Summer Movie Time!

Summertime is movie time at League HQ. The run up to Academy Award time and most Christmas movies are not bad for movies, but geez... its sort of become obligatory to go see a bunch of nicely crafted movies that are about as much "fun" as hanging out in the euthanasia room at the pound. Important/ thought provoking = relenetlessly depressing.

I'm not AGAINST this kind of picture. I was incredibly pleased with both "There Will Be Blood" (yes, Steven, I think its a very good movie), and "No Country For Old Men" (which I prefer of the two). But I mostly have a hard time getting really revved up to go see Nicole Kidman be weepy and trudge through a melodrama of some sort. That's not to bag on Nicole Kidman, but... you know, Christmas is crazy enough. If I'm going to sneak out at night to see a movie, I'm gonna want a ninja gangster robot with a heart of gold whose fighting Nazis from space or something.

Those movies, however, mostly show up during the summer. We get a few during Christmas. I think this year "The Spirit" is coming out during Christmas (Eisner material, directed by Frank Miller and featuring Scarlet Johansson? Twist my arm).

But summertime and Batman and Iron Man and The Hulk and Indiana Jones is what its all about here at The League of Melbotis.

We're also pretty pumped up about Hancock. Now, admittedly, I don't know much about the movie except that it stars Will Smith as a drunken, loused up version of a superhero (Superman without X-Ray Vision)? And it has Jason Bateman. And I generally sort of don't think that superheroes + comedy works. But Will Smith knows how to deliver a wacky line, and I can buy him as a lackluster crime fighter.

A secret, guilty part of me is always glad when they do movies like Hancock, Hulk, Iron Man, etc... because I sort of think that it raises the bar for the next Superman movie or Green Lantern movie. It shows whats possible, and I think Superman movies more or less should feel obligated to then raise the bar higher.

Anyhow, we've got a pretty good chunk of summer left, and there are a few more flicks coming out I'll be paying to see. Batman. Wall-E. Hellboy II. X-Files. And even Clone Wars.

Some folks might get tired of the special effects extravaganzas, but when I think back to the former staples of summer featuring 'roided out actors who were, invariably, rogue police officers in a spat with some drug kingpin, or terrorist cell... Anyway, somehow the geeks took over, and summertime is full of the movies we didn't think we'd ever see.

I mean, whether its good or not, there's a @#$%ing Watchemn movie coming.