Friday, May 18th, 2012
THE SUMMER is here. Although the weather is trying to convince us otherwise, meteorologist have informed me that it is in fact summer. This means we have much to look forward to! Barbecues, holidays, Wimbledon (if tennis is your bag), and various other generic summer events/activities.
Anxious wait for the main players
Summer blockbusters are also very much underway for one of the cultural and business giants of the world: the movie industry. All the big studios, Paramount, Warner Bros etc are waiting anxiously to see who will come out on top.
Having a successful summer blockbuster is almost a necessity for the big Hollywood studios, hence the sequeloma and superheroitus that they all seem to have contracted.
Pandering to the masses
This has lead many film critics to bemoan the lack of originality within mainstream Hollywood and their insistence on pandering to the masses. However, there are often welcome surprises for summer movie goers.
One of the great surprises of last year was the Christopher Nolan Inception. It showed us that blockbusters didn’t have to be a super hero movie or a sequel or have the comparative IQ of a spoon in order to make piles of cash.
Come on there, keep up!
Nolan’s mind-bending film worked on so many levels. He assumed Inceptions audience would be intelligent enough to keep up with the complex themes and story, whilst the movie itself was also emotionally engaging and packed full of the action one would expect from a film released in July.
J.J Abrams’ Startrek (2009) was another great summer blockbuster and so was John Favreau’s Iron Man (2008). But neither of these films reached the dizzying heights of Inception, and unfortunately the vast majority of summer blockbusters don’t even get close.
And now for something completely stupid
Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) for example is arguably one of the worst films I have ever seen. I could put my head in a blender for two and a half hours and gain a similar experience to watching Revenge of the Fallen. It would be a lot cheaper too.
What will be this year’s Inception? I am rooting for original sci-fi Super 8, J.J Abrams new movie which seems like a good choice in the summer blockbuster stakes.
Grant Dick, wowdewow blogger, likes his movies on the deep side.
Do you like your blockbusters mentally challenging or do you prefer 2 hours of brain dead tosh? Comments welcome
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Tags: christopher nolan inception, good choice, Iron Man, j.j abrams new movie, lack of originality, michael bay, mind bending, movie industry, necessity, summer blockbusters, super hero movie
