Popular movies to watch this summer

Bill Goodykoontz, reporter for The Arizona Republic and AZCentral.com, discusses the big movies to catch this summer right before Memorial Day, typically a big movie weekend. He talks about movies in the theater as well as those available on streaming services.

Movies to look for this summer:

• “Barbie”
• “The Flash”
• “Oppenheimer”

Barbie

“The thing that I love about this is all we know is what we’ve seen in the trailer,” Goodykoontz said.

Greta Gerwig is the director and co-writer of this film. Goodykoontz suspects that there is probably going to be some social commentary featured in the film, but so far everything has been quiet and under wraps.

Margot Robbie is Barbie and Ryan Gosling plays Ken. The target audience for this film really isn’t children, but instead, the parents could be the ones targeted.

“They’re going after nostalgia here, too. They’re going after the Barbie crowd that DID grow up with Barbies when everyone had a bunch of them,” Goodykoontz said.

The Flash

“The buzz on this is great, but it’s got a really troubled history. Ezra Miller who plays the Flash has had a lot of legal troubles– they didn’t know if they were going to shelve the movie for awhile,” Goodykoontz said.

Michael Keaton will be playing Batman again, which is likely to bring in a large crowd. He is featured in the trailer and says the iconic line: “I’m Batman.”

Oppenheimer

This film is a biopic on the “father of the atomic bomb” J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Christopher Nolan is the director and is going for realism in this picture, according to Goodykoontz.

“I know it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a barrel of laughs, and it’s probably going to be about three hours long, but his [Nolan’s] movies are worth watching. Even his failures are really interesting, and usually better than some other people’s successes,” Goodykoontz said.