The Bro’s Guide To This Summer’s Movies

Like the inevitable passage of time, coming of winter and failure of Washington sports teams when the playoffs are on the line, every summer brings us big budget explode-a-thon orgies of action. This is pretty much as American as apple pie, or Independence Day, or both of those things at the same time. Every Bro in America has a God-given right and duty to watch these testosterone-fueled cinematic rockets and their incredibly gory red glares. Before you go all John McClane with the “yippie ki yay, motherfuckers,” you should probably know what’s out there and how to watch it.

 

The Big, Dumb Shooty Movie

Yes, I know “shooty” isn’t really a word, but you can’t tell me that the Expendables series doesn’t fall into this category. Action movies in this vein of big-budget flicks will inevitably have nothing coursing through their veins but bald eagles, Kenny Loggins, and testosterone made of smaller subunits of pure testosterone. If these action films were people, they would piss napalm and shit copies of Duke Nukem Anniversary Edition. For this film, you want to be as dumb as the main characters when you enter the theater, so I recommend a full fifth of whiskey and a healthy power hour of music to overthrow dictatorships to. 50% of the time something awesome happens on screen, you are obligated to high five the nearest friend and yell about how awesome whatever just happened was. It’s ok. Everyone in the theater will agree with you. If they don’t, they don’t love America. That said, go see Mad Max instead, it’s a much better movie than Expendables 3 ever dreamed of being.

 

The Space Opera

Years ago being only the domain of nerds and people who flinch at the thought of sunrise, sci-fi space epics became the ugly duckling of their graduating class — they eventually got popular and attractive. Now, they stomp into the box office like some kind of giant, four-legged walker and crush the resistance that is other summer movies. Sadly, this year, that movie was Jupiter Ascending, and it was awful, but it was there. Our better options in years past have been Star Trek films, but this summer looks to be drier than the wastelands of Tatooine after Luke’s aunt and uncle’s moisture vaporator died (and shortly before they did). We’ll have to wait for December to get our next good space opera fix, but the viewing protocol is a simple one- embrace the dark side and nerd out for the night. Some of the richest people on the planet are nerds, so it can’t be all-bad.

 

The Monster Movie

Not to be confused with the inappropriately timed summer horror film, these juggernauts bust through the gate and begin eating crowds of people, not teenagers at summer camps. In a few short weeks, Jurassic World (sequel to the films that inspired me to be a geneticist) will be hitting theaters, and I will be in that seat so far that I’ll probably trample someone’s grandma on the way in. Sorry, granny, but I have a date with a giant, genetically engineered horror of science and the opposing security raptors, and nothing can stand in the way of true love. When watching the monster movie, do your best to pretend not to jump when the system engineer’s arm falls out of the chain link fencing, but know deep down that you sit, facing some of humanity’s deepest fears, with an audience that is probably way younger than it should be given the subject matter. Basically, try not to yell “oh, fuck!!” every five seconds, champ.

 

The Confused and Awkwardly-Timed Horror Movie

Why are you seeing a horror movie in the summer? It’s the summer. These are meant for the fall, when Halloween is coming and nature is imitating art by killing off all the leaves. This movie has an identity crisis. It thinks that it’s a summer film, but it isn’t. Maybe you’re having an identity crisis too, or maybe you just wanted to see Human Centipede 3, you monster. That shit makes Gitmo look like Sunday in the Park With George. Don’t enable this movie’s bad decision-making skills; just don’t go see it. Then maybe the likes of these Hostels, Centipedes and Turistas will crawl back into the pre-Halloween darkness and stop invading the fun part of the year.

 

The Comic Book Ensemble Orgy

You have 15 main characters and two and a half hours? What do you do? You build a film packed with so much spectacle and grandeur, with a just hint of development, that it brings in audiences like black holes bring in solar systems. Comic book movies are big money, especially when they’re well managed. With two of them breaking 1 billion in ticket sales, it isn’t a bad strategy at all. I’m not sure I like the coming future where Mickey Mouse becomes the kind of evil overlord he is in Family Guy though. Maybe that’s what we’ll be seeing for Marvel’s phase 5. Avengers: Age of Disney. I would pay money to see the Hulk punt a giant, mutant Goofy through the moon. Lots of money. I don’t have to explain how to watch these behemoths. You’ve already seen it three times like any other bro worth his salt.