RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #17: SAME AS IT EVER WAS?

Ah! Summer movies! Love 'em, hate 'em... who can freakin' decide? Just like their cliched "It was a so-so year at the movies" annual denouncement of the past twelve months, the media likes to spend the few months before summer building up anticipation for all the big-budget, no-brainer, superhero junk-food flicks that they cram up our turkey asses like delicious stuffing from May through August. "Hey, Fat America! Run over your neighbor's kids with your resource-squandering H2 (while sucking down a 87-ounce Pepsi) to SEE THIS NOW!"

Then in September, the media chides us for not eating our greens, worrying about the depravity of our souls, and tell us why movies are in such a bad state THIS YEAR, which will turn out to be, inevitably, the big-budget, no-brainer, superhero junk-food flicks that you are still cleaning out of your anal cavity. Then they tell us the films we SHOULD BE WATCHING, all from September through November, and all of them POSSIBLY OSCAR-WORTHY. Oh, but then Christmas rolls around, and it's just like summer again, only with yellow snow. And then, suddenly its January, and the next batch of POSSIBLY OSCAR-WORTHY films are out, and the media is nagging at you again about all of those brain-dead Christmas films you wasted your time on (that they, again, crammed in your info-hole building up to the holidays). But you don't care. No, you're still trying to scoop that last handful of Santa Clause 3 out of your ass, and remembering sadly that Martin Short used to be so funny.

Summer movies... go to the ones that look interesting to you, forget the rest. Loved Over the Hedge enough to drag Jen's mom to it three days later. Washed down the sugar, though, that came with that flick's initial outing with a little blood from a heavy-duty Nick Cave western. I almost bored myself into carving "Dogs Playing Poker" on my chest, but was saved by Audrey Tautou's eyes in an underwhelming deciphering of the Code. Oh yeah, Ian McKellen rocks the world in both that flick and as Magneto in the new (and c'mon, there's no way this is the last) X-men charge. Not enough Colossus and Angel, but you gave me loads of Kitty Pryde and the Beast. It's a fair exchange.

But after that? We have a free night tonight, both Jen and I off together for a change, and we thought about seeing a film. Then we looked at the listings, and RV? Poseidon? Mission: Impossible III? Just My Luck? I think we are going to spend the night shopping; I will see anything once, but Jen is a little more discerning where our disposable income is concerned.

Speaking of M:I-III, outside of himself, can anyone take Tom Cruise serious in a non-ironic way in a film again? Oh yeah, Keanu Reeves gets by that way; I guess that so can the Couch Potato...

The List:
Over the Hedge (2006) - 8; The Proposition (2006) - 7; The Da Vinci Code (2006) - 6; X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) - 7; Closer (2004) - 6; The Dreamers (2003) - 7; Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior (2003) (DVD) - 5; Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) (TCM) - 6.