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 28th begins a two-month period of uncertainty at the box office before the fall heavyweights check in, so we have three very different options: hyper-action, eco documentary, or animated film about poop emojis (I couldn’t make this up if I wanted to….or had sunk that low).
We really got spoiled the last three weeks with huge releases in Spider-Man: Homecoming, War for the Planet of the Apes, and Dunkirk. Well, coddling time is over and we’re back to week-to-week grubbing.
Atomic Blonde looks like it could be fun, and Charlize Theron is clearly the best action actress working right now (where is another Furiosa film???). It also looks a little odd and like a more grounded Wanted (which only says how out there Wanted was). It and the next film are in the middling 70% range on Rotten Tomatoes at time of writing.
A decade ago, An Inconvenient Truth mainstreamed global warming debate and won Al Gore an Oscar (which I’m sure he loves just as much as he would have those two terms in the Oval). A decade later comes An Inconvenient Sequel: This Time It’s Inconvenienter, nope sorry, An Inconvenient Sequel: Screw You, Trump, nope sorry still looking, An Inconvenient Sequel: Aren’t YOU Hot?, DANGIT it’s here somewhere, An Inconvenient Truth: Truth to Power. Hmmm, I like mine better.
Then, lastly, comes what is, at time of writing, the new WORST reviewed movie of the summer (off the schnide there, Transformers): The Emoji Movie. Yes, an animated film about emoticons. Including the poop emoji. Western civilization will now be turning off the lights and walking slowly and sadly off a cliff.
An Inconvenient Sequel (Al Gore, PG, 1hr 39min)
Atomic Blonde (Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, R, 1hr 55min)
The Emoji Movie (Bill Hader, TJ Miller, Patrick Stewart, PG, 1hr 26m)
HOW DID WE DO LAST WEEK?
KT picked Dunkirk to triumph last week and the Chris Nolan-helmed World War II movie exceeded expectations, opening with $50.9 million and Girls Trip also opened well in second place with $31.3 million.
(2017 Prediction Record: 26-4; Lifetime prediction record 64-9).
WHO WILL WIN THE WEEKEND?
This is how it breaks down: how many idiot parents will take their ankle biters to The Emoji Movie vs. how much will Dunkirk drop off? If Dunkirk didn’t still have the majority of IMAX screens, I would go with the idiots and pick The Emoji Movie (and lose a piece of my soul in the process). HOWEVER, though I normally take a loss gracefully, I am 26-4 this year and half of those losses are the fault of a similar idiot situation that made The Boss Baby…..at thing. I will not be a gracious loser if the best film of 2017 gets beat by a film about animated substitutions for using the ENGLISH LANGUAGE TO FRICKING COMMUNICATE!!! Aaaaand breathe…..
Al Gore got bad advice when he named his documentary. He needed an adjective with more oomph than “inconvenient.” It does not drive the severity of his message home.
I don’t know how to feel about climate change. I always thought the climate was in a constant state of flux, with or without mankind. But the more I live the less I know, so I have my ears open.
Whittle your multiple mansions down to one, and start using modes of transportation that do not guzzle fuel and produce noxiousness, and I’ll listen to your take on the subject, Al. I’m wondering if you’ll use your new documentary to talk about overpopulation, and China, both of which are doing far more to torpedo the environment than anything being done in america.
Back in the day, PT Barnum made a fortune displaying a monkey sewn to a fish, and calling it a mermaid. At one point there was an artist, a painter, using the same building to display his life’s work, and no one was interested, everyone was next door looking at the “mermaid.” The artist committed suicide. The Dunkirk/Emoji situation is sadly eternal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
DUDE, no politics (even those backed BY EVERY SCIENTIST IN …no politics). We are a community of movie lovers, and Al won an Oscar and his documentary is the 11th highest grossing doc of all time (yes I just knew that), but catching lightning in a bottle twice may be touch especially when going against the movie that saved Transformers 5 from being the worst reviewed movie of the summer and I swear I have a feeling it’ll beat Dunkirk because of IDIOT PARENTS!!! Btw….that guy who painted isn’t getting a Hugh Jackman musical this Christmas so if your logic follows….Emoji: The Musical is already in the works.
LikeLike
The soul of our civilization is at stake. I know that sounds melodramatic. I know that the Romans enjoyed far worse, that they had actual lions eating actual human beings, but they had high culture, too. Our higher culture is slipping away. When I was younger, there was this controversy over the sequel to Bill and Ted, which was going to be called Bill and Ted Go To Hell. Remember? The title had to be changed to Bogus Journey, because there was a controversy. Amazing where we are, just a few decades later. My problem is not a moral one, it just pains me that kids are growing up with inanities instead of nourishment.
I cannot WAIT for the Jackman musical. I am so thrilled that musicals are being made again that I cannot possibly express it. Maybe it means the culture isn’t going down the tubes as fast as it seems. And original musicals, too, written for the screen. Happy day.
Sorry about my Gore comments. I believe in what science tells us, BTW, and I take the preservation and care of our planet extremely seriously. It’s just that politicians get involved in these issues, and they bring out the part of me that wants to test authority.
LikeLike
Dunkirk to win the weekend! Yaaaaaaaaay! In your face, people who pander to idiots!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank God for IMAX or it wouldn’t have made it, but phew. It’ll be interesting to see how Dark Tower and Detroit do against it next week.
LikeLike
Detroit is a wild card that might do okay. I predict a major fail for Dark Tower, marketing has been weak and has failed to communicate the complicated premise, and it is not the film the fans have been waiting for, as it is short, and not actually based on any of the books as far as I can tell. Only the fans will understand why, but that does not mean they will like it, and they won’t. This looks like a generic non-epic to me. It’s sad, I waited for this for years, and I’m starting to come around, I’m starting to love the last three books. If the filmmakers did not have the support of the studio, if they had to tiptoe through the first installment to this degree to prove that DT was a viable franchise, maybe this was not such a good idea.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Detroit may build with an awards season re-release or because of word of mouth over a bland August but it’s not going to be a fun film people want to run out and see, I pretty much agree on TDT.
LikeLike
Don’t know why they released Detroit in the summer, but DT is the only new release, Dunkirk has already been the number 1 movie 2 weekends straight, Emoji can’t possibly have legs, and I don’t see Atomic Blonde going places. Detroit will benefit from all that. Obviously it won’t be a huge hit, but it might surprise, within reason. It’s a weird slate of films right now.
LikeLike
I don’t remember stuff like the Emoji movie when I was a kid. I remember when the big ongoing controversy was darkness and violence in kids’ films, not crassness and stupidity. You had Lucas, Spielberg, and Henson working at the tops of thier games, and everyone else imitating them. Plus Disney re released its animated classsics every seven years. Parents could take thier kids to the movies without fantasizing about taking a dive from the projection booth and ending it.
LikeLike