Is this good?
Will this be good?
Every movie trailer answers or challenges those 2 questions. The ham-fisted rebuttal comes swiftly however: no you don’t need to always see a movie to know it’s tank.

Do you really need to sit through a Michael Bay Transformers movie to know for sure? Tank is Tank. And Fresh…well Fresh is always Fresh. I’m down like I’m Brown for that.

For the week of May 19-25, 2019 I cover:
Euphoria
Once Upon a Time In Hollywood
Black Mirror: Smithereens
Black Mirror: Striking Vipers
Terminator: Dark Fate
The Art of Racing in the Rain
Tales of the City
Booksmart
Star Trek: Picard
Plus One
Bottom of the 9th

Shall we begin?

Euphoria (May 21)
Produced by Drake so…yeah already not good: Euphoria comes off like a Skins for millennials meets KIDS? If you believe Insecure is good writing than chances are you’ll happily sit through this on June 16.

Sammy Verdict: Hard Pass: I’m Out this doesn’t give me Euphoria.

Once Upon a Time In Hollywood (May 21)
QT’s Once Upon a Time In Hollywood stars the kid from Growing Pains (Leo Sucks) & the guy from Fight Club (Brad’s great). So hoping for Pulp Fiction Tarantino and not Jackie Brown Tarantino…still hard to tell from this trailer.

Sammy Verdict: Kinda In. Show me more…

Black Mirror: Smithereens (May 21)
Black Mirror so I’m automatically in!! This is the trailer for Smithereens which drops on June 5 staring Sherlock’s Jim Moriarty. Fresh.

Sammy Verdict: No Doubts.

Black Mirror: Striking Vipers (May 21)
Once again for the back row: Black Mirror so I’m automatically in!! This is the trailer for Striking Vipers which drops on June 5 staring MCU’s Falcon. Fresh.

Sammy Verdict: All of this looks great…way better than my Black Mirror reflection!

Terminator: Dark Fate (May 23)
Terminator: Dark Fate…yeah I dunno. It’s impossible to match or even surpass T2’s excellence. Mackenzie Davis is as cheezy as Kristanna Loken in T3. The social commentary of a police office-killer that’s gone too.

Sammy Verdict: I dunno. Show me more?

The Art of Racing in the Rain (May 23)
A talking dog movie…so I’m automatically out. This is more like Look Who’s Talking than like…eh I dunno. I can’t stand talking animals genre.

Sammy Verdict: The Art of Racing in the Rain opens…eh whenever. Another day another doggy movie.

Tales of the City (May 23)
Tales of the City is like Cameron Crowe’s Singles but like injected with classic diversity clichés to make it palatable for active tweeters. This’ll premiere June 7th on Netflix.

Sammy Verdict: Skip it…instead check out Crowe’s overlooked Singles.

Booksmart (May 23)
The final Booksmart trailer and it’s even more Superbad with chicks. I’m out. I’m inve$ting in Good Boys instead.

Sammy Verdict: I’m up for a fun crass comedy and based on trailers…Boys is way funnier than Book.

Star Trek: Picard (May 23)
I ain’t wasting my life with Star Trek: Discovery: I’m ecstatic with The Orville (so good!!). However I need to see a bit more with Star Trek: Picard.

Sammy Verdict: I’m leaning towards being In but is this gonna be another Discovery or…is this Star Trek?

Plus One (May 24)
Plus One is like…basically a bundle of clichés (and not many of the good clichés). Drops June 14.

Sammy Verdict: I’ll watch this on a long flight…not even on Netflix. This is a flight film.

Bottom of the 9th (May 24)
Like 10 years ago Bottom of the 9th would’ve starred Dennis Quaid or maybe Kevin Costner one of those types, you know? Instead it’s got Joe Manganiello so I dunno what his formula is, you know?

Sammy Verdict: July 19…eh it’s baseball I’m out.

-28-

Listen to My Summer Lair @ W • T • F

Also published on Medium.