The Super Duper Mid-Year Report

I felt I needed to post something, as I have been busy lately and not going to a lot of movies (that will change in the coming weeks) and thus I have hit a wall in material to write about. I will continue “My Summer of Scorsese”, and I will be seeing Inception again soon, which will be followed by an in-depth and spoilery post where I delve deeper into the film’s plot and mysteries. For now, let’s do something incredibly pointless! A review of the year so far!

January

Usually the first month of the year is a dumping ground for studios, but this year the fare was a bit above the average. We were given the very decent thrillers such as The Book of Eli and Daybreakers, as well as a Michael Cera comedy I actually quite enjoyed, Youth in Revolt. None of these films are life-changing, but they were all diverting enough while we awaited the Oscars. January was not without its dreck however, and we were treated to some pretty awful films like When in Rome and Leap Year.

February

Martin Scorsese gave us his latest offering Shutter Island in February. It is by no means one of his best films, but since this year has been pretty awful as a whole it remains one of the better films to come out thus far. We were also given a good, not great, thriller from Roman Polanski, entitled The Ghost Writer. Other than that, not too much to praise here. The Crazies is above average, but everything else is wholly forgettable. Kevin Smith’s career took a hit with the dire Cop Out, a bunch of attractive faces made a lot of money in the product (not film) that is Valentine’s Day, and John Travolta put on his cool-angry face in From Paris With Love. (My aunt thought she was about to watch a romantic comedy.)

March

Perhaps March is most notable for being the birth month of the “Super Duper Über Movie Fan Club”. The first movie I reviewed for the site was Green Zone, the uneven but ultimately satisfying Paul Greengrass-Matt Damon Iraq War movie that so desparately wants to be a Bourne movie. Tim Burton got made some good money for his Burtonizing of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the cop-movie cliché anthology film Brooklyn’s Finest was released, and we were taken back to the 80’s in the endlessly silly Hot Tub Time Machine. We were also given Greenberg, perhaps the most awkward protagonist of all time.

April

As the April flowers began to bloom, the monster known as 3-D began to show it’s weakness with the bad, bad Clash of the Titans, where Sam Worthington stonefaces his way through some impressive CGI, but it never goes anywhere worthwhile. Comedic royalty Steve Carell and Tina Fey teamed up in Date Night, a movie which would have been nowhere without them. The giddily ultraviolent comic book movie Kick Ass was released, which a lot of people objected to on moral grounds. It’s hard to defend the movie in that arena, but I was sucked in by its energy, and I think it’s worth a shot if you have thicker skin than most. A Nightmare on Elm Street was reimagined for the new millennium, and a movie called The Back-Up Plan was allegedly released. Yeah, I don’t remember it either.

May

May is always the start of summer movie season, and we got off to a glorious start with Iron Man 2, a superhero movie you can just sit back and smile at. It was not as good as the first, but within the context of this summer it’s just about as good as things get. Ridley Scott gave us a not-so-merry version of the tale of Robin Hood, and we were given the fourth Shrek movie, a series which ran out of steam 15 minutes into the third movie. The girls got a night out with Sex and the City 2, where they could discover just how miserable their lives are in comparison. The orangest movie ever, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was released as well. Of these films, only Iron Man and Shrek performed well at the box office, but the real flop here was MacGruber. It’s an interesting film, a movie I gave a positive review to, but my opinion as time has gone on is much less so. It was given a $10 million budget, meaning it would only make a profit. Right? Wrong. It only made $8.5 million and was pulled out of theaters faster than you can say Southland Tales.

June

The Judd Apatow comedy machine gave us another good time with Get Him to the Greek, the best pure comedy I’ve seen this year. Adrien Brody got a little too close for comfort in the weird, weird Splice, which is an interesting and ambitious film, even if it fails to reach where it wants to go. The A-Team was dumb and occasionally fun, but nothing to write home about, and the not-bad Karate Kid scored with audiences and became one of this summer’s greatest success stories. Pixar continued to dazzle with Toy Story 3, a magical movie experience if there ever was one. Jonah Hex flopped big time, and the movie factory gave us the generic Knight and Day, and Adam Sandler regressed back to the Stone Age with Grown Ups. The month ended with the third entry in the vampire-werewolf-crazy woman-hormones series The Twilight Saga, entitled Eclipse.

July (Thus far)

Yes, I know a real mid-year report would end after June, but I’m slow. The month of July gave us both the best of times and the worst of times. The worst was The Last Airbender, M. Night Shyamalan’s woefully inept fantasy film which singlehandedly set the film industry back 20 years. However, Christopher Nolan’s Inception sent the industry forward 20 years, so it all evens out. Between these bookends we were given the animated Despicable Me, the franchise semi-reboot Predators, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, which has not performed well thus far. Still ahead for us this month is the Angelina Jolie vehicle Salt, Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore looks to take down Inception from the top of my list, and Dinner for Schmucks aims for my elusive funny bone.

Best Picture Thus Far: Inception

Worst Picture Thus Far: The Last Airbender

This will all change dramatically as the year goes on. Once we reach fall, we’ll be looking at the Oscar bait. But I have a hard time not seeing Inception towards the top of my list come year’s end.