Here to take a look at the films coming out in wide and limited release this coming weekend. In this weekly film guide, I’ll give you my thoughts to help you decide what’s worth checking out.

WIDE RELEASES

  • Finding Dory– The lovable blue fish from Finding Nemo goes on her own trek to track down her parents.
    Directed by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL-E), Angus MacLane
    Starring Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O’Neill

    I haven’t seen it in years, but Finding Nemo is really funny and heartwarming from what I remember, and Dory was the stand out character of the movie. That combined with the growing adoration of Ellen DeGeneres since that movie was released (her talk show premiered a few months after that movie came out), and basing a movie around Dory makes sense, even if it’s coming 13 years after the original. I’m just not sure why it took them so long to do it. So far the reviews are showing Pixar has a huge hit on its hands.

  • Central Intelligence– High school acquaintances who are now a special agent and an accountant team up on a mission.
    Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber (We’re The Millers)
    Starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Danielle Nicolet, Amy Ryan, Aaron Paul

    Although I’m really holding out for a Dwayne Johnson/Terry Crews buddy comedy, this Johnson/Hart pairing seems like it was going to happen sooner or later. Although Hart’s gotten a lot of mileage out of a similar pairing with Ice Cube in the Ride Along movies, the physical comedy when paired with Johnson seems too good not to capitalize on, even if it’s the easiest joke to make. This movie doesn’t look like a must see necessary and has some corny comedy in the trailer, there’s also some chuckles. An interesting draw to me is that is was written by Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen who are head writers on The Mindy Project, which I am very much into. I’m curious how their sitcom writing will carry over to a feature film, since it’s the first big film writing project for both. Knowing Hart’s incredible money making record, and Johnson being franchise viagra and all, I’m sure this is going to make a TON of money.

  • 06.17.02

    LIMITED RELEASES

  • Tickled– A documentarian happens upon the odd sport of endurance tickling, but it takes an unexpected turn the more he looks into the subject.
    Directed by David Farrier, Dylan Reeve (directorial debut!)

    I don’t know how you could watch this trailer and not immediately want to watch it. Everything about it is surprising and intriguing. The initial premise seems like one of those weird little oddity docs about a very niche subject, but in the back of your mind you have to be thinking “wow, this is pretty darn homoerotic”, and then it seems to take this turn that makes that thought incredibly weird. I don’t want to know anything else about this before going in because I’m hooked already. The trailer reminds me of the tantalizing appeal of Catfish, which has a misleading trailer for sure although I think was still quite effective (no matter if some was staged/re-acted for camera, or whatever). I’m just hoping the underbelly they hint at is more real than the horror element the Catfish trailer hinted at.

  • 06.17.03

    What movie are you
    watching this weekend?