The Summer Season Is Upon Us

The summer blockbuster season is here and ready to take the millions of dollars from the consumers pockets. Being an indie guy myself, this time of year isn't exactly my favorite. That would be Oscar season, where the truly remarkable films get released in hopes of winning a golden statuette. And last year, all my favorite movies, and there were a lot of good movies last year, most of them came out before the summer season or in the fall. Movies like Smokin' Aces or No Country For Old Men.

I always go into the summer season with a grain of salt and a bucket of popcorn. I know I'm going to be watching the most spectacular and high-bugdeted films of the year. Last year, I understood that Spiderman was the movie everyone wanted to see. I knew that Pirates Of The Carribean would set records. These are a given. There spectacular movies and they are supposed to be spectacular movies. You get what you expect. Sometimes these movies don't live up to the hype. Well, hype always hurts a movie. If you go in expecting a great movie and it sucks, it probably was an okay movie but just didn't live up to the hype. and what if a great movie does live up to it's hype. Than it succeeded in meeting expectations, but failed to blow me away.

Movies like Smokin' Aces and No Country For Old Men came out of nowhere and blew me away. That's the mark of a truly good movie. That's why I love independent film so much. I go in knowing nothing and have the possibility of walking out totally blown away. The best movie I've seen this year so far, actually came out two years ago in England and is now getting released here. It was Revolver, the Guy Ritchie film. I rented it not knowing a thing, maybe a trailer, that was it. And it blew me away.

This summer will be the same. Iron Man actually looked like it was well written and it was. And I actually didn't mind Speed Racer. But for some reason you can't have a million dollar movie that's campy at the same time. Viewers need to lower there expectations or, better yet, go into to a movie not knowing a thing about it and just maybe they will be blown away.

But we live in a skeptical society and everybody is looking to bash the next film if they don't get what they want. We're a knowledgeable society unwilling to be surprised. We all want meaning in our movies. That's why war movies are so popular right now. I'm all for meaning in a movie, but not at the expense of entertainment. I've given up on war movies right now because of all the bullshit being shoved down our throats. I'll take a campy Speed Racer over Lions For Lambs any day.

This blog has turned into too much of a rant, so let me back off and say this summer actually looks promising. Or maybe I'm willing to be less skeptical and enjoy movies again. I'll go see the Hulk, even though I know the film will be CGI'd to death. And I just saw the trailer for the Star Wars animated movie. Even though it looks like Veggie Tales in space, I'm actually looking forward to indulging in my childhood fantasies again.

Let's not forget Indiana Jones and Narnia. But the movie I'm looking forward to being blown away by the most is Wanted, the Angelina Jolie action thriller. Instead of being too cynical this year, I'm going to keep an open mind and enjoy the popcorn.