“Fatal Attraction” (July 31)
This love thriller from Adrian Lyne was one of the most successful pictures of 1987 — and one of the most controversial, sparking heated debate about its depictions of adultery and mental illness that moved from movie listings to opinion pages and covers magazines. The story is simple: Michael Douglas stars as a family man whose seemingly spontaneous weekend extramarital affair with Glenn Close turns into a literal matter of life and death. It’s a deeply flawed picture – Close’s nuanced characterization goes beyond the subtle caricature she’s been given, and critics of the time were right to invoke the cheap thrills that ended up as a cop – but a fascinating snapshot of the era’s sexual mores and moral paranoia.
“The Great Wall” (July 31)
There was something of a pre-release, unseen backlash to this 2016 Chinese-American co-production, whose initial Matt Damon-centric trailers smacked suspiciously of a “white savior” narrative in the works. The film itself turned out to be just the opposite. Damon’s character, a mercenary, spends much of the film being educated and humiliated by the Chinese characters around him. “The Great Wall” is, in fact, a lot of fun, a period adventure in which armies are assembled and battles fought to protect the Great Wall from hordes of deadly monsters. Director Zhang Yimou (of “Hero” and “House of the Flying Daggers,” among others) directs the B-movie action with style and verve, and the supporting cast (including Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, Pedro Pascal and Jing Tian) approach the material with the appropriate combination of formality and wit.
“Hulk” (July 31)
Ang Lee’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning triumph “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was an ambitious attempt to become a true comic book movie — replicating not just the narrative and character, but the look, feel and even the layout of these minutes. volumes. It was seen as a failed experiment at the time (Marvel rebooted it with “The Incredible Hulk” five years later), and some of the modern complaints against it were valid. But in the intervening years, as the superhero movie has become narratively and stylistically codified, Lee’s visual experimentation and narrative generosity have made “Hulk” seem less apt than engaging.
‘Knocked Up’ (July 31)
It’s a story as old as time: Two mismatched people on a first date have a little too much to drink, make some bad choices, and a few weeks later, have to decide what to do with them. Judd Apatow told the story as a follow-up to “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” casting second-stringer Seth Rogen in the lead role of a happy-go-lucky stoner whose lucky night with a smart career woman (Katherine Heigl) turns both his life upside down two. It’s a rom-com with heart and dirty mind, which proved to be a winning (and much-imitated) combination, but Apatow did it better. The supporting cast is full of comedic heavy hitters, including Jay Baruchel, Bill Hader, Jonah Hill, Leslie Mann, Harold Ramis, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Martin Starr and Kristen Wiig.
“Shrek” (July 31)
This 2001 animated adaptation of William Steig’s picture book has become such a ubiquitous pop culture phenomenon that it’s easy to forget that it began as something of a Hollywood joke: it came from Disney’s then-nascent rival studio, DreamWorks, an organization . co-founded by former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and was full of jabs at Disney characters and style. It overcame these references within Hollywood to become a huge multi-franchise hit, thanks to a witty script that memorably brought to life the vocal talents of Mike Myers in the title role of a grumpy dragon, Eddie Murphy as his annoying speech. Donkey friend and Cameron Diaz as Princess Shrek is reluctantly sent to rescue.
