Top 10 summer movies: ‘Fantastic Four,' meet ‘Jurassic Park 7' and the new man from Krypton

Hey, how's the water? Pleasant? Sharks? Any shark trouble?
Fifty years ago, a certain film franchise hadn't yet asked audiences those questions, in so many words. 'Jaws' the first, and by several hundred thousand miles the best, opened in 1975; three years later 'Jaws 2' arrived, dangling the marketing tagline 'Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.' That first sequel wasn't much, but people went. That's what moviegoers did then, reliably. They went to the movies, in a time just before sequels clogged an entire popular culture's plumbing system.
It's different now. 'Star Wars' and then Marvel Studios, among others, have ensured our risk of franchise fatigue, and a rickety industry's default reliance on a few big familiar name brands. So why am I cautiously optimistic — hope springs occasional, as they say — about the summer season, a time when all the franchisees come out to play and take you away from the sun?
My reasoning is simple.
A few weeks ago, 'Thunderbolts' — the 36th title in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and yes, that's too many — turned out pretty well. More recently, 'Final Destination Bloodlines,' the sixth in the 'Final Destination' killing spree, was fresh enough, in its blithe smackdowns between humans and Death, to remind us: You never know when one of these franchise entries will pay off, even modestly.
'Mission: Impossible - the Final Reckoning,' already in theaters, will soon be joined by dinosaurs, superheroes, naked guns and men in capes, all familiar, most having endured earlier big-screen adventures somewhere between bleh and much, much better than bleh. If many can't help but favor the forthcoming releases promising something new, or -ish, well, the ones that succeed have a way of ensuring the industry's future. And every time a stand-alone of populist distinction like this year's 'Sinners' finds an audience, an angel gets its wings.
Here's a list of 10 summer offerings, five franchisees, five originals. Release dates subject to change.
'Materialists' (June 13): Writer-director Celine Song's second feature, after the quiet triumph of 'Past Lives,' stars Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, aka the Man Who Is Everywhere, in a romantic comedy about a high-end matchmaker's triangular conundrum. Song knows the value of a triangle; in an apparently glossier vein, her 'Past Lives' follow-up should make it crystal clear and, with luck, a winner.
'28 Years Later' (June 20): Ralph Fiennes brings nice, crisp final consonants to a ravaged near-future in director Danny Boyle's return to speedy, menacing rage-virus junkies, with a script from franchise-starter Alex Garland. This is my kind of continuation; the first two films, '28 Days Later' and '28 Weeks Later,' both worked, in interestingly different ways. Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson co-star.
'Elio' (June 20): Pixar's back, which historically and statistically means good news more often than not. This one's about an 11-year-old accidentally but not unpleasantly beamed into outer space's 'Communiverse' after making contact on Earth with aliens. Can Elio save the galaxy while representing his home planet well and truly? The directors of 'Elio' are Madeline Sharafian (who made the Pixar short 'Burro'), Domee Shi ('Bao,' 'Turning Red') and Adrian Molina ('Coco').
'Sorry, Baby' (June 27): I've seen this one, and it's really good. The story hinges on a maddeningly common incident of sexual assault, this one rewiring the life of a future college English department professor. But 'Sorry, Baby' is not a movie about rape; it's about the days, weeks and years afterward. Writer-director-star Eva Victor (who played Rian on 'Billions'), here making a sharp-witted feature directorial debut, proves herself a triple threat with a wide-open future.
'F1' (June 27): 'Top Gun: Maverick' director Joseph Kosinski returns for what sounds a little like 'Top Gun: Maverick: This Time on Wheels, and the Ground.' Brad Pitt plays a former Formula One superstar, now mentoring a reckless hotshot either to victory and wisdom, or defeat and a tragic embrace of his character flaws. Damson Idris, Javier Bardem and Kerry Condon co-star.
'Jurassic World Rebirth' (July 2): The latest in a hardy multi-decade franchise that has known triumph as well as 'Jurassic World Dominion.' Heartening news on the director front: Gareth Edwards, who did so well by Godzilla in the 2014 'Godzilla,' wrangles the new storyline, with Scarlett Johansson leading an ensemble of potential snacks (humans, that is) in and out of digital harm's way on a secret research facility island fulla' trouble.
