#just start remaking all the old films and gender/sexuality swap the characters

[thesapphocinephile]

I already rewrote Queen Christina as a lesbian political drama in my head...and now I can't can't get the idea of a queer golden age of cinema out of my head.

[moviepasstor]

May 2018 Movies Reviewed from Just Their Trailers

If you haven't signed up for MoviePass yet, you may have missed your golden opportunity. Last summer, they dropped their price to $9.95 a month for one movie a day, with only premium formats like IMAX and 3-D excluded. But starting at some point in mid-April, the same $9.95/month gets new subscribers only four movies a month. While existing subscribers have not yet been moved over to such a limited plan, something like that might happen in the future, in which case I'll have to be more selective about which movies are worth of a MoviePass swipe, as the card's usefulness as "bad movie insurance" will be significantly reduced. Here, then, is a look at this month’s new releases, and which ones I’m most likely to MoivePass, based on their trailers, using the following rating scale:

@@@@ = I definitely plan to see this @@@    = I might be interested in seeing this @@        = I probably won’t see this @           = No intention of seeing this, ever.

BAD SAMARITAN @@@@ (definitely plan to see this)

Killers and robbers get caught up in a cat-and-mouse game when two would-be burglars break into a house that happens to belong to Killgrave. Okay, he's not really the Purple Man from Jessica Jones, but he's played by the same actor, David Tennant, and he has a woman tied up in his house, and that's a pretty cool complication. (Postponed from an April 27th release date, probably in hopes of debuting with a piece of the drop-off from Avengers: Infinity War.)

REVENGE @@@@ (definitely plan to see this)

Rape/revenge thriller in the vein of I Spit on Your Grave (2010), but this time they seem to be selling it as a #MeToo flick with review blurbs that call the heroine a “badass” and say the movie “gouges the male gaze out of your eye balls” (is there a reason the reviewer spelled eyeballs as two words?)

OVERBOARD (2018) @@@ (I might be interested in seeing this)

Eugenio Derbez is a wealthy Mexican snob who humiliates poor white working-class single mom (Anna Faris), then gets amnesia, so she convinces him he's her blue-collar husband and he bonds with her kids while struggling to do manual labor for the first time in his life, and wouldn't you know it, they fall in love! There, the trailer tells the whole story of this gender-swapped, culture-clash-infused remake of a 1987 Goldie Hawn comedy I never even saw. Now I don't have to see either, but I've enjoyed Derbez's last few outings, and this does look like it will be funny despite its formulaicness (formularity?).

ON CHESIL BEACH @@@ (I might be interested in seeing this)

Young love blossoms on the 1962 English countryside for upper crust Saiorse Ronan and commoner Billy Howle, but then the music gets more dramatic and the only hint we get is that it has something to do with the sexual revolution of the time. My first thought was I doubt I'll be able to stay awake long enough to learn the film's dark secrets, but a second viewing of the trailer made me a bit more curious. From a novel by the author of Atonement, the film that gave Ronan her first Oscar nod but which, for me, built up to a big nothing burger.

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY @@@ (I might be interested in seeing this)

In the original Star Wars, Han Solo was a gunslinger straight out of a Western. Here, his earlier adventures are more in the mold of the sci-fi action-based fantasy that the rest of the franchise is built around. Since these Star Wars Stories are allowed to exist as one-offs outside the main continuity, I would have rather seen a Solo movie that was more true to the spirit of the original character the same way Logan was allowed to be a different kind of X-Men movie from the rest of its franchise. But I'll still see this one at some point before it leaves theaters.

SUMMER 1993 @@@ (I might be interested in seeing this)

A newly orphaned six-year-old girl is sent to the country to live with relatives. While this looks "touching" and is based on the filmmaker's own childhood, the trailer gives no hint that anything story-worthy actually happens. It's listed as a drama, but how can that be without conflict? From Spain.

HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES @@@ (I might be interested in seeing this)

I love Elle Fanning, but I generally don't care for John Cameron Mitchell or Neil Gaiman. I can't tell what's going on from the trailer, which leads me to suspect the film will be narratively just as uninspiring to me as Shortbus and Hedwig. But Elle's moments in the trailer make this hard to pass up. This is where MoviePass earns its "bad movie insurance" reputation.

And the rest...

TULLY @@ (I probably won’t see this)

The first trailer tells us, in text and a wordless montage of vignettes, that Tully is about the drudgery of motherhood, then teases that someone named Tully enters the life of the put-upon mom. I literally have no clue what this movie is really about. I had to look up the plot description on IMDb, where I learned it's about a mother who is "gifted a night nanny" and they form "a unique bond." Great. I still have no idea even what kind of a movie it is. Is the nanny a psychopath, like the one in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle? Is she magical and practically perfect in every way, like Mary Poppins? Is she Tully's ex-husband in drag, like Mrs. Doubtfire? All I can tell, even from the longer trailers, is that it will show me how tough it is to be a mom. I don't need a uterus or a movie to tell me that. I already believe it. I need to know that something goes on in this movie other than diaper changing. The only other thing I have to go on here is that it's from the writer/director team that made Juno, which is promising, and Young Adult, which cancels out the Juno points (along with Ricki and the Flash and Labor Day).

LIFE OF THE PARTY @@ (I probably won’t see this)

While brushing her teeth one night, Melissa McCarthy decides to trash a bunch of her personal belongings, set them on fire, and go back to college where she joins her daughter's sorority and tries to be young again. It's hard to believe they actually put such a nonsensical setup in the trailer. Makes it look like no thought was put into the movie. From the writer-director team that failed to wow anyone with Tammy. On the other hand, I’ve twice seen a trailer for McCarthy’s next movie, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, due out in October, and it’s probably one of the movies I’m most looking forward to this year.

BREAKING IN @@ (I probably won’t see this)

Panic Room. The House at the End of the Street. The Strangers. The Strangers: Prey at Night. Straw Dogs (2011). The Purge. And so on. Somehow this one just doesn't seem to have that extra something that made me want to see, say, last month's Traffik.

BOOK CLUB @@ (I probably won’t see this)

Four of the most famous women in AARP navigate easy and obvious laughs trying to prove senior citizens can do raunchy Viagra comedy when their libidos are reignited by turning off The View and reading Fifty Shades of Grey. Not a match for the genuinely funny elderly raunch found in Dirty Grandpa.

DEADPOOL 2 @@ (I probably won’t see this)

Round two for the self-parodying superhero. I found the first one just as tiring as all the other Marvel movies, but with the occasional quip to break up the monotony. Never got wrapped up in the character's journey. (But I do love the Flashdance-inspired poster.)

FIRST REFORMED @@ (I probably won’t see this)

Ethan Hawke is a troubled preacher wallowing in the grief of losing his son until a parishioner (Amanda Seyfried) comes to him with a bigger problem. Apparently her husband might be some sort of terrorist, and at one point two people levitate. Writer/director Paul Schrader hasn't exactly been fulfilling the promise, in this century, of his early career, and here he's decided to shoot in 1.33:1 and cast Cedric the Entertainer in a supporting role. Normally I'd just wait to see this on TV, but I don't own a 4:3 television set anymore.

BEAST @@ (I probably won’t see this)

A slow cooker about a young woman who falls for a dangerous outsider. Looks impressive, but seems to be missing some key plot ingredient to hold it all together.

ANYTHING @ (no intention of seeing this, ever)

A widower falls in love with a transgender person, and if you dare not find this intensely heartwarming, you’re so not woke.

THE SEAGULL @ (no intention of seeing this, ever)

Based on the Chekhov play, looks like something that was pulled off a dusty shelf due to the recent rise in popularity of Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird) and Elizabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale). Also features Billy Howle, who hooks up with Ronan again this month in On Chesil Beach (scroll up), which looks more promising.

SHOW DOGS @ (no intention of seeing this, ever)

I feel like time was stolen from me just from watching the trailer.