A Viewer's Guide to Weekend Movies: Stay Indoors During The Bad Movie Purge
Consider this weekend to be like The Purge: Going outside is death. Except "outside" is "to a movie theater" and "death" is "watching Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel burn iPads for 95 minutes." Call it "The Bad Movie Purge." Since this summer's blockbusters have been pretty solid so far, filmmakers needed a weekend to get all the terrible movies out of their systems.
Exactly how grim is the situation in theaters this week? We'll let Rotten Tomatoes do the talking.
In Theaters
You have the illusion of "choice" at your local cinema this week. Which poorly reviewed release will appeal to you most? You could see Diaz and Segel's Sex Tape and wonder why Hollywood is so perplexed by the cloud, but why would you do that? Don't be self-abusive, we're here to help. This is a safe space.
Oh, God, no, you've got a ticket to The Purge: Anarchy, too? Sure, that's your best choice for a wide release this week, but RT still summarizes it as "never as smart or resonant as it tries to be."
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If you've got kids, we guess you could go see Planes: Fire and Rescue, the sequel to not-even-a-year-old Planes. RT calls it "flat and formulaic," though, and shouldn't we be teaching our children to aspire for more? Dane Cook stars in it, for God's sake. Pop culture was done with him years ago. The final wide release is Persecuted, which does not have a single positive review. Ban wide releases.
In Limited Release
That's not to say the magic is happening at your local independent theater, though. You could see Zach Braff quirk it up in his Kickstarter project/grammatical mess Wish I Was Here, but you can just stay at home and watch Garden State instead.
There's also something called Video Games: The Movie coming out (funny enough, also produced by Braff), but even if a documentary about games is your taste, you can just sit at home and watch that one instead.
Video on Demand
That's because Video Games, sadly not scored to the Lana Del Rey song on loop, is available on demand as well. So fear not: you can nerd out in the privacy of your own home.
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Those who are addicted to House of Cards and missing Robin Wright can also check out her new movie The Congress on demand. In the futuristic film, Wright plays an actress who sells her image to a movie studio, giving them the rights to cast her in whatever films they want. It sounds creepy and very Robin Wright-y.
Streaming on Netflix
Netflix has Out of the Furnace, the Christian Bale movie that wasn't American Hustle and no one paid attention to from the end of last year, now available for streaming. It follows this week's trend by being not great.
Luckily, the sublime I Am Divine is here to save you. A documentary about the legendary drag queen's life, Divine is as fabulous as its subject, earning a 96 percent on RT. In this weekend's wasteland of quality, Divine stands out.
Movies on TV
HBO is premiering The Internship, the Google advertisement disguised as a Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson reunion, at 8 p.m. on Saturday. You'll likely be shocked to learn it is not very good.
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Better is Showtime's offering tonight: Lee Daniels' The Butler, an imperfect film that still has a lot going for it. Yes, all the parts with the presidents are terrible. But you can just go make a sandwich until the next time Oprah's on screen. Or just watch her call Yaya DaCosta a "low-class, trifling bitch" on repeat.
This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2014/07/a-viewers-guide-to-weekend-movies-stay-indoors-during-the-bad-movie-purge/374681/
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