Where Have All the Summer Blockbusters Gone?

Is it me or did the Summer Blockbuster just go away. I remember last summer looking so forward to the big and little flicks such as Star Trek, Terminator Salvation, Night At The Museum 2, Funny People, The Hangover, Bruno, Public Enemies, the wonderful Julia and Julia, the modern-day 2001, Moon, Whatever Works, the out of nowhere – 500 Days of Summer and the heartwarming, Up.

Whether a fan of all of them or some of them, you have to admit that when you wanted to see a flick, there was one waiting for you to plop down your $9 and spend a few hours in the air conditioning being WOW’d. Hollywood was obviously prepping the movie making machine for a few years to leave us with a list of movies choices and lets not forget the ones that I didn’t mention. Until Avatar and Sherlock Holmes released in December 2009, Hollywood was crying foul – oh no, what are we going to do to make this year pay off.

Granted Avatar saved the year for the industry and more importantly Fox. Not Cameron’s greatest film to date unless you are a 12-year-old or a farm animal but a film that will most definitely redefine the way that movies will be made moving forward, as Pixar did with Toy Story the first time around. Animation has never been the same since now all we are left with are those creepy looking plastic things that give me a virtual headache. If cartoon animation doesn’t work anymore than please tell me why Fox owns Sunday night with Animation Domination, Futurama is back on the Cartoon Network with brand new episodes and Bart Simpson is older than Nick Jonas (in real-time).

So now we find ourselves in the summer of 2010. A barren and desolate wasteland that is being headed by a ton of Universal, Warner Bros. and Sony product (some good, some not so good but receiving reviews that are favorable due to the glut of releases).

Then we have LionsGate and Paramount just trying to make a film that is worth watching. After the Last Airbender from Paramount and during a film I saw today, a preview was shown for a film written by M. Knight. I am not kidding you that the audience was laughing when they saw his name.

With regards to LionsGate, Carl Icahn should rethink if he really wants to own this company with films like The Killers and the up coming Expendales (c’mon really). Maybe Icahn should look to invest with Rob Lowe who is currently positioning himself as the next David Geffen’esk mogul with the creation of his version of DreamWorks.

And lets not leave out the little kid on the block Summit, they got the formula down – make films that appeal to 16-24 year old girls and they will come (no pun intended).

It is obvious that I love movies and could take this blog in a few different directions by providing an overview or trashing each and every one of the films that Hollywood has released this summer so far. However, since I do understand how hard it is to create magic and do have friends in the industry, lets talk about the good.

Inception – I saw it today in an IMAX theater and will say that Christopher Nolan has surpassed David Fincher in great movie making (both my favorites). Inception was to me what Star Trek was last summer. Great writing, casting and most of all great directing. Although the first hour or so I found myself trying to figure out what direction this film was going to be going in – the pay off at the end was GREAT. And the biggest surprise was that Nolan relied so little on CGI. Amazing what a great Cinematographer and Director can create together. This made Benjamin Button look like an Indie!

This is a story unlike any I have ever seen before – think Bigelow’s, ‘Strangedays’ meets James Bond with an ending that answered ever one of my multitude of questions by the rolling of the credits. DiCaprio being from the school of Scorsese has been taught by the best. Instead of creating a cross between Pacino ad DeNiro, Scorsese has created an actor who will go down as one of the greats. Starting with Gilbert Grape to Inception, DeCaprio not only owns Hollywood but has become the missing link that Hollywood hasn’t seen since the likes of Hudson, Dean and Grant.

The future of the summer blockbuster is grim for this year but there are a few releases that could save the industry. Will Ferrell, the man who can do nothing wrong along with Mark Wahlberg in The Other Guys (Sony) and Dinner For Schmucks (Paramount). Schmucks has got to be one of the silliest premises to date and that combined with the wig on Steve Carrell and a great supporting cast is the flick that I am betting on.

So enjoy the vampires, the dreams and the Schmucks and lets hope that Hollywood gets back on track in 2011, because I personally haven’t been able to go to the movies lately – Last Airbender and Clash of The Titan – (yah right). I will end this on a positive note by saying that Toy Story 3 and Shrek 4 (again those scary plastic things), had great scripts and although they were ‘animated’, could be used to teach writers and directors how to make a great film.

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