Cover Story: Summer Movie Guide

Summer movie preview stories are nearly always misnomers. The writers have almost never actually “pre-viewed” anything, so they have no idea how good or bad the films really are. To try and get a better sense of the movies in question, we screened the trailers for some of the season’s would-be blockbusters to see how they looked. After wasting an hour-and-a-half trying to download the latest versions of movie-watching software, we gave up and just watched the previews through YouTube. We came away more excited about pirates, less enthusiastic about Miami Vice cops and wondering about the haircuts of Hollywood stars.

THE DA VINCI CODE (May 19)

The gist: In Ron Howard’s adaptation of the best seller, Tom Hanks plays a symbolism professor who uncovers a murderous conspiracy dating back to the Last Supper.

Carlton: His hair’s fucked up. I can’t take that.

Curt: Tom Hanks and the two new Miami Vice guys kind of look alike. They’re both dressed in black and have kind of longish hair. It’s too bad that the big buzz of the movie is how bad his hair is. It’s a good trailer because it’s fast, fast, fast.

Carlton: It’s supposed to be an action movie? It seems like it could be boring.

Curt: It’s more of a cerebral thing. The book’s like a Robert Ludlum spy story with all these historical conspiracy theories. But all the action scenes might be in that trailer.

Carlton: I feel like I might be tricked into going to see the movie because the trailer’s so fast, but it might end up just being a lot of conversations. I noticed that his voice didn’t sound like Tom Hanks — it sounded kind of different.

Curt: He’s probably talking in an intense way, because it’s a thriller, like how he says, “Da Vinci!” Maybe “Da Vinci!” will be the catchphrase of the summer.

X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (May 26)

The gist: A drug that suppresses “mutant” superpowers sparks an all-out war between the X-Men of Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and the evil mutants of Magneto (Ian McKellan).

Curt: Magneto never looks good with his helmet on.

Carlton: That’s why he doesn’t wear it too much.

Curt: I like the twisting Golden Gate Bridge. It looks like a big movie. This looks like it has a zillion characters using their powers to fight each other a lot. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan make everything sound like Shakespeare. But some online reviewers hate the script.

Carlton: I think they raised the bar with this one. This looks a lot better than the last X-Men movie.

Curt: It looks more like the first film, only with more good mutants fighting more evil ones, on a different national monument.

Carlton: That’s because the last one was X-Men United, and now they’re apart.

Curt: I see Kelsey Grammer in his blue, furry makeup as the Beast and wonder if he’s thinking, “I wish I saved more of my ‘Frasier’ money.”

CARS (June 9)

The gist: In this computer-animated feature, a talking, fast-living racecar (voiced by Owen Wilson) learns to slow down and enjoy life when stuck in a sleepy town off Route 66.

Curt: It looks kind of like Michael J. Fox’s Doc Hollywood, only instead of a doctor, he’s a ... car.

Carlton: You’ve got Paul Newman doing this serious voice — it’s like it’s trying to be this deep, emotional cartoon.

Curt: In the first trailer, it was like, “Look, it’s Larry the Cable Guy as a buck-toothed tow truck,” and people said, “This doesn’t look good.” I liked this one better, but mostly I’m thinking, “See how good the backgrounds and the rust look.”

Carlton: With Pixar, I’m very rarely interested based on the trailer. That’s the case with this, too. I can’t see myself going to see it, but I’ll go if someone else wants to.

Curt: I have faith in Pixar because I like their other movies so much, but with this, I keep wondering, “They’re cars, but they’re also people? How did talking cars make this civilization?”

Carlton: “And how do they use the bathroom?”

SUPERMAN RETURNS (June 30)

The gist: After five years in space, the Man of Steel (Brandon Routh) comes down to Earth and re-encounters Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) and Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey).

Curt: I like how they’re treating it like a sequel to the first two Christopher Reeve movies, which were good. But Brandon Routh looks sort of like Jason Schwartzman from Rushmore.

Carlton: The trailer’s actually kind of slick. It makes you feel a little tingly.

Curt: It’s good with the iconography of the movies and the comic books. It looks like a really good “Smallville” episode.

Carlton: It makes Superman look more like a Jesus-type figure. They want to give you a sense of awe. Sometimes movies don’t capture that, but this looks bigger than life.

Curt: I like that the trailer’s more about mood than stuff blowing up. But I want to see Lex Luthor. I don’t want them to give the whole thing away, but I’d like to get a sense of what happens after the first half-hour.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 2: DEAD MAN’S CHEST (July 7)

The gist: Johnny Depp’s tipsy Jack Sparrow returns, pursued by a monstrous, tentacled Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) who demands his soul.

