Theater Scum: The Naked Guys

Photo: Paramount Pictures

As I sit smack-dab in the dog days of a nasty, humid Mid-Atlantic summer and yearn for the crisp chill of autumn nights not too far away, let's find some movies to watch and stay away from the outdoors.

The Bad Guys 2

I barely remember the first Bad Guys movie coming out a few years ago and mainly because I scroll by it every time on whatever streaming platform it haunts. With all of my kids grown, I have no reason to pay much attention to children's entertainment beyond whichever Disney release is either massively flopping or making half of the global GDP at the box office.

Dreamworks has been relatively consistent with their animated fare over the years (allegedly) and the first film has pretty okay reviews so maybe I'll give it a shot at some point. It won't be anytime soon but eventually.

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The Naked Gun

Reboots and requels and the constant regurgitation of past successes repackaged for new audiences has been around for decades and will not stop until all life on Earth is extinguished by aliens or a solar ray ... or whatever. But in the meantime, some of these theatrical remixes have the potential to mine gold from a dated property, including The Naked Gun. For the Gen Z youngins, I doubt that the series based on the short-lived TV show Police Squad! has much of a cultural footprint beyond maybe featuring O.J. Simpson getting fictional comeuppance in hilarious ways. But, I have always had a soft spot for stupid parodies like the original series (with diminishing returns, of course) or Airplane!, Top Secret!, or other, lesser spoofs that do not have exclamation points. 

Liam Neeson appears to be game in filling the deadpan shoes of comedic legend Phil Donahue Leslie Nielsen as the overly serious cop in likely very stupid situations. Borrowing the same sort of self-referential tone from other recent-ish films like 21 Jump Street, the new Gun hopefully will mark a new wave of big-box comedies that premier in places other than Netflix or the remains of a Redbox down the street.