What's New and Leaving On HBO - July 2019

What's New and Leaving On HBO this month.

Premieres
July 1: Divorce, Season 3 Premiere
July 1: Hackerville, 6-Part Miniseries Premiere
July 9 and 10: I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth v. Michelle Carter Parts I and II, HBO Documentary Films
July 13: Sesame Street, Season 49 Finale
July 15: From the Earth to the Moon, 12-Part Miniseries Re-Release
July 16 and 17: Behind Closed Doors: The Talwars Part I and II, HBO Documentary Films
July 19: Los Espookys, Season Finale
July 21: Big Little Lies, Series Finale
July 23 and 24: Who Killed Garrett Phillips? Part I and II, HBO
July 27: Share, HBO Films
July 29: Years and Years, Miniseries Finale
July 29: El Jardin de Bronce, Series Finale
July 30: Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, New Episode, HBO Sports
July 31: Unmasking Jihadi John: Anatomy of a Terrorist, HBO Documentary Films

Theatrical Premieres
July 1: Victor Crowley (2017)
July 1: American Nightmares (2018)
July 5: Thoroughbreds (2017)
July 6: Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
July 13: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
July 20: First Man (2018)
July 23: Red Sparrow (2018)
July 27: Widows (2018)

Starting July 1
The A-Team (Extended Version) (2010)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
An Ideal Husband (1999)
By the Sea (2015)
Cyrus (2010)
Dead Man on Campus (1998)
Doppelganger (1993)
Elektra (Director’s Cut) (2005)
The Hoax (2006)
I, Robot (2004)
Justice League (2017)
Keeping Up with the Steins (2006)
Little Fockers (2010)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Me, Myself & Irene (2000)
The Mother (2003)
Mr. Right (2005)
MXP: Most Xtreme Primate (2004)
Notting Hill (1999)
The Ring Two (Extended Version) (2005)
Rush Hour 2 (2001)
Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero (2018)
Term Life (2016)
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
When We Were Kings (1996)
Without a Paddle (2004)

Ending July 31
The American President (1995)
The Beach (2000)
Blockers (2018)
Collateral (2004)
The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Dangerous Minds (1995)
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
Freaky Friday (2003)
Ideal Home (2018)
In the Name of the Father (1993)
In the Valley of Elah (2007)
Isle of Dogs (2018)
Life of the Party (2018)
Love Potion No. 9 (1992)
Never Been Kissed (1999)
The Outsiders (1983)
The Prince & Me (2004)
Ready Player One (2018)
Reign of Fire (2002)
Secret Window (2004)
Spies Like Us (1985)
Striptease (Unrated Version) (1996)
Traffik (2018)
Valentine’s Day (2010)
You Got Served (2004)

Sources:
HBO - What's New (and What's Leaving)

X-Men: Dark Phoenix - X戰警:黑鳳凰

X-Men: Dark Phoenix (X戰警:黑鳳凰) is an 2019 film. The movie stars an ensemble cast featuring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, and Jessica Chastain. This film is part of the X-men universe from Fox. This is the second last movie of the series with next years' New Mutants being the last, as Disney has bought Fox and will end the series. This is the fourth movie of the First Class arc of the X-men universe of movies.



In 1992, a space shuttle is stuck in space. Professor X sends the X-Men to rescue the ship. During the rescue, Dark Phoenix force enters Jean, she is now imbued by the cosmic powers. Eventually, the force starts to exhibit itself in various ways. However, those ways are destructive and the government gets involved to try to stop her. Can Jean get control of the force?



I didn't give away the background story of Jessica Chastain's villain role. The trailers make no mention of her and her powers. So I will not either.

I actually liked this movie a lot. Maybe because I went in with such low expectations. The story was quick and does summarize a bit of the X-Men universe. A fitting end of to the Fox X-Men story. Unfortunately, it didn't get the release it needed, more of a February or October release may have saved its box office performance.

Go see if you are an fan of the X-Men film series.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters - Godzilla 2 - 哥吉拉II怪獸之王

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (哥吉拉II怪獸之王) is an 2019 film. The movie stars Godzilla! The large supporting cast include Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Bradley Whitford, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, Thomas Middleditch, Aisha Hinds, O'Shea Jackson Jr., David Strathairn, Ken Watanabe, and Zhang Ziyi. This is a sequel to the first Godzilla (哥吉拉) and connected to the Kong: Skull Island (金剛:骷髏島). Only a couple of cast return for this edition.



