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Top 5 Anticipated Summer Movies
The first few months of 2008 has been a real movie wasteland. A couple of interesting releases, but nothing all that great. As summer approaches, things are looking up a little. The guys at Filmspotting will be doing a top 5 anticipated summer movies on Friday, so in an effort to beat them to the punch, here's my top 5:

• It goes without saying: As a twenty-something geek, there are certain movies that are just way too obvious to put on this list (otherwise, my list would look like everyone else's list). In no particular order: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and The Incredible Hulk (these last two worry me a bit, but I will most assuredly be seeing them).
• The International: The most art-housey of the films on my list sounds like one of my favorite kinds of art house movies: the art house crime pic. Director Tom Tykwer infamously combined art house and crime in his brilliant 1999 film, Run Lola Run and while I don't expect this film to be that good, I think it still shows a lot of promise.
• Trailer Trash: The funniest part of the Grindhouse double-feature last year were these "fake" trailers for non-existent movies (for example, Werewolf Women of the S.S.) that they played between the two main features. Director Eli Roth (who did the hilarious Thanksgiving preview, a pitch perfect parody of the original Halloween trailer) had the idea to make an entire movie of fake trailers. It's a high concept, but it sounds like it could be a lot of fun, and Roth seems like a decent choice to head this sort of thing up.
• The Happening: M. Night Shyamalan gets a bad rap because everyone loved his first few films but not his most recent films. The impression is that he's just getting worse and worse but from my perspective, I've never been all that impressed with him in the first place. Sure, I enjoyed his first few movies a lot, but I didn't consider them masterpieces. I think both The Village and Lady in the Water are flawed yet entertaining movies and I really don't understand the almost universal dislike of these two movies (though I will note that I saw both of these films with very low expectations, which could be part of why I enjoyed them). For the most part, my opinion of Shyamalan's work hasn't changed much. I tend to enjoy his movies, and so I'm looking forward to this one.
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army: Guillermo del Toro has emerged as one of the better fantasy/horror directors out there, and the first Hellboy was quite enjoyable (I mean, come on, monsters, the occult, nazis, Cthulhu-like creatures from another dimension - what's not to like?). This second film looks to be an even more eclectic mixture of "folklore, myth, and fantasy" (as he describes it). I love this quote from del Toro: "...he's saving the world from an archvillain who's determined to do, you know, very arch things."
• Pineapple Express: I like stoner comedies. I like action movies. What's not to like about a stoner action film? This movie, the latest from the Apatow juggernaut (written by Seth Rogen and starring a bunch of Apatow gang members), follows two stoners who go on the run after witnessing a murder. It doesn't sound like much, but then a couple of years ago, two fellas set out for White Castle and it ended up being one of the more enjoyable movies of that year (there's a sequel to that one coming out soon too, but it doesn't look so great). Probably not fine oscar-caliber cinema, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless.
• Honorable Mention: The X-Files: I Want to Believe, Step Brothers, Hancock, WALL-E, and Speed Racer

And there you have it. Honestly, this year isn't shaping up to be all that great, though there are some promising movies coming out later in the year (including new films by David Fincher, the Coen brothers, and maybe even Darren Aronofsky).

This post is part of the Kaedrin Weblog. It's been categorized under Movies and was originally published in April 2008.

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A whole movie of spoofed trailers?

Actually, there has been something a lot like that. Rather than being trailers, it was excerpts from a mythical TV network. The movie was "Tunnel Vision" and the creative genius behind it was Phil Proctor of "Firesign Theater".

Later there was another one like that, pretty much a ripoff of TunnelVision and not as good. I don't remember its name.

Aha! I'm remembering slightly wrong. The other was "Groove Tube" and it was earlier.

But it still wasn't as good.

It's gimmicky, but I'm sure it will be fun. Probably a lot more raunchy (it's Eli Roth after all - the guy behind Cabin Fever and the Hostel movies) that the movies you mentioned though:P

Now that you mention it, Groove Tube sounds familiar. I've definitely never seen it, but I think I heard someone mention it once on a movie podcast or something. I added it to my netflix queue (Tunnel Vision isn't available). Of course, it's at position 116 in my queue, but I'll get to it eventually (within the decade at least!)

I'm pretty amped about the Iron Man movie and had no idea they were re-re-doing the Hulk. Supposedly Favreau is a big Iron Man fan and comic geekboy so he should at least maintain some of the story integrity and the cast is perfect for the roles.

The other pics sound interesting too - best, James

The Hulk did kinda come out of nowhere. I think they were hoping everyone would forget the Ang Lee version from a few years ago (which I didn't hate, but which also wasn't the greatest). I'm a little worried about this one though.

I think Iron Man will at least be entertaining, but I'm trying to maintain realistic expectations. We'll see. I have to admit that the trailer looks ok, but I hate that they used the Black Sabbath song in it...

Yeah, that's silly... but, well... how could they not? =P

I'm going in with moderate expectations, because Marvel has a bad habit of taking perfectly good movies, and botching them.

I have to say, though, given the track-record of Marvel, Hellboy 2 is waaaay more of a no-brainer to me than Hulk is. I'm cautiously optimistic about Hulk, although I'm not super psyched about their depiction of Abomination right now, but Hellboy 2? I'm torn between whether I'm more excited about it or Dark Knight.

Hellboy 2 is definitely more exciting than The Hulk movie, and is right on par with The Dark Knight and Indy...

I was reading in EW about the Hulk, and apparently Ed Norton and the Director (the guy who did the Transporter) wanted to do a longer cut of the movie, but Marvel wanted a shorter, more commercial cut (under 2 hours). Apparently it wasn't that big of a deal until the media escalated things, and now Norton is refusing to do any publicity for the movie, which is probably part of why we're not hearing much about it... I think Marvel's stance is probably reasonable - they already tried a long, meditative version of the Hulk by a respected director, and look where that got them. Personally, I'd rather see Norton's cut of the film, but it looks like we're going to see Marvel's cut...

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