1. On The Basis Of Sex

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a hugely important historical figure in U.S. Judiciary history, and I’m not sure if this movie is going to do her justice (no pun intended) based off this trailer. It stars Felicity Jones (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, The Theory of Everything) and co stars Armie Hammer (Call Me By Your Name, The Social Network), Justin Theroux (The Leftovers, Mulholland Drive), Kathy Bates (Misery, Titanic), and Sam Waterson (Law & Order). I love Jones, but her American accent didn’t blow me away. The hip soundtrack really didn’t match the vibe of the subject either, which was sort of off-putting. Mimi Leder is directing (The Leftovers, Deep Impact) off first time writer Daniel Stiepleman’s script. I like Leder’s resume a lot, and hope the final product is more polished than this.

2. The Keeping Hours

I love Lee Pace a TON. Between his roles in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy he has secured a solid place in my heart as the tall, jacked, handsome man. Carrie Coon (Fargo, The Leftovers) stars as well in this Blumhouse joint thats going straight to video on demand. Karen Moncrieff (13 Reasons Why, The Dead Girl) directed a Rebecca Sonnenshine (The Vampire Diaries) script that must not be that great considering the distribution. I like the idea of putting parents in the dilemma having to choose between letting their child get out of purgatory and having more time with them.

3. Patient Zero

TUCCIIIII BABY!!!! Any movie casting Tucci man gets an automatic butter from me. We say it on the podcast a lot, zombie movies are sort of on the way out the door, and a lot of studios are trying the revitalize the genre by adding new spins to it. That said, I sort of like the spin on this. They aren’t really ‘Zombies” (as far as I could tell, there’s no reanimation) as so much an evolved human. The plot of a species war that evolved human and homo sapiens sounds pretty awesome right? Well, I guess we will find out. It stars Matt Smith (Dr. Who, The Crown), Natalie Dormer (Game Of Thrones, The Hunger Games) and Tucci Mane himself. Stefan Ruzowitsky (The Counterfiters, The Inheritors) is directing off a script from Mike Le (Amesiac, Dark Summer). I don’t know either of those guys or their work at all, but it must have been a halfway decent script to grab this crew.

4. Bohemian Rhapsody (Trailer #2)

I liked the first trailer a little more because of the song transitions and music cue’s. This one definitely gives a deeper look into what the movies going to be about, though. Also, as my cohost Trillballins pointed out on the pod, they made a point that Brian May wrote ‘We Will Rock You’ which is pretty hysterical. It’s a Brian Singer (X-Men, Valkyrie) directed movie which is sort of encouraging. The biggest mark on this movie was Sacha Baron Cohen’s departure due to creative differences with the surviving band members. Cohen wanted the movie to focus on Freddie Mercury, and the band wanted it to focus more on them. Apparently, Mercury was supposed to pass away around the halfway point of the film, and the remainder will be about how the band deals with his death. It might still be the case, but we will find out.

5. Elizabeth Harvest

This didn’t come off as particularly interesting to me as much a run-of-the-mill horror movie. From what I’ve read, it’s an adaptation of the Bluebeard myth which is a French folktale about a rich guy that keeps murdering his wives. A high tech adaptation, this just doesn’t move the needle for me. Ciarán Hinds (Game Of Thrones, Justice League) and Carla Gugino (Watchmen, San Andreas) star in this Sebastian Gutierrez (Elektra Luxx) film. It debuted at SXSW to some positive reviews.

6. Boy Erased

This looks eerily similar to ‘The Miseducation of Cameron Post’ which I blogged last week, except it has 200x the chances of winning an academy award. You know why? Two words. Lucas. Hedges. He has been in 11 feature length movies and they have a combined 26 Oscar noms. Thats fucking 2.4 nominations/movie! He has the best agent of all time, the Jesus to Michael Fassbender‘s agent’s Antichrist. Its another tale of a gay child not being accepted by ignorant parents and getting sent to a pray-the-gay-away camp. Not earning a ton of points for originality, but I fully expect this to tug hard on the heartstrings. Besides Hedges, we have Russel Crowe (Gladiator, The Nice Guys), Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge!, Cold Mountain) and Joel Edgerton (Warrior, Loving) all star. Edgerton is also directing in his sophomore piece after ‘The Gift’. That’s a whole ton of Aussies!

