Summer Project: Blockbuster Review!

Summer is here. It was 100-plus degrees in the Valley of the Sun this weekend, and I've given up hope that the heat is going to go away again until after Halloween (when the monsoon always ends).

The best way that Leah and I have made to escape the heat is to go see movies. I love to go to the theater during the summer blockbuster season and see these huge event movies with a bunch of people who I'd usually hate if I saw them in almost any other context. But I enjoy going to the movies with them.

Last summer, Leah and I went to almost every big movie that came out. The season started last May 2 with Iron Man and ran through the August 6 release of Pineapple Express. In those 97 days, I saw 12 movies in the theatre (at the time, it seemed like much more--I think it must have been a pretty crappy season). We caught up on some later on DVD (like the acceptable Tropic Thunder, the seizure-tastic Speed Racer, and the really disappointing Hamlet 2), but if we're not motivated to go to the theatre, then it's probably not going to be that good.

In the final analysis, I would have ranked the Summer Movies of 2008 thusly:

Tier I: Buy it on DVD and You'll Never Regret It

1. Wall-E

2. The Dark Knight

3. Iron Man

Tier II: Won't Change the Channel When It Comes on TNT in Three Years

4. Kung Fu Panda

5. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

6. Pineapple Express

7. Hancock

8. Wanted

Tier III: Already Forgot I Paid $25 Dollars to See

9. Get Smart

10. The Incredible Hulk

11. Stepbrothers

Tier IV: Can't We All Just Pretend This Never Happened?

12. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

It's worth mentioning the movies that seemed like noted misfires that weren't seen during the summer of 2008, and were never caught up to. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Sex and the City, The Strangers, You Don't Mess With the Zohan, The Happening, The Love Guru, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Meet Dave, Mamma Mia!, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor were all flicks that We couldn't even garner the interest to go out and see, or even rent.

The project for this summer is to take the blockbusters of this season and see how they'd stack up against the above-average movies of 2008. I'll probably be seeing a movie every two weeks this summer, so after I have a chance to digest the latest summer blockbuster, I'll be giving my thoughts and a final ranking on the film.

My early feeling is that there are going to be a lot more Tier II and III movies this year, and not very likely to be the remarkable number of fantastic movies as there were last year (I hope that The Dark Knight and Wall-E will be remembered as great movies decades from now, and that Iron Man will remain a fun diversion into the future).

The summer blockbuster season really began May 1, with the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. While I loved the first 2 movies in the X-Men series, I was so disappointed with X-Men 3: X-Men United and the poor reviews (a 43 on Metacritc currently) of the Wolverine movie that I decided to stay away and hope that enough women see it that full chest hair comes back into style (finally!).

So, the Blockbuster Reviews will begin this week with the new J.J. Abrams reboot of the original Star Trek franchise. I'm going to try and stay away from reviews of these movies so that I'm only subject to the advertising hype but not the criticism until I've had a chance to put together my own thoughts.

Just to give you an idea of how busy this summer is looking for me, here are the other films that I'm looking forward to checking out just based on early buzz and what I've seen or movies that I'm going to endure based on the interior negotiations of my marriage:

Angels & Demons (May 15)

Terminator Salvation (May 21)

Up (May 29)

Year One (June 19)

Public Enemies (July 1)

Bruno (July 10)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 15)

Funny People (July 31)

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (August 7)

District 9 (August 14)

Inglourious Basterds (August 21)

Very exciting. Other movies that we might end up seeing if it's too hot outside or we're really bored include The Hangover, Land of the Lost, The Taking of Pelham 123, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I Love You Beth Cooper, (500) Days of Summer, and When In Rome (I have a weakness for Kristen Bell).

It's going to be a busy summer.