The summer movie season arrived with titanic force when Avengers: Endgame snapped box-office records to dust and there’s plenty more on the way.
Even as a handful of big-budget misfires fade away like (spoiler) Thanos and his army (we’re looking at you, Dark Phoenix), the multiplex is packed with must-see summer fare. A certain vacationing wall-crawler, warmly familiar posable friends, and at least one wish-granting genie are all on the marquee and the remaining weeks of July 2019 alone will add several more blockbusters to the fray, including another Disney classic turned live action legend and the latest from relentlessly reliable filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.
Don’t have endless disposable income to catch everything you’d like to see? We’re here to help.
MovieWeb’s pals at Cinemark are offering a free trial membership to the ridiculously awesome members-only community, Movie Club. For ten bucks or less (depending on where you live), thrifty moviegoers get one movie ticket, 20 percent off all movie snacks and drinks, and the opportunity to purchase two tickets per transaction at the Movie Club price of 8.99 or 9.99, without any online fees. Movie Club members enjoy these prices all month long and if you don’t use your first ticket, it rolls over to the next month.
This is why we’re excited to tell you about the free month-long trial membership. Movie Club at Cinemark will help you put a dent in your Must See Summer Movie checklist without putting a dent in your pocketbook. So without further ado, here’s a roundup of the Must See Movies still to come (and still in theaters!) this month.
Endgame remains in theaters (re-released with additional footage) alongside Men in Black: International, which reunited Thor: Ragnarok costars Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson. Marvel fanatics will have another chance to see an onscreen MCU reunion with the action comedy Stuber, which premiered at South By Southwest and goes into wider release on July 11. The movie stars Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick) and Dave Bautista, with Bautista’s fellow Guardian of the Galaxy Karen Gillan. Najiani (rumored to star alongside Angelina Jolie in Marvel’s forthcoming The Eternals, based on the classic Jack Kirby characters) plays an Uber driver who picks up a cop played by Bautista.
Spider-Man: Far From Home provides a wonderful palate cleanser to the Marvel Cinematic Universe-shaking events of Avengers: Endgame, with the brisk and breezy whimsy we’ve come to expect from the friendly neighborhood wallcrawler. Monstrous elemental villains, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), the first onscreen appearance from classic Spidey villain Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) join Peter Parker (Tom Holland), MJ (Zendaya), Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon), and Happy Hogan (Favreau) in the Sony/Marvel collaboration which closes out this phase of the MCU. Stick around for the mid-credits and post-credits scenes; they pack a much bigger wallop than Captain America’s educational PSA that was tacked onto Spider-Man: Homecoming. These scenes are crucial to the direction of the Spidey franchise and the MCU post-Endgame.
Before Marvel, or LucasFilm, Disney snatched up Emeryville, California computer animation film studio Pixar (which incidentally began as part of LucasFilm, with funding from none other than the late Steve Jobs). Nearly 20 Academy Awards, a bunch of Grammys, and billions of dollars later, Toy Story is rightly remembered as the one that started it all.
Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (Tim Allen) are back with the old gang (the voice of late insult comic Don Rickles can be heard as Mr. Potato Head courtesy of some archival recordings) in this month’s Toy Story 4, on an adventure with Bonnie, the little girl who inherited the gang from college age Andy at the tear-jerking conclusion of Toy Story 3. They’re joined by newcomers Forky (Tony Hale), Ducky (Keegan-Michael Key), Bunny (Jordan Peele), Duke Caboom (Keanu Reeves), and Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks) along for the ride. Like its predecessor, Toy Story 4 boasts a 98 percent “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes (the first two have perfect scores).
A toy of a much different variety returns in Child’s Play, a remake of the 1988 slasher classic about a children’s “Good Guy” doll possessed by the spirit of a killer. Mark Hamill, who will reprise his most iconic role for a final (?) time in December’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, provides the voice of Chucky, mining that same sinister charm he put to such effective use as the voice of the TV Joker in Batman: The Animated Series and related Gotham-centric projects. Chucky isn’t the only possessed doll terrorizing theaters – Annabelle Comes Home, the seventh movie set in the Conjuring franchise universe, opened late last month and can still be seen in all of its chilling demonic glory.
Also in the horror genre, Midsommar (and its divisive ending) is still out there, as well as the giant alligator disaster thriller Crawl.
The photo-realistic computer generated animals of The Lion King are much friendlier (for the most part; ahem, Scar!) than the Florida beasties in Crawl, of course. On the heels of the live-action adaptations of Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, just after audiences got their first look at next year’s Mulan, The Lion King roars into theaters on July 19, with Iron Man director (and Happy Hogan actor) Jon Favreau at the helm. The Hakuna Matata vibes of the 1994 animated classic are picked up by Donald Glover (Simba), Seth Rogen (Pumbaa), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Scar), Alfre Woodard (Sarabi), Billy Eichner (Timon), Beyonce Knowles-Carter (Nala).
James Earl Jones, the iconic voice of enduringly popular Star Wars antihero/villain Darth Vader (as recently as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars Rebels, and hopefully The Rise of Skywalker) returns as Mufasa, the noble father and King of the Pride Lands who (spoiler) is killed at the hands (paws?) of Scar. (James Earl Jones played a different but no less wise fictitious African king in Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America and one of our favorite ’80s monarchs, Thulsa Doom, in Conan the Barbarian.)
The fantasy exploits of movie villain Scar and author Robert E. Howard’s Thulsa Doom pale in comparison, of course, to the real life grisliness of the Manson family murders, which shocked the nation in the late 1960s. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (July 26) features a number of Tarantino hallmarks (an A-list ensemble, multiple storylines, rich dialogue, dark humor) in its fictionalized reimagining of Tinseltown circa 1969, the year actress Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie) was among those brutally murdered by followers of failed musician turned cult leader Charles Manson. Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman called QT’s ninth movie “a heady, engrossing, kaleidoscopic, spectacularly detailed nostalgic splatter collage of a film, an epic tale of backlot Hollywood in 1969, which allows Tarantino to pile on all his obsessions.” The cast includes returning Tarantino players like Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kurt Russell, and Tim Roth. Luke Perry, who passed away earlier this year, finished shooting his scenes before his untimely death.
July will also see the release of Jesse Eisenberg’s dark comedy The Art of Self-Defense, from young writer/director Riley Stearns, on July 12; crime thriller Into the Ashes starring Frank Grillo (best known as Hydra double agent Brock Rumlow aka Crossbones to fans of the MCU) on July 19; and another evil doll sequel, Brahms: The Boy II (July 26).
Remember, Movie Club is FREE to try for a full month, so there’s no excuse to miss these summer flicks at Cinemark all month long!
Ryan J. Downey has covered film, television, music, and politics as writer, reporter, producer, and editor for a number outlets, including MTV, MSNBC, GRAMMYs, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, IFC, and more. He is the cofounder of PopCurse.
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