Shane's Top 10 Most Anticipated Flicks of Summer 2012

"The Dictator" May 16th

10.a) Sasha Baron Cohen has earned my trust. It’s that simple. Borat was a pop culture phenomenon and Bruno is painfully underrated. In fact there was a stretch last summer where myself and some friends watched at least one scene from Bruno for two weeks straight.  So The Dictator makes the list despite looking a little up and down in the trailers leading up to its release. Doesn’t hurt that Anna Farris is backing him up, as she is one of the few really funny women in Hollywood by my estimation.

"Ted" July 13th

1010.b) Ted comes to us as the longtime brain child of Seth Mcfarlane, he of Family Guy and American Dad brilliance and fame. (Cleveland Show not so much) I thought Mark Wahlberg was awful in “The Good Guys” and haven’t seen his turn in “Date Night” so I’m going out on a limb with him as the lead funnyman in the only other summer comedy I’m really looking forward to. However “Ted” earned it’s spot on the list with it’s hilarious red band trailer. The notion of a grown man being best friends with a teddy bear he wished to life as a child is funny enough, but Ted is not going to be a lovable stuffed animal but instead a foul mouthed trouble maker. 

"Piranha 3DD" June 1st

9.) I hate 3D and don’t have a problem letting people know about it. I find it gimmicky and headache inducing not to mention distracting. However I saw Piranha in 3D back in 2010 and had a blast, the film embraced its B-movie camp and ran with it. Over the top deaths, pretty girls, and nasty 3D tricks makes for a nice change of pace on the summer docket and gets Piranha 3DD into the top 10.

"Battleship" May 18th

8.) I’m not going to try and down play my bias with this pick, Battleship is partly in this spot because it is another Taylor Kitsch staring vehicle. What do you want from me? He played one of my favorite TV characters for 5 years on one of the best TV shows of all time, that earns him my $10 to see what his film career is going to be like. I understand the criticism of the previews, yes it’s a bit absurd they’ve crafted a movie around a children’s board game, and yes the special effects look like those from Transformers. Here’s my case for the movie; the special effects look like Transformers and they've somehow managed to turn a dull board game into a convincing looking alien invasion summer blockbuster.(see what I did there) It’s produced by the same people that did the Transformers trilogy but helmed by Peter Berg, the guy who guided Friday Night Lights to the small screen. There was nothing wrong with the action or effects of the Transformers movies; we just got sick of seeing Shia make out with super hot chicks all the time while screaming “Bumble Bee!!!” over and over. The robots were awesome, put those effects into the hands of a more capable director and I think we’re going to have a fun 2 hours of summer popcorn flick goodness.

"G.I. Joe Retaliation" June 29th

 

7.) No matter how much you may have adored G.I. Joe as a child we can all agree that the 2009 movie adaptation sucked dick. It had nothing going for it. Channing Tatum fell short as the lead, they had Joseph freaking Gordon Levitt as Cobra Commander and made sure the audience didn’t realize it, and Marlon Wayans was given way too much to do. The only thing the movie had going for it was Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, and not surprisingly they are the only characters who have made their way back for the sequel. The trailers for this bad boy have been explosive and they’ve upgraded the cast. With the exception of losing uber talent JGL, the additions of Dwayne Johnson (10x more badass than Channing Tatum could hope to be), Adrianne Palicki's (FNL, cough, cough), and Bruce Willis as the original Joe to beef up the action resume, the cast is much more enticing. Add to that ninjas fighting on the side of mountains, Cobra infiltrating the White House, and cool G.I. Joe vehicles galore I think this sequel will atone for the abomination we put ourselves through back in 09.

"The Amazing Spider-Man" July 3rd

6.) I trashed this movie when I heard it was going into production and the first trailer last summer did nothing to convince me I was in the wrong. The first two Spider-Man movies were fantastic, admittedly the third was so bad it basically negated the series as a whole but I have a long memory. It wasn’t until I saw the final trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man that I realized I had been off on this one. I feared this movie would be Spider-Man for the Twilight generation, a little action mixed in with a love triangle between Peter, Gwen, and Mary Jane. Instead we are getting a fresh take on the Spider-Man mythos, an increase in the importance of Peter’s parents to his legacy, a wise cracking Andrew Garfield making the Spider-Man from the comics we grew up with proud, and a focus on Spider-Mans troubles with the law. I find The Lizard a little underwhelming as the villain, but the original trilogy used the best members of Spidey’s rogue gallery recently so I’m good with it. I loved the first two Sam Rami Spider-Man movies but I’m going to predict this is a superior film any of his efforts.

"Savages" July 6

 

5.) Yes, Taylor Kitsch has two movies in my summer top 10, maybe I’m in love with the guy. I don’t know. “Savages” looks like some excellent counter programming to the big budget, super hero movies, and popcorn flicks. A down and dirty drug thriller with a mean cast directed by Oliver Stone’s wild ass. This thing has the best cast of any movie this summer IMO. The great Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson (Kick Ass), Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro, Blake Lively, and John Travolta fill out “Savages” IMDB. I’m a big fan of casting two young up comers in the leads, showing “Twilight” how to really execute a love triangle (two drug pushers sharing the same chick), and two badasses tearing up the town with freaky masks on (a la  “The Town”.

