2015 Summer Movie Preview: 20 Films to See from June through August

We’re off to a solid start to the summer movie season with the first five weeks gifting us a pair of solid sequels (Avengers: Age of Ultron & Pitch Perfect 2), The Rock defeating earthquakes/tsunamis in the wonderfully outrageous San Andreas, &, most notably, Mad Max: Fury Road which somehow managed to integrate themes of feminism & the dangers of religious fundamentalism into two hours of crazed action. That George Miller’s return to his Mad Max franchise would be both a worldwide hit, it’s grossed over $283 million to this point, & the best reviewed mainstream movie released this year gives some perspective on his accomplishment. While those who keep an eye on the indie scene have had a variety of interesting, & well reviewed, fair to choose from. There’s been an impressively cast period romance (Far From The Madding Crowd), an Ethan Hawke led examination of the drone war (Good Kill), another offbeat Kristen Wiig film (Welcome to Me), a gym comedy starring Cobie Smulders & Guy Pearce (Results), & an inventive western featuring Michael Fassbender & the Hound from Game of Thrones (Slow West).* Granted it hasn’t all been good. Poltergeist looks to have been another needless remake. Hot Pursuit was hot trash. The much hyped, by me anyway, Tomorrowland, was solid but never quite equaled up to the sum of its parts, while Aloha put an exclamation mark on Cameron Crowe’s decade long slump.  But misses are inevitable, what matters are the good ones & there are plenty left to come.

* If you’re in Tucson you can still catch “Slow West” at the loft & “Madding Crowd” at el con, where you can also still see the excellent “Ex Machina.” You might also try on demand for these smaller films.

Super Bowl XLIX Preview

Who will win this battle of football titans*?
*Obviously I don't mean the Tennessee Titans, they suck. 

I don't want to toot my own horn* about correctly predicting this Super Bowl five months ago so let's just get straight to talking about this fascinating game.

*Actually, I do. I'm 8-2 against the spread (Naturally, I haven't been betting), & straight up, in these playoffs. Only 6 of 64 ESPN experts correctly predicted this Super Bowl at the start of the year. In seven years of making preseason predictions I've got at least one Super Bowl team right in all but one year. I've now nailed 8 of the 14 teams during that span. King Kong ain't got s*** on me!
 
I know a lot of people aren't thrilled this game is between the Seahawks & the Patriots, the two most hated teams in the league, give or take the Cowboys & Steelers, but who cares what the haters think. The further this season went on the more apparent it became that this was the most interesting potential matchup. Sure, Denver fans would've loved a rematch, until it ended in another double digit loss. It was always a matter of time before the Colts got blasted by a better team, better for it not to be in the big game. Dallas... F@#$ that. Green Bay would've been fun though. Rodgers vs. Brady, a rematch of one of the few marquee matchups of the regular season that lived up to the hype, no one would've objected to that. This is even better though. Pete Carroll's shot at revenge on the team & owner that fired him. Tom Brady versus his successor in the clutch category, Russell Wilson (Who's 10-0 against Super Bowl winning quarterbacks, though that has a lot to do with the defense). The two best cornerbacks in the league demonstrating just how good they are. The Seahawks can become the first repeat champions since the Patriots. Belichick & Brady* can become only the second coach/QB combo to win four Super Bowls (Chuck Noll & Terry Bradshaw were the first). Brady gets a shot at beating the team that massacred his rival the year before, & in doing so cement himself as the best quarterback of his generation. They're also just the two best teams in football.** That's a lot of great storylines, & it's going to be awesome getting to see which ones play out.

*Listen, if you want to always see an asterisk next to those two names because of spygate & deflategate go ahead. You're being either extremely stupid, or biased if you do, because neither of those was A. exclusive to the Patriots or B. that big a deal, but go ahead & let your Patriot hate flow.

