[...] The Summer ‘08 movie season: where successful movies played the movies disguised as other movies. 1 0 Votes 1 [...]

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Moviezz: And my 2-year-old just got a shirt with a button that plays “Wall-eeeee” and he chuckles heartily each time he presses it, which is pretty much constantly all the time.

Although the other day at lunch, my 2 year old nephew was quoting it “Eeeevaaaa….Eeeevaaaa”

[...] at Burbanked is offering up a sort of Summer Movie Roundup. Specifically, he’s asking everyone if they enjoyed what Hollywood had to offer. It’s a valid [...]

Tropic Thunder was a fantastic surprise, a big-budget comedy not afraid to let the dialogue take care of much of the laughs. I still tire of Ben Stiller as an actor, but this film is really good.

I agree with most folks that Crystal Skull is a solid bore (the opening scene in the refrigerator being the exception). Doesn’t matter I suppose, with a half-billion dollar international box-office take.

As for Pixar… the finest Hollywood storytellers, period. And their brilliance is in how effortlessly they mature. Monsters, Inc., which seemed so ingenious at the time, seems almost silly compared to where they are now. To me, Cars is their single misstep — and that was quickly remedied with Ratatouille.

Talk again.

Norm Schrager // Meet In the Lobby

You and I have written back and forth about Wall E. I will say that my four year old has seen it 3 times in the theater and would see it 10 more if we would let her.

I don’t think that Pixar is departing children’s movies, they’re just exploring good storytelling. Even Disney peppered in movies like Fantasia, but never forgot where the butter was.

I look back and I think that this was a good Summer for movies, however I really only enjoyed Iron Man, The Dark Knight and Wall E. I thought The Hulk was a bust, Indiana as well and Tropic Thunder didn’t do anything for me.

The hype before and after around The Dark Knight has almost soured me on it. It’s a very good Summer blockbuster. Every studio should hold it up and say “this is how a blockbuster should be made.” Wait, I think I’ve got an idea for a post.

I think though that I had the most fun with Iron Man. Maybe because I wasn’t expecting much.

Ray: All agreed, except that I can’t say I loved Iron Man. It was good, solid fun and Downey Jr., of course, was terrific (he’s better in in Tropic Thunder, though. MUCH better.), but the movie itself was fairly basic. Well-told origin story, decent effects, not a lot of character – and an entirely rushed third act which devolved into a very standard hero vs. villain showdown that wasn’t terribly innovative or compelling.

It was, for the most part, an impressive summer. I loved IRON MAN, THE DARK KNIGHT, and WALL-E. TROPIC THUNDER was great, and most of PINEAPPLE EXPRESS was offbeat fun.

Of course, this summer had – like many more before it – a few gut-wrenching experiences. Nothing can match the sheer horror of INDY 4, which marks a tremendously sad low in Spielberg’s career (and he knows it). SPEED RACER was an abhorrent, neon-colored swirl of vomit. SEX AND THE CITY was just as bad as I imagined.

But the good movies we received this summer … ahhh … they were ones to savor.

That pretty much describes me sitting through “Crystal Skull.” I never rooted so hard for a loser in my life, with the exception of my last Pirates game. It was basically the same experience, knowing something I had loved in my childhood was completely destroyed by greed and ineptitude and a complete lack of inspiration. Yet there I was, plunking down my ill-gotten cash for a movie I knew was going to be terrible, regardless of how much I would hope against all hope that suddenly a miracle would occur – the film would stop and the theater manager would pop in and tell all of us that a disgruntled projectionist had loaded a crappy film some disgruntled employee had cropped together using parts of bad films that ended up on the editing room floor. Just then, a real Indiana Jones film would start, one without the jaw dropping stupidity and WTF moments, one that managed to cull together all the best things about this character and the franchise, one that said, “hey gang, maybe George Lucas has one movie left in him and maybe he has degenerated into a complete douchebag sapped of all his creative abilities a long time ago in a galaxy far away.” The hell with it. I’m going to see TDK again and look forward to the next Bond film. What a crappy summer….