By Chip Chandler — Digital Content Producer
Movies opening this weekend include a tear-jerker romance, a goofy pop-culture parody and a return to the sewer. Oh, and there are some old-school ghosts waiting to be busted.
Ghostbusters
No, not the upcoming, already inexplicably hated-upon all-female (oh wait, there's the explanation) reboot. That hits theaters July 15. This is a two-day-only encore screening of the much-loved 1984 original comedy starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and others without the XX chromosome. It'll screen at 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesday and June 12 at both the Amarillo Star 14, 8275 W. Amarillo Blvd., and Cinemark Hollywood 16, 9100 Canyon Drive. (PG)
Me Before You
Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) stars as a young woman hired to boost the spirits of an extraordinarily wealthy quadriplegic man (Sam Claflin, The Hunger Games) in this romantic drama adapted from the novel by Jo Jo Moyes. Reviews are what you might expect for a film of this type: Female reviewers tend to like it more (which, frankly, bodes well for how I might feel about it when I see it). Stephanie Zacharek, in Time magazine, says it's a "harmless enough entry in the 'adorable mite tames surly masculine beast' romantic-weeper genre, hitting all the right beats with the clink of an expertly struck cowbell." (PG-13 for thematic elements and some suggestive material; AS-14, H-16)
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
The comic geniuses behind The Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone) hit theaters again with this satire about pop star Conner4Real (Samberg) struggling to climb back to the top of the charts. The creators have done great work in short sketches, and while their previous film together (Hot Rod) has a cult following, some critics are saying Popstar is a one-joke comedy that goes on too long. Many other critics, though, are more positive. "The stupidly funny builds upon the groaningly funny only to be trumped/remixed/meme-ified until it's sublimely funny," writes Alan Scherstuhl for the Village Voice. "The gags come too fast to track, especially in the white-bro hip-hop song pastiches. If you miss a dozen, don't worry. Directors and writers Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone — partners with co-writer Samberg in the Lonely Island comedy trio — have rigged up a self-feeding perpetual-motion absurdity machine: The movie recycles its own jokes back at you, weirder and leveled-up." (R for some graphic nudity, language throughout, sexual content and drug use; AS-14, H-16)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
The oversized, kickfighting terrapins are back in action in this sequel that some critics suggest improves upon the original. That's not a particularly high bar. Calling it "fast-food entertainment," Variety's Geoff Berkshire writes that "visual spectacle still takes precedence over coherent plotting." (PG-13 for sci-fi action violence; AS-14, H-16, Tascosa Drive-In, 1999 Dumas Drive)
Still playing: Alice Through the Looking Glass (AS-14, H-16); The Angry Birds Movie (AS-14, H-16); Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Westgate Mall 6); Captain America: Civil War (AS-14, H-16); The Jungle Book (AS-14, H-16); Kung Fu Panda 3 (WM-6); Miracles from Heaven (WM-6); Money Monster (AS-14, H-16); Mother's Day (WM-6); Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (AS-14, H-16); The Nice Guys (AS-14, H-16); 10 Cloverfield Lane (WM-6); X-Men: Apocalypse (AS-14, H-16, TDI); and Zootopia (WM-6).
Chip Chandler is a digital content producer for Panhandle PBS. He can be contacted at Chip.Chandler@actx.edu, at @chipchandler1 on Twitter and at www.facebook.com/chipchandlerwriter on Facebook.