**Certainly some Packers fans will take exception to that claim what with Rodgers being hurt & Seattle needing a miracle comeback to win on their home turf. I'd counter that Russell Wilson quite possibly played most of that game with a concussion & the Seahawks turned the ball over 5 times & the Packers still couldn't beat them. You don't get better opportunities than that & if you can't capitalize you're simply not good enough –– at least not with your coach asleep at the wheel.

Oscar Nomination Reaction

NPH will be hosting this year's Oscars,
who will be joining him at the ceremony?

People like to say that awards don't matter, they're not wrong. Citizen Kane, regarded by many as the greatest film of all time (I've never seen it), famously failed to win best picture. Martin Scorsese had to wait three decades to win his Oscar, but no one doubted he was a master filmmaker beforehand. Peter O'Toole never won an Oscar, yet he'll always be a film legend. Films about famous dead Brits in Shakespeare In Love & The King's Speech defeated two of my favorite films, Saving Private Ryan & The Social Network, but I'll fight you if you think that makes any sense. 

Still, awards don't entirely not matter. They can change a career. Just getting nominated can give an actor a legitimacy they previously lacked (See: Jonah Hill), or a writer/director the ability to get a project green lit that never would've seen the light of day otherwise. Also, they're fun to debate! With that in mind here's a look at this year's Academy Award nominations, & my thoughts on various major categories. 

Here were my pre-announcement predictions for Best Picture, in order of my confidence in their being nominated:

1. "Boyhood" 
2. "Birdman" 
3. "The Imitation Game" 
4. "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
5. "The Theory of Everything" (The first 5 are locks)
6. "Whiplash"
7. "American Sniper"
8. "Selma"
9. "Nightcrawler"

"Everything is Awesome" from The Lego Movie is the first nominee announced, for Best Song. Is it too much to hope that description will be accurate for these nominees? Probably.

Sunday's Divisional Picks

Can a hobbled Rodgers lead the Pack past the Cowboys?

Yesterday continued my solid playoff run, improving my record to 5-1 against the spread & 6-0 overall. I even got the margin of victory right in both games, though my over/under skills remain lackluster. Kudos to the Patriots & Ravens for giving us our second great playoff game of the year, with the Patriots becoming the first playoff team to come back from a deficit of 14 or more points twice in the same game. That was a thrilling piece of theater. Anyway, I was out late last night for a friend's 21st birthday, & the Green Bay-Dallas game is about to start, so I'll keep this quick.

On to the picks... (Home teams in caps)

Saturday's Divisional Picks

Can the Panthers prove this fan wrong?

After a disappointing regular season of predictions I rebounded strong last week, starting the playoffs 3-1 against the spread & 4-0 overall. I'd be angry with Dallas for not covering except that their failure to easily handle the Lions allowed for the one thrilling playoff game of the weekend. In fairness, Baltimore-Pittsburgh was a solid game, the Bengals & Cardinals, however, were such a wreck offensively that they not only bored me to death for a combined 6 hours but they may have actually tricked people into thinking their opponents could win this week (SPOILERS!). This first round continued the horrible run of nationally televised games this season that saw 33 of 54 such games end with a margin of victory of 10 points or greater (That's 61 percent). Is it so much to ask for some drama?! Granted the drama in Dallas got overshadowed by a blown call but even then it was at least something to talk about.*

*What Dallas haters don't want to talk about is that Brandon Pettigrew also committed a penalty on the disputed play. And that even after the refs picked up the flag the Lions were up three with the ball & they should have gone for it facing a fourth and one from the Cowboys 41, or at least not punted 10 yards when Jim Caldwell chickened out, or maybe stopped the Cowboys when they twice converted key fourth downs in the second half, or perhaps completed one of their two (courtesy of Demarcus Lawrence's fumble) game winning drive opportunities. Suffice it to say the Cowboys won the game & the Lions lost it, regardless of the ref's screw up.

