 million mark at the worldwide box office, less than its predecessor but still a nice haul given the film’s meager $14.8 million production budget. Additionally, while I haven’t yet had an opportunity to see either Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation or The End of the Tour, I will be seeing the former this weekend and the latter sometime next week after it makes landfall at my local theater. Brad gave both films positive reviews, so I’m pretty excited to check ’em out.
But enough about July’s releases, we’re here to talk about August. As I mentioned above (in case you forgot), August doesn’t have a whole lot to offer, but it could certainly be worse — it could be January or February. In addition to the new releases we will be discussing below, I’m pretty excited to say I’ve got an opportunity to see all three films in Satyajit Ray‘s recently The Third Man has been making the rounds the last couple months as well, and I will finally be seeing that during the second half of August.
But you’re not here to read about black and white classics (though I hope you consider them if nothing else looks appealing), and I’ve been rambling far too much already. It’s time to dive into the August 2015 new release slate and see just what exactly we’ll have for options when we mosey over to the theater over the course of the next month. Be warned, it’s not the most enticing batch of movies you’ll ever see, so if you opt to catch up on some of summer’s earlier releases, or if one of July’s limited releases expands near you, I certainly won’t blame you. Here we go!
See or Skip?
Alright so right off the bat I’ve gotta say this: you couldn’t pay me to go see Ricki and the Flash this month, or next month, or the month after that. It looks terrible, and further — and I’m probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but whatever — I don’t much care for Meryl Streep as an actor. I know, I know, she’s a legend, an Oscar darling, yada yada yada. That’s fine, I respect her and her body of work, but I feel I can almost always see her acting, and I don’t like that. Any time Streep’s character is on screen I think to myself, “Oh hey, there’s Meryl.” So yeah, you guys can see Ricki and the Flash, but I’m skipping it.
A few others to include in this section: Dark Places, a.k.a. the Gillian Flynn adaptation not titled Gone Girl. The movie has an intriguing cast but doesn’t really move the needle for me in any other way. No matter, it’s already available on iTunes and arrives in theaters August 7. Then there’s Hitman: Agent 47, and considering I didn’t see any of the previous 46 installments in the franchise, I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on this one as well.
Last but not least I have to mention She’s Funny That Way, which at one point was titled Squirrels to the Nuts and I have to say that title would have done a much better job at getting me to consider seeing Peter Bogdanovich‘s new movie. Ol’ Bogs is working with a massive cast here — including Jennifers Aniston and Esposito, Imogen Poots, Owen Wilson, Kathryn Hahn, Will Forte, Rhys Ifans, Lucy Punch and some guy named Quentin Tarantino — but it’s been a long time since The Last Picture Show and even Clarius Entertainment, the studio that brought us Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return, ultimately decided it didn’t want any part of this one. Yikes.
Now, moving on to slightly more compelling fare.
A Few Before We Really Get Started
As I said above, August is pretty thin as far as the box office is concerned, but there are still a few movies of at least minor interest that you might consider checking out. In fact, I found five six, even if a couple are a bit of a stretch.
People, Places, Things (8/14): Brad posted the People, Places, Things back in June and wrote, “this movie looks more than just hilarious, it looks like it’s also a great piece of comedic drama.” That sentence was enough to convince me to not watch the trailer and to instead just go see the movie when it hits theaters. People, Places, Things stars Jemaine Clement as a newly single graphic novelist named Henry, who attempts to balance parenting his young twin daughters and a classroom full of students while exploring and navigating the rich complexities of new love and letting go of the woman who left him. Works for me.
Tom at the Farm (8/14): I finally got around to watching Xavier Dolan‘s Mommy earlier this summer and I was really taken by it. Admittedly that was only my first time watching any of Dolan’s films, but it appears I’ll have a chance to watch another when Tom at the Farm hits theaters and VOD this month. Dolan stars as Tom, a young advertising copywriter who travels to the country for a funeral. There, he’s shocked to find out no one knows who he is, or his relationship to the deceased, whose brother soon sets the rules of a twisted game.
Sinister 2 (8/21): I don’t particularly care for horror, but Sinister 2 is on its way to theaters whether I’m on the train or not, and given its predecessor’s box office results — $77 million worldwide on a $3 million budget — I’m sure this one will find a large enough audience to convince the studio to make a third. The premise: evil stuff happens.
Regression (8/28): Starring Emma Watson and Ethan Hawke, Regression is a thriller set in my home state of Minnesota and centered on a detective (Hawke) who investigates the case of a young girl (Emma Watson) who accuses her father of an unspeakable crime, but the investigation takes an unexpected twist when her father admits guilt. The premise and cast have me interested, but I don’t really know enough about director Alejandro Amenábar to know what to expect here.
We Are Your Friends (8/28): “We… are… your friends!” proclaims the trailer for We Are Your Friends, which I’ve somehow managed to see at least a dozen times this summer, and while I admit the premise is kind of stupid I also have to acknowledge it is a pretty well cut trailer. Here’s what you need to know: Zac Efron plays Cole, an aspiring DJ trying to “set the world on fire”; Wes Bentley plays James, a “charismatic but damaged” older DJ who takes Cole under his wing; and Emily Ratajkowski plays Sophie, James’ younger girlfriend with whom Cole begins a “forbidden relationship.” You know, reading through that setup again I think I just talked myself out of this one.
Z for Zachariah (8/28): Reviews for Z for Zachariah were mostly positive out of Sundance, though not everyone was a fan of Compliance director Craig Zorbel‘s love triangle-infused post-apocalyptic drama. Still, with a cast built upon Margot Robbie, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Chris Pine, I have to imagine the movie has at least something going for it. Z for Zachariah takes place in the wake of a nuclear war, where a young woman fears she may be the proverbial last woman on earth until she discovers the most astonishing sight of her life: another human being.
Well with that all out of the way it’s time now to move on to the movies I’m actually recommending to you this month, and despite the calendar looking pretty bare I think it looks like we could make it through the next few weeks having actually seen a few worthwhile new releases. Not bad for the summer dumping ground!
