And with a pathetic little whimper, it ends.
The summer blockbuster season of 2009 was a profitable one, thanks
to Wolverine, transformers, Harry Potter, The Hangover,
Up, Star Trek, and terminators. Last weekend saw the
release of the summer’s final big movie, Quentin Tarantino’s
Inglourious Basterds, and now we’re left with the crummy
leftovers—for national releases this week, there’s only Ang Lee’s
handjob-for-baby-boomers, Taking Woodstock, and two
shitty-looking, not-screened-for-critics horror sequels, Halloween
II and The Final Destination.
So summer’s done—and it felt empty, lackluster, weak. Two of
the summer’s biggest films/toy commercials, Transformers: Revenge of
the Fallen and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, were more like
parodies of blockbusters than actual blockbusters, while some of the
highest-profile releases—Funny People, Brüno,
Public Enemies—were met with underwhelming reviews and
ticket sales. Aside from the always-reliable Pixar’s Up, two
sci-fi films unexpectedly proved to be the most worthwhile movies of
the summer: Star Trek was this year’s crowd-pleaser for Trekkies
and non-virgins alike, and District 9 surprised audiences with a
welcome jolt of originality. But summer 2009 overall? Kinda crappy.
But that leaves hope for fall, which looks to be significantly less
bleh: September boasts the promising animated film 9, and Steven
Soderbergh’s The Informant!, and Diablo Cody’s Jennifer’s
Body, and Mike Judge’s next cult classic, Extract. The rest
of the year isn’t too shabby, either: There’s the Coen Brothers’ A
Serious Man, Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are, the
big-screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Wes
Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock
Holmes, and James Cameron’s Avatar. Then there’s the one
film that’ll be like a goddamn car crash no one can resist
rubbernecking: Michael Jackson: This Is It, in which the
director culpable for High School Musical will slap together
rehearsal footage from Jackson’s ill-fated comeback tour. In other
words, things are looking up—even if reading the title for
December’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel makes me want
to hang myself with this noose that I’ve painstakingly fashioned out of
barbed wire. Please engrave my tombstone with “Alviiiiiiin!”
