Trailers by Brandon: Cancel your plans this weekend because 'Deadpool 2' is here

Schools are getting let out and the weather outside is nearly perfect, so you know what that means — it’s time to spend all day in the movie theater because summer blockbuster season is upon us!

Apart from some really exciting movies opening soon, there are also so many great trailers that have been released so we really got our work cut out for us this week.

Opening this week:

Deadpool 2

It’s here and, now having seen it, I can confirm it’s everything you want from a Deadpool movie. The first Deadpool was a huge hit when it hit theaters back in 2016 and now Deadpool 2 is about to do the same. The meta-jokes are all on point, the stakes have been raised up a notch and there’s a whole lot of fun to go around with this one.

First Reformed

Mentioning it second because I’m already sad that First Reformed isn’t going to get as much love as it deserves. I saw the movie a couple of months ago, when Paul Schrader came to my town and screened it, and it’s brilliant. It’s weird and tragic as hell, as you would expect from Schrader, but brilliant nonetheless.

Book Club

Because old people need their team-up movies too, and your grandma is probably going to have a heart attack if she went to see Deadpool 2. Book Club has its audience, and that’s fine. I’m not a part of that audience though, so I won’t be seeing Book Club this weekend.

Show Dogs

Okay, this one is also for a completely different audience than me, but this one still makes me a little mad. Like, there’s a right way to do kid movies. Look at Pixar, Disney Classic, Dreamworks or a hundred other different examples. This isn’t it. This is just making kids dumber. Do better.

Dark Crimes

Aw, man. I wanted this one to be good too. It’s not often we see Jim Carrey take on something more serious or dramatic, but judging by the ZERO percent on Rotten Tomatoes it looks like this is going to fall in line more with The Number 23 rather than something like The Truman Show.

 

New trailers:

BlacKKKlansman (August 10, 2018)

Stop what you’re doing and watch this trailer. It’s worth it. I’ve watched the clip where John David Washington is on the phone with Topher Grace while Adam Driver slowly turns around in his chair at least ten times now.

Spike Lee has been hit-or-miss this past couple of years (I know that some people liked Chi-Raq, but I really didn’t), but BlacKKKlansman looks to be a perfect way for him to return. It’s super interesting subject material, with an even more interesting tone to the whole thing, and Jordan Peele was heavily involved in the project as well. There’s no reason not to be excited about this one.

Bohemian Rhapsody (Nov. 2, 2018)

While we probably should have gotten a Freddie Mercury biopic, like, fifteen years ago at this point, Bohemian Rhapsody is another trailer that seems to be firing all cylinders. You’d never even guess that they had so many problems during the production of the movie — Bryan Singer being fired from the set and then replaced by Dexter Fletcher — because the energy in this trailer is just so engrossing. My one fear is that the film is going to shy away from some of the more controversial parts of Mercury’s life — i.e. the homosexuality and AIDS — but, for now, I’m giving Fletcher the benefit of the doubt and I can’t wait to see what Rami Malek can do with the role. 

Mile 22 (August 3, 2018)

It’s not just another average looking action movie — it’s an average looking action movie starring Mark Wahlberg and directed by Peter Berg! Actually, that’s the one reason why I’m willing to give Mile 22 a chance. While nothing about the trailer really jumped out to me, I’ve either liked or loved all the previous team-ups that Wahlberg and Berg have had (that being Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon and Patriots Day), so maybe they’re just saving all the best parts of Mile 22 for the film itself.

Bleeding Steel (July 6, 2018)

I was so not interested in Bleeding Steel until, all of the sudden, the Darth Vader looking dude and army of robots showed up out of nowhere. Then it had my attention. Of course, it looks stupid and cheesy as hell, but now I want to see just how far they take it. Plus, it’s cool that Jackie Chan is showing up in movies again (although I still haven’t seen The Foreigner).

Destination Wedding (August 24, 2018)

Well, the rest of the entire internet already beat me to the John Wick punchline here, so I’m not going to even bother. Can’t say that I’m all that enthused about the movie, either. I love Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, of course, but I’ve seen this premise done a hundred times before — most recently being Anna Kendrick’s Table 19, which was subpar at best.

Whitney (July 6, 2018)

Speaking of biopics about famous artists, how has no one made a biopic about Whitney Houston yet? Like, that seems ripe for the taking. I guess we’ll just start with this documentary about Houston first though because I’m still pretty interested.

A.X.L. (August 24, 2018)

It’s like a completely different take on Michael Bay’s Transformers, except I still don’t really want to see this version either. I’ve already seen this movie when it was called Earth to Echo, E.T. or a hundred other different titles. I’m okay with letting this one go by.

Escape Plan 2: Hades (June 29, 2018)

The first of two straight-to-DVD movies we’re going to talk about this week, just because I can and I want to. Look, the first Escape Plan wasn’t that great of a movie. Yeah, it had Stallone and Schwarzenegger team-up together and that was sweet, but it was also pretty dumb as a whole.

That being said, I’m still totally watching the hell out of Escape Plan 2: Hades. I don’t know what it is about the trailer — I’m usually totally turned off by the idea of straight-to-DVD movies, but there’s something that just looks so fun about this one. Maybe because they're embracing the silly tone, because Dave Bautista is in it or just because I have a thing for heist movies in general, but it looks like I’m canceling my plans for June 29 now. God help me.

The Death of Superman (2018)

If you haven’t been watching the DC animated movies, you really should be. They aren’t all great — I thought The Killing Joke was pretty meh — but there are some hidden gems in this sub-genre, and just about every single one of them is better than Batman vs. Superman.

The Death of Superman is a story we’ve somewhat seen told a couple times now in different formats, but I’m curious what this take is going to be and how the rest of the Justice League is going to play into all of it.

 

Rewind:

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

Julian Dennison is destined to become a breakout star after Deadpool 2, now that he’s been thrown into the limelight. However, his first real entrance to the acting scene was in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople (if Waititi’s name sounds familiar it’s because he just directed Thor: Ragnarok). Dennison, more or less, is playing the same type of character in Hunt for the Wilderpeople as he does in Deadpool 2, and it’s just as brilliant and funny.