july will definitely be ruined by summer blockbusters.

transformers: i got a little ahead of myself on this one. i'm really lucky that i have friends like qualler and brigitte who somehow convince me that seeing transformers on july 4th is not only the right thing to do, it's pretty much mandatory. i had this quirky notion of "having to see transformers" not because i loved the cartoon or the toy when i was litte (i didn't) and not because i have any obsession or even remote interest in cars (i don't), but just because i HAD to. it's not just a marketing tactic to call it "the movie event of the summer," because it actually is the movie event of the summer. it's a given. you have to see transformers. just like i had to see armageddon or independence day. i tried explaining this to jerksica, but she just groaned, "two-and-a-half hours of robot fightS?!?!" and while that argument is pretty sound as well, i wanted to feel the way i did when i saw id4 (that's what us nerdos called it) on july 4th, even though i probably feigned that i wasn't that excited as i was in the presence of the drax that day. regardless, at 23, i could not replicate that intense feeling of "this movie is going to blow me away with its entertaining capabilities," but it was fun trying. kind of like realizing you're never going to be as passionate about the band that soundtracked your entire adolescence and kind of made you who you are today. that's depressing. so for a day, i just pretended like i was 12 again. harmless, right? but seriously, it was just two-and-a-half hours of robot fighting and overly wacky dialogue. too much, even for me when i was 12. not that that kept me from enjoying 4/5 of the movie. 12-year-old chris grade: A-. snobby adult chris grade: C-.

captivity: all we know is a girl is stuck in a box and is screaming and crying. maybe she's NOT getting tortured! maybe the torturer is NOT a man and the director