2019 summer movie preview

Kicking off the summer much as they’ve done the last decade is the latest Marvel movie The Avengers: End Game on April, 26. This finalé to The Avengers: Infinity War last summer is supposed to tie up a bunch of loose ends while at the same time securing the future of the franchise for many more years to come.

The live-action version of the animated movie Aladdin starring Will Smith as the genie hits theaters May 24. This one’s been getting a lot of press, not all of it good, mostly focusing on how weird Smith looks as the blue genie originally voiced by Robin Williams.

Brightburn, also on May 24, looks to be a horror take on the Superman origin story, or what would happen if little Clark Kent wasn’t a good kid but an evil little !@#$.

The second of the modern Godzilla movies Godzilla: King of the Monsters roars into theaters May 31 five years after the first. This time Godzilla isn’t just fighting the Mutos from Godzilla, this time he/she/it’s fighting Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidorah.

The oft-delayed X-Men movie Dark Phoenix is supposed to finally hit theaters June 7, though I won’t believe that until I see it. This last film in an X-Men franchise that has spanned the last 19 years sees the characters off before the team is swallowed up into the Disney/Marvel movie behemoth, the one foe who actually took the X-Men down!

A new take on Men in Black is Men in Black: International in theaters June 14. Replacing Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in the lead roles are Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson as Agents “H” and “M” respectively.

19 years after the previous movie comes Shaft also June 14. Sam Jackson returns as Shaft from the 2000 movie but also the original Shaft Richard Roundtree as well as new Shaft Jessie Usher will star in the movie too.

Nine years after the final Toy Story movie was released comes a brand new Toy Story movie with Toy Story 4 on June 21. I guess Pixar was just kiddin’ when they said Toy Story 3 was going to be the last. In a brilliant move in counter-programming, a reboot of the evil-doll movie Child’s Play is also set to be released the same day Toy Story 4 is. Let’s hope that people buying tickets to these movies don’t get mixed up and go into the wrong theaters. Then again, let’s hope they do!”

Not quite a full Marvel Studios movie, but a Marvel movie none-the-less, is Spider-Man: Far From Home out July 5. This sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming from 2017 sees Spidey taking a school trip to Europe where he must face off against the evil Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) while he’s far from home. Get it!?

The Lion King is getting what’s reported to be a “live action” remake out July 19, except it’s just as animated as the 1994 original but rather than being hand-drawn this one’s being created by animators using computers.

July 26 sees the release of the latest Quentin Tarantino movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that reportedly deals with Charles Manson murders while the even longer delayed than Dark Phoenix but still an X-Men movie The New Mutants is supposed to finally get a release August 2.

Direct Beam Comms #174

What To Watch This Week

Sunday

Two HBO series return this Sunday. First up is the second season of the wonderful series Barry starring Bill Hader, a hit-man who wants to leave the murder business and become an actor and the final season of the Julia Louis-Dreyfus series VEEP.

Monday

Coming off of one of the biggest movie openings of all-time with Us, Jordan Peel is set to reboot The Twilight Zone on CBS All Access Monday. This will mark the third iteration of the series after the original ended in 1964.

Thursday

The second season of the Marvel series Cloak & Dagger premiers tonight on Freeform.

Friday

The new Cinemax series Warrior is set to launch Friday and is based on an original concept by Bruce Lee

Two films are set to be released into theaters this week.

The horror flick Pet Sematary is the second movie to be based on the Stephen King book of the same name while Shazam! is the latest movie based on a character from DC comics.

Direct Beam Comms #173

What To Watch This Week

Sunday

The final season of the post-apocalyptic kung-fu series Into the Badlands debuts on AMC tonight.

Monday

The second season of Knightfall about, well, knights, begins on History Monday.

Wednesday

Based on the movie of the same name, the comedy series What We Do in the Shadows about vampires sharing an apartment this time in New York premiers on FX today.

Friday

Already getting a one-episode limited time debut a few months ago, Hanna also based on a film of the same name, is available on Amazon Prime today.

The live-action feature film version of Dumbo directed by Tim Burton premiers in theaters Friday.

TV

Deadwood: The Movie preview

Stranger Things third season preview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEG3bmU_WaI

The Passage & Project Blue Book quick first season reviews

A few TV shows I watched this winter wrapped up their first seasons last week.

The Passage

The Passage was incredibly average, which for a network sci-fi horror drama is probably the best-case scenario. That being said, I really enjoyed the final episode of the season that was set after the vampires had broken out of the facility holding them and had spent a month sucking their way across the country, turning thousands, if not millions into sun-phobic blood-suckers. This isn’t the post-apocalyptic setting of The Walking Dead it’s the actual apocalypse where the government and military are still around fighting back, which hasn’t been done on TV before as far as I’m aware. However, the series looks to jump 100 years into the future and go straight to post-apocalyptic territory next season.

If there is a next season, that is.

Project Blue Book ⭐⭐

Slightly better than The Passage, and one series that’s definitely getting a second season, Project Blue Book ended in The X-Files territory with the UFO chasing events of the first season leading the characters to Washington DC where it seems the conspiracy of wanting to hide the UFOs from the public goes right to the top. I’m guessing the creators of this History channel series will keep looking for the truth behind the UFOs for many, many seasons to come.