Summer Movie Madness!

Aahh!  The smell of popcorn and scorching asphalt can only mean one thing:  the return of summer movie season!  If you haven’t caught the fever (symptoms of which usually start appearing around the last two weeks of April), you’re probably not really American, or you don’t really like movies or summer time, or you have something against fun.

Once upon a time, savvy movie exec-types discovered that American youth have more time to frequent movie-playing establishments during the lazy, hazy days between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and thus began releasing their yummiest eye-candy during the summer.  Typically these aren’t necessarily the best movies of the year, but they’re frequently the funnest.  

For me, summer is permanently linked with movies.  The prospect of week after week of new blockbusters just made vacation from school that much sweeter.  Every year, just before school was out, I’d scramble to the nearest magazine seller (except when I lived in American magazine-less Senegal) to snap up the summer movie preview issues of Entertainment Weekly and Premiere.  They were my roadmaps to fun and there I’d sit, in air-conditioned bliss, putting off end-of-school-year projects and finals-studying to plan out my movie-watching strategy for the season.

Things haven’t changed all that much for me as an adult summer movie enthusiast.  I still get the fever around mid-April, plus there’s now an added nostalgia element that only enhances the kick I get out of beating the heat with a blast of frosty cineplex AC, a good Cherry Coke, and some fresh popcorn, or Junior Mints, or M&Ms, or heck, maybe all three.  After all, it’s summer, baby!

Since the summer movie season unofficially kicks off with Iron Man this weekend, I thought I’d throw out my top wanna-see movies of summer ’08:

1.  Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Dude, Indiana Jones helped invent the summer movie, so how could anything else possibly top my list?  The nostalgia factor’s in overdrive with this one, after all, the last time Indy was in theatres, the summer was 1989 and I was just beginning to blossom as a movie fan.  This movie will have to be horrendous not to be a ton of fun.  Fortunately, Spielberg’s horrendous movies are few and very far between.  The teaser trailer was great, as is the follow-up trailer released on Friday.  Indy could be searching for his lost sock and I’d still stand in line to see it!    

2.  The Dark Knight

Speaking of 1989, are we in some kind of weird time warp?  Because the last time Indy Jones was on-screen, another little movie came out the same summer called Batman.  Michael Keaton was Batman, Jack Nicholson was The Joker and it was directed by some dude named Tim Burton.  The dark movie both disturbed and fascinated my 12-year-old self.  Plus it had Kim Basinger.  

Back to 2008… I didn’t fawn over Batman Begins like most people I know, but it wasn’t bad.  I mean it was light years ahead of Joel Schumacher’s franchise wreckers.  But Begins still left a lot to be desired.  After all these outings, I’m hoping that The Dark Knight finally delivers the Bat-goods.  

One thing that’s always annoyed me about the Bat franchise is that the villains usually end up hogging the spotlight.  Come on!  I wanna see Batman use his cool weaponry to kick bootay.  Dark Knight has a good trailer (plus a solid updated version that released this weekend), but I fear it might be more about The Joker than the B-man.  I am looking forward to it, but if this one don’t deliver the goods, I’m done with Bat-movies.        

3.  Hancock

It’s becoming apparent that summer ’08 is going to be about the anti-hero.  Between this and Iron Man, we’re entering the postmodern superhero era wherein the heroes are kinda crusty, and jerky, and save the world kinda reluctantly because deep, deep down somewhere inside, they really do care for humanity.  I suppose this approach is sort of inevitable after nearly two decades chock full of every superhero character movie possible.  It ain’t easy to come up with something fresh within the genre.  While I can appreciate the effort to be original, our superheroes’ exploits have traditionally been an extension of their morality, so I’m a bit skeptical about sleazing them up.

But, getting back to the fun, the Hancock trailers are terrific.  Will Smith is one of the best movie stars around.  He knows how to do blockbusters and he doesn’t make bad movies (except for Men in Black II).  Plus, this one’s directed by Peter Berg, a new-ish director whose style I dig.  Another major plus?  The effects look better than average.

4.  Get Smart

Looks like a lot of goofy fun.  Steve Carrell is hard to beat.  Anne Hathaway is an interesting sidekick choice.  Alan Arkin is usually cool, and Dwayne Johnson knows his way around comedy too.  The track record for TV to big screen remakes isn’t too rosy, but I think this will survive the transition.  Nothing like some good laughs in the summer, so I definitely plan on sampling me some Smart.  

5.  The Happening

For my money, M. Night’s one of those writer/directors whose movies aren’t to be missed.  Although I’d like to see him shake things up with something a little lighter and/or with more action, I’m still interested in his work.  His last outing (Lady in the Water) wasn’t as good as his previous stuff, but it was still a lot more interesting than most movies.  Word is that Happening will be M.’s first R-rated movie.  Not sure what all that will mean, but it will likely involve scariness.  

Neither of the Happening trailers screams awesome.  The latest trailer adds some annoying ear-punishing POUNDS at the end that are meant to jar, but instead made me concerned that they’re trying to compensate for some deficiency.  In fact, if Mr. M. wasn’t behind this, I wouldn’t see it based on the trailers.  But since he is, I look forward to giving Happening a chance.    

6.  The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

The hype machine claims Caspian will be darker and more action-oriented than Wardrobe.  I hope so.  I didn’t dislike Wardrobe, it just didn’t stick with me very long.  Part of the problem is that it’s hard to have epic battle scenes in a PG movie.  I’m all for family movies, but you can’t really be Lord of the Rings, have your cake, and eat it too.  Know what I mean?  The Caspian trailers sure look epic, with great visuals and superb effects.  It has a lot of potential, but based on the first movie, I’m just cautiously optimistic.      

7.  The Love Guru

Mike Myers is the number one reason I’m looking forward to Guru.  The first trailer was pretty funny.  The updated trailer is even funnier.  Both of them are full of typical Myers shtick, which means a hefty amount of visual gags.  I was a little surprised to see more dwarf jokes with Austin Powers’ Verne Troyer, which seems like an unnecessary reprise, but that can be forgiven if the movie’s funny enough.  

8.  Swing Vote

Despite this movie’s unrealistic premise, the election year timeliness accompanying it looks like fun.  The trailer for this caught me by surprise a bit.  Frankly, I wasn’t expecting it to be so good.  It has a very Capraesqe quality to it as well as a surprisingly robust cast, including Kevin Costner in the lead.  I still think Kevin’s cool, so come August, I’m planning to cast my vote for Swing.

9.  What Happens in Vegas

Why do I want to see this when I don’t really like Cameron Diaz, I don’t drink, I don’t gamble, and I’ve never been to Vegas?  Well, I guess it boils down to being in the mood for some laughs this summer, plus I think Ashton Kutcher’s pretty funny.  I’m not expecting the best rom-com ever or anything, but the trailer is funny.  It hooked me when Kutcher asks his buddy, “Where’s the one place you can go to step up and be a man?” To which his buddy replies, “Community college?”  That’s my brand o’ humor.

10.  Iron Man

Three superhero movies on my list?  I’m disappointed in myself.  Comic book/superhero movies are so overdone by now that I can’t believe I want to see any of them, but, I have to admit that Iron Man looks like it might pack some quality action and a lot of humor.  So, completely against my better judgment, I plan to check this one out.    

So those are the top ten flicks I’m interested in this summer.  What are you jazzed about seeing?