brianna@sfreporter.com
Eiffel
The days and nights are heating up, and the movie studios are gearing up to make 2022 the best year for movies ever! Naw, just kidding, there’ll be good and bad and fine things, plus all the sequels and prequels because Hollywood stone cold gave up on new ideas!
Watcher (June 3, Not yet rated, but probably PG-13, maybe R)
Part of the burgeoning men-are-trash genre, of which Promising Young Woman and The Northman are unequivocally part, the first feature-length from director Chloe Okuno finds young Julia (Maika Monroe) moving into a new apartment only to find that she feels like someone’s watching her every move. We started watching a movie kind of like that called Sliver, but it had Billy Baldwin in it, so we just changed the channel.
Fire Island (June 3, R)
The iMDb listing for this upcoming queer-centric film says that “a pair of best friends set out to have a legendary week-long summer vacation with the help of cheap rosé and a group of eclectic friends.” Ummmm, yes. This sounds awesome. Honestly, it’ll probably be fine, or even kind of bad, but more queer representation in mainstream movies is a good start.
Eiffel (June 3, R)
If you somehow didn’t learn enough about the Eiffel Tower and its engineer Alexander Gustave Eiffel from the Pixies song “Alec Eiffel,” here’s the movie for you. Courtesy of French director Martin Bourboulon, it’ll likely tell us about how people were all like, “Sacre bleu, monsieur Eiffel! Your towair will nevair be ze realeetay!”
brianna@sfreporter.com
Jurassic World Dominion (June 10, PG-13)
We know what you’re thinking, and you’re right—it IS sad that Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard keep doing these lesser Jurassic Park sequels. BUT LIFE FINDS A WAY! Which is to say that Sam Neil is returning as Dr. Alan Grant, the very character who inspired a generation of 10-year-olds to wear kerchiefs and get into science to stop a potential kitchen-based raptor attack.
Lightyear (June 17, Not yet rated, but probably PG)
Chris Evans voices Pixar’s Buzz Lightyear in the CGI origin story movie no one asked for. We bet it ends all like, “...and that’s why friendship in space matters, Buzz!” Cue Randy Newman song. Cue tears that were emotionally manipulated out of you.
Elvis (June 24, Not yet rated, but probably PG-13, maybe R)
This biopic about Elvis Presley starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks comes to us from director Baz “Moulin Rouge” Luhrmann, and will hopefully delve into how the hound dog hater himself (and his mysterious manager Colonel Tom Parker, played by Hanks) stole music from Black people so unabashedly that it’s borderline sociopathic. We bet it’s real dramatic and you’ll find think pieces all over the internet about it.
The Black Phone (June 24, R)
Ethan Hawke and Jeremy Davies star in this-here horror flick about a magic phone that allows a ghost to call a teen boy trapped in a serial killer’s basement. Director Scott Derrickson also did that first Doctor Strange movie, so take that how thou wilt.
brianna@sfreporter.com
Minions: The Rise of Gru (July 1, PG)
Hollywood doesn’t help the perception that it’s out of new ideas when it puts out stuff like this—the 75th Minions movie. This time, though, we get a look at how Minion leader/super villain Gru (Steve Carell) came to be, and what life was like when he was a kid. Snoozers.
Thor: Love and Thunder (July 8, PG-13)
Usually we’d be like, “Good lord, more Marvel?!” but remember that the Thor movies are now made under the watchful eye of New Zealand treasure Taiki Waititi. We’re not saying that means it’ll go into conversations alongside Casablanca or anything, but it’ll at least be fun and funny. In this one, Natalie Portman returns to, I dunno, also be Thor or something? A villain appears, other Marvel characters appear, the “good” side wins, and probably by the skin of their teeth. Christian Bale’s in this one, as are the Guardians of the Galaxy and, of course, Chris Hemsworth (he’s Thor).
Queen of Glory (Not yet rated, but probably PG-13, maybe R)
A Ghanian-American named Sarah (played by the film’s writer/director Nana Mensah) might just leave a prestigious doctoral program at one of them Ivy League schools to follow her likely-a-shithead boyfriend (who is married) across the country. Probably she learns things.
Bullet Train (July 29, Not yet rated, probably R)
Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock come together in a movie about a bunch of assassins on a bullet train who must kill their target on the bullet train, but who learn that maybe the bullet train ride isn’t the only thing they and the other bullet train riders have in common. Bullet train.
A Love Song (July 29, Not yet rated, probably PG-13)
The ever-excellent Dale Dickey (No Exit) and Santa Fe hometown hero Wes Studi play a pair of former high school relationship-havers who wind up widowed and back in each other’s lives after so many years. Our guess? This will be sweet and poignant and brilliantly acted.
Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie (August 5, Not yet rated, probably PG)
If you have kids, you should probably start preparing yourselves now to see this animated movie about those doggone Ninja Turtles. We kid, we kid—we still have a soft spot for the fearsome fighting teens...just not in a we’re-45-and-wearing-the-T-shirt kind of way. In this one, someone from the future appears to tell Leo, Donnie, Raph, Mikey, Splinter, Baxter, Davey, Joey, Carlos, Gavin, Susan, Fonzie, Potsie, Ralph-Malph, Rizzo, Sandy and Kevin Eastman that aliens are a-coming, and only they can stop it. They talkin’ about Krang?
Day Shift (August 12, Not yet rated, probably PG-13, maybe R)
Jamie Foxx might seem like a mild-mannered pool cleaner in Southern California, but he’s actually a vampire slayer. Throw in Dave Franco and Shameless alum Steve Howey, and you’ve got something we’ll go see excitedly, but we’ll pretend like we had to do it for work if our friends ask.
Three Minutes: A Lengthening (August 19, Not yet rated, probably NR)
With a mere three minutes of 16mm footage shot in a small and heavily Jewish Polish village at the outset of World War II, filmmaker Bianca Stigter extrapolates a reportedly meditative and emotionally charged little movie. Helena Bonham Carter narrates.
El Buen Patrón (August 26, Not yet rated, probably PG-13)
Javier Bardem stars in Spanish director Fernando León de Aranoa’s newest, wherein the owner of an industrial scale company (as in that with which one weights things) attempts to resolve issues within the company before an awards committee arrives to consider whether he’s worth it. For some, this will sound boring. For others, acting’s the thing, and it might just be the ticket.
