Top 5 Movies of Summer 2008

While perusing the old blog, I came to the realization that readers may get the impression I hate and mock all movies. So here is my list for the top summer (as in May-July) films of 2008. And unlike Colin Powell at the United Nations, you can trust my reporting. One caveat, there was an enormous scarcity of dramas this summer. So no smart alec comments like, "Summer of the Super Hero." Which it was.

5. Iron Man
Unlike Amy Winehouse, Robert Downey Jr. has always said yes, yes, yes to rehab, and I’m glad he has. The sometimes sober thespian created the coolest comic book hero since Michael Keaton’s Batman and his snarky Tony Snark routine never gets old. His smart mouthed Iron Man is what Toby McGuire’s sissified Spider-Man should be. While the movie did get bogged down in too much of Iron Man’s birth, the action scenes were tight and near perfect. The most surprising aspect the film? Gwyneth Paltrow was attractive and charming.

4. Hancock
Half comedy, half action flick, half love story. Sorry, President Bush was my math tutor. The idea of Superman as bitter, brooding, and drowning in Wild Turkey is certainly the most original concept to come out of Hollywood since Britney Spears had facial reconstructive surgery and restarted her career under the alias Miley Cyrus. Will Smith delivers the one liners as seamlessly as he displays the dramatic, Jason Bateman brings comedy and heart, and Charlize Theron is strong without trying to steal the spotlight from Smith. As a topping cherry, there is an excellent plot twist that anyone who isn’t an old crotchety lemon sucker will love. I would have liked to see more of Hancock while he was the drunken a$$hole, but then I wonder if that would have made it less funny and more monotonous.

3. Stepbrothers
The question for you, the reader, is simple. Did you like Talladega Nights and the 40 Year Old Virgin? If the question is no, STAY AWAY from this movie. And if the answer is no you should also probably see a doctor about whatever long, sharp item it is you have lodged between your buttocks. Recently, I’ve been forced to watch cliché filled, predictable romantic comedies (most of them starring Ryan Reynolds, who I really liked until seeing We’re Just Friends and Definitely, Maybe) and was ecstatic to view an R-rated, adult comedy. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have more chemistry than Bill Clinton and...no. No intern jokes. They’re too easy. Come on, Brad. Think. Oooh, oooh! More chemistry than Bill Clinton and poorly thought out free trade agreements. (See, that’s why I stick to Lewinsky. NAFTA jokes never kill. They just don’t.)

Quick side note. Microsoft Word has Lewinsky plugged into the Spell Checker. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and test it. I’ll wait...

See! Isn’t that awful? Does Hillary’s torture never end?

Back to the movie. The stepbrothers conjure laughs in every scene they’re allowed to dominate. But sometimes Apatow, the writer behind all these movies like Knocked Up and Wedding Crashers, becomes a little self-obsessed and wastes our time with a homage to the popular culture of his youth, such as one supporting character’s family singing Sweet Child of Mine. And while the stepbrothers’ scatological humor is always funny, the truth cannot be said for the supporting characters. Overall, you’ll laugh 84 percent of the time.

1 B. Batman: The Dark Knight
Dark. The movie is dark. Did I mention its dark? Yes, this isn’t your daddy’s Batman and it is undoubtedly not your mother’s Joker. Heath Ledger gives the last and greatest performance of his life as a maniacal sociopath. This murderous anarchist version of the Joker is as far from the 70's version as knock off purple drinks are from grape Kool-Aid. He’s not watered down sugar and food coloring, he’s pure, concentrated evil without a cause. If Anthony Hopkins deserved a best supporting Oscar for his small role in Silence of the Lambs, then Ledger should receive one for Dark Knight. And yes, I’d say this if he was alive. Two of his scenes—his monologue to Dent about chaos, and his speech to Batman as he hangs off the side of a building, are two of the finest bits of cinema I’ve ever seen. The special effects for Two Face’s mangled face are spot on and creepy. Christopher Nolan, the film’s director, obviously took some cues from the animated series that ran in the late 90’s. The film is gritty, on the edge, and without sympathy for its characters. On a more sour note, can we all stop pretending that Maggie Gyllenhaal is attractive? She’s not. Not in any way. She's like a skull wearing a brown wig. Her bitter scowls and frowns are about as endearing as the old lady version of Snow White’s witch, and I’m tired of her being forced into movies I want to see. All this said, she was a sliver better than Katie Holmes in Batman Begins. But since Mrs. Cruise became a scientologist robot, her acting chops are somewhere between a comatose gorilla and a box of Wheat Thins.


