Top 5 – Movies Coming Out in August

The final month of summer is here!  Crazy to think that summer is already over.  It seems like a week ago we were watching Infinity War.  But, we’re here and August looks to go out with a bang.  This is an incredibly diverse month, with everything from giant sharks to Winnie the Pooh, and we get our first legitimate Oscar contender dropping this month from a director who I’m dying to see be great again.  Here are my picks for the most exciting movies coming out in August.

5 – MILE 22 (Peter Berg, August 17)

Mile 22 marks the fourth collaboration between Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg.  The first three, Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriots Day, have all been really good movies showcasing American survival during the toughest of times.  Mile 22 doesn’t look like any of those movies, but does look reminiscent of old Berg and old Wahlberg (a la The Kingdom and Shooter).  Wahlberg stars as an elite American intelligence officer who tries to smuggle a mysterious police officer with sensitive information out of the country.  The cast looks good, Berg’s direction is prime for this kind of movie, and the plot seems intriguing.  It might not have the emotional weight of the last three Berg/Wahlberg movies, but this should be an explosive way to end the summer.

4 – THE MEG (Jon Turteltaub, August 10)

The Meg is about a Megalodon who terrorizes a group of people over the summer.  Basically, it’s like Jaws, but bigger and dumber.  SOLD!  This is the kind of mindless absurdity that I love during the summer.  It stars Jason Statham, who’s usually good for a fun time, and features a gigantic shark that looks just awesome.  I wish the movie was rated R instead PG-13, just so we could get some random, bloody, gratuitous violence thrown in there, but as long as I see some crazy shark action, The Meg is going to be a lot of fun.

3 – CHRISTOPHER ROBIN (Marc Forster, August 3)

The only word I can use to describe Christopher Robin would be adorable.  Winnie the Pooh and the gang are very near and dear to my heart, as it was all I watched when I was very, very young and actually think Winnie the Pooh and Tiger were my first words.  Bringing them to the live-action format seems risky, but they look great, and are accompanied by the always wonderful Ewan McGregor, who, like Pooh, is adorable himself.  Marc Forster is a divisive director who hasn’t made a truly great film in over a decade with Finding Neverland.  But, much like Finding Neverland, Christopher Robin is sure to pull at the heartstrings, so here’s hoping for a similar result.

2 – THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS (Brian Henson, August 24)

This isn’t your grandma’s puppet movie.  Not since Team America: World Police have puppets been used in such a vulgar, delirious way.  This comedy noir is loaded with sex, drugs, violence, and whole bunch of bad language along with a murder mystery at the center of the plot.  Melissa McCarthy is our lead human in the film as Detective Connie Edwards who gets paired with puppet Detective Phil Phillips (Bill Barretta) and the two are investigating the murders of puppets all over Los Angeles.  McCarthy is perfect casting and I love the fact that the son of legendary puppet master Jim Henson is directing this movie.  This could be the whackiest movie of 2018.

1 – BLACKKKLANSMAN (Spike Lee, August 10)

I have been waiting a long time for Spike Lee to make another classic.  Do the Right Thing is one of my all-time favorite movies and 25th Hour is arguably the most underrated movie of the 2000’s.  However, over the last decade, Lee has produced nothing but duds, from the ill advised remake of the foreign classic, Oldboy, to the disastrous Chi-Raq, both of which are career low points for the once great director.  But Blackkklansman looks to get Lee of the snide, as many are claiming it to be one of his best ever.  Blackkklansman tells the wild true story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), an African American cop who successfully infiltrates the local Ku Klux Klan with the help of one of his fellow white officers (Adam Driver).  Winner of the Gran Prix at Cannes, Lee looks to be in top form once again, coming with a stylish, energized, socially relevant film that could be an Oscar contender later this year.  In this Trump-run America that we live in, where racial tensions are at its absolute highest, Lee is a filmmaker that we need now more than ever and Blackkklansman could be a seminal film of this decade.