Carlton: Did you like the first Pirates?

Curt: I thought it was big and stupid, but the acting and dialogue were a lot better than I expected. It didn’t seem like a movie that lent itself to a sequel.

Carlton: I don’t remember anything about the first movie, but this one looks pretty good. But why are Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom sword-fighting each other? I thought they got past all that. I hate buddy movies where they don’t like each other.

Curt: This looks like it has more monsters than I expected, almost like The Lord of the Rings. If it’s got giant squids, I’m excited. It might have kind of a Ray Harryhausen quality to it. I want to see any movie where someone says, “Summon the kraken!”

MIAMI VICE (July 28)

The gist: “Miami Vice” creator Michael Mann updates his 1980s cop show with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx as present-day, drug-busting Crockett and Tubbs.

Carlton: It looks so heavy. It looks like Heat more than anything. And what’s the deal with Colin Farrell’s mustache? He looks like a hillbilly. I am glad they’re rebooting it instead of having them play, like, nephews of the original characters, the way they did in the Shaft remake.

Curt: It looks like there’s a ton of guns and hardware in it. It looks more like a serious Bad Boys movie than anything else. I’ll bet there’s not a single laugh in it.

Carlton: The show was kind of heavy. Don Johnson was this haggard dude whose girlfriends were always getting killed.

Curt: It was as heavy as it could be with a Phil Collins song playing.

Carlton: I was looking forward to the movie more before I saw the trailer. It didn’t look like Miami — it looked like Los Angeles. I was expecting more sun, sand and bikinis. Where are the pastels?

TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY (Aug. 4)

The gist: Will Ferrell plays a dim-witted NASCAR driver who faces a snooty French racing challenger (Sacha Baron Cohen, aka “Ali G”).

Carlton: Well, I’ll tell you, it looks funny. If you liked Anchorman and 40 Year-Old Virgin, you’ll probably like this.

Curt: It might be a better vehicle — no pun intended — for Will Ferrell than Anchorman was. It seems like there’s a lot of room for making fun of NASCAR than Hollywood has done so far, because they don’t want to make the Red States mad. There’s got to be plenty of fodder there.

Carlton: I liked that trailer lot — I’m just hoping they didn’t show all the best parts of the movie.

Curt: I love it that Will Ferrell’s sponsor is Wonder Bread, and that the Frenchman’s is Perrier. I like the line when Will Ferrell refers to “My beautiful sons, Walker and Texas Ranger.”

IDLEWILD (Aug. 25)

The gist: Atlanta’s Andre “3000” Benjamin and Antwan “Big Boi” Patton of OutKast star in this jazz-era musical, linked by the sound of their modern-day hits.

Curt: Is that Atlanta’s Carol Mitchell-Leon?

Carlton: There’s Ben Vereen.

Curt: And Macy Gray.

Carlton: It looks interesting.

Curt: It looks sort of fun. But they’re hip-hop pioneers ... in the 1930s?

Carlton: That’s the problem. It’s going to be totally a period piece gone wrong. It could be like Moulin Rouge, seemingly like an alternate dimension. But if they play it like a real period piece, it’ll seem inauthentic.

Curt: It looks like a music video with a Cotton Club setting. You wonder, if it was a bunch of individual videos, people would think it was great, but as one long feature film, maybe not so much.

Carlton: It reminds me of that Prince movie, Under the Cherry Moon, which was also in the 1930s.

Curt: Maybe that’s not a good sign. They probably didn’t go into it saying, “We’re trying to make the next Under the Cherry Moon.”

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III (In theaters)

The gist: Superspy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) matches wits with a vicious arms dealer (Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman) who targets Hunt’s fiancee (Michelle Monaghan).

Curt: There’s definitely a lot of action in it. I like the part when the explosion blows Tom Cruise into the car, and then the plane goes by right overhead.

Carlton: The question is how much of that was digital.

Curt: You’re right. I’m sure the plane wasn’t really there.

Carlton: Was that even him hitting the car?

Curt: They could have put his face over a stunt man. That’s not fair. It reminds me how the first two had enough good action scenes for a good trailer. At least this is a sequel with a number in the title — the other sequels this summer try to pretend that they’re not.

Carlton: Man, I hated the second one so much. He’s suddenly this kung fu master. When did that happen? In the first one, he got his ass kicked by Jon Voight.