'Superman' (July 11): The whole double-life thing has gotten to the Kryptonian strongman by now, and in director James Gunn's take on the 'Superman' myth, he's determined to resolve his Smallville upbringing and Clark Kent newspapering with the wider galaxy's perilous demands. David Corenswet leaps into the title role; his co-stars include Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane) and Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luthor).
'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' (July 25): Despite two of the least grabby words ever to fill the right-hand side of a movie title's colon, 'First Steps' already has stoked the enthusiasm of millions with a pretty zingy trailer, which of course automatically means the film is a classic. (Kidding.) We'll see! The motley yet stylish quartet, led by Pedro 'Everywhere, All the Time' Pascal, squares off with the ravenously evil Galactus and Galactus' flying factotum, the Silver Surfer.
'The Naked Gun' (Aug. 1): First there was 'Police Squad!', the one-season 1982 wonder that introduced America's most serenely confident law enforcement know-nothing, Frank Drebin, originated by the magically right Leslie Nielsen. Then came the 'Naked Gun' movies. Now Liam Neeson takes over in this reboot, with a cast including Pamela Anderson and Paul Walter Hauser.
'Caught Stealing' (Aug. 29): In director Darren Aronofsky's 1990s-set NYC thriller, a former pro baseball player (Austin Butler) attempts the larceny equivalent of stealing home once he's entangled in the criminal underworld. This one boasts an A-grade cast, with Zoë Kravitz, Liev Schreiber, Regina King and Vincent D'Onofrio taking care of goods and bads alike.

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Former Interscope Records publicist turned professional matchmaker Lauren Daddis. Writer/director Celine Song famously went from matchmaking to Hollywood for the new film Materialists, the current rom-com starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans based on her past life as a matchmaker. Philly-based Lauren Daddis is the perfect person to respond to Materialists. A former music industry publicist at Interscope Records, among others, who worked with the likes of Eminem, Gwen Stefani and Black Eyed Peas, Daddis has been a matchmaker for the last eight years. So, it was a lot of fun to get her insights on the accuracy of the film, its dialogue and how it compares to the current state of real-life matchmaking. Spoiler, she says it is pretty damn spot on. Warning, she also does give some spoilers on the film. You are warned before reading on. Steve Baltin: How accurate was the movie? Lauren Daddis: It was really good. I was laughing my ass off cause I'm a matchmaker. I was laughing about how right on some of the stuff was. She did a really good job of depicting a day in the life of a matchmaker and what kind of stuff comes up. So, for me that was very entertaining. It was very reminiscent of a '90s rom-com because it was more like relationship drama and less comedy. It was a very good balance between hearts and, obviously, the name of the movie is Materialists. She did a very good job of reflecting on real life. Her character was very kind of crass and transactional and it's different than like I feel like some of the women that are in rom-com's. They usually play the role of the sappy, lovesick [woman] Baltin: Where are you based? Daddis: As a matchmaker, I'm an outside of Philly. Working with clients in New York, it was really interesting to watch a matchmaker based in New York. I often say that New York is one of the hardest markets to match because there are so many people. They talk in the movie about referring to people as product, merchandise. There are so many people, there's always someone better, there's always someone else, so, it was interesting to watch it happen in New York. I think it was a great city to pick being a matchmaker. And she faces that: does she want the luxury life without true love with the unicorn guy? Or does she want a tough life where she's fighting over money, but they're madly in love? I think the whole movie just goes back and forth, but you never wonder who she's going to pick because at the end, that's what we all want, right? The true love. I know a lot of people actually pick the other. But I don't really think that they end up happy. I think trying to find love in a material world is very tricky. Baltin: You said you thought it was accurate. How was the matchmaking dialogue? Daddis: I loved the scenes where they did a lot of cut in and cut out of her with clients, client facing meetings where they're just sitting in front of her going, 'I want this and this and this because I deserve it.' Some of this stuff was just verbatim. "I won't date anyone over six feet.' "They have to make at least 500,000.' "They have to do this and this and this." To me, I was just laughing. It was very normal and everyday for me. It was funny, my boyfriend was with me. And to him, that was very normal cause I work from home. He hears these conversations