My Guide to the 2008 Summer Movies - Part 1

Well, summer is in full swing and Hollywood has prepared another full slate of summer fare for us, the masses to help us tolerate our otherwise boring and pointless lives (well at least my life is pointless). As a service to all who may stumble across my blog, I have put together a set of reviews/prognostications for the summer movies of 2008. There are many movies that I have been itching to see and some others that leave me scratching my head. But since I'm unemployed currently (try finding a job that doesn't involve name tags or hairnets when you are a convicted felon), I'm sure to be spending time at my local multiplex increasing the size of my ass with popcorn and Whoppers.

• Iron Man - wide release 5/2/08. Well I gotta tell you, my brother Turk was an avid collector of comic books (excuse me, graphic novels), and his collection had all of the usual suspects: X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, The Justice League, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Green Lantern, Spawn, Wonder Woman and the like. Iron Man was not one that he had in his collection. When you think about it, other than being a billionaire, there is nothing "super" about Tony Stark. He wasn't exposed to gamma rays, he wasn't bitten by a radioactive insect, he wasn't part of some government experiment, hell he wasn't even the victim of an overzealous nanny. He's just a dude with a boatload of cash that built a "supersuit." That being said, this movie kicks ass! Of the lesser known superheroes, Iron Man stands out (certain he's better than friggin' Aquaman for Pete's sake) and with the able direction of uber-fanboy Jon Favreau, the barely contained debauchery of Robert Downey Jr. (how is he not dead?) and the Oscar factor (Gwyneth Paltrow & Terence Howard), you can't go wrong...at least until The Dark Knight hits theaters. Predicted domestic gross: $350 million.
• Speed Racer - wide release 5/9/08. How could a movie with so much potential to be good (Matrix directors Andy and Larry Wachowski) suck so much? Oh yeah, it's friggin' Speed Racer. It seems clear to this amputee that the W brothers memory about how cheesy and stupid the Speed Racer cartoons were has failed them (I guess they don't get Boomerang on their TV). All I can say for Matthew Fox's turn as Racer X is at least he got to wear a mask. I get the feeling that Team W was sitting around a hookah and asked themselves, of all of the actors in Hollywood, who is the right person to bring to life the complicated pastiche of emotions that is Speed Racer? Tom Cruise? Jake Gyllenhall? Brad Pitt? No, we need Emile Hirsch (WTF?!?)! Who? You know, the kid who played young Houdini from the 1998 TV miniseries Houdini! Oh, yeah! He'd be awesome! With casting like that and the campy 60's cartoon as source material, this thing had Ishtar written all over it. Good luck trying to break even on this piece of crap. Predicted domestic gross: $45 million.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - wide release 5/16/08. I read all of the Narnia books as a kid (before I lost my leg) and loved them. I was very happy when The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe the books as it's big screen predecessor, but my only complaint is that it took it too long to make it back to the big screen. The actors are now much too old looking for their relative ages in the books (the youngest one went from being 7 to wearing a training bra but only 1 year of movie time went by...what happened there?). Go see this movie or you deserve to have your ass kicked again by your old junior high school bully (you know the one I mean). Predicted domestic gross: $150 million.
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - wide release 5/22/08. I don't care that the plot sucks. I don't care that there are dozens of continuity errors. I don't care that the script was tooled, re-tooled, re-tooled again and should have been trashed for something else. I don't care that there are no Nazis. I don't care that the dude from Even Stevens is in it. Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are back, baby! Like a true disciple of Indy, I will see it twice in the theater and then buy the special-edition DVD when it comes out in time for Christmas. Despite all of the aforementioned problems with the movie, this will still kill at the box office and the fat cats at Paramount will rake in the moolah. Predicted domestic gross: $285 million.
• Sex and the City - wide release 5/30/08. Unlike every other woman in America, I never understood the draw of a bunch of cigarette smoking, 40-something New York whores (I mean cougars) who were overly concerned with which pair of Jimmy Choos would match their 17-year-old cock of the month. So then why would I get excited about 2 hours of their continued complaining, shopping and balling, just because the queen of the 5th Avenue elitist WASPs finally decides to get married before her eggs shrivel up? I don't know either. However, since only me and single straight guys will be the only people on the plant who don't go watch it, the predicted domestic gross is: $150 million.
• Kung Fu Panda & You Don't Mess with the Zohan - wide release 6/6/08. Well, it's a match-up of formidable Hacidic Hollywood funnymen: Jack Black vs. Adam Sandler. Which Zionist will have the most clout at the box office? Only time will tell. The Sandman, has gone back to his screwball formula as a fish out of water. In this case, a former Mossad Assassin turn NYC hairdresser (but he's not gay or anything). It's not any less plausible than any of his other movies (except for the ones where he attempts to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor). JB serves up family fare as Po, the noodle-cooking kung-fu wannabe that is thrust suddenly into the role of the Dragon Warrior, the only one who can defeat the evil villain and save the village. I have to go with Panda in the head-to-head because the younger kids are fresh out of school and driving mom and dad nuts. Add in the Dreamworks label and PG rating and you can guarantee some cash changing hands at the theater. Projected domestic gross: $100 million & $150 million respectively.
  
• The Happening & The Incredible Hulk - wide release 6/13/08. Well, what can you say about this box office matchup? The first Hulk movie was a train wreck and that was directed by an Oscar winner. This current offering is directed by the dude who directed The Transporter and The Transporter 2: Electric Boogaloo. I'm not sure if it will fare much better. True there have been some serious upgrades in the casting department: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler and Tim Roth explode on the screen. In the other corner you have yet another M. Night Shamalamadingdong creepy-crawly that again can't possibly be as good as The Sixth Sense was. All I can hope is that it isn't as far off the deep end as The Lady in the Water was. Talk about weird and self-serving. The trailer was annoying. All I can gather from it is that Marky Mark walks around for 2 plus hours with his mouth hanging open like an orangutan while everybody else in New York dies. This also marks M. Night's first R-rated film which severely limits the audience. Just in case everyone else forgot, the summer is when kids are out of school and PG-13 is the rating that translates into box office gold. This weekend goes to my green buddy with a rage problem hands down. You can bet that I will see both of them, because Mitch loves all things R-rated. Projected domestic box office: $95 million & $200 million respectively.

Well, that's all for now my faithful DoD. I have to hit the sack early so I can continue looking for a job. I'm only doing it to keep Gary my parole officer off my back. Have a great week and I'll see you at the movies!