Curt: Maybe the question answers itself. When you get your ass kicked by Jon Voight, that’s a wake-up call.

OVER THE HEDGE (May 19)

The gist: In DreamWorks’ cartoon feature, a band of woodland creatures (including Bruce Willis and Steve Carell) invade a gated suburb in search of junk food.

Carlton: They have some very un-kid-friendly stars to do the voices, like Wanda Sykes and Nick Nolte.

Curt: It looks sort of funny, but it’s really bad for animals to eat junk food. I hope they address that, to end with the animals prevailing, but not eating human food.

Carlton: Maybe that’ll be the message, because if they push animals out of their habitats, all they have to eat is junk food.

Curt: Stuff like where the squirrel burps the ABC’s — as a dad, I don’t like that much vulgarity. It’s just embarrassing in front of kids.

Carlton: With these movies, it’s a fine line because they want to make them for kids, but so adults can like them. This looks like it’s going a little too adult.

Curt: It’s like they’re teaching our children this dirty humor. You’re not going to want to hear your kids burping the alphabet afterward. But it looks like more fun than DreamWorks’ other movies.

DRAWING RESTRAINT 9 (June 2)

The gist: Acclaimed Matthew Barney directs, scripts and co-stars with girlfriend, singer Björk, in this visually provocative, almost wordless tale set aboard a Japanese whaling ship.

Curt: OK, there’s a boat ... and a septic treatment plant of some kind?

Carlton: I don’t want to see this already. There’s Björk. She always wears weird clothes.

And what the fuck is that?

Curt: Is she being lowered into a big bowl, like Björk soup? This looks like the worst tour of Japan ever.

Carlton: It’s like a vat of fat or something. What are those, maggots? I won’t bring snacks to this movie.

Curt: Now, a woman’s spitting pearls, or something. Felicia can review this one.

Carlton: This is a summer movie?

Curt: Only in the sense that it’s coming out during the summer.

Carlton: It’s counter-programming, I guess.

Curt: I like an art film as much as the next guy, but I don’t want to see one set on an industrial boat doing whatever it is they’re doing. Because you know they’re going to be like, “We’re just gonna sit back and watch them do a job for, like, 10 minutes.”

Carlton: That’s the kind of movie I like to watch on DVD, so I can stop it. I don’t like being locked in a theater with that shit. It’s probably gonna be a downer. It’ll numb you.

Curt: You’ll watch them do their stuff with the whales, and other weird things, then the main couple go off alone, and that’ll be how it ends. I actually like seeing that kind of film more in a theater, because if it’s really slow, it’s less distracting. Whereas at home, you’ll do anything rather than pay attention.

THE OMEN (June 6)

The gist: In this remake of the 1976 occult flick, a father (Liev Schreiber) suspects that his young son (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) is actually the Antichrist.

Curt: It’s coming out on June 6 — get it? 06/06/06. It’s like they’re making it again just so they can release it on that day.

Carlton: The first one was a scary-ass movie.

Curt: There’s nothing scarier than children. And squeaky swing sets. And private school uniforms.

Carlton: It looks like a lawn jockey uniform. Maybe he’s a lawn jockey that comes to life. That would be scary.

Curt: Any kid who looks directly at the camera in a movie is evil.

Carlton: I can tell he’s possessed by looking at him. You don’t need to let him grow up. Is that Mia Farrow as the nanny? It would be funny if she was playing her same character from Rosemary’s Baby.

Curt: Sure. Giving birth to the devil’s baby would give you great credentials for being the nanny of the Antichrist.

Carlton: It looks kinda scary. It looks like kind of like Bebe’s Kids, too.

WAIST DEEP (June 23)

The gist: An ex-con (Tyrese) turns to robbing banks to raise $100,000 to retrieve his kidnapped son from a mobster named Big Meat.

Curt: I wanted them to say “Tyrese IS Waist Deep”!

Carlton: That’s stupid: You kidnap this little black kid and then you try to get $100,000 ransom? Give me a break. And if they’re robbing safe deposit boxes of the bad guy, why wouldn’t he just kill the kid?

Curt: Are you sure that’s what he does? Because that doesn’t make sense. It does look like the movie has a little social commentary about “being in the system.”

Carlton: And if Tyrese doesn’t want to go to the police to draw attention to him, why doesn’t he wear a mask when he robs the banks? Dumb.

THE LADY IN THE WATER (July 21)

The gist: In M. Night Shyamalan’s latest supernatural tale, Paul Giamatti plays a sad-sack superintendent who meets an aquatic being (Bryce Dallas Howard) in a swimming pool.

