Summer movies : A look back

Dear Danny,

Summer is winding down and it's a good time to look back at some of the hits and misses of the summer. I will admit, I didn't see as much as I wanted to/could afford to, but I heard enough from around the water cooler.

Action movies : Bourne Ultimatum, Die Hard 4, Transformers, Spiderman 3, Pirates 3, Fantastic 4 2, War opens next week. It was an up and down summer, I think, for fun action movies. There were no original action/adventure movies that came out. Unless you count War, which I really feel will be a Crank+Jet Li. I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out that there's nothing new going on in the world of action movies. Out of that list, I saw DH4, Transformers and FF4:2. I won't get around to see Bourne, even though I heard great things and really just don't care for the other big trilogies. You might ask why I saw FF4, and aside from my Jessica Alba infatuation, I snuck into it, so I didn't have to pay for it. Out of the 3, Transformers I found to be the best in terms of what I want a summer action movie to be. There's a huge post about a month ago explaining how it's a fantastic movie.

Die Hard I feel was a little under appreciated for how great it really was. It got some good reviews but fell off the box office rather quickly, at around 130M now and hasn't been in the top 10 since July. Transformers is over a cool 300M now, and I don't even want to talk about how much money Harry Potter has been making.

Comedies : Evan Almighty, Knocked Up, Oceans 13, Chuck and Larry, Super Bad, Simpsons Movie, Rush Hour 3, Shrek 3, Ratatouille.

It was a really really weak but inspiring summer for comedies. You had some of the same old stuff (Rush Hour 3, Shrek 3), you had the long awaited Simpsons movie, which I still haven't seen but heard good things about, you had the biggest bust in movie history with Evan Almighty, budgeted at 130M and making 30 it's opening weekend, and then you had the Judd Apatow bunch blow everyone away.

I'm going to write a long post purely about Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen, as I have been huge fans of theirs since Freaks and Geeks so long ago and just love to see them prospering. But in terms of the summer comedy, they had the two biggest hits. Knocked Up and Super Bad both hit 30+M their opening weekends, were both fresh and reminded people that a movie didn't have to be a sequel to be funny. I was also very impressed with Oceans' last installment, even though it was flawed it was still fun and just what a summer movie should be. I didn't see the Shreks or the Ratatouilles, but I heard it was a decent time for animation but not the best. I mean honestly, everything Pixar does is great but nothing can really live up to the Incredibles or Toy Story for that matter. Both Chuck and Larry and Hairspray both topped the 100M mark both with average reviews, and I gotta say that for every step forward Adam Sandler seems to take (Reign Over Me) he just immediately takes one back in terms of being taken seriously.

Horror movies : Hostel 2, Captivity, Halloween. That's about it.

A really slow summer for horror movies as people have seemed to forget about this genre. It's gotten swept under the rug after years of the same crap coming in and out. I could probably write a long post about how I think people like Eli Roth are good for the genre, and will one day. Once I see Hostel 2. As some of you know, I was a huge fan of the first one and a really big fan of the Saw series, not just for it's gore effect, but for what some of these film makers are trying to do for a genre that's the most played out and the most mocked. In any event, there was nothing going on this summer except for this Halloween movie which I will not go see out of sheer principle. Michael Meyers was once a symbol for horror. You wore that mask and you were once feared. Now, 10 or so sequels later, he's died at least 5 times, been resurrected once and now we get a prequel. It's on the same level as having that Hannibal prequel. It destroys the mystery and thus the horror.

That's our summer. All in all a decent summer for the movies. Nothing spectacular, nothing revolutionary, but a solid summer.

Peace,

Asher