Thankfully, there's reason to believe this week's games will prove more entertaining. The two best barometers of a team's quality are point differential and Football Outsider's DVOA. In the eight teams left we have the top seven in point differential & the top six in DVOA, with DVOA less of a fan of the Colts, & the Panthers here thanks to the rest of the NFC South's abhorrence to playing defense & the sadness that is every Ryan Lindley pass. That sort of quality makes blowouts less likely, & the fact that the remaining squads are helmed by five Super Bowl winning quarterbacks, & three others who have all been to Pro Bowls, means that even if a team ends up down multiple scores early their fans need not start downing shots of Fireball less they still be sober for the 4th quarter. And if they're not close... we'll always have next week.

Now on to Saturday's picks... (Home teams in caps)

NFL Wild-Card Picks

How many of these QBs will be moving on this weekend?

Normally at the start of the NFL playoffs I'd talk about what a great season this has been, but has it been all that great this year? Yes, we got to see the greatest catch in human history, but man were most of the prime time games boring. I didn't go back to check but I'm pretty sure 95% of them were blowouts. If that transfers over to the playoffs the NFL will cede its spot atop my sports hierarchy to college football now that that sport finally has its own playoffs.* I wouldn't bet on that though. The NFL always has something whacky happen in the playoffs, whether its Tim Tebow winning a game or Andrew Luck completing an epic comeback that could only come against an Andy Reid coached team. This is going to be fun. OK, Cardinals-Panthers will just be depressing, but everything else has a chance to be great.

*Thank God they do have a playoff. Can you imagine having to watch Bama crush FSU in another sham of a championship courtesy of the BCS?

Before I get to the picks for this weeks game though, let's look back at my preseason predictions and see what I got right & just how many things I got horribly wrong.

The Fiesta Bowl & Other, Less Important, New Year's Eve Picks

8 years after the Fiesta Bowl ended in a cheerleader
accepting a marriage proposal will history repeat itself?

I'm going up to Glendale for the Fiesta Bowl, & after that I imagine I'll be drinking* a fair bit, so who knows if I'll have time to write up anything on the New Year's day games, but here's today's picks.

*For the holiday, not the game, & that's especially true if Arizona loses. As Reese Witherspoon once told Paul Rudd in a mediocre romantic comedy, "Never drink to feel better; only drink to feel even better."

Fiesta Bowl: #10 Arizona vs. #20 Boise State

Any Arizona fan feeling confident the team will easily handle the Mountain West champs should remember that the last time the Wildcats played they were left severely humbled. That's not to say the Broncos are going to come out & demolish the Cats like Oregon did, but a reminder that Arizona's #10 ranking still feels a little inflated to this Arizona alum.

Over half of Arizona's games came down to one score, three of them to the final play, & Arizona finished 6-1 in those games. Now it's fun to claim that they accomplished that through grit, toughness, & clutch play, but those cliches aren't just lazy, but untrue. Now the Wildcats pace may have warn some teams out but ultimately one score games come down to luck as much as anything, and while Arizona has been skating by on magic Boise has played only a single one possession game all year (51-46 over Nevada). Part of that is, obviously, playing in a less difficult conference but Boise has handled their business & should not been overlooked.

2014 NFL Preview

Can Seattle become the first team to repeat in 10 years?

I love college football. It's fantastic, & this year there's even a playoff! With that said the highlight of my fall weekends is the Christian, not the Jewish*, Sabbath. In the NFL you actually know who all of the players are. Unless you're a Raiders fan, every season you can talk yourself into believing your team is going to make the playoffs &, after the recent playoff runs of the Giants, Cardinals, & Ravens, that means they've got a chance to win it all! Does it help that my team, the Giants, have won 2 of the last 7 Super Bowls while the Arizona Wildcats have never made a Rose Bowl? Absolutely! But that's exactly my point: The NFL is what people want to believe America is like –– a place where if you plan right & work hard you can lift yourself from the bottom to the top of society –– while college football is what America really is –– a place with a giant divide of haves & have nots where the occasional surprise success story provides the illusion of hope. That's why I prefer the NFL, even with moral questionability of the entire enterprise, so I'm super excited for another season of madness that will surely make many of my following picks look shockingly foolish.**

*If we're being totally honest Judaism has it right. Christianity sold out the Sabbath, & a bunch of other things, for converts.

