4.7.08

The Mid-Summer Movie Report

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Hello Friends,

Well, it's the beginning of July. July 4th to be precise and I'm here to give my mid summer movie report.

And I'm just going to get out of the way and list them out in order of liking, top to bottom people:

Top 3

Wall-E
Iron Man
Wanted

And everybody else:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Incredible Hulk


So is this really surprising. No. I guess. There were a few movies I wanted to see but just didn't the chance to catch. Films like "Speed Racer" which I heard was terrible, but who knows, maybe I would've liked it a  little. Oh and I wanted to see the Narnia film, too, but there was something about Prince Caspian that seemed a little too fakey. Know what I mean?


WALL-E

So I went back to my Possible Fave 10 Blog from late April and I found that uh I didn't put Wall-E on it, I said it might have been a possible Honorable Mention... huhuh...eek.

But you know, I'm just going to say that I completely avoided learning anything about Wall-E so I had absolutely no expectation going into, and I feel good about. But check it Wall-E is incredible. It's amazing. It may be brilliant. It's definitely touching, gorgeous, intelligent, occasionally frightening, BEAUTIFUL... that's really all I am going to say. Cause you may not like it and that's cool, but is it really cool? I mean I want to get like a stuffed animal of Wall-E. For realzzzz...

IRON MAN

Hmmm... let us see. Wisecracking, hard partying, hard drinking, ass kicking, super hero. Yeah... that's Iron Man. Aka Tony Stark... Aka Robert Downey Jr. doing whatever the hell he wants to, in the best super hero movie of the summer, so far.

As I look back on Spider-man 2 & 3... especially three, I ponder whatever happened to our fun loving, incredible, amazing friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. The one who is so scared that he constantly has to make fun of everything. There was a lost opportunity there, especially three, which is just really a lost opportunity in general. (I shouldn't go down this path.)

Anyway, some of the fun missing from those films was present, front and center in Iron Man. This guy didn't give a shit. Gosh, he's so BAD ASS. It had been a while since I'd seen a Super Hero movie and said, damn I want to be him... well for better or worse after Iron Man I felt that way. The acting was great, the effects were great, the directing was great. Just some real solid goodness all the way around.

WANTED

Well... hmmm... lets go ahead and mix in Fight Club and the Matrix, and add the spirit of Trainspotting. Yup, that's Wanted. And it's got some of the most amazing action I've seen. Just some real jaw dropping stuff. Yeah, the plots ridiculous, the messages are terrible, but what a great time. This was a movie that wasn't afraid to go there, to really GO THERE. Like when they were on that train and  (EDITED/CENSORED) and then all those people (EDITED/CENSORED) it was ridiculous and sick and really well done. But this movie isn't everybody's cup of tea. That's for sure. But I liked it enough to get seconds.


Now the sad stuff.

INDIANA JONES and the blah blah blah...

Solidly done. I guess. Pointlessly unnecessary. Doesn't really bring anything new to the table, and I'm not including Shia and Cate Blanchet's silly hair cut and weird, borderline bad accent (although she was kind of hot.) Most people I talk to are like, I just wish they hadn't made it. And I'm like eh... well it was fun to watch, not a bad way to waste money, you know, like renting a Matthew McConaughey movie (Random fact, as I was looking up how to spell his name, I saw that his highest grossing film is "A Time to Kill", but this was back when EVERYONE would go see whatever the hell Samuel L. Jackson and Sandra Bullock was in...anyway...)

Look, it was just plain weird at times, and awkward at time, and some times it was good and fun and exciting, and other times it was like what the hell is going here... and then there's the monkeys... and really... really... REALLY... and like why does this feel like a video game. Look for real... in the bathroom stall of that movie, you should've been able to see some door graffiti that read "For a Better time go play "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune," so much more fun then Indy 4... but I got nothing but love for those guys. Just don't do it again.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK

Indiana Jones is rated higher here, because I had more fun in Indy then in this. The movie was solidly mad, and it gave fans a version of Hulk that they wanted and it was closer to the TV show, but dammit, dammit, I liked a lot of that psychological shit in the first movie. If I could combine the two movies, I think there would be a hell of thing, but in this one, the new one, I just didn't care about what was happening, especially in the end. 

To Hulk Smash or to not Hulk Smash, I just didn't care either way.

So that was the first half of the summer movies. No real surprises here. Probably should've seen more movies. Probably seen like an art house movie or two. BUT whatever, I moved and decorated and produced like 3 projects at the same time.

But JULY & AUGUST should be a good month. We've got HELLBOY 2, THE DARK NIGHT, and so many others... like TROPIC THUNDER... but I'll keep you posted.

Adios Muchachos!

1 Month to 10 year high school reunion...


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