The Summer Movie Line-up

This has been the summer of movies. Way back in April Kelsey and I realized that, once she came out here, we would each have a permanent, reliable movie-going buddy, and so we began taking note of all the mostlly mindless summer movies we wanted to be sure to see. And when we learned that the twilight movie at the local theaters only costs $5, our intentions involved into seeing one movie every week for the rest of the summer. Monday is our official movie day, so I feel like we can justify it as family home evening. We’ve done pretty well—we’ve lost a week here and there, but we’ve almost made up for each of those with a couple weekend movies. And so far we’ve been surprisingly lucky. There has not been one real disappointment, and we’ve actually quite enjoyed most of our choices. Here’s the summer movie roundup so far.

Spiderman 3
Spiderman is totally Kelsey’s generation. I remember that the first one was all the buzz among the high school students the semester I student taught, and they would have been her age. I’ve enjoyed the Spiderman movies myself, though, so I was more than willing to make the third one our first movie of the summer. Of the summer threequels we’ve fit in so far, this was the best—in story, characters, and special effects. It was a lot of fun, and comparable (I thought) to the previous two movies. Kelsey, however, was rather disappointed that the ring never quite made it onto Mary Jane's finger…

Shrek the 3rd
Okay, if any movie this summer has been a disappointment, it was this one. The original was great, and the second almost managed to outdo the original. But by the time the producers got to the third, I felt like they’d run out of originality. I didn’t care that much about the story, and the jokes all felt like either slapstick, or more of the same from the first two Shrek movies. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun. Worth five dollars. But the Shrek franchise could have finished with two, because the third didn’t add much of anything.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3
I read horrible reviews about this before we saw it. Both Time and Newsweek allotted less than a single column to their review, which, for the final installment of such a hugely productive movie franchise, kind of says something. I already knew that no sequel could possibly match the first movie, of course. But the second was fun in a summer blockbustery sort of way, and I was invested enough to want to see the third. I went in not expecting much, and was pleasantly surprised. It was fun, had some great visual effects, wasn’t anywhere near as good as the first (and that was to be expected), but was better than many mindless summer blockbusters that are out there. I don’t know that I’ll be seeing it again, but we both genuinely enjoyed it nevertheless.

Surf’s Up
I have to admit that when Kelsey first told me she wanted to see Surf's Up during the previews at one of our earlier movies, I thought she was joking. A movie about surfing penguins sounds awful - "Everyone's into penguins right now," says someone in the animation idea room, "and kids think surfing is cool, so why don't we make a movie about surfing penguins?" But I read a pretty good review the weekend it came out, and so I was willing to humor her, and I now have no shame in admitting that it is the surprise of the summer for me, and one of my favorite movies so far. Surf's Up is very cleverly done, and very different from other computer animated films. The plot was entirely predictable, and yet I still had a great time and even cared about the characters. I highly, highly recommend this film if you haven't seen it yet.

Waitress
This week it was my turn to request a movie, after conceding Surf’s Up to Kelsey. Though it was widely released, Waitress is a much smaller film than the others we've seen, done on a much smaller budget. After a run of summer blockbusters, it was a nice change of pace, and I think we both enjoyed it. It was cute, and funny, and the characters drew you in. The only drawback was the whole adultery thing (and sure she had a real jerk of a husband, but it drives me crazy that Hollywood portrays it as okay to cheat so long as you’re in a really bad relationship). Fortunately, and much to both of our relief, they actually resolved that particularly plot line satisfactorily—I’d been worried up to then that they weren’t going to, because that would make it hard for me to like the film. But it all worked out without glamorizing or justifying the main character's little fling. And so I feel okay saying that I liked the movie.

Nancy Drew
Yes, we were running out of options this week. But when you’re seeing a movie a week, you can afford to see something like Nancy Drew that you otherwise might have waited for on DVD (if you saw it at all). It was a very cute movie, which is exactly what it was intended to be, and sort of refreshing to have a female teenage star as…wholesome…as Nancy. I read a few Nancy Drew books myself way back in elementary school, and from what I’ve heard, die-hard Nancy Drew fans might be disappointed in this new portrayal. But I’m not a die-hard Nancy Drew fan, and I thought the style and tone of the movie, and the character of Nancy Drew, just worked.

Ratatouille
Pixar has never disappointed me, which is why I worry every time they come out with a new movie that this will be the time they blow it. And yet somehow they manage to come out far ahead of all the competition every time they strike. Visually, Pixar outdid themselves with Ratatouille. The animation was just incredible. There was once scene where two of the characters are discussing bread and the bread looks absolutely real. I was way beyond impressed. And the story was absolutely worthy of the animation. The dialogue was clever, the characters were endearing, the plot was engaging. Pixar has not yet failed to amaze me. This is easily my favorite movie of the summer so far, and other movies will be hard pressed to top it.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
When I call myself a Harry Potter fan, I mean that I am a fan of the books (yes, I have had number seven on pre-order from Amazon since February). From the time the first movie came out, I’ve held that I enjoy the movies but that they just don’t do it for me like the books do. The books are pretty dark, but to me the movies are darker. The world of Harry Potter that I imagine isn’t as gloomy as the world that’s been conjured up in the movies. Still, it’s fun to see the books come to life, and so I’ve seen all five movies in the theater. I’ve heard people say that this is the weakest of the five movies, but I still thought it was fun, and for a less-than-two-and-a-half-hour adaptation of an 800 page book, they managed to get the job done quite well. They left some important things out, but the story got told. In my own opinion, this was not a weak movie by any means, and was every bit as good as its predecessors. This was also one of our rare weekend ventures, which meant the theater was a lot more crowded than we’re used to. Actually, it was kind of fun to watch a movie like this in a full theater. There was an energy in the crowd that you just don’t feel when you’re sitting alone up on the top row looking down on a handful of couples lower down late on a Monday afternoon.

The rest of the summer is going to hit fast, although most of the major films are out of the way. We do have Hairspray and the Simpsons movie coming up soon, and I think there are some others coming up shortly after that, though I can’t remember what they are off the top of my head. I know Kelsey’s looking forward to Underdog, but I still need some convincing. We’ve gotten enjoyed the previews, which are almost the best part of going to a movie (at Harry Potter we saw our first preview for next summer’s Get Smart, with Steve Carell, which is, I think, an absolutely brilliant casting choice). There are also plenty of movies that we’re foregoing this summer (Bratz, Daddy Day Camp, Knocked Up....).

So we both agree that it’s been fun. Not the kind of thing we could do for the rest of our lives, but the fact that this is probably the one and only time that we will see a movie a week for any extended period of time is part of what makes it so fun in the first place.