"Snow White and the Huntsmen" June 1st

4.) In a loaded summer where there are 21 films I’m legitimately hyped to see I shock myself that a movie with Kristen Stewart playing Snow White sits at number 4 on my list but that’s the reality.  This movie looks like the best piece of cinema fantasy since Lord of the Rings in 2004. Sporting one of the best trailers I’ve ever seen this movie looks packed with action, sports a Chris Hemsworth who is becoming a bona fide movie star before our eyes, a creepy Charlize Theron playing a wicked queen, and Kristen Stewart in a role that doesn’t make me want to lock Gabriel away from civilization because I’m so disgusted at what her star making franchise makes me feel about today’s youth.  Some will be scared off by the title, but this is a can’t miss as far as I’m concerned.

"The Avengers" May 4th

3.)  There is nothing I can say about this movie that can’t be summed up by how deserving it is of the box office devastation it’s creating. It’s simply one of the finest summer blockbusters of all time. If you don’t believe me read a review, Google its Rotten Tomatoes score, or look at the line still formed around your local Cineplex. Moving on.

"Prometheus" June 8th

2. Just look at that picture above, it captures everything that is great about “Prometheus”. So chilling while not divulging anything that can tip you off to what exactly is going on.  Prometheus is benefiting from one of the greatest marketing campaigns of all time. I don’t know anyone who loves movies who isn’t drooling over Ridley Scot’s latest venture into sci-fi. There are at least 10 different trailers or viral videos out there right now that movie buffs have spent countless hours pouring over to piece this puzzle together, yet with all the footage available no one really knows what’s in store when the lights finally go down on this one. Alien and Aliens are classic movies, you can watch either one of them 30 years after their initial release and find yourself shaking your head at the suspense and thrills they provide. It would be easy to cash in on the nostalgia sci-fi fans feel for the franchise but Prometheus promises so much more for us. This isn’t some origin story of how the first xenomorph Alien came into existence, this is about a tipping point in history within the universe Ridley Scot has crafted, and the fate of mankind is at stake somehow. All this will play out and somehow tie into the beginnings of one of cinema’s all time great franchises, it’s almost so brilliant that it dares you to look away. We know something great is coming at us on June 8^th, just don’t ask anyone to explain exactly what it is. Sky high on this flick, in a normal summer Prometheus would sit atop my movie rankings and rule over all others, but this is no ordinary summer. This is a summer that concludes what will likely be one of the top 5 trilogies of all time……..

"The Dark Knight Rises" July 20th

                                                                             
  

1.)How could it be anything else? Christopher Nolan has crafted a world in which one could actually believe a Batman could exist, and taken one of the most beloved fictional characters of all time and made him into a real person. The first two Nolan Batman films have told such tightly wound and ambitious stories that although seen through the eyes of a man in a Bat suit they have both garnered Oscar buzz. Scary thing is how close we were to never getting a sequel to Batman Begins. I recall the movie opening somewhere in the 40-50 million dollar range, a huge disappointment given the draw a Batman film was expected to be. A funny thing happened though, the movie picked up more steam from week to week, not unprecedented at the box office but highly unusual from a comic book property. Batman Begins became a hit because it was that good, the word of mouth drove the box office high enough to warrant a sequel, and thank goodness because the movie landscape would look quite a bit different without The Dark Knight as a footnote. No movie, I repeat NO MOVIE, has ever had the kind of buzz TDK had going into its release in 2008. Partly because the trailers looked so good, partly because of what a game changer the original was in the super hero scene, partly because of early screening word of mouth, and partly because of the untimely death of Heath Ledger. All this culminated in a movie that exploded onto the scene with what I recall reading being described as “enough buzz to power an under water city”. It broke box office records (ultimaltly settling in as #3 all time on the domestic gross chart, a spot that will shortly be inhabited by The Avengers), drew rave reviews, and snared a post humus Oscar win for Heath Ledger in the role of a lifetime. The Joker ripped through Gotham City like a force of nature, with no rhyme or reason for his actions other than being a self described “agent of chaos”, and nabbed a place as one of cinemas all time best villains. This brings us to the door steps of The Dark Knight Rises, set 8 years after Harvey Dents death and Batman in hiding. The trailers let us know this is the end of the saga, one way or the other Christian Bale is donning the batsuit for the last time when he faces Bane at the end of the movie. On the heels of the first two films and with a director who hasn’t had a misstep in the last decade it’s hard to imagine him bringing to close his most acclaimed work in grand fashion. Can TDKR surpass the critical and financial success of TDK? That's a tall task, but TDKR claims number one on my list because it doesn’t have to compete against TDK for my affection. Sometimes in life the best things have already happened, but we keep waiting for something better to come along. So often in trilogies the third act falls horrifically short of the first two, so much so that it often devalues the previous movies, but in the careful hands of Bale and Nolan I believe we are safe. TDKR doesn’t have to reinvent Batman, or set up future Batman franchises, it just has to tell a great story. These three movies are interwoven, they tell a sprawling drama. The Dark Knight Rises just has to provide the worthy finish this saga deserves.