January movies

You have to admire the artistry of people who do their jobs well, even if you don’t really appreciate what they do.  I think Stephen King is an excellent writer, although I do not read horror novels.  I inherited several CDs from my parents featuring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, and while it isn't my kind of music, I have to admit they knew how to croon. 

So I have to tip my cap to a group of people who have a difficult job and do their best—the people who make commercials and trailers for movies released in January.

The thing is, everybody knows that January is when studios take out the trash; or rather they hope people will pay $8 or so to watch the trash.  Films with big budget potential get a summer release, or at least a late spring release date (“summer” now seems to start around the vernal equinox).  Movies that are Oscar bait get a fall or Christmas release.  But if the studio thinks it has a clunker on its hands, well something has to fill movie theaters in on Martin Luther King Day weekend.

So it is up to the intrepid promo departments of the studios to try and put lipstick on what the entire world knows is a swine.  And judging from their work product, they are oblivious to the drawbacks of what they are selling.

Jupiter Ascending looks like the next Matrix blockbuster!  It even has major stars, like that chick who was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and the guy who played Ned Stark on season one of Game of Thrones.  It looks like it features lots of science fiction action that just begs to be seen on a big screen and not on a DVD. Or there is The Seventh Son, about some centuries long battle between . . . I dunno, good and evil?  Jets and Sharks?  Badgers and warthogs? 

Paddington is the modern retelling of that timeless children’s classic about a CGI bear with dull, blank eyes and a taste for human blood, er, I mean honey.  No wait, that’s Winnie the Pooh.  Sorry.  Mortdecai is Johnny Depp’s latest attempt to pick up a paycheck, which is pretty funny given how little screen time he had in the last two films he “starred” in, Transcendence and Into the Woods.  And who wants to miss The Boy Next Door, where Jennifer Lopez just might show off more than she did at the Golden Globes, if that’s possible.

And of course no January is complete without the latest Kevin Hart extravaganza.  Last year he turned in an Oscar-worthy performance with that comedy classic, Ride Along.  Now in 2015 he stars in The Wedding Ringer, which I believe is based on an unpublished play by Shakespeare.  This could become an annual event, watching for the first sighting of Kevin Hart like he was a groundhog in Pennsylvania.

As I understand it from the commercials, the movie is about a man played by Josh Gad who is getting married to a woman played by Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting (from The Big Bang Theory).  Right off the bat, this is ridiculous enough to place the movie on the sci-fi shelf at Blockbuster if they still existed; she’s a gorgeous blonde, and, well he’s Josh Gad.  But apparently the guy has no friends so he hires Hart to pretend to be his friend and best man.  The writers must be geniuses because I can’t see any way to get laughs out of that plot.

Maybe I’m thinking the commercials for these January releases look good because 2014 wasn't the greatest year for movies.  I mean, right now the leading candidate for a Best Director Oscar is the guy who directed Dazed and Confused.  Compared to the best of 2014, the worst of 2015 doesn't look too bad.

But then, I've only seen the commercials and the trailers.  Who knows, maybe the trailers for Mortdecai will win an award.