In the after math of the monster attacks, the devastation left many dead. Fast forward 5 years later, a scientist develops a new technology to contact the monsters directly. When the monsters start to wake up, the best bet is to resurrect Godzilla to help them stop the new monsters. King Gidorah is the prime monster that the rest of the monsters answer to, but Godzilla isn't happy about it and they need to settle the score. Can Godzilla rise to the occasion and stop King Gidorah?

This movie was made for the epic scale. The movie had a super complicated back story to go along with the main story of Godzilla vs. King Gidorah. Throw in all the human stuff, you have a action packed movie. You don't really need to know Godzilla (哥吉拉) to follow this movie. However, the old Godzilla movies had many of the monsters that they used in this movie, such as Rodan and Mothra.

And this is all to lead into next summer's Godzilla vs. King Kong movie on Skull island movie, Godzilla vs. Kong.

Altitude

Altitude is an 2017 film. The movie stars Denise Richards! The supporting cast include Dolph Lundgren, Greer Grammer, and Chuck Liddell. Chuck is an MMA legend turn goon. Although the poster has both Dolph and Chuck in it, this was a Denise Richards film! Go girl power!

Denise is a FBI negotiator, Gretchen Blair, that breaks the rules once too many times and is sent packing back to Washington. On the long flight home, Blair is upgraded to the business class. Blair next seat neighbor gets friendly and the movie quickly turns into an hijacking. Can Blair help the air marshal get out of this alive or will the terrorist win?

This was a really fun movie to watch. I had it on in the background while I was cooking so I might have missed some parts. But I loved this direct to video or streaming movie. The two ladies, Richards and Grammer make this movie super fun. I am soooo glad Richards got this part because she plays the hero and shows she can solve it all. Dolph played more a support role and Chuck was a goon. You know what happens to goons in these type of movies.

I caught this via my $5 a month HBO subscription on HBO Go.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

John Wick 3: Parabellum (捍衛任務3:全面開戰) is an 2019 film. The movie stars Keanu Reeves. The supporting cast include Halle Berry, Laurence Fishburne, Mark Dacascos, Asia Kate Dillon, Lance Reddick, Anjelica Huston, and Ian McShane. This is the third film of the John Wick movie series.



John Wick continues through the streets of New York with only a few more minutes left before his excommunicado takes place from the high table. John Wick runs to a few places to retrieve some artifacts to help him. John Wick is trying to get to Morocco. Along the way, in New York, when excommunicado comes into affect, many groups try to take him out, but he takes care of them in slick fashion. In Morocco, he gets help from Halle Berry's character, before he heads back to New York for the big showdown with the high table. Who's going to win?



This third installment left me a little disappointed as the expanded world of the high table wasn't as impressive as the reveals in John Wick 2. But the action was outstanding. When it happens, it goes non stop. I was also pleasantly surprised by the Halle Berry and Mark Dacascos's roles as it was not made to expectations.

I'll have to watch it again. I caught this in my local AMC.

Always Be My Maybe

Always Be My Maybe is an 2019 film released on Netflix. The movie stars Ali Wong and Randall Park. The supporting cast include James Saito, Michelle Buteau, Vivian Bang, Keanu Reeves, Susan Park, Daniel Dae Kim, Karan Soni, Charlyne Yi, Lyrics Born, and Casey Wilson. The backdrop of the movie takes place mainly in San Francisco. The movie also had a limited release in the theatres.

In 1996, 13 year old Sasha Tran is a latchkey kid whose parents are busy running a restaurant. Sasha is best friends with the next door neighbor, Marcus Kim. Sasha spends a lot of time with Marcus's Korean family and the mom, Judy. Judy teaches Sasha many of her Korean recipes. We see their friendship progress from 13 years old to 15 years old to their last year in high school, 18 years old. Marcus is now teaching an 18 year old Sasha how to fish at the pier when they find out that Judy was in an accident and has passed. Sasha decides to take Marcus out to help with his grief. They both end up losing their virginity to each other. Marcus is not able to handle the sudden sense of emotions and starts being a jerk. Essentially ending their friendship. Fast forward 16 years, Sasha is now a world famous chef in Los Angeles. She is expanding her empire into her old hometown of San Francisco. In SF, she reconnects with Marcus, whom has gone into the HVAC business with his dad, Harry. As life would have it, they end up bumping into each other around town. Will there be something there or will it be a terrible mistake to try to rekindle a past relationship from their teenage years?

