Dear Stephen,
I don’t want to dive too deep into bio-pics, because I’m sure we will have our hands full with whatever arrives in the fall, but I did want to respond a little to what you said about the movies so far this year. What is interesting about Miles Ahead, The Man Who Knew Infinity, and I Saw the Light (and the upcoming or never-to-be-seen-in-theaters The Program) were that all of the named films were supposed to be part of last year’s awards season, but got pushed to different releases. If you remember last season, there weren’t ANY bio-pics among the best picture nominees. Trumbo might have been the closest to a critically praised one. Had these movies been released following their Toronto Film Festival premieres, we might have had (along with Black Mass) the worst bio-pic awards season ever recorded. Were the studios afraid that all these stinkers would kill the awards-baiting genre for good? One can only dream.
I too am looking forward to Florence Foster Jenkins. A Stephen Frears directed film is like a stamp of approval in my book. Besides the films that you listed, two of my all-time favorite under-appreciated films are High Fidelity and Dirty Pretty Things.
Now on to a different sort of list: The Films We Are Least Looking Forward to.
Summer films tend to be filled with good intentions and high expectations, many of which are never realised. These Ticking Time Bombs may have glitzy stars, well respected directors, and film festival write ups, but they fail to connect with audiences in a big way. For my Ticking Time Bomb of 2016 I bring you The Free State of Jones. Starring Matthew McConaughey and directed by Gary Ross (Pleasantville and Seabiscut) give us a Civil War drama of a poor farmer and confederate soldier who rebel against the confederacy in Mississippi and forms his own state. Maybe this ultra-American message will resonate with audiences hungering to make America great again? Or maybe a Civil War era drama will end the McConaughey hot streak.
Summertime is always filled with reinventions of old classics, gone horribly wrong. The past few summers has brought us such bombs as The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Lone Ranger. And recently someone in hollywood said “you know what we haven’t done in a while? Another Tarazan flop!” But my pick for How Did This Get a Greenlight?!?!? Is the remake of Ben-Hur. It stars poor Jack Huston (who I dearly loved as Richard Harrow on Boardwalk Empire) and has the tagline “First to Finish. Last to Die.” Who is the audience for this? Is there anyway that this movie is not the laughing stock of August?
One thing you and I both share an interest in is the charismatic and perfectly sculpted Zac Efron. For some reason on more than one occassion we have ended up watching one of his movies the morning after longs nights of revels. Hopefully one day his agent and studios will realize that deep down inside that broze, six-pack toting, bro is a movie star with great potential to delight and amaze audiences. Unfortunately that time is not now and Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates and the Zac Efron Movies we have to chose from this summer. Overtime I will absolutely see both of these movies (see descriptions of Zac Efron above) but as I am unemployed at the moment I will only fork over $15 to see one in the theater. Although Mr. Efron will probably wear less clothing in Neighbors 2, I am going to chose Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates as my Efron movie pick. I gather from the title that it’s about weddings and also stars Anna Kendrick! As a movie, my expectations are for it to be somewhere between the terrible Bride Wars and funniest-summer-wedding-movie ever Wedding Crashers.
Well Stephen, what are your smelly-like-rotten-garbage-not-fine-french-cheese stinkers?
Best,
Hilary
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