Eimer's Must-See Summer 2017 Movie Picks

 

Summer is only one month and a handful of days away (Who's counting?). But, let's be serious, thanks to George Lucas's shrewd marketing move back in 1977, the summer season truly begins in May!

To celebrate the warmer weather and skin cancer prevention, below are my top picks for guaranteed summer greatness in the theater. Movies that you should never watch on the small screen, but truly need to savor, away from the sun, hunkered down in a La-Z-Boy chair staring at the silver screen. (Is it technically silver anymore since it's digital?)

Sadly, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 will not be on this list. Check out my review on OneSentenceMovieReview via Twitter to find out why!

The Wall (May 12)
Doug Liman (Go!, Edge of Tomorrow, Swingers) points his lens towards two soldiers (one of which is John Cena) facing an Iraqi sniper.

Alien: Convenant (May 19)
Looking forward to the sci-fi carnage. My kids are too, but I probably won't take them.

Baywatch (May 25)
Guilty Pleasure Alert! This new movie by comedy director Seth Gordon looks pretty funny.

Despicable Me 3 (June 30)
Selfishly, this one isn't for the kids. This third Gru outing - with an 80's villian voiced by Trey Parker - is for me and the kids can come to see it if they want.

The Big Sick (June 23)
Silicon Valley's Jumail Nanjiani and Director Michael Showalter (Stella, Hello My Name is Doris) team up for a girlfriend in a coma comedy.

The Beguiled (June 23)
Another Sophia Coppola movie? Sign me up. A remake of the '71 Clint Eastwood classic? Sign me up again.

Baby Driver (June 28)
Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim) writes and directs what looks to be a funnier psuedo-remake of Walter Hill's 1978 thriller The Driver.

A Ghost Story (July 7)
Not your typical summer fare, I really don't know what to make of this somber, eerie film from Pete's Dragon director David Lowery. But after viewing the trailer, my interest was piqued.

It Comes At Night (July 9)
Death comes knocking in director Trey Edward Shults' horror thriller starring Joel Edgerton (The Gift, Loving).

War For The Planet of The Apes (July 14)
After enjoying both previous Apes films, this third outing looks to close the book what I hope will be the most consistently solid trilogy since Nolan's Batman series.

Dunkirk (July 21)
A war movie from legendary director Christopher Nolan (Insomnia, Dark Knight, Interstellar)? Put it this way, I already checked to buy pre-sale tickets on Fandango. (Not available, yet).

Yep. No Spider-Man. No Wonder Woman. No Valerian And the City of a Thousand Planets. No Cars 3. And definitely No Transformers.

So, tell me, dear reader, what movies are your looking forward to seeing this summer?

Where In The World Is John Hughes?

Ever since National Lampoon's Vacation glazed across my eyeballs back in the early 80's, I've been hooked on the work of John Hughes.

For anyone living in a Bigfoot cave, Hughes is a screenwriter/director who gave my thirtysomething generation (although I should say countless generations) reasons to laugh and cry. But mostly laugh.

We all wanted to be Ferris Bueller and take a day off high school...in style. We all wanted to be those two computer geeks that could create Kelly LeBrock via a computer. We all wanted to get detention in hopes of having the delightful conversations and adventures that Anthony Michael Hall and company experienced in The Breakfast Club. We all wanted to have a dad like Clark Griswold. Well, maybe just me.

Much like Judd Apatow is doing at this moment with films like Superbad, Drillbit Taylor and the short-lived TV dramedy Freaks and Geeks, Hughes mastered the fine (yet tricky) art of high school dialogue and comedy in the 80's. Simply put, he was one of the comedic voices of my high school generation.

Off the top of my head, here are my favorite six John Hughes' flicks:

Vacation (wrote)

Weird Science (wrote and directed)

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (wrote and directed)

The Breakfast Club (wrote and directed)

Sixteen Candles (wrote and directed)

Planes, Trains & Automobiles (wrote and directed)

Oh sure, the man has written a ton more other popular movies as well. Home Alone , Pretty in Pink, The Great Outdoors and Uncle Buck come to mind. He's also had his share of stinkers, but the fresh tomatoes far out-weigh the rotten ones.

Which brings me to the whole point of this entry.

Besides a co-writing nod on the new Apatow-produced Drillbit (which was from a script he'd written a long time ago), Hughes has basically disappeared from the entertainment landscape.

No television. No books. No movies. No producing. No nothing.

A quick scan of IMDB.com has Hughes last directing and writing performance being the lackluster Curly Sue in 1992.

I'm curious what Hughes has been up to in the last 15+ years?

Is he tightening the screws on his new Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller screenplay? Is he shacked up like J.D. Salinger writing endless screeplays with explicit rules they only be released upon his death? Is he working on the next great-american novel?

Where in the world is John Hughes!

As it turns out, a lot of other movie Web sites and blogs were wondering the same thing. Rather than pull stuff from all of their sites, I thought I'd give you a rundown of various links I found concerning the strange disappearance of John Hughes:

(Click on the links below)

An upcoming low-budget documentary on the John Hughes generation called Don't You Forget About Me

Click here for a Slashfilm article on the new poster for the documentary American Teen, which mimics The Breakfast Club.

Here's a Hughes-centric rant I found on Chud.com titled Leave John Hughes Alone

Here's an interview with Patrick Read Johnson, who worked with Hughes on a couple of his later films.

Want to know what happened the teens in John Hughes' films? Click here for an article from MetroMix Chicago.

Whatever happened to Long Duk Dong? Click here for an article on the last Hollywood stereotype.

Another John Hughes retrospective courtesy of Slashfilm.com.

Just out of curiosity, what's your favorite John Hughes film, if any?