theMediaman.com

Well, normally I would only be writing this about a week late since Memorial Day just passed a couple of days ago. However, as I stated in my Summer Movies Prologue the movie season seems to be starting early this year. In fact, I think this is the first time we’ve ever had the first major $100 million opening weekend blockbuster AND the first major bust before the first long weekend of the summer.

I still qualify this entry as a “Preview”, because I have yet to see the four big movies that have hit the theatres so far. I can’t decide if it’s because I’ve been too busy or I’m just too upset by crowds to go to opening weekends. Maybe I just need to warm up first.

The first fact to note as someone who lives south of Eglinton is that there are now two megaplex theatres in the downtown core. With Paramount ScotiaBank Theatre now sharing the dense 2008 blockbuster season with the AMC24, there are still multiple showings of Iron Man instead of restricting it to two or three theatres while newer movies like Speed Racer and Indiana Jones fill up multiple screens.

The downside is that you’re no longer sure that the Paramount ScotiaBank Theatre will have “this week’s big movie”. It’s a requirement now more than ever that you have to check show listings to find out whether your movie is playing at John and Richmond or Yonge and Dundas.

It’s a small sacrifice I’m willing to make in order to ensure multiple showings per hour of whatever film I want to see. In the last few years I’ve often needed to resort to smaller cinemas like Varsity or Rainbow Market Square, or travel up to Eglinton in order to get a showtime I wanted for a movie that’s been out more than 14 days.

Iron Man I have discussed before. I was more thrilled about it before everyone was thrilled about it. While I’m hardly anti-establishment, I found that my interest in the film reduced as the general publics increased. Now that the film is sitting in the shadow of Indiana Jones I find myself ready to go see it. Maybe it’s just my fear of seeing movies with large crowds of stupid people.

Speed Racer was a “bomb”. It seems that all the layers of depth in the first Matrix movie have slowly disappeared in favour of pushing the limits of moviemaking. Along the way to making Speed Racer, the Wachowski Brothers changed the face of filmmaking once and that’s all it takes for immortality. However, reaching that bar again when it’s been set so high can be difficult or even impossible.

Just like a latter-day George Lucas, they may never make a true crowd-pleaser again. All they can hope to do is continue making movies they want - which is what I believe they did with Speed Racer. That’s what Lucas did with the prequels, and that’s also certainly what Peter Jackson did. After making his immortal mark on cinema, Jackson was given a blank cheque to make whatever he wanted. He decided to remake his favourite film, “King Kong”. The Wachowski’s made Speed Racer because they really wanted to. And although I know how bad a movie it’s supposed to be, a part of me wants to see it for that very reason.

The new Narnia movie has come out. I enjoyed The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, but it suffered from the overuse of CG battle scenes prevalent in today’s epic films. Following the Lord of the Rings movies, every epic has liberal use of massive battles. It’s kind of sad to think that the last true all-extras battle scene made by Hollywood will probably be Timeline.

Prince Caspian is the first of a series of open-ended movies that have come out following LotR that has actually resulted in a sequel. Eragon and The Golden Compass are two movies that come to mind that were left so open-ended that I felt cheated having invested 90 to 120 minutes in a movie that was so bad, it doesn’t have a chance of continuing. Not that I was very emotionally invested in the characters, but I hope an Eragon sequel at least comes out as a Direct-to-DVD release just so I can see John Malkovich get his come-uppins.

Sadly, the first Narnia movie was a complete story in and of itself. If I was able to connect with the characters more then I might have a bigger urge to go see this one. As it is, I’ll wait for the DVD and probably watch it with my niece and nephews.

While I really should have been one of those geeks who took the day off to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (you know who you are), I chose to reserve my vacation days for my upcoming wedding. However, I have reservations with this movie too. While most people are concerned about the age of Harrison Ford and/or Indy, or the nearly two decades spanning since the last film, my biggest concern is Shia Leboef.

I’m not particularly impressed by him. I find it slightly ironic that the new “heroes” of the 21st century (looking twiggy, geeky and about five years too young to be in a grown-up’s role) keep showing up in these 80’s series revivals like Justin Long in Live Free or Die Hard. Bruce Willis has Samuel L. Jackson in the last movie, and now he gets paired up with “hi, I’m a Mac”. Harrison Ford shares the screen with someone even tougher than he is when Sean Connery plays his father, and now he gets the twerp from Transformers?

He might be a great actor but I have yet to see that come out. Either way he’s “The Shit(TM)” in Hollywood right now. Just remember, so was Andrew McCarthy.

The final big movie releasing in May 2008 is the completely unneccesary Sex In The City. I’m not a woman, and I’m not over 40. The only episode of the series I watched involved a shot with an 80 year old man’s buttocks in full view. I doubt he’ll be in the movie, but forty (and fifty) something, hot-and-horny women on a four story screen appeals to me about the same amount.

June’s looking good, but before I get there I really need to see at least two of the movies listed above. Stay tuned…