Movie heat

The summer movie season has some big things in store, far bigger than last year’s lousy blockbuster farts. Here’s a smattering of what will be coming your way. Among the offerings, there’s a little film by a little guy named Ridley Scott that has me thinking the world will change forever when it unspools. That makes me feel like the biggest geek this side of Utah.

The Avengers (May 4): Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk and others gather together to fight evil forces and crack wise. See the scintillating review elsewhere in this week’s Reno News & Review. I just promoted myself in the publication where my reviews already appear. I am an attention whore!

Dark Shadows (May 11): Johnny Depp re-teams with Tim Burton, which means one thing for sure: Depp will be wearing some weird-ass makeup. While Burton’s apparently campy take on Barnabas Collins, the infamous soap opera vampire from the ’60s, might have fans of the old TV show crying like bitches, I say bring on the camp. The show, although groundbreaking, kind of sucked.

The Dictator (May 16): Sacha Baron Cohen re-teams with director Larry Charles, this time for a film that actually appears to have a narrative. Cohen plays a controversial world leader who comes to Manhattan and gets lost, much like Macaulay Culkin did in Home Alone 2. Perhaps he will befriend a scary pigeon lady?

Battleship (May 18): Big Transformer-like alien-looking things come out of the ocean to play a board game with us as Liam Neeson and Rihanna look on. This one looks stupid. I’m not saying it can’t be good fun, but boy does it look stupid.

Men in Black III (May 25): This one looked like it had a slew of production problems getting out of the gate, but the previews look promising. Will Smith returns and must travel back in time to save Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). The great twist here is that somebody must play a younger Tommy Lee Jones, and who better to do that than Josh Brolin? Nobody, dammit!

Moonrise Kingdom (May 25): Writer-director Wes Anderson returns to the land of live actors after his magnificent Fantastic Mr. Fox with an all-star cast including Anderson regulars Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman, and Anderson newcomers Bruce Willis, Edward Norton and Frances McDormand.

I know this is off the subject, but have you read Kevin Smith’s new book where he talks about working with Willis on Cop Out? The man is apparently a super alpha mega dick on a movie set.

Snow White and the Huntsman (June 1): On the heels of the disappointing Mirror Mirror comes another Snow White movie, this one with Charlize Theron replacing Julia Roberts as the evil queen, and Kristen “Bella” Stewart replacing what’s-her-face as Snow White. Chris “Thor” Hemsworth also stars.

Prometheus (June 8): And here we go. For many—OK, for me!—the success of this summer lies with Ridley Scott’s return to science fiction and the Alien franchise. In fact, it seems that that the fate of western civilization seems to rely upon whether this movie is good or not.

No, the movie doesn’t have Alien in its title. And it might not even have the acid splaying aliens we’ve come to know in the last 30-plus years. But it does have the Space Jockey, and it does have that strange looking ship from the Scott original. That’s enough for me to think it’s an Alien film.

If this movie is bad, I shall cry. Oh yes, I will cry the cry of the damned.

Rock of Ages (June 15): I hated, hated most hair rock from the ’80s. When Bon Jovi, Poison, Cinderella and Mötley Crüe ruled MTV, I felt like an alien visiting Earth, mortified with its sights and sounds. (Def Leppard wasn’t so bad.) Nonetheless, this big screen adaptation of the Broadway hit, now starring Alec Baldwin, Julianne Hough and Tom Cruise looks like fun.

That’s My Boy (June 15): Adam Sandler, after the atrocity that was Jack & Jill, returns with a comedy about a kid who sleeps with his teacher, impregnates her, and grows up to be Adam Sandler. Sandler plays the now loser dad who attempts to bond with his grown son (Adam Samberg). Raise your hand if you’ve lost faith in Adam Sandler. I am typing this sentence with one hand.

Brave (June 22): This year’s Pixar event will be a letdown if it isn’t one of the year’s best. Hopefully, it will mark a comeback for the world’s best animators after the mistake that was Cars 2.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (June 22): Has there ever been a weirder-looking movie than this one?

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (June 22) Steve Carell in a comedy about the end of the world. Hopefully, audiences will dig this apocalypse scenario over the Evan Almighty flood.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (June 29): The Rock and Bruce Willis join the franchise. I know this is off the subject, but did you know that Bruce Willis made $100 million from The Sixth Sense? This further empowered him to be a super alpha mega dick on movie sets.

The Amazing Spider-Man (July 3): And with this, another superhero franchise is rebooted. Andrew Garfield replaces Tobey Maguire as Spidey. I think the eyes on the new suit look wacky, but I’ll take anything after Spider-Man 3. Spider-Man could spend this movie skipping rocks and chewing tumbleweed and it would be better than that atrocity.

Savages (July 6): Looks like Oliver Stone is getting Natural Born Killers nasty again. Yay!

Ted (July 13): Mark Wahlberg does comedy again, and Seth MacFarlane writes and directs this story of a man who really, really likes his teddy bear.

The Dark Knight Rises (July 20): We all know what happened when Superman, Spider-Man and pre-Christopher Nolan Batman got to their third films. Each of them took a colossal quality dump, especially Spidey. Nolan is far too reliable to screw this one up … right?

The Bourne Legacy (August 3): Jeremy Renner replaces Matt Damon in this reboot, with the likes of Joan Allen returning and Edward Norton stepping in. How many rewrites do you think Norton requested during this production? Do you think he Hulked out or broke somebody’s teeth on a curb when his lines became too pedestrian?

Total Recall (August 3): Colin Farrell replaces Arnie in this remake of one of the big man’s greatest films. Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel get in a big fight in this one, recreating the classic Sharon Stone-Rachel Ticoti brawl from the original. I’m there!

The Campaign (August 10): Will Ferrell + Zach Galifianakis = me very excited!

The Expendables 2 (August 17): Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis amp up their roles as the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris join Stallone for some wholesome butt-kicking. Rumor had it that Norris forced a PG-13 rating on the production, but looks like things have switched back to R territory.

I know this is off the subject, but were you aware that Bruce Willis is some sort of super alpha mega horse dick on movie sets? I’m just sayin’.

Premium Rush (August 24): Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as a bicycle messenger trying to peddle away from bad guy Michael Shannon. Hopefully, it’s better than Quicksilver, the 1986 bicycle messenger adventure starring Kevin Bacon. That thing was a joke.