It’s the big 4thof July holiday! A weekend of patriotism, fireworks, and classic summer movies. Welcome to Week 10 of Summer Blockbusted 2020. Through the end of August, I am curating a weekly slate of movies from summers past, ranging from big blockbusters to small counter-programming indies, and dramas and comedies in-between. With the multiplexes [...]
Thirty-five years ago today -- July 3, 1985 -- Back to the Future debuted. It took the "teen movie" genre to a whole other level: the high concept blockbuster. And while we love it for all of the ingenious, inspired, rewarding details that come with that approach, the real magic of Back to the Future came [...]
See update below in bold paragraph. Another day, another delay. Does anyone honestly think this will be the last one? Of course not. AMC Theatres, the nation's largest movie theater chain, announced that they will now reopen on July 30, roughly two weeks after they had originally planned to be fully operational. The move is [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBfVR_u_lGQ Jennifer Hudson has put some Quaaaan into being the Queen of Soul. MGM released the first teaser trailer for Respect, the biopic about R&B legend Aretha Franklin. Starring Hudson (Academy-Award winner for Dreamgirls), it looks to follow all of the expected beats of the genre, from Aretha being a groundbreaking artist to the challenges [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrGwCJQoeVo Four... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQjGGrKRL8o ...more... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EI40a-Fc1k ...days. Or less, depending on when you're reading this. The long wait is almost over for the biggest at-home event of the year: the full Original Cast stage production of Hamilton, the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning phenomenon from actor/writer/composer Lin-Manuel Miranda. It debuts exclusively July 3, 2020 on [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNYcwbEL-pg If there were ever a way for Pixar to speak to this cultural moment that we're in, this new 60-second spot for Soul may be it. The commercial doesn't directly reflect or comment on any of the racial tensions and reckonings that we've experienced over the past month but, in that context, you could [...]
It’s the calm before the 4th of July box office. Welcome to Week 9 of Summer Blockbusted 2020. Through the end of August, I am curating a weekly slate of movies from summers past, ranging from big blockbusters to small counter-programming indies, and dramas and comedies in-between. With most multiplexes still closed, these are classics [...]
We're starting to see a pattern here. For the second time this month, Warner Bros. has announced that they will delay yet again the release of Christopher Nolan's highly-anticipated blockbuster Tenet. Originally slated for July 17, the WB first bumped it to July 31 as COVID-19 cases began to rise in June. Now, that COVID [...]
Regal Cinemas is catching the classics craze. The 2nd largest theater chain in North America, Regal Cinemas has joined AMC Theatres (the 1st) and Cinemark (the 3rd) as national multiplexes that will lean heavily on Hollywood's blockbuster catalog to woo patrons back to movie theaters in July. Regal also announced similar safety protocols, including 50% [...]
Life finds a way. And in the age of the Coronavirus, so does Steven Spielberg. Twenty-seven years after its original 1993 release, Jurassic Park was the highest-grossing movie in U.S. theaters over the third weekend of June 2020. That's more of a fluke than a legitimately impressive feat, given the pandemic circumstances, but it's still [...]