A THOUGHT JUST struck me.
Maybe it’s the heat both outside and inside (our office) or the fact that there is something big and bright and rather warm up in the sky at the moment (apparently in other countries they call this the sun).
I realised we’re not far away from the middle of the summer so in movie terms surely without even looking you should be able to trip down to the nearest cinema complex and watch ‘Transformers 7’ or ‘Men in Black 19’.
But when I look at this week’s cinema listing in the ‘Herald’ there only two films showing which are part of a movie franchise, and only one ‘Despicable Me’ has a number after its title – in this case 2. OK, so ‘Man of Steel’ might be a little bit about Superman but never mind that now.
And yes ‘Pacific Rim’ may be just a little bit like a movie about big angry robots we mentioned above, but apart from that it’s been a fairly slow start to the summer holidays in movie terms.
In the next few weeks we should see ‘Turbo’, the latest film from those wonderful people at Dreamworks.
‘Turbo’ is an animated adventure all about a snail who gets the gift of speed and has to learn how to deal with life in the fast lane – as opposed to being a perpetual slow coach.
Voiced by Ryan Reynolds Turbo learns a bit about life and ends up chasing his dream of winning the Indy 500.
If that isn’t to your taste how about ‘RIPD’, a fast-action, futuristic action flick which bears more than a passing resemblance to another film I already mentioned – ‘Men in Black’.
That man again, Ryan Reynolds, stars alongside Jeff Bridges as two agents from the ‘Rest in Peace Department – an organisation whose aim is to protect the living from troubled souls who are hell bent (get it!) on causing trouble.
Is it me or does this sound a little bit like a modern, futuristic version of ‘Ghostbusters’ without that stupid ambulance and the proton packs.
If you can make it to the end of July without melting then how about ‘Wolverine’ – an entire movie devoted to Hugh Jackman’s X-men character which looks pretty exciting stuff, if you like that sort of thing.
As we trip into August we get a sequel to the popular Smurfs movie called ‘Smurfs 2’ – a film not starring Ryan Reynolds (at least not that I’m aware of).
August brings lots of films for the kids including a movie version of ‘Top Cat’ (ask an adult), a new adventure for Percy Jackson (Sea of Monsters), a new animation from Disney (formerly Pixar) called Planes and a sequel to the excellent ‘Kick Ass’.
There are also two movie related films I think I should flag up. One is a documentary ‘Springsteen and I’ all about ‘the boss’ and another one which is about as far removed from Springsteen as it’s possible to get.
God help us all but ‘One Direction; this is us’ will be coming your way this August just before the schools start again. And I feel real sympathy for any adult who has to take their little people to this. Expect lots of screaming, tears (and possibly fainting) en masse. We can only ask why?