Wow, I was really impressed by this movie. Even though, my life story follows nothing like the main stars of the movie. The portrayal of their lives had such a similar feel to mine. It starts with the spam, rice, and furitake sprinkles to the dim sum. The integration of the many varieties of Asian food tell the back story of our lives. Even though we may have grown up with Asian influences, it was from multiple sources.

Back to the movie. The pairing of Wong and Park was very believable. They had instant chemistry and their journey was very easy to follow. The dialogue was very well written and it didn't seem to be pretentious. Even during Keanu's scenes, the dialogue was believable. Which leads to comedic chemistry for the leads and the ensemble cast that was put around them. This was a carefully crafted movie and it starts with the dialogue. The comedic elements are lent to moving the story along and it made you fall in love with them.

Why is this the most realistic representation of Asian Americans in film so far? First, this movie did not have to sell itself as an all Asian cast because they are not the most recent. The movie takes place in SF, a hub of Asian Americans. The lives they live revolve around both Asians and non-Asians. The food they eat! Spam and rice, Korean, Dim Sum, and Vietnamese all get some love. Asians may prefer their motherlands food the best, but that doesn't mean they do not eat a lot of other Asian food. This movie does that.

It is hard to not compare this to last summers run away hit Crazy Rich Asians (CRA). But they are completely different films as noted above. I've watched this twice already and love every minute both times. CRA was on HBO reruns recently and I cringed when I watched the meeting the mother and honor stuff. Because that's so infrequent in my world, that I really only understood it intelligently but not from experience. Always Be My Maybe goes for just regular folk living their lives and they are Asian. I am sure an essay is needed to distinguish the two. For me, I loved Always Be My Maybe.

Their is also the issue of Asian leadership. In the general US culture, Asians represent very little of the corporate leadership. The movie doesn't directly address that issue, but it represents all the Asian Americans that went to small business ownership. Sasha Tran has a successful restaurant empire. Harry and Sons is a small HVAC business. Who says Asians lack leadership when they all own so many businesses where they go.

If you don't have Netflix, this would be a good use of the 30 day free trial. If you have it, why have you waited so long. Go watch it. Maybe twice. I for one will be trying to watch this again soon.

Creed II - 金牌拳手:父仇

Creed II (金牌拳手:父仇) is an 2018 film. The movie stars Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, and Dolph Lundgren. The movie is an sequel to Creed (金牌拳手). This movie re-introduces the Drago family from Rocky 4.

Creed is now the champion and has a son. Ivan Drago has a son that's the same age as Adonis. Ivan is training him to be a master boxer like himself. As both live out their lives, Drago makes his move to regain his glory. One of the fastest ways is by defeating Creed. How will Creed respond as he lives a life of luxury against the scion of the advisory that killed his dad?

This movie is very similar to Rocky 4. The first fight that brings Creed a lost. And a lost of purpose. But the road to redemption for the 2nd fight to restore purpose. Even though it was a repeat, the story was presented for the modern era. However, I didn't really get on board. They also played the Drago family storyline as a victim versus the villain.

I caught the film via T-Mobile Tuesday Redbox promo.

Creed - 金牌拳手

Creed (金牌拳手) is an 2015 film. The movie stars Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, and Tessa Thompson. The movie continues in the same universe as the Rocky movies. Creed is a namesake of Apollo.

MBJ plays Adonis "Donnie" Johnson, the son of Apollo Creed. Adonis doesn't want to live in the shadow of his father's legacy and starts to train himself in boxing while living another life. When he finally comes clean, he wants to fight the best. But the path there isn't so easy being born with a silver spoon. Creed finds himself back in Philly and reconnects with Rocky. Rocky is now running a restaurant. But the two bond and start a relationship that leads to getting to the belt. Will Creed make it?

Creed take many elements of the first two Rocky films and brings them to a the modern era. Its good to see MBJ in this role before his break out in Black Panther. Sly has been busy post action hero days and he slips back into form with this movie.

If you're a fan of the Rocky movies, this movie does a good job of handing the baton to Creed and keeping the legacy of Rocky intact.

2019 June Blockbuster Movie Guide

Here are the movies to look out for this month, US Edition.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix (X戰警:黑鳳凰)



The Secret Life of Pets 2 (寵物當家2)



American Woman



Men in Black: International (MIB星際戰警:跨國行動)



Shaft



Anna (安娜)



Toy Story 4 (玩具總動員4)



少年的你 (Better Days)



Sources:
IMDB Coming Soon
Box Office Mojo
Wikipedia.org
Taiwan Yahoo! Movies
WMoov Hong Kong