all the time. It didn't shake us. But I kept wondering what the people behind me and around me in the theater thought. I wondered if they thought this was fake because it is so real. People do say I want this and I want all of these boxes checked and then as a matchmaker when you deliver someone sometimes it turns out awful. Sometimes it turns out great, you can deliver a product but it's all up to the person how it happens. One of the references they use that was really funny and I use all the time she was like giving ingredients. And Lucy the matchmaker cocks her head and she's like, 'I can't build your boyfriend for you, I'm not Frankenstein.' I lost it because I always say this isn't Build a Bear. We're not building a boyfriend We can't take ingredients, we're dealing with humans and people, and they come as they are.' So, I thought that was funny because she had that talk with one of her clients. They have the matchmaker part. I listened to a couple of interviews with the writer, and she was a matchmaker a long time ago. I was interested to see how much it's changed. It hasn't, everything was spot on. People have not changed what they're looking for, what they expect, what we value, how we perceive our own value. It's all the same. Baltin: Why do you think that is because obviously society has changed so much? Daddis: I think fundamentally all we really want is to find that true love. And some of the ways people go about trying to find it are people going to great lengths. One of the plots twists of the movie was Harry, which is Pedro Pascal's character, the unicorn, the rich guy. Well, it turns out we find out at the end of the movie-- it's a spoiler alert-- but there's the surgery that can add up to six inches to your height and at the end of the movie it comes out she sees the scars on his legs. He seems to be this perfect guy but it shows even the perfect people the lengths that they go to to make themselves a good catch. He had leg surgery and he used to be five six and so it really changes perception. At the end of the movie, you're like, "Wow, like we're watching women fawn over this guy, and he's perfect, and he's the unicorn of the movie, and all this, come to find out if he was five six, none of this would be available to him." He said, "I wouldn't have done better, and I wouldn't have done as well in business. Men respect me, women fawn over me." So, it was showing that even on the outside, the people who look like they have it all, and they're these unicorns, that he still went through this. He broke both of his legs and paid 200 grand for six inches. And he said it was the best decision he's ever made. I do think that's a good point that you made. I don't think it has changed. I think people want just to feel loved, but I feel like what I see as a matchmaker is I very much understood when Lucy talked a lot about it being very easy. It's math, it's just math. She spoke very clinically about partnering as if it were like an equation. And that was her response, it's just math. They come from a similar socioeconomic background. They both went to Ivy League schools. They refer to checking boxes, that's a lingo that we used a lot and the reality is yeah you can put two people together, their resumes, so to speak, and they check each other's boxes. He wants what she has and everything's perfect but when they meet each other it's all up to their chemistry, the energy they bring into the room, the kind of day they had, if they had a bad day, they're not going to bring their best self in, their nerves, what if one person has some kind of anxiety and they're not doing the best. There are so many things that can be off or what if just the woman walks in and just is not attracted to the guy or the man is rude to the waiter. There are so many things that can happen outside of the boxes and the personality traits and all those things that people are looking for, that I think people lose sight of what really matters. And one of the things they said in the movie was, it was like her pitch, she was at a wedding and like passing her card out and schmoozing. It was really funny. And she said, you're really finding at the end of the day, a nursing home roomie. Who are you going to be in the nursing home with? Who's going to do the long haul on the hard things. And that stuff you can't vet for. As a matchmaker, I can't find someone. If someone hires me and says find someone that's going to have a great relation with me and love me so much that they'll change my bedpan. I can't guarantee that I'm going to find that for you. I can try though. Baltin: How did you go into matchmaking? Daddis: I got married, had a baby and moved to the east coast. I had a few years of being a stay-at-home mom and eventually the plan was to get back to LA. I stayed on with a couple of smaller bands and toyed with the idea of working in NY. I never really meant to leave the music industry, and I was kind of miserable about it. I became a yoga teacher, got divorced and settled into the east coast for the foreseeable future. I met a matchmaker through a girlfriend of mine and she saw potential immediately in me. I was fascinated that this was even a job… a matchmaker? This was about eight years ago or so. We became really great friends. I eventually took a job at the company my friend worked for, and I learned from the ground up. It was a natural fit. I'm at a different company now and I work with mostly high income 'VIP' men. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. I absolutely love my job. It comes naturally, it's challenging and so rewarding. I still have the same hardcore work ethic and want to work at the best company and break ceilings. And I still do that but in the love Celine Song famously went from matchmaking to Hollywood for the new film Materialists, the current rom-com starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans based on her past life as a matchmaker. Philly-based Lauren Daddis is the perfect person to respond to Materialists. A former music industry publicist at Interscope Records, among others, who worked with the likes of Eminem, Gwen Stefani and Black Eyed Peas, Daddis has been a matchmaker for the last eight years. So, it was a lot of fun to get her insights on the accuracy of the film, its dialogue and how it compares to the current state of real-life matchmaking. Spoiler, she says it is pretty damn spot on. Warning, she also does give some spoilers on the film. You are warned before reading on. Steve Baltin: How accurate was the movie? Lauren Daddis: It was really good. I was laughing my ass off cause I'm a matchmaker. I was laughing about how right on some of the stuff was. She did a really good job of depicting a day in the life of a matchmaker and what kind of stuff comes up. So, for me that was very entertaining. It was very reminiscent of a '90s rom-com because it was more like relationship drama and less comedy. It was a very good balance between hearts and, obviously, the name of the movie is Materialists. She did a very good job of reflecting on real life. Her character was very kind of crass and transactional and it's different than like I feel like some of the women that are in rom-com's. They usually play the role of the sappy, lovesick [woman] looking for her prince. It was interesting. It was also very predictable. You definitely within the first five minutes knew who she would pick. The whole story she's a matchmaker, and she's caught between the 'perfect match,' like the unicorn, the rich guy with the 12-million-dollar Manhattan apartment. He's over six feet and checks all the boxes, so to speak. Then there's the ex-boyfriend, who is a broke actor, cater waiter, but she loves him. So, you know in the end who she's going to pick. Baltin: Where are you based? Daddis: As a matchmaker, I'm an outside of Philly. Working with clients in New York, it was really interesting to watch a matchmaker based in New York. I often say that New York is one of the hardest markets to match because there are so many people. They talk in the movie about referring to people as product, merchandise. There are so many people, there's always someone better, there's always someone else, so, it was interesting to watch it happen in New York. I think it was a great city to pick being a matchmaker. And she faces that: does she want the luxury life without true love with the unicorn guy? Or does she want a tough life where she's fighting over money, but they're madly in love? I think the whole movie just goes back and forth, but you never wonder who she's going to pick because at the end, that's what we all want, right? The true love. I know a lot of people actually pick the other. But I don't really think that they end up happy. I think trying to find love in a material world is very tricky. Baltin: You said you thought it was accurate. How was the matchmaking dialogue? Daddis: I loved the scenes where they did a lot of cut in and cut out of her with clients, client facing meetings where they're just sitting in front of her going, 'I want this and this and this because I deserve it.' Some of this stuff was just verbatim. "I won't date anyone over six feet.' "They have to make at least 500,000.' "They have to do this and this and this." To me, I was just laughing. It was very normal and everyday for me. It was funny, my boyfriend was with me. And to him, that was very normal cause I work from home. He hears these conversations all the time. It didn't shake us. But I kept wondering what the people behind me and around me in the theater thought. I wondered if they thought this was fake because it is so real. People do say I want this and I want all of these boxes checked and then as a matchmaker when you deliver someone sometimes it turns out awful. Sometimes it turns out great, you can deliver a product but it's all up to the person how it happens. One of the references they use that was really funny and I use all the time she was like giving ingredients. And Lucy the matchmaker cocks her head and she's like, 'I can't build your boyfriend for you, I'm not Frankenstein.' I lost it because I always say this isn't Build a Bear. We're not building a boyfriend We can't take ingredients, we're dealing with humans and people, and they come as they are.' So, I thought that was funny because she had that talk with one of her clients. They have the matchmaker part. I listened to a couple of interviews with the writer, and she was a matchmaker a long time ago. I was interested to see how much it's changed. It hasn't, everything was spot on. People have not changed what they're looking for, what they expect, what we value, how we perceive our own value. It's all the same. Baltin: Why do you think that is because obviously society has changed so much? Daddis: I think fundamentally all we really want is to find that true love. And some of the ways people go about trying to find it are people going to great lengths. One of the plots twists of the movie was Harry, which is Pedro Pascal's character, the unicorn, the rich guy. Well, it turns out we find out at the end of the movie-- it's a spoiler alert-- but there's the surgery that can add up to six inches to your height and at the end of the movie it comes out she sees the scars on his legs. He seems to be this perfect guy but it shows even the perfect people the lengths that they go to to make themselves a good catch. He had leg surgery and he used to be five six and so it really changes perception. At the end of the movie, you're like, "Wow, like we're watching women fawn over this guy, and he's perfect, and he's the unicorn of the movie, and all this, come to find out if he was five six, none of this would be available to him." He said, "I wouldn't have done better, and I wouldn't have done as well in business. Men respect me, women fawn over me." So, it was showing that even on the outside, the people who look like they have it all, and they're these unicorns, that he still went through this. He broke both of his legs and paid 200 grand for six inches. And he said it was the best decision he's ever made. I do think that's a good point that you made. I don't think it has changed. I think people want just to feel loved, but I feel like what I see as a matchmaker is I very much understood when Lucy talked a lot about it being very easy. It's math, it's just math. She spoke very clinically about partnering as if it were like an equation. And that was her response, it's just math. They come from a similar socioeconomic background. They both went to Ivy League schools. They refer to checking boxes, that's a lingo that we used a lot and the reality is yeah you can put two people together, their resumes, so to speak, and they check each other's boxes. He wants what she has and everything's perfect but when they meet each other it's all up to their chemistry, the energy they bring into the room, the kind of day they had, if they had a bad day, they're not going to bring their best self in, their nerves, what if one person has some kind of anxiety and they're not doing the best. There are so many things that can be off or what if just the woman walks in and just is not attracted to the guy or the man is rude to the waiter. There are so many things that can happen outside of the boxes and the personality traits and all those things that people are looking for, that I think people lose sight of what really matters. And one of the things they said in the movie was, it was like her pitch, she was at a wedding and like passing her card out and schmoozing. It was really funny. And she said, you're really finding at the end of the day, a nursing home roomie. Who are you going to be in the nursing home with? Who's going to do the long haul on the hard things. And that stuff you can't vet for. As a matchmaker, I can't find someone. If someone hires me and says find someone that's going to have a great relation with me and love me so much that they'll change my bedpan. I can't guarantee that I'm going to find that for you. I can try though. Baltin: How did you go into matchmaking? Daddis: I got married, had a baby and moved to the east coast. I had a few years of being a stay-at-home mom and eventually the plan was to get back to LA. I stayed on with a couple of smaller bands and toyed with the idea of working in NY. I never really meant to leave the music industry, and I was kind of miserable about it. I became a yoga teacher, got divorced and settled into the east coast for the foreseeable future. I met a matchmaker through a girlfriend of mine and she saw potential immediately in me. I was fascinated that this was even a job… a matchmaker? This was about eight years ago or so. We became really great friends. I eventually took a job at the company my friend worked for, and I learned from the ground up. It was a natural fit. I'm at a different company now and I work with mostly high income 'VIP' men. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. I absolutely love my job. It comes naturally, it's challenging and so rewarding. I still have the same hardcore work ethic and want to work at the best company and break ceilings. And I still do that but in the love industry.