It occurred to me the other day that I really haven't gone out of my way to see many movies in the theatre this year, particularly this summer. It's the result of the fast-turnaround for movies on DVD, and my near-apathy for most of the summer releases. I bashed last summer pretty hard and I still stand by my statements that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine are among some of the worst summer movies ever made, at least as far as "A" pictures go.
This summer might be worse because I just. Don't. Care. So I'm wondering, is it just me, or are many of you feeling the same sort of malaise towards the big releases? What were you REALLY excited to see this summer?
I guess Inception is the only big release that is appealing enough to drag me to the theater.
ReplyDeleteGainsbourg. Hollywood makes me yawn too much.
ReplyDeleteI looked forward to Iron Man 2, but beyond that... not a whole lot.
ReplyDeleteG.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra still makes me a little sad. They had a fantastic toy line and a great comic backstory by Larry Hama to build on... but they seemed to make random character changes by committee when the original material was so much better. The original character visuals of characters like Cobra Commander and Destro were a lot better the first time around, too. But I guess it could be worse - it could've been The Last Airbender.
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT and WINTER'S BONE (both of which were two of the best movies I've seen in a long, long time). And I can't wait for INCEPTION!
ReplyDeleteinception is the one any smart movie fan is looking forward to
ReplyDeleteI want to see SALT.
ReplyDeleteI agree w/ you about Transformers, Wolverine and GI Joe being the worst of summer blockbuster movies. Just awful.
Inception and Scott Pilgrim.
ReplyDeleteInception. Apart from that I'm just taking it week by week. Before Predators I hadn't been in more than two months, and I'm making a conscious effort not to encourage dumb movies by seeing dumb movies.
ReplyDeleteThis post really hits me where I live right now. I have so little desire to see these films (INCEPTION is the only exCEPTION). But I realize that I have felt that way increasingly as the decade we're finishing this year has unfolded. I am so sick of films always trying to amaze me, to BLOW ME AWAY, to be bigger, to be more, and to be STILL MORE. I want a story that engages me, that entertains me. It doesn't have to have the greatest car chase since QUANTUM OF SOLACE. It seems this has been happening with extreme prejudice ever since THE MATRIX, with no end in sight. And the script I just finished, DARKNESS CALLS ME, while being a very strong and entertaining piece of work (or so my readers so far tell me) just can't compete on that current Hollywood playing field. If anyone's interested, I blog about it here: http://thelastreveal.blogspot.com/2010/07/if-screenplay-is-written-in-forest.html.
ReplyDeleteThanks to the reality of having two babies at home, I don't get to go see movies that look really good because my wife wants to see them too and we are loathe to use up "grandma and grandpa" babysitting favors too often, or spend the extra $20 to buy a cousin or sibling sitter for the night. Most years, that might bother me a lot. This year, I only regret that it has prevented me from seeing Toy Story 3 and, to a lesser extent, Karate Kid. Last summer, we splurged so we could see Up, The Hangover, and Harry Potter, and it was worth it.
ReplyDeleteI did get to go see A-Team with the guys, and we're fixin' to see Inception as well. A-Team was much less bad than expected, while still not that great. Better than GI Joe that's for good and sure.
Other than that, wake me up when it's time for TRON LEGACY...
Yeah we just realized yesterday that we hadn't seen anything in a while.
ReplyDeleteWe watched PREDATORS - yay! - and of course will be seeing INCEPTION. And I'm also stoked to see SALT and want to encourage everyone to go see that because if it does well, women action heroes will be okay again.
Toy Story 3 and Get Him to the Greek are the only movie I've seen (and enjoyed) in the last couple months. I wasn't clamoring to see either.
ReplyDeleteI am generally unenthusiastic about everything but Inception. Mildly interested in seeing Predators, Salt, Scott Pilgrim, The Expendables.
I am a huge fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender, but didn't see the movie based on the extremely disappointing reviews. I was pulling for both the movie to be good and for Shyamalan to redeem himself, but it looked like neither happened.
Well, "Inception" and "Scott Pilgrim" of course! Hopefully they'll live up to the hype. And in the case of SP, as long as it's semi-faithful to the brilliant graphic novels, it should. But that's about it for what's remaining this summer. Maybe "Salt" too.
ReplyDelete"Toy Story 3" rocked! And could be the best installment of the series, dare I say. This year I've been way more invested in TV, and catching up on (brilliant) shows i'd never seen like "Friday Night Lights", "Breaking Bad", and "The Wire". Must be a changing world when TV is better than film these days. They're not calling it a TV Golden Age for nothing.
Question is, should we go see Salt even if it's rubbish?
ReplyDeleteIf it makes cash and puts female action protags back on the map, is that an end in itself, or will it be more damaging in the long run if it's full of tired cliches and lazy writing? Don't think it can't happen; we all know what development does to solid scripts...
I'm a wanna be screenwriter, and I saw "Knight and Day," and "Cyrus." Both of these movies, in my humble opinion, sucked. Cyrus was really nothing but boring exposition. I swear, it could have been really great conflict, but there was hardly any. Talking heads. Actually, I couldn't believe it. How did this movie get made? I ripped it on my blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://thewannabemoviecritic.blogspot.com/
if you want to read that.