Erwin's Summer Movie Preview 2008

Here's the list of movies I want to catch this summer. In my younger days, I would have gone ahead and watched all these movies in the theater, and on opening night more often than not too.

Those days are long gone, unfortunately, and I'll be lucky if I see a third to a half of the movies on this list. For the purpose of this post, I'll list the movies by release date, and give them a number ranking after each one. These number rankings mean:

1 - Not missing watching this in the theater, come hell or high water. And If I could help it, on opening night also.

2 - Will try to watch this in the theater, but not necessarily on opening night though. I might just as easily end up watching it on DVD when it is released then.

3 - It won't kill me if I end up not watching this in the theater, but will try to eventually watch it on DVD.


May 2nd

Iron Man - 1: Based on interviews and trailers, this might be one of those pitch perfect comic book movie adaptations. And I've loved the casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark since Day 1.


May 9th

The Fall - 3: The Cell, story wise, was not that good. Visually, it was stunning. Maybe Tarsem has grown as a storyteller since then, but something tells me this is one for the Blu-Ray (especially visually).

Speed Racer - 2: Unlike TJC, I don't yell "This movie looks horrible!!!" at the TV at a bar when the trailer for this movie is shown, because I don't agree with him. This could be one for the Blu-Ray also, although if I'm in the right mood, I would probably watch this in the theater.

May 16th

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - 2: This was one of my favorite Narnia books, so will try to make time for it.

May 22nd

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 1: I grew up watching the Indiana Jones movies, and while the last image from The Last Crusade was the perfect way to end the series (Indiana, Dr. Jones and the rest of the group riding off into the horizon), I am still glad it's back.

June 6th

Kung Fu Panda - 3: Because it looks silly and it looks fun.

June 13th

The Happening - 3: M. Night's lost a lot of luster since The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable (although I loved Signs till the end. Why did he have to show the crappy alien???), but this one supposedly has none of the forced twists and turns his recent works had. If the story holds up, this could be surprisingly good. Plus, I don't think he's on screen either, thank goodness.

The Incredible Hulk - 1: Ang Lee made the mistake of trying to make a piece of art with his version of the Hulk movie. Quite frankly, most fans will take the Banner stuff to a point, but after that, they want to see Hulk Smash. It sounds like this is a point of contention between Ed Norton Jr. and the director against Marvel during post production (Ed Norton and the director seem to want go the Ang Lee route), but hopefully we'll still see a good and exciting Hulk movie.

June 20th

Get Smart - 2: Carell looks perfect in this role, and it looks just silly enough without getting annoying.

June 27th

Wall-E - 1: Because anything by Pixar, I will watch.

Wanted - 3: I've read the comic book, did not think it was as great as a lot of other people did. Who knows? Maybe I'll end up enjoying the movie version more with its tweaks.


July 2nd

Hancock - 2: Peter Berg's a good director, and the cast is certainly stellar.

July 11th

Hellboy II: The Golden Army - 2: I thought the first one was a great comic book to movie adaptation, and Guillermo del Toro is back, along with the entire cast, so the quality should still be great.


July 18th

The Dark Knight - 1: My unabashed love for Chris Nolan and Christian Bale and everyone else involved in Batman Begins is well known. Batman is my favorite super hero out there, and the fact they nailed the character perfectly in that movie (unlike the Tim Burton/Schumacher ones) made me so happy. And in this one, we get the big kahuna from Bats' rogue gallery in The Joker (played by the late Heath Ledger). This movie can't come soon enough as far as I am concerned.

July 25th

X-Files: I Want To Believe - 1: The X-Files is one of my favorite shows of all time and I can't wait to see Mulder and Scully together again.

August 1st

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - 3: AKA, The Mummy 3. I liked the first two Mummy movies, and I don't mind the whole concept behind this one. I mean, I'm not expecting Citizen Kane here or anything.

August 8th

Pineapple Express - 2: last year was the summer of Apatow, and this looks like another winner from those guys.

August 15th

Tropic Thunder - 3: I dunno, this could cross the line between funny and hokey really quickly I think, but I'm still willing to give it a shot.

So there you go: Erwin's Summer 2008 Movie Guide!