Each Thursday we look at what is going to be coming out in theaters this weekend, show you the trailers for the big releases, predict the box office winner and just generally give you enough of a carrot to pull you through the rest of the work week. July 15th has three major releases: the controversial reboot of Ghostbusters, Bryan Cranston’s thriller The Infiltrator, and Woody Allen’s latest film: Cafe Society.
Ghostbusters has not been given a lot of coverage by KT (ok, none), and the reason for that would be that I pre-hated its guts. I’m sick of the remake/reboot phenomenon in general, but with Ghostbusters, having the film go from a reunification of the classic cast to an inverted gender remake of the first film seemed like a stupid idea. Then I saw the first trailer and it was horrible. In fact, every single thing I have seen of Ghostbusters has been awful. So, it’s been really surprising to see it in the mid-seventies range on Rotten Tomatoes. I don’t know if it’s actually ok or if the expectations have been so lowered by the film’s irritating trailers and marketing that anything that exceeded them would seem a surprising success. If this were a for-profit institution, I would find myself obligated to go see and make a fair judgment. As I run a consistent loss in providing this blog, I can make the decision to continue to ignore that it exists until someone whose opinion I really trust tells me it’s worth theatrical money. I would much rather see Bryan Cranston’s The Infiltrator, which tells the true story of a US Customs Agent undercover in Pablo Escobar’s drug cabal. It would be a serious toss-up with my identical dislike of Woody Allen movies whether to see Cafe Society over Ghostbusters, especially since it stars Jesse Eisenberg and he and I are on a break after Batman vs. Superman. NO CALLS, EISENBERG!!! I would be most inclined to check out The Secret Life of Pets, especially after its record-breaking opening weekend last week.
Cafe Society (Jesse Eisenberg, Steve Carrell, PG-13, 1hr 25min)
The Infiltrator (Bryan Cranston, Diane Kruger, R , 2hr 7min)
Ghostbusters (Melissa McCarthy, Chris Hemsworth, PG-13, 1hr 45min.)
HOW DID WE DO LAST WEEK?
KT was on a break last week but in our previous column, we correctly picked Finding Dory to three-peat two weeks ago, and The Secret Life of Pets to knock the absentminded fish off its throne last weekend. What I did not expect was for Pets to have the largest opening for any original film in history (not based on a pre-existing property). The creators of Despicable Me dropped a humongous $104.4 million opening on the box office (so get ready for several sequels). The Legend of Tarzan was second with $21 million, showing more staying power than its initial weekend promised. Finding Dory dropped to third, but easily passed Captain America: Civil War to become the highest-grossing domestic film of 2016 to date (Lifetime prediction record 16-3).
WHO WILL WIN THE WEEKEND?
So, the basic question is can Ghostbusters overcome months of horrible publicity with a week of positive reviews to a level where it can surpass the normal drop-off for a huge film like The Secret Life in Pets in its second week. To win, Ghostbusters would have to open somewhere around $65 million. I don’t see it happening. This is a tough one, and it takes into account my hugely negative feelings toward the reboot, but The Secret Life of Pets seems likely to repeat.
Cafe Society looks like lesser Woody Allen (I’ll wait to watch it on blu ray) but do you really hate him that much? Even Zelig? Even Annie Hall? Even The Purple Rose of Cairo? He makes a lot of movies, but even in the waning years of his career he produces a gem from time to time, and Midnight in Paris is one of my favorite films. Maybe it’s because I want to travel to 1920’s Paris for real (and yes, I understand that the point of the film is that I shouldn’t wish for that. I don’t care, I want to be there).
I’ll give Ghostbusters one thing: it looks interesting (even stylish) visually. Okay, I’ll give it two things: they gave one of the characters Egon Spangler’s weird hair from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. I won’t be seeing the movie, but if it turns out that all publicity is good publicity, I’lll at least be able to tell myself that the film had one or two virtues.
With the sole exception of Disney/Pixar, I think I’ve moved on from CGI films like The Secret Life of Pets. Don’t get me wrong, it looks like it has a lot going for it, but all the characters in these movies seem like they suffer from manic depression, or multiple personality disorders. The dialogue is either delivered laconically or hyper-franetically (sometimes both, within the very same sentence) with nothing in-between. If I’m being unfair, it’s because I recently watched Horton Hears A Who, and am lamenting what became of the wonderful book from my childhood.
But The Infiltrator… that one’s getting my money.
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I saw Infiltrator. It doesn’t have high ambitions, or even medium ambitions, but if you judge a film by what it sets out to do, it was almost flawless, and I had fun. Cranston is in just about every scene, and while I wonder what an actor of his stature saw in this role, he does a terrific job of grabbing your interest with it. Though I have to say that from time to time, he’s almost upstaged by one of the supporting players.
I was, however, horrified by the coming attraction for the Magnificent Seven remake. Say it’s not so, Denzel.
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