Summer Movie Recap, Part I (23-17)

Part I / Part II / Part III

I see a lot of movies. From May through August this year, during the record breaking, four billion plus blockbuster season, I saw 23 films in 18 weeks. Without any further nonsense, this is where they rank from best to worst, although with one exception, I didn’t see anything I’d consider a ‘bad’ movie. So really it’s from just okay to best, or from semi-forgettable to brilliant.

The Lohan Memorial Award

23. Sunshine (imdb) (off.)

This is the new name for the worst movie I see each summer. And while I didn’t see either Georgia Rule or I Know Who Killed Me, I feel I suffered an equal, if not worse disappointment when the first two thirds of Danny Boyle’s space odyssey, which were stark and beautiful, essentially devolved into a seventies B-movie.

I have an extended, spoiler-tastic rant about how mad this movie made me here, if you’ve seen it or don’t mind knowing the ending.

The “Meh” Division

22. 1408 (imdb) (off.)

This is one of the only candidates for “sleeper hit of the summer,” as it made a quiet $82 million (bom), while garnering positive reviews for being “fresh” and “original.” Personally, I think it got a little too much credit simply for avoiding crappy genre tropes like small, horrifying Asian children and staying clear of the whole “torture-porn” pandemic.

Stephen King for some reason finds everyday objects very terrifying, and does manage to fill a hotel room with malevolence, but eventually the escalating scares start to lose any sort of consistent logic. I know that might be asking a lot from a horror movie, but unless your film's reality is completely David Lynch-ified, you have to have a satisfying explanation to get to your happy ending.

So 1408 is the first of a few films that were entertaining enough, but left me just sort of shrugging.

21. Day Watch (Dnevnoy Dozor) (imdb) (off.)

If you’ve seen the first film in this Russian-Matrix-on-Ritalin trilogy, Night Watch, then you know that they put “logical consistency” in the trunk of a car, drive that car off a cliff while diving out, and then shoot at it while it’s sinking.

A pretty standard Good Versus Evil, Light Versus Dark, Gumby Versus Blockheads sort of scenario gets bogged down by incredibly fluid rules about superpowers, non-Lost “Others,” vampires, werewolves, etc. And it’s paced too fast to even remember most of the characters names.

That being said, there are some cool visuals, and its interest to me was mainly as a cultural artifact, since it made a record $31 million in Russia (bom).

20. Shrek the Third (imdb) (off.)

I don’t even really have the effort to write about this one. It was okay, we all know what to expect, there will inexplicably be two more of these, Justin Timberlake is wholly unnecessary, blah blah blah.

The “Watch It On TBS If I’m Bored” Finalists

19. Transformers (imdb) (off.)

I was never really into Transformers as a kid (I was a TMNT guy, and I still am), so I wasn’t upset with any changes they may have made. And really, with Michael Bay involved, I was braced for the worst and relieved to find only general mediocrity.

What I later found hilarious was this music video by the Goo Goo Dolls, which paints the Shia LaBeouf/Megan Fox love story as some sort of passionate, timeless epic.

Let me tell you, the thrown in, badly acted, and cheesily written romance angle in Transformers is not even worth the Goo Goo Dolls guy getting worked up over in his generic way. Also Megan Fox was a worse actor than Bumblebee, and he was a CGI-rendered transforming Camaro that had no voice.

18. The Simpsons Movie (imdb) (off.)

The forerunner for this category before I ever saw it, since a major boredom killing activity for much of my life has been watching The Simpsons in syndication.

17. Death at a Funeral (imdb) (off.)

This was a fun movie to watch, but ultimately a little formulaic to ever need to see it again. Mostly I saw it for the immutable talents of both Peter Dinklage, who must be lonely as the only reputable little person actor with dignity, and Alan Tudyk, the first of two Serenity cameos that compelled me to see a movie this summer, as you’ll read tomorrow.

Part II, Numbers 16-9 are tomorrow, and the top eight the day after that. But while we’re here, these are movies I missed that I’ll have to catch on DVD later, otherwise known as Movies Not Appearing On This List: Paprika (so mad about this one), The Golden Door, Live Free or Die Hard (just never made it. One of those things), and Paris, Je T’aime.

And movies my girlfriend wanted to see, but I wasn’t enthusiastic about so we didn’t end up going: My Best Friend and Hairspray.