Opening this Weekend

Geostorm

The Snowman

Only the Brave

Same Kind of Different as Me

Mark Felt:  The Man Who Brought Down the White House

Una

Rebel in the Rye

Box Office Predictions

1. Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween
2. Happy Death Day
3. Geostorm
4. Only the Brave
5. Blade Runner 2049

What You Should See

This is a very, VERY disappointing weekend.  On a lot of fronts really, but especially for new movies, with the only new release that’s approaching critical acceptability being Only the Brave, a movie I just can’t get behind for my own beliefs on wildfires, and most of the rest — The Snowman, Same Kind of Different as Me, Mark Felt:  The Man Who Brought Down the White House, and Rebel in the Wry — all being (or at least looking like) very diverse and different examples of bad, but bad nonetheless.  Critically speaking, maybe go see Una, but I wouldn’t.

I do want to call out Geostorm in particular though, not because it’s not also a bad movie like most of the others, but because it’s the most interesting kind of bad, the kind of bad we’ve known about and could see coming as bad for so long, seven months since the first trailer, the kind of bad that’s without a shadow of a doubt and on every level.  Like an out of control freight train you’re hoping doesn’t destroy too much of the town.  Like a series of satellite-based weather-controlling machines you’re hoping won’t catastrophically affect the world on a global scale.  Like a tone-deaf movie with terrible dialogue that can’t decide whether it’s an action movie, a comedy, or a comment on climate change , brought to us by a first-time director who, nevertheless, has a horrible track record of previous writing and producing.  And that’s actually kind of interesting.  But don’t see it.  Don’t pay for it.  That’s sending the wrong message.  Maybe pirate it later.

If there’s one silver lining about this weekend’s new releases, however, one flower growing from the pot of dirt that is the general public’s sense of taste, one unifying fact I think we should all, as a city, recognize and get behind as a continuing trend, it’s that we will not be getting Tyler Perry’s Boo 2!  A Madea Halloween opening in our theatres.  That’s how we did it last year when Tyler Perry’s original Boo! opened but didn’t show here, that’s, apparently, how Edmonton and most of Canada does it, and it’s worked out pretty well so far.  So even though Boo! 2 looks poised to take the weekend’s North American box office, know that we, as Edmontonians, and us, as Canadians, will have had no part in that foolishness.  Instead, if you really want to see some Halloween stuff this weekend, you should probably hit up DEDfest X while it’s still on.  Or go see Blade Runner 2049!  Seriously!  It needs your help!  And it’s great!