The End of Summer

For all comprehensive purposes, the summer movie season is pretty much over.  Sure there's still a few big Hollywood leftovers.  Dinner for Schmucks, despite terrible reviews will likely perform well on the charms of Paul Rudd and Steve Carrell; Scott Pilgrim vs. the World will appeal to the nerds; Eat, Pray, Love is for the ladies, while The Expendables is there for the male baby boomers.  But really, we're headed in the final stretch; the dog days of a summer movie season that now regularly starts a month and a half before the actual calendar change.  What has been learned.  Surprisingly, this year has felt like the revenge of the moviegoer, and for that I'm fairly proud.  Many of the superfluous, franchise bait excess has been discarded by smart discerning film fans.  Why didn't Iron Man 2 exceed the gross the original?  Because it wasn't as good, pure and simple; and while I balk at anyone who would regard a film that grossed north of $300 million a failure, it most certainly felt uneventful.

The same could be said for forgettable depository nonsense like Robin Hood, Prince of Persia, Sex & the City 2, The A-Team, Shrek Forever After, The Sorcerer's Apprentice and The Last Airbender.  Whew!  Fortunately for smart discerning moviegoers, hope did eventually come in a wonderful two-week period in July when two very different films with two very audiences opened to respectable numbers and glowing reviews.  The films I speak of are Inception and The Kids Are All Right.  What both films represent in a summer movie season of regret and longing is that specific, intelligent films do exist in the proverbial waste land of noise and pandering to the desirable younger male demographic.  They represent, in a clear way, that pop entertainment can be just that, but also carefully shaded with bits of substance for those who crave it.  It's important to note, I think, that Inception, courtesy of the most consistent big budget pop filmmaker of the moment, was a product of Warner Bros., and The Kids Are All Right an independently financed Sundance hit, with the fortunate nurturing of Focus Features, proving a upswing in the recent trend of smaller scaled films having trouble breaking out of the major cities.  Big will always have it's place in the summer time, but small needs a place too.

Other lessons learned from this season at the movies, aside from Christopher Nolan's pure awesomeness and sperm donor comedies can be heartfelt and smart, were:

• 80s nostalgia works, except when it doesn't (The Karate Kid was a big success because it appealed to those who grow up with the original, as well as their kids; plus Will Smith's son likely inherited a few of his genes; however The A-Team stalled because all it had going for it was the hardcore fan base, and really how big can that be?)

• Tom Cruise needs to get Paul Thomas Anderson to write him another part; as evident by Knight & Day's blase reception.  Give up the action star model for a while, and delve into character work-- you might regain your reputation, and possibly get that Oscar!

• Pixar is still the king of everything, evidenced by the singular beauty of Toy Story 3, which just might be the best third act in Hollywood history.  I said it, hyperbole be mad! 

• Jerry Bruckheimer may have totally lost it altogether, based on Prince of Persia and The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

• 3-D works, except when it doesn't!  Nobody really complained about those high admission prices for Toy Story 3 or Despicable Me, because the product was good, but really how long will it be until the idea of 3-D is almost totally rejected if Hollywood keeps offering shoddy, and hideously ugly products like Shrek Forever After and The Last Airbender.  Remember, 3-D isn't exactly a new filmmaking device, it's been around for decades, and has died before!

• Angelina Jolie is the new Tom Cruise.  Since her Salt was originally scripted for Cruise, I suggest that every film Cruise is offered should eventually be played by Jolie... 

Of course, now the subject goes from popcorn to sincerity, as we move towards the second half of 2010, and the real ugliness starts to come.  As Oscar bait films come out left and right, toppling one another in buzz, or hype and fancy packages.  Thinking of the first half of the year so far, we have a few legitimate Oscar contenders in Inception, The Kids Are All Right and Toy Story 3.  Robert Duvall performance in Get Low has received kind words in the best actor category, while actress in shaping to be one of the strongest in a while with The Kids' Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in the mix, as well as Winter's Bone's Jennifer Lawrence, assuming the conversation continues on both films.  Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon and Despicable Me should stick it around for animated feature, while Inception will likely lead in technical nominations.  And if the critics remember all the way back in February, many of them were kind to Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer and Martin Scorcese's Shutter Island.  Meanwhile, spring indies Please Give and Greenberg might have a small hope in the original screenplay category if a few things fumble in the wintery months.

I'm getting ahead of myself...I'll stop and regroup.