David Edelstein on summer films to watch
Thinking of taking in a movie this glorious holiday weekend? Our critic David Edelstein has suggestions galore:
Summer at the movies, when there's no vaccine against raging sequelitis or super-hero-osis. So here I am to help strengthen your immune system.
For Pete's sake, I hope you've seen Pixar's "Inside Out." To hell with Pete, for YOUR sake, because this madcap dramatization of a sad 11-year-old girl's mind is a new pop-culture touchstone. It's going to help sad girls and boys (and grown-ups who grew up from them) for as long as there are movies.
To watch a trailer for "Inside Out" click on the video player below.
Otherwise, you're stuck with sequels: "Jurassic World," which at least has killer effects; "Ted 2"; "Terminator Genisys"; "Magic Mike XXL."
The latter, by the way, not a Roman numeral. Channing Tatum's Mike is a stripper, so it means "size matters." The film is actually very fun, transforming the original -- a morality play about how capitalism turns sex into a soulless commodity -- into a ramshackle road comedy with good dancing and tanned, toned torsos driving ladies into paroxysms of lust.
"Terminator Genisys" is terminally lousy, though it does earn props for making something old look new -- and also old, using old-timer Arnold Schwarzenegger but changing the timeline to set up fresh sequels, taking an already convoluted premise and adding more convolutions.
And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, lucky you!
Run, don't walk AWAY from "Ted 2," the smutty giant teddy bear's quest to be legally recognized as a person. Not this time, Teddy Boy!
Let's get off the beaten multiplex path ...
Look out for director Ken Loach's rousing "Jimmy's Hall," a sort of period Irish Commie "Footloose." And what's not to like about that?
Also, amazing documentaries like "Amy," which makes alternately thrilling and depressing sense of arguably the most soulful vocalist of the last quarter century, Amy Winehouse.
I haven't yet seen "Ant Man" or "Minions," but I can say the Amy Schumer sex comedy "Trainwreck" (I know she was "Sunday Morning"'s profile this week, but I feel bound to add my wise and discerning critical imprimatur) is crazy-funny in anatomizing certain female defense mechanisms.
"Trainwreck" is what keeps up my spirit amid the sequelitis of summer, a sign that some trains are on the track.
For more info:
- "Inside Out" (Official site)
- "Jurassic World" (Official site)
- "Terminator Genisys" (Official site)
- "Ted 2" (Official site)
- "Magic Mike XXL" (Official site)
- "Jimmy's Hall" (Official Site)
- "Amy" (Official site)
- "Trainwreck" (Official site)
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