**But not all of them! Unlike any of ESPN's 36 experts last season I correctly predicted the Panthers to get the 2 seed in the NFC, in addition to predicting the Chiefs to make the playoffs, the Falcons to fall off (though not that drastically), & the Seahawks to win the Super Bowl. Does it matter than I also had the Giants & Bucs in the playoffs? Yeah... I know it does.

Emmy Preview-Drama: Who Got Snubbed, Who Should/Will Win, & When You Should Drink

Let's see if Emmy voters remember.

The Emmys, the preeminent awards in television, air Monday night at 8p ET / 5p PT* on NBC. Seth Meyers figures to be the best host since Jimmy Kimmel** two years ago if not Conan a whopping eight years ago, but I'm more interested in who will/should win, who got snubbed, & how best to work drinking into the ceremony, so that's where my focus will be. You can read my thoughts on the nominations here, now though let me begin our journey by looking at the comedy categories.

*So for any timezone challenged Arizonans that's 5pm here.
**I like NPH plenty but I'll always take an actual comedian over a song & dance guy. 

Before I get to the drama categories I want to give a quick shout out to Fargo in the movie/miniseries categories. As much as I love Luther & Sherlock, & I'm sure The Normal Heart was moving, Fargo towers over its competition. It was a brilliant 10 episodes that was equal to, or better than, many of the Outstanding Drama nominees. I hope it cleans up, & especially that the unknown Allison Tolman beats out Julia Roberts' turn on The Normal Heart for supporting actress.

The Emmy Preview–Comedy: Who Got Snubbed, Who Should/Will Win, & When You Should Drink

The Emmys, the preeminent awards in television, air Monday night at 8p ET / 5p PT* on NBC. Seth Meyers figures to be the best host since Jimmy Kimmel** two years ago if not Conan a whopping eight years ago, but I'm more interested in who will/should win, who got snubbed, & how best to work drinking into the ceremony, so that's where my focus will be. You can read my thoughts on the nominations here, now though let me begin our journey by looking at the comedy categories.

*So for any timezone challenged Arizonans that's 5pm here.
**I like NPH plenty but I'll always take an actual comedian over a song & dance guy. 

Can Orange Is the New Black become the first TV show not on television to win an Outstanding Series award?

We're Just Getting to the Good Stuff: The Top 20 Movies to See From August Through October

Every film by a McDonagh brother is a must see.

We've come to one of my favorite times of the year for movies. The summer blockbuster season, with all of its overly polished bluster, is coming to a close while Oscar season, & the awards grappling that inevitably comes with it, has yet to descend upon us. This allows the independent films that debuted at Sundance, & elsewhere, a chance to come out & breath. Last year's best* film, Short Term 12, came out during this period. So it should comes as no surprise that half of the 20 films I am about to recommend are independent. Before we get to that though, I'd like to give a few recommendations from the first 7 months of the year.

*It would, of course, be more accurate to call it my favorite film of 2013 as all film criticism is, on some level, subjective. If you were to favor "12 Years a Slave," "Her," "Gravity," or "About Time" I wouldn't take issue with you. Also, "Short Term 12" is currently streaming on Netflix.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier shot to the top of the Marvel catalog with a twisting & turning script that smartly hewed to the issues of the day & a cast in, Evans, Johansson & Anthony Mackie, that was overflowing with chemistry.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is the best comedy to come out this year & one of the better works, in an already storied carrier, by writer/director Wes Anderson. It has a wonderful screwball wit, with enough darkness added to make the action matter & give it the emotional depth that elevates above nearly everything else to come out this year, & Ralph Fiennes is sensational––he likely won't get an Oscar nomination because the Academy long ago abandoned comedies, but he should absolutely win a Golden Globe.

