Summer Movies

A site called First Showings has a list of a bunch of summer movies.

The first five have come out: Iron Man, Speed Racer, Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and Sex in the City. (Cliff's Note Reviews: Great, Awful, Pretty Good, OK for the nostalgic, and OK for chicks.) And, for those keeping score, I've seen just Iron Man and Caspian.

There are a lot of cringe-worthy titles remaining on the list. A lot seem like they might be really horrible or possibly really great, but most will land squarely in mediocrity-ville. For example, the Get Smart cast looks as good as it could possibly be, but is it likely to recapture any of the magic of the series?

I can't think of a single comedy remake in my lifetime that has worked. Not a one, unless you count the campy update of Brady Bunch--which was a spoof, not a remake. I may be overlooking one, mind you, but mostly, they're just not funny.

I think the Hellboy sequel will be better than the original. Just a hunch. And the original was not great.

There's a scene in Ratatouille where a food experience takes one of the characters back to his childhood, and reignites the passion he once had for food. When I was a kid, I absolutely loved trailers: There's always something hopeful about an upcoming movie that used to excite me tremendously--though keep in mind that they used to make a lot fewer movies (and TV and games and...) so to have a movie preview that actually piqued your interest was quite thrilling.

I've seen many previews in recent weeks and only one gives me that Ratatouille experience of throwing me back to my childhood is, fittingly, the Pixar film Wall-E. It looks like a gentle yet slapsticky film of little dialog and simple themes. And the trailers make me laugh. (Pixar has a tradition of having original material for the trailers, and it's usually top-notch.)

Anything you're looking forward to this summer?