Episode 31: Bumpin' Beats til Beddy Bye

Some would say I am a Jack of All Trades. In 29 years, I've done (college) radio, (Local Access) live television, hell, I even did some (high school) ring announcing for boxing. Perhaps my favorite of all these was "The Mike Minch Movie Minute" a movie review segment I did for SUNY Cable News at Brockport. It was my good friend and loyal MVW reader "TV's Matt Calvin" that got me involved in the project oh so many years ago.

 For this episode, I decided to put my old movie reviewer hat on and give you folks the Summer Movie preview you so desperately deserve. Believe it or not, the summer movie season begins in less that two weeks, and it starts off with a bang...

The Avengers:
Fun Fact-This movie has the most expensive marketing campaign in the history of film. This is assuming you count Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger and Twelfth X Man to be really long commercials. It seems like yesterday I was watching the first Iron Man, and Samuel L showed up talking about "The Avenger Initiative" then looked into the camera and screamed, "THAT'S RIGHT! COMING SOON BITCHES!" I am impressed that they were able to even get this movie made, seeing as Warner Brothers has wound up pissing down their leg every time someone even says, "Justice League" Also Avengers is directed by the reigning God of Nerds, and former Roseanne writer Joss Whedon. (Look, all I'm saying is, if there are so many of you Firefly nuts out there, why did Serenity only make $107.00?)

 

Battleship:
Okay, let's start with the fact that I literally had NO IDEA Rihanna was in this movie until I scoped out a poster to put up. As much as I like Liam Neeson, I'm beginning to believe he forgot how to say, "No Thanks, I'd rather not do this movie" My biggest concern is that if movie does well, it will spawn more ridiculous and unnecessary game movies. Adam Sandler is already making Candyland---nope not a joke! I sure he'll start as the immature jerk who learns a candy lesson, Nick Swardson will show up as the annoying asshole, and Rob Schneider will make a cameo as the unfunny hack who needs money. I have gotten off track. If this movie has nothing else going for it, at least it has its own tie in Subway sammich: The SmokeHouse BBQ Chicken

Yikes, this should be called "Baby Shit on Wheat"

Moving on...

The Amazing Spiderman
Speaking of baby shit, who remembers Spiderman 3? Oh you know the one, it had the guy from Sideways, and Spiderman turned emo and inexplicably danced around New York City. Bryce Dallas Howard showed up for no reason at all, and a major plot point was blurted out by a butler who could have saved an assload of time by mentioning it in the first place. Then, just when you are sure that you've reached the ninth and final ring of hell, Eric Foreman shows up as Venom, shoe horned in, essentially "muffin topping" the already bad film. You remember now? Yeah, well they're rebooting the franchise. Yes, rebooting a franchise that only started 10 years ago. To me, this sets a scary precedent. At this rate, movies will be rebooted in the middle of the movie itself. I have plans to talk about reboots, but that's for another time, in another venue. (TEASER!)  There is some neat casting in this, Emma Stone, Martin Sheen, Sally Field. I think it should be entertaining, assuming some terrible production art doesn't comes out, making the villain look like a Ninja Turtle...

Oh Shit 

     


 And finally...

The Dark Knight Rises
I like Christopher Nolan. The man makes good films. He fixed a franchise who previous offering had Arnold as Mr. Freeze and Batman's personalized credit card. I think Memento and Inception are both interesting and well done. I say all of this in the hopes that this movie is his way of giving the finger to nerds everywhere. "Some people just want to see the world burn" ---I am one of them. I hope that all this Bane (who by the way, I have seen Tom Hardy in a small handful of movies, but I wouldn't know the guy if I was selling him movie tickets) and Catwoman talk is just a smoke screen for the real villains of the movie...

KING TUT!!!

AND EGGHEAD

 Just go nuts Mr Nolan, you've earned it. Have Alfred in the batsuit. Let them all do the Bat Dance. Throw in a POW! BANG! WHIFF! SCAT! Better yet, leave out the last one. Hey if nothing else, at least you blow up Heinz Field, and we thank you for that!

There you have it. All four of the movies coming out this summer. I didn't even get around to mentioning the new Wes Anderson movie, the new Pixar film, or the fact that Fox and Dreamworks are both diarrhea-ing out sequels to their terrible cartoon franchises--Ice Age and Madagascar. There's only so much I can ask you to read...

Okay, that's it for now gang. As always, I greatly appreciate when you guys share this on your Facebook and Twitter. It's easy to do (click the links below) and it makes my day..

Minch

PS-Good Times and Good Films