1A. Kung-Fu Panda.

That’s right. Kung-Fu Panda. Didn’t see that one coming, did you? The movie was hilarious from start to finish. The martial arts scenes were the coolest ones I’ve scene since the Matrix, and the voice acting was perfect. I mean, Angelina Jolie played a tigress and wasn’t even outlandishly breathy (see Beowulf). Like Hancock, this was a gem of originality in a summer that sorely lacked it. Jack Black voiced the Panda with...subtlety. Yeppers, he was nuanced and didn’t blast every line from a bazooka, as he’s prone to do in live action films. I will buy this on DVD the DAY it’s released, and this is the only movie on this list I’ll say that about. My single complaint was that it ended too quickly. The runtime was 1:31, but I could’ve sat there another hour or two.

Unwanted

I recently viewed the movie Wanted. The special effects appeared neat and a friend wanted to go, so I went.

God help me. I went.

This film is a crapfest in the truest sense of the made-up word. The movie opens (and continues on like a steam engine into a concrete wall) with an awkward narrative by the film’s main character, played by the dentally challenged (no, that’s not a typo) James McAvoy. The Scottish accent, his only charming trait, is hidden, though his troglodyte chompers are not. There is a reason I couldn't find a single pic of him smiling and showing his teeth. But perhaps I'm being too superficial.

Back to the narrative. Ever seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Notice how well his narration and lines aimed at the film’s audience worked? Wanted is like that, only if Paris Hilton and a retarded monkey—no, that’s not accurate—only if Paris Hilton and M Night Shyamalan wrote the script. Meaning it’s utterly stupid and boring to the point where I actually prayed the hyperactive statue of pubescence running the projector would spill his Code Mountain Dew and end my torture.

The story plods along with ridiculous concepts, such as the loom of fate (ba buh buh!) Yeppers, that’s what decides who Morgan Freeman’s secret society of assassins must kill. A literal textile loom weaves binary code, which is then checked with a magnifying glass by Freeman, and translated into an ordered assassination. That’s not sarcasm. That’s actually what the writers came up with. (Quit looking ath the loom! He'll kill ya!)

The other great farce is how they bend the bullets—the one thing that looked cool about this celebration of suck. Want to know how they do it? Here’s Freeman’s explanation.
“If no one ever told you bullets only shot straight, why would you think you couldn’t curve the shot?”

The Oompa Loompa Wrangler would think that you can be as ignorant as you want of basic physics and aerodynamics, but he’ll wipe your butt and call you Sally if you can make the bullet bend just because you decided to cup your ears during freshman Physical Science 101. Honestly, how can these writers not slit their wrists and rid the world of their hackery?

The film, after one or two scenes that met my approval only because they took screen violence to knew heights (such as all the explosive headshots, or the part where McAvoy shoots three guys with a gun he has lodged in another man’s eyesocket) ends with a mass suicide/killing and McAvoy insulting the audience. He drones on about how boring the average person’s life is, shoots someone, then says, “What the fu—did you today?” Roll credits and lame, testosterone drenched rock song.

The acting was magnificent in its atrociousness. Angelina Jolie cashed in on a paycheck and sleepwalked through the film, making it a long time since she showed off any true acting chops. Morgan Freeman became a caricature of a good guy you know is secretly bad, and uttered an expletive at the end that was so out of character it would be like Michael Vick doing a voice over for Pound Puppies.

If you see this movie showing at your theater, you should consider burning the theater down. It’s what the Loom of Fate demands!

My Grade: D--(Why not an F? Because I got to see a dude firing a handgun that was located in another dude’s skull, blowing out holes and chips of bone and brain AND hitting other dudes with the same shots. That’s good for two minuses.)