7. Robin Hood (Trailer #2)

I’m not sure why we need another Robin Hood movie so soon after the Russell Crowe one which was not very good. Adding on to the fatigue of British legends, ‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword’ was a disaster that is very fresh in the memory as well. I’m a fan of both Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service, Sing) and Jamie Foxx (Ray, Jarhead) though, so I do hope that it’s good. A lot of the random modernizations, such as the stunning fits, have been documented as well.

Not sure what the thought process is there. This is an Otto Bathurst (Peaky Blinders, Dark Mirror) movie, and I liked what he has done a LOT. The more concerning part of that is that it’s off a rookie writers screenplay. It also stars Jamie Dornan (50 Shades of Grey, The Fall) and Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Ready Player One) who apparently will never escape playing a villain for the rest of his life, not that I’m complaining.

8. Overlord

Combining Nazi’s with supernatural elements has had some outstanding, and also terrible results on the big screen (Indiana Jones, Dead Snow, Captain America: The First Avenger, Hellboy). Which end of the spectrum will this be on? I can’t really tell based off this trailer to be honest. It stars Jovan Adepo (Fences), Jacob Anderson (Game Of Thrones), Pilou Asbæk (Game Of Thrones), and Iain De Caestecker (Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D). Sort of a ragtag crew, but I’ve enjoyed all of their individual performances on TV shows. Julius Avery (Son of a Gun) is directing with Billy Ray (The Hunger Games, Captain Phillips) and Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) having done the script. Those are two good screenwriters and a relative unknown director, but the bigger draw is that J.J. Abrams is producing. Abrams resume speaks for itself, but with ‘The Cloverfield Paradox’ being a flaming pile, he has some redemption to look for here.

9. Welcome To Marwen (Trailer #2)

I liked this more than the first trailer, because you get a better look at the supporting cast and their relationships to Steve Carell’s character. Between this and ‘Beautiful Boy’ Carell is GUNNING for our tears. Here’s what I said about it a few weeks ago: At first, this looked a little…odd. This sort of looked like Carrell’s character from ‘Dinner for Schmucks‘ that made dioramas out of dead mice. The more you get into it, though, the more it seems like a pretty sweet and heartwarming movie. It’s a fictionalized version of the real life photographer Mark Hogancamp, who was nearly beaten to death and used building 1/6th scale WW2 model-making as his own therapy. This is directed and written by Robert Zemeckis, who we know can convey a heartwarming tale very well. Besides Carrell, it stars Leslie Mann, Diane Kruger, Janelle Monáe (who just released a pretty great album), and Gwendoline Christie. With a great subject, a storied director, and a deep cast, I’m not really sure where they can go wrong.

10. I Still See You

This looks sort of similar to ‘The Keeping Hours’ from earlier, except on a larger scale. The concept isn’t that interesting to me, especially this fresh off ‘The Leftovers’ which was OUTSTANDING. Scott Speer (Step Up Revolution) has the wheel on this with an adapted script from Jason Fuchs (Wonderwoman). The Big Star in this is obviously Bella Thorne, and I have no strong feeling/experience on her work or social presence one way or another. So, as per tradition, I let the resident experts do the talking.

Fran: It’s no secret I’m a Bella Thorne fan. I respect her IDGAF attitude and she is very much her own person. When Ria and I interviewed her (nbd) she was extremely sweet and friendly. However, unsure where she is going in her acting career. Her last few roles have been…questionable. She definitely has the potential to be great if she works with the right people. I bawled my eyes out watching Midnight Sun on a plane recently. Just a story of a teenage girl with a disease where she can’t be in the sun, falls in love, goes into the sun, and then dies. It was extremely depressing. I Still See You might have to be a skip for me, sorry Bella. l’ll wait for her next movie, “Sundance darling” Assassination Nation.

11. Second Act

Romcoms are back, baby!! And who better to lead the charge than Jennifer Lopez, the Maid In Manhattan, The Wedding Planner, THE GIGLI herself! I mean, they even give you some fan service right at the start:

Hell yea, I AM QUEENS BOULEVARD! Shoutout to Entourage which turned 13 years old yesterday, as blogged by my buddy Glennard Balls. Peter Segal (50 First Dates, Get Smart) is directing, which is awesome. ’50 First Dates’ is sneaky one of the best romcoms in recent-ish memory. Besides Lopez, Milo Ventimiglia (This Is Us), Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical), and Leah Remini (King Of Queens) are all featured as well.

There’s going to be more trailers that drop later today, especially since Comic-con is still going. I’ll have a standalone blog Monday morning for ‘Glass’ and ‘Aquaman’ which have trailers coming out tonight and tomorrow respectively.

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