Forget “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
and “Kingdom of Heaven.” As far as I’m concerned,
today’s release of “Star Wars: Episode III ““
Revenge of the Sith” marks the unofficial start to the summer
movie season.
It’s sure to create a box office bottleneck for early
screenings previously unseen this year, but what it really comes
down to is this: Will the line wrapping around Westwood’s
Village Theater, waiting to see the birth of Darth Vader, interfere
with the crowd outside BJ’s, waiting to pay too much money
for an undercooked cookie with melting ice cream on top?
The answer, of course, is yes.
Contrary to current popular belief, other movies are coming out
this summer, too. And you’ll forget about “Star Wars”
0.27 seconds after the closing credits. Don’t worry. That’s
normal. It’s summer. You’ll have a new blockbuster to
obsess over next week.
With those interests in mind, here’s a guide to
Hollywood’s summer, based entirely on the films’
trailers, because that’s all we can see right now anyway,
which are all available online at www.apple.com/trailers.
May 27: If you’re a fan of Chris Rock, you’ll have
to go see “The Longest Yard” on Friday and take your
“little brother” to see “Madagascar” on
Saturday afternoon because he’s in both. You’ve
probably seen both trailers a few too many times already,
though.
June 3: You can see “Cinderella Man,” a
depression-era boxing movie starring Russell Crowe, but Ron
Howard’s schmaltzy directing seems to romanticize the
depression beyond recognition. But then again, at least it’s
not “The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.”
June 10: The problem with “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” is
that its trailer gives away the entire movie. Brad Pitt and
Angelina Jolie play a married couple who both happen to be secret
assassins and both happen to need to kill each other. Works for an
action movie, but when you see how bored they are with each other
at the beginning and how much fun they’re having by the end,
you know they’ll end up renewing their relationship and
escaping to some tropical island together in the end.
June 17: Can you remember a time when a “Batman”
movie looked good? Seriously, can you? The trailer for
“Batman Begins” plays off those expectations, showing
you some beautiful shots before introducing that whole superhero
thing. If the movie is meant to be a reinvention of the Batman
franchise, this is by no means a bad way to start.
June 24: As Will Ferrell points out at the end of the
“Bewitched” trailer, “They replaced Darrin in the
original “˜Bewitched’ and no one noticed.” So why
does the trailer (and presumably the film) seem to focus more on
Ferrell than Nicole Kidman?
July 1: Hey everyone! Look! It’s Tom Cruise! Making the
concerned Tom Cruise face when he knows trouble’s coming! And
it’s Dakota Fanning! Making the same face! Trouble must be
coming! It’s “War of the Worlds!” (Note: the
exclamation marks seem to be theirs, not mine.)
July 8: Q: How do you make an action movie with unknown actors
who look like they don’t know how to act? A: Just call it
“Fantastic Four” and make a trailer that only uses one,
overly dramatic line of dialogue.
July 15: We’ve all seen it, so everybody sing with me:
“Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka, the amazing chocolatier.” On
second thought, it may not be such a good thing that I could type
out that song without having to watch the trailer again.
July 22: “The Island” doesn’t have much
dialogue in the trailer and advertises itself as coming from the
director of “Pearl Harbor.” Sure, the trailer looks
pretty, but the trailers for “Pearl Harbor” looked
pretty, too.
July 27: From its trailer, “Stealth” seems to be a
movie about a fighter jet programmed with artificial intelligence
to fly itself. It eventually turns against its programmers. See
every other movie with artificial intelligence for examples of
this.
August 5: Steve Martin’s French accent is funny enough to
carry the two-minute trailer of the remake of “The Pink
Panther,” but it probably won’t be able to carry a
90-minute film.
August 12: I’m going to pretend that “Deuce Bigalow:
European Gigolo” doesn’t exist, and nobody can convince
me otherwise.
August 19: None of the movies have trailers yet. This does not
bode well. They’re probably the worst movies of the
summer.
August 26: Correction. “The Cave” is the worst movie
of the summer. I’d rather stare at a black screen for two
hours.
It’s just like a summer movie season to start with a bang
and end with a fizzle, similar to the action movies in it. On the
bright side: By the time August comes, it’ll be time to start
talking a “Star Wars” DVD boxed set.
Tracer wants to see “Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory.” E-mail him your favorite at
jtracer@media.ucla.edu.