It's August, a month that traditionally serves as a dumping ground for summer blockbuster also-rans. Face it, if the Hollywood suits really thought a movie was good, they would have released it back in May at the height of the frenzy.
Take Michael Bay's reboot of 80s/90s comic book phenom Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which stars Megan Fox and a gaggle of CGI mutants in a half-shell doing kung-fu battle with the evil Shredder. Early buzz on the film had audiences complaining about the new character design (them turtles look scary!) and wondering just how bad Bay was going to blow it. Read Anthony Salveggi's review here.
Salveggi also reviewed the Steven Spielberg/Oprah joint production The Hundred-Foot Journey, which stars Helen Mirren as a French restauranteur who unexpectedly lands some culinarily gifted Indian neighbors who open a restaurant of their own — wait for it — about 100 feet away from her own. Salveggi generally enjoyed The Hundred Foot Journey, saying the movie is "cinematic comfort food for those whose tastes run to movies set in quaint villages that seem destined for feature articles in the glossy pages of travel magazines."
Also out this weekend is Into the Storm, a found-footage storm flick that looks in previews like a Sharknado clone without the sense of humor. We didn't review this one, but ask yourself: would it have mattered to you if we did?
STILL IN THEATERS …
Of course, the studio execs are often wrong. Take Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, which opened to huge box office and ecstatic critical reaction last weekend. CL's own Kevin Tall said Guardians delivers the summer movie fun, even going so far as to cajole the audience to, "Put your faith in Guardians of the Galaxy to protect your hard-earned cinema bucks."
Also still in theaters is the James Brown bio-pic Get On Up, which Anthony Salveggi enjoyed, saying in his review: "Get on Up is less about Brown the man than Brown the icon who can entertain audiences. And within those parameters, the movie works very well."
And finally, there's Richard Linklater's acclaimed (including by me) coming of age story Boyhood, which opened at the Tampa Theatre last weekend. Boyhood moves into more theaters this weekend, which means there's no excuse for missing one of the best movies of the year so far.
