We’re at the midway point of the summer movie season and it is with great pleasure that SheKnows presents its continuing coverage of the movies musts for the hotter months.
The SheKnows Summer Movie Preview: July stars not only Harry Potter, Sasha Baron Cohen’s Bruno, a stellar romantic comedic pairing in Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler in The Ugly Truth, but also Johnny Depp as Dillinger and Adam Sandler joining the madcap movie world of Judd Apatow. Also seeking July box office gold is Hayden Panettiere -- who is seeking to prove she is a television star and a movie star in I Love You, Beth Cooper.
Ready your passion for popcorn and sit back as SheKnows goes through the 30 films that arrive on July’s movie screens and lets you in on The Ugly Truth.
the July tempting trailer: The Ugly Truth
Our trailer tease for July is Ugly.
July 1
Public Enemies
Johnny Depp, Christian Bale acting in a film directed by Michael Mann? Where do we sign up?
During the ’30s, John Dillinger was a bank robber with the most innate of gifts for getting in and out of banks without getting caught. He became a national sensation in a Robin Hood type of steal from the rich manner to a nation suffering from 25 percent unemployment.
Public Enemies should be a fascinating character study with the charismatic Depp as Dillinger and Bale as the federal agent charged with catching him.
Oscar winner Marion Cotillard joins Billy Crudup in the superb supporting cast.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Do we need to go back to the beginning of time again? Yes, we do because the characters in the Ice Age movies are delightful and visiting with them is always a joy, however old of a kid you are.
July 10
Bruno
OK, where to start with Bruno? Sacha Baron Cohen, or as we like to call him, Mr. Isla Fisher, returns to the big screen where his last hit was atomic on the pop culture scale.
Cohen’s Borat has become the stuff of entertainment legend, thus having audiences everywhere asking how the actor could ever manage to capture lightning twice.
Considering much of his ambush, guerilla-style filmmaking style relies solely on the fact that people do not look at him and think “Sasha Baron Cohen.”
As Bruno, the flamboyantly gay uber-fashion icon, Cohen managed to transverse the globe and pulls of a man-on-man make out scene in front of a homophobic Ultimate Fighting Championship match and finds himself in a hotel room with presidential candidate Ron Paul.
What to do?
Why, Bruno begins to disrobe in front of the Texas congressman. “This interview is over,” Paul declares. If Cohen can get Ron Paul to fall into his entertaining traps, Bruno is set to explore beyond-Borat box office numbers.
I Love You, Beth Cooper
Hayden Panettiere seeks to be a movie star starring as the titular character in this teen film based on the popular YA novel. It’s graduation day and our hero has the biggest crush on Beth Cooper.
He’s kind of a geek, the class valedictorian and instead of waxing on about the life ahead, our hero uses the opportunity to profess his love for Beth Cooper.
Then the movie really gets going!
July 15
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter heads into his sixth year at Hogwarts and there is no question that the year will conclude with nothing being the same.
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry inches closer to his seemingly more and more fateful confrontation with Voldemort. Harry and Dumbledore embark on a path of exploration that will find one of the franchise’s characters not making the seventh and final installment.
JK Rowling’s epic saga becomes ever-darker and in the hands of David Yates, fans should prepare to be launched into a world of Harry Potter that will shock, soar (thanks to Rupert Grint’s Ron Weasley) and move audiences as no other Harry Potter film.
Building plotlines in The Half-Blood Prince include the increasing connection Harry forges with Professor Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) as well as the emergence as Ginny Weasley as a character with iconic implications to the Harry Potter saga.
Don’t miss our full coverage of the return of Harry Potter on screen this July.
July 17
500 Days of Summer
We love Zooey Deschanel! She was the best part of Jim Carrey’s Yes Man. Deschanel returns to the screen alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 500 Days of Summer. The story centers on the relationship between Deschanel’s character and Gordon-Levitt, who Deschanel tells Entertainment Weekly, “Let’s become the next Tracy and Hepburn!”
500 Days of Summer is a time-bender of a film following a number of angles at once utilizing a 24-style split screen and an immediacy to character development that SheKnows is eagerly anticipating.
July 24
The Ugly Truth
SheKnows is all over The Ugly Truth. It could not be a more perfect film for our devoted readers. The Ugly Truth stars Katherine Heigl as a Sacramento morning show producer and Howard Stern-esque host brought in to send ratings skyward.
Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl, as complete opposites…you see where this is going? Actually, The Ugly Truth veers into another welcomed direction in the girl-meets-boy storyline.
In The Ugly Truth, it is Butler’s boorish fellow who is trying his best to find the perfect match for Heigl’s, successful in career and not love. She’s never has made time for relationships.
Do the two stars fall in love? Of course, that would be predictable, but what we can dish thus far is that The Ugly Truth’s promotional campaign featuring Heigl with a red cut-out heart over her heart and Butler holding his cut-out heart over his crotch – this romantic comedy may surprise in its direction and scope.
G-Force
Gerbils flying at the speed of light, could that be the rodent at the heart of G-Force? Perhaps the ‘G’ in G-Force is for Guinea Pigs? Yes, that’s it – Guinea Pigs who could easily give James Bond a run for his globe-trotting spy-self. As Monsters vs. Aliens commanded attention as a 3D animated feature to be reckoned with in the spring, G-Force will do the same for rodents with the voices of Nicolas Cage, Tracy Morgan and the always fabulous, Penelope Cruz.
Orphan
Another husband of an actress we adore, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s other half, Peter Sarsgaard, stars with Vera Farmiga in a horror film from the mind of Jaume Collet-Serra.
The Answer Man
SheKnows features an exclusive trailer from this film starring Jeff Daniels and Lauren Graham. Daniels plays an author who has written bestseller about life that has remained popular for decades. When faced with a true-life challenge in the form of Graham’s mother in need of answers, The Answer Man brings reality crashing down to the man who claims to have all the answers.
July 29
Adam
Described as a dramedy starring Hugh Dancy (Confessions of a Shopaholic) as a man suffering from Asperger’s, for us, Adam is exciting for its showcasing the return of Amy Irving. The former wife of Steven Spielberg has put acting in the back seat while raising her and Steven’s son, Max.
July 31
Funny People
Adam Sandler joins Judd Apatow’s merry men of cinematic comedy alongside the always awesome Leslie Mann in Funny People. Sandler stars as a comic who becomes a movie star. For those who believe Funny People sounds an awful like a case of art imitating Sandler’s life, creator Apatow swears it is not the case.
It could not be when it is a film about Sandler’s movie star learning that he possesses a terminal disease. Although Funny People could be a 2009 version of the Sally Fields-Tom Hanks flop Punchline, with Apatow at the wheel, the 40 Year Old Virgin master should deliver his humor with just the right flavor of reality.