Neighbors edged out 22 Jump Street, & demolished A Million Ways to Die in the West & Sex Tape, for the title of mainstream comedy of the year. Jump Street may have the funniest moment, thanks entirely to Channing Tatum, but Neighbors proved victorious thanks to its strong casting of performers who had not previously been given the comedic roles they deserved. Rose Byrne proved her comedic chops in Bridesmaids but here she gets to go toe to toe with Seth Rogen the entire film & never does she feel out her element. Dave Franco has been elevating bit parts in comedies for half a decade but finally got the chance to shine here. Finally Zac Efron, after years of struggling to make it big as a dramatic actor, came back to the comedy side of things & bested his winning performance in 17 Again.

Obvious Child is the more realistic version of the one night stand scenario from Knocked Up, which is to say it's a romantic comedy that revolves around an abortion. That may immediately turn some off of the movie, but those who aren't bothered by that premise will find a surprisingly sweet movie that allowed Jenny Slate to show she can play much more than Jean-Ralphio's sister.

I may be biased towards Veronica Mars, seeing as I was one of many Kick Starter contributors, but creator Rob Thomas (not of Matchbox 20) gave us Marshmallows a fun little adventure that we could savor, & Kristin Bell a film role she could actually be proud of, while proving that if given the chance there's still much more story to tell in Neptune, California.

Snowpiercer, which can be seen at The Loft in Tucson or On Demand, may have topped The Winter Soldier as the most captivating action film of the year, though that shouldn't bother Chris Evans seeing as he's the lead here as well. Snowpiercer is similar to Raid: Redemption with its characters single minded goal to reach a certain destination, here being the front of a train rather than the top floor of a slum, but with an allegorical bent that makes it far more than an action movie.

One last thing before I get to the list. This list is in no way meant to represent all of the movies worth seeing over the next three months, if it were it would be twice as long. If you want to watch half of the male cast of New Girl pretend to be police officers go for it, I'll probably be in the seat next to you. Want to see Liam Neeson kick ass in a movie with an actual brain for the first time since The Grey? Awesome, me too. What about Denzel going all Man On Fire again? Sounds pretty good, right? Ready for Teen Wolf's Dylan O'Brien to be the next young adult hero sensation? I know I am. Want to see Thomas Middleditch & T.J. Miller of Silicon Valley, Happy Ending's Adam Pally, & ultimate dream woman/Community star Alison Brie in a comedy from the writer of Old School?* You'd be crazy not to. How about Keira Knightley stuck in arrested development & hanging out with Chloë Grace Moretz & Sam Rockwell? Seems like that would be fun. What about Michael Bluth, Liz Lemon, Peter Russo, & Adam Sackler all playing siblings? That's got to be interesting. That's seven movies that didn't make the list & I want to see all of them. So if a movie's not on this list don't take that as my recommending you not see it, rather the films below are movies I very much recommend you see if they even remotely interest you as much as they do me.

*Part of the reason "Search Party" didn't make the list is it's lack of a trailer.

Now on to the top 20 films of the next three months...*

*Click on the name of the film to go to a preview of it.

2014 Emmy Nominations Reaction: They Can't Get Them All Right

All of these people deserved nominations,
 alas only one of the five got one.

Every year I try, & thus far fail, to post all of the people/shows I view as deserving of Emmy nominations. The reason I do this is because I tend to find a fair number of their nominations* lacking. Just a couple of examples being The Wire never landing a major nomination despite being the greatest television show of all time, & I'm hardly the only person with that view, & Nick Offerman not receiving a single nod for his work as Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation. With the Emmy nominations announced this morning you can be sure I'll be posting my own nominees yet again because some of these... Well, you'll see. Now a quick rundown of the major categories. 

*Their inability to correctly reward the right nominees is a whole nother story. Pour one out for Steve Carell & the entire cast of Mad Men.