Carlton: Do you like M. Night Shyamalan?

Curt: I think he can be good. I think he shouldn’t write his own ticket so much. He should have someone who tells him when his ideas suck.

Carlton: I think he’s been doing the same thing too much, where you have to wait to the end for the big secret.

Curt: Supposedly, there’s not a big secret in this, and it’s a little more sweet.

Carlton: Is that the guy from Sideways?

Curt: Yeah. “Hmm, we need someone who can play a loser. How about the Sideways guy?”

Carlton: So is it a mermaid in the pool?

Curt: Something like that, apparently. They’re calling the movie “A Bedtime Story.”

Carlton: I hope I’m not sleeping in the movie. I dunno about that one, it looks kind of slow.

SNAKES ON A PLANE (Aug. 18)

The gist: Bloggers have already made a sight-unseen cult of this thriller, in which Samuel L. Jackson’s FBI agent takes on hundreds of snakes slithering through a plane in flight.

Carlton: I’m worried about this one. Snakes on a Plane — also known as The Mortgage Is Due.

Curt: They were going to change the name to some thing like Pacific Air Flight 121, and supposedly Samuel L. Jackson said, “If it’s about snakes on a motherfuckin’ plane, it should be CALLED Snakes on a Motherfuckin’ Plane.”

Carlton: If he’s shooting snakes with a gun, that’s pretty stupid on a plane.

Curt: I think the idea is that he’s delivering a witness under federal protection, and the killer has put a bunch of snakes on board to get him, including a giant python.

Carlton: What kind of sloppy-ass hit man is that? You can get 400 snakes on a plane, and can’t get one bomb on board? It looks dumb.

Curt: People seem to be excited about it being a dumb movie, but will it be the right kind of dumb movie?

Back to the beach

Summer should be about going out, having fun and creating new memories, not sitting back and ruminating on old ones. Maybe that’s why so many nostalgia pieces take place in summer to capture the most beautiful, bittersweet moments of childhood and the transition to being a grown-up. If a sudden thunderstorm keeps you stuck indoors, you might want to let some sunshine in with some favorite retro films about the mystique of summer. The soundtracks alone make them worthwhile.

Jaws (1975). Admittedly, nostalgia was the last thing on Steven Spielberg’s mind when he made the classic shark attack thriller. Viewed today, it not only captures sweltering family vacations on the beach, but now makes you hark back to the first time you saw Jaws and spent the rest of the year being too scared to set foot in the ocean.

Grease (1978). Perhaps the John Travolta/Olivia Newton-John musical shouldn’t be on this list; technically, it takes place during a school year, and not summer at all. But with its fairy-tale take on the 1950s, it’s one of the most nostalgic films ever made, and arguably no song evokes summertime puppy love and passion better than “Summer Days.”

Pauline at the Beach (1983). A French teenager (Amanda Langlet) spends the summer with her bombshell older cousin (Arielle Dombasle). Though not a period piece, this laid-back, insightful comedy from Eric Rohmer makes no locale look as sexy or sun-drenched as the Mediterranean in the early 1980s.

Dirty Dancing (1987). This feel-good ugly duckling tale set at an early 1960s Catskills resort features a lovely performance from a pre-nose-job Jennifer Grey and a laid-back turn from Patrick Swayze. A sleeper hit during its original release, it’s become an oft-quoted audience favorite (“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”) But doesn’t the song “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” sound a little too ’80s for the ’60s?

Dazed and Confused (1993). Richard Linklater’s time capsule takes place on the last day of school (just like George Lucas’ American Graffiti) and captures the liberating feelings as summer vacation starts, as well as such 1970s pastimes as beer, pot and classic rock — none of which have completely gone out of style since then.

Crooklyn (1994). A few years after capturing the most volatile summer day imaginable in Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee presented a more mellow (if at times tragic) depiction of a 1970s Brooklyn from the point of view of a little girl, with wall-to-wall Motown hits. Look for a cameo from RuPaul and an interlude set in the rural South with intentionally distorted photography.

That Thing You Do! (1996). Tom Hanks wrote, directed and co-stars in this modest but charming tale of four teenage rockers’ memorable summer as a one-hit wonder rock band in the early 1960s. Hanks features a brilliant running joke: The band’s name, “the One-ders,” is meant to be pronounced “the Wonders.” But nobody gets it right, so they constantly hear things like, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Oneeders!” or “You Oneeders are great!”

-- Curt Holman