Barbieheimer, the crafty, endearing portmanteau of Barbie and Oppenheimer, the two biggest blockbusters of the summer, became mainstream weeks months before the dual-day release of each movie. Moviegoers flocked to the theaters in greater fashion than even 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick. This ultra-successful and undeniably popular film has become universally accepted as bringing people back to theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic. Some would say that it saved movie theaters entirely. As someone who sees two, three, or sometimes even more movies in the theater in any given month, and often being one of a small handful of patrons, I am in that camp.
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Wrong Turn (2021)
I recall watching the original Wrong Turn movie in the movie theater in 2003. I enjoyed the movie so much that I bought the DVD when I discovered it in the previously viewed movie bin a few years later. I went over fifteen years between viewings because I wanted to wait for that perfect dark and stormy night to revisit this gem of a film that introduced me to the slasher movie genre. Unfortunately, my rewatch of the movie fell flat. I thought the movie was so poorly made and cheesy that I couldn’t believe I had initially been spooked by it. However, as I look back, I realize this was because I had nothing to compare it against. Of course, there were the Friday the 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, and Halloween movies, but those had all been established franchises well before I was born. And honestly, I had no interest in watching any of these.
Any Given Sunday (1999)
Oliver Stone’s (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July) Any Given Sunday was a movie I saw in the theaters in 1999. While I saw bits and pieces on cable television over the years, my second watch of this film wasn’t until 2019. So first, it doesn’t feel like this film is 20 years old. Second, except for a few technology pieces (mainly cell phones), it felt like this movie could have been released this year and still give the same message with a nearly identical look and feel. The movie holds the test of time; sometimes, that’s one of the best things you can say about a film. Unfortunately, that is the best thing about this movie.
Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)
Sicario: Day of the Soldado is not so much a sequel to 2015’s megahit Sicario that you must know what happened in the first one to appreciate the second as it is its standalone movie. The only thing you need to know to go into the 2018 movie fresh is that (spoiler) the drug war in Mexico has escalated to the point where the United States government is forced to use questionable tactics that force some of its operatives to question the morality of what they are doing and that the US is aided mystifying man with a unique set of skills but a checkered past named Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro – The Hunted, Traffic) whose family is killed after an order by a Mexican Cartel Kingpin named Carlos Reyes. That’s it. This man’s men kill Alejandro’s family, and he wants revenge. If you accidentally read that brief spoiler, shame on you for going at least three years without yet seeing the phenomenal Sicario. And just because I gave a brief spoiler doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check it out if you have not already.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Christopher Nolan’s (Inception, The Prestige) last chapter in his Batman franchise is the exciting but imperfect The Dark Knight Rises. This is an excellent movie and successfully concludes the best trilogy I’ve ever seen. However, if you go in with the idea that it will be better than The Dark Knight, you will be disappointed. With Hedge Ledger’s to die for performance as the Joker, The Dark Knight is as close to a perfect movie as you will get. It holds a place on my Top 10 Movies of All-Time list. The Dark Knight Rises is very ambitious, a little too ambitious. At 2 hours and 45 minutes, you’d think they have plenty of time to tell its story and conclude the franchise, but there is so much to the story, and rushing its development and racing to its conclusion would not have resulted in a successful movie. This is one of those movies where a review such as mine won’t persuade you to see it or not see it. You most likely have it in your head that you will either see this movie or not. So why do I write it? Because I committed myself to reviewing every film that will be on my Top 10 list at the end of the year. I am very, very confident there will not be ten other movies released in 2012 that will be better than The Dark Knight Rises.
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