Double Feature: Despicable Me & The Kids Are All Right

Each Friday, we will offer up two movies that are scheduled to be released within the accompanying weekend. We know, we know. It’s hard to come across blogs who ever actually get movie talk right. That’s why we won’t say much. A trailer. A paragraph. And boom – all you need to know about what new movies you can take your beautiful object of affection to see this weekend. It's like going to the drive-in movie theater. Remember those? So much fun. Thank us later, not now.

Despicable Me

Steve Carell. Jason Segel. Russell Brand. Will Arnett. Jack McBrayer. Mindy Kaling. Kristen Wiig. Miranda Cosgrove. Julie Andrews. Yes, a lot of people’s voices appear in this. You want to know something about this movie? Aside from the part when one of the kids asks the big guy if the cheek noise she’s making classifies as an “annoying sound,” there isn’t a part in any trailer I’ve seen that makes me laugh. And I like all of those aforementioned people. They seem to be trumping the fact that you can see this particular film in 3D as though there are no other movies that have succumbed to the 3D tag in recent months. IIIII don’t know (that was supposed to be said in a voice featuring a sigh, in case if you didn’t get it by the use of the five “I’s). Don’t like cartoons. Don’t care about 3D. And Steve Carell has kind of worn out his welcome, don’t you think? But hey, it’s July, and sometimes these movies strike a nerve. Venture to the theater at your own peril.



The Kids Are All Right

Now this. Finally, after a few weeks of being forced to write about movies I won’t even sit through on a sick Sunday afternoon in the middle of winter as they appear on USA, I finally come to something that looks promising. Mark Ruffalo might be my favorite non A-List actor in the world. “The Brothers Bloom” was brilliant. “Zodiac” was excellent. Hell. He even made “Shutter Island” watchable. Combine him with a goofy-ish storyline, a couple kids I know nothing about (though one, I hear, I should love), and Julianne Moore (who was brilliant on this last season of “30 Rock”), and what you have is a recipe for a July surprise that is sure to entertain during the dog days of bad movies or, well, the summer. It’s only out in seven theaters this weekend, so if you happen to be near one, feel free to leave a message or two concerning it living up to the hype or not. Sure, I may have to wait for Netflix, but in a July filled with vampires and cartoons, this is the first flick to instill some movie hope into my soul this summer. And that’s always a great feeling, you know.