Hello again! The summer movie season has been widely considered a commercial and creative disappointment in 2014, but this first weekend in August may be the summer's salvation! I've seen the two major new movie releases this week in Indianapolis and nationwide, and both are in the running for best movie of the summer: "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Get On Up." "Guardians" is Marvel Studios' latest superhero movie, starring Chris Pratt of "Parks and Recreation." Pratt was just in town this past weekend driving the pace car at the Brickyard 400, and of course isn't a Hoosier, but he plays one on TV as Indianapolis Colts (specifically Reggie Wayne) fanatic Andy Dwyer. Pratt plays Peter Quil, aka "Star-Lord" in "Guardians," a two-bit thief who ends up heading up a ragtag group of heroes including a genetically-altered raccoon, a humanoid tree-thing, the adopted daughter of a genocidal madman, and an alien bent on killing that madman. "Guardians" stands with the best of the recent Marvel films. If there is any justice, it will be the biggest movie of the summer. Go see it now, but before you do, read my partner Christopher Lloyd's outstanding review! You may or may not have heard of "Get On Up," the James Brown biopic starring Chadwick Boseman, who you may know from playing another important pop culture figure, Jackie Robinson, in "42" earlier this year. Boseman OWNS the role of James Brown, and while narratively this movie doesn't do anything a dozen other musician biopics has, never before has it been done with quite this much style. Directed by Tate Taylor of "The Help," it co-stars several actors from that film, including Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Nelsan Ellis and Allison Janney, as well as Craig Robinson (hysterically funny in stuff like "The Office" and "Hot Tub Time Machine") and Dan Aykroyd. Check out my review here, and don't be surprised to hear "Get On Up" at least a couple of times come Oscar season. These are two terrific films that get my highest recommendation. If you like good cinema, be sure to go check these each out this weekend! If you like free movies, be sure to head over to The Film Yap and enter our latest movie pass giveaway! We'll have passes to next week's advance screening of "Into the Storm," and will have

Be sure to let me know what you’ve been watching-catch up with The Film Yap at www.thefilmyap.com, on Facebook (facebook.com/TheFilmYap) and Twitter (@TheFilmYap), or drop me a line at joe@thefilmyap.com. Until next time, let’s go out to the movies!

About Joe: Joe Shearer is the co-owner of The Film Yap, a collection of Central Indiana’s Premier Film Geeks. He has written movie reviews for INtake and indy.com The Magazine and for publications like MovieMaker Magazine, the Indianapolis Star, and Indianapolis Monthly. You can read more of Joe’s work and all of the latest in movie reviews, interviews, commentaries and other movie coverage, as well as free movie pass giveaways and more, at www.thefilmyap.com.