JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I admit it, we are one of THOSE families when it comes to summer movies. We keep track of what's opening each weekend, watch all the trailers online at Rotten Tomatoes, and see our favorites as soon as they come out. I actually have a commodious purse used exclusively to smuggle sodas and candy X 4 into the cinema (we call it The Bag Of Special Purpose.) Fortunately, we've discovered the Patriot Nickleodeon's $5 Tuesdays, so we're not breaking the budget.
Just in the past two weeks I've seen 1) WHITE HOUSE DOWN :fun, as long as you don't think too hard about the plot. Channing Tatum and Jamie Fox are funny and have great chemistry together. 2) DESPICABLE ME 2 :Ross, the Youngest and I all enjoyed it. Not as good as the first, but a family-friendly movie parents won't have to force themselves to see.
3)THE HEAT :the perfect flick to take in with your girlfriend(s). Hysterically funny, incredibly foul-mouthed, and SO refreshing to see a story about two women that doesn't involve romance/dysfunctional families/being a victim.
How about you, Reds? Can you recommend any of the recent releases? Are there any movies coming out that you're dying to see? Or if you're more the put-on-your-slippers-and-turn-on-Netflix type, what have you streamed lately?
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Well, we are the exact oposite. We TALK about going to movies, but never quite get there...so thank you for the info! (Sadly, I think the last movie-movie we saw was ARGO. We are pitiful.) Anyway! I am EAGER to see World War Z, certainly, and Twenty Feet From Stardom, and even Pacific Rim, which has gotten such great reviews! I know there are more...too bad we all can't go to the drive-in!
HALLIE EPHRON: We're even worse -- we don't even talk about going to the movies. For us it's Netflix, and we don't even stream it.
Favorite recent movie: Silver Linings Playbook. Even though the portrait of mental illness is so rosey tinted. And I'm a sucker for anything with ballroom dancing.
Best recent movie experience - last night we saw Helen Mirren in the second to the last London stage performance of The Audience, live streamed to independent theatres through NT Live (http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/). Every seat in the theatre was sold - @$20 a ticket. What a treat! I kept thinking: Wouldn't it be great if Broadway had a program like this?
DEBORAH CROMBIE: We are big-budget action movie junkies, so the latest things we've seen in the theater were Iron Man 3 and the new Star Trek. (LOVED IO3; Star Trek, not as much as the first one.) Fortunately--or unfortunately for our budget--we have an iPic Theater about ten minutes from our house, and once you've seen a movie in a reclining seat with your own plush blankie, and food and drink served to you, Cinemark seems pretty dull.
But we are movie-philes, and Friday night at our house is Thai take-out and movies on the home theater. Last weekend it was a movie called London Boulevard. Great cast--Colin Farrell, Kiera Knightly, Eddie Marsan, Ray Winstone, David Thewlis (that's Professor Lupin from the Harry Potter movies)
and the lovely Ben Chaplin--and the director, William Monahan, won the Oscar for original screenplay for The Departed. Verdict? A mess. Couldn't understand any of the dialog, and Monahan apparently couldn't make up his mind whether it was a Guy Ritchie film or a Martin Scorsese film. Combination of the two--train wreck.Weekend before, Life of Pi. Lovely. Wished we'd splurged on Blu-Ray.
World War Z is on our iPic list. Looking to see if I have a birthday coupon from last month...
PS, Hallie, I loved Silver Linings Playbook, too (more than Rick) even though it was a bit of mental-illness-miracle-cure. Still, GREAT performances from all the cast, great script, and who can resist ballroom dancing???
JULIA: We loved World War Z, even though it's very different from the book (which everyone should read!) How about you, dear readers? Any summer flicks you're looking forward to? Any suggestions for what we should see? Or avoid?
