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Summer Suckage Review

It’s no surprise that this summer was one of the worst for movies. We’ve all been convinced of this with the sorry ass lineup and the reviews most of the movies have received.

It’s also pretty obvious that Hollywood fears creativity like an arachnophobic fears Spiderman, but Spiderman is an existing IP and Hollywood looooves to piss all over those.

Let’s look back to 2006 and see how this summer matches up with a few years before it. Hell, we may even throw in... a graph!!!

Michael Bay's next Blockbuster

Michael Bay has announced next summer’s big blockbuster and it’s not another Transformers. He’s called it his “dream project” and what will be the “defining picture in his career”.

Naturally, we were skeptical. However, once we saw some concept art and discussed the contents of the film with Michael himself we realized this would truly be the film he’s waited his entire life to make.

Vincenzo Natali made a name for himself in 1997 with his cult classic Cube, about a group of strangers trapped inside a gigantic Rubik's cube maze. The strangers are locked in without an answer to their incarceration, and every attempt to escape lands them into lethal, booby trapped rooms. In what starts as a bizarre coincidence, every stranger possesses an expertise that might aid them find a potential exit. Cube is a well-crafted, riddle-laden story that tips it's hat to The Twilight Zone. Nothing, released in 2003, is Natali's entry into comedy that continues his fascination with the groundbreaking t.v series. However, Nothing is perhaps the dorkiest sci-fi film not named The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. It 's like if Harry and Lloyd had stumbled on Rod Sterling's Samsonite case on their way to Colorado.

For whatever reason Tarantino has decided to do a top 20 list of movies since the time that he has been making movies.

1 - Battle Royale
2 - Anything Else
3 - Audition
4 - Blade - no not that Blade. I raised an eyebrow to this one too.
5 - Boogie Nights
[more inside]

District 9

Illegal Immigration is one of the polarizing and conflicting social-political issues facing the world. How does a country face the coming of people of a different race and economic circumstances and to what degree does that country balance the integration of foreigners while looking after it's own interests? And for these immigrants, to survive in a land that refrains to accept them in the lowest of conditions, to what extent can their self preservation be tried? In Peter Jackson's latest project, District 9, these and many questions are raised under the pretense of a gripping, raw, action/sci-fi faux-documentary directed by Neill Blomkamp. District 9 feels so uncomfortably real that you could imagine Anderson Cooper roaming around for some CNN special report.

Alien Trespass

Ever entertain the idea of what a director from the 50’s would do with today’s FX? Well wonder no further. This movie proves this is a bad idea.

The story follows an alien crash landing on Earth and some evil alien that was being transported to another planet getting out. Urp (the good alien) takes over the body of Ted Lewis and begins his hunt for the creature. He must capture it before it destroys the world. A cookie-cutter story, but it was this typical story that is supposed to be its entertaining part.

Tears of the Sun

The movie starts off with the SEALs returning from a mission only to be sent out again. Before the first act is up the movie can pretty much wrap. They get the Dr. and reach the extraction point. This can raise an eyebrow at first, but then you see what the movie is really about. It’s about these soldiers facing the fact that extracting the Dr. and leaving the rest of the people she was helping behind is not an option. This is the real problem with the film. It almost feels less like they are doing it for the people and more like Waters (Willis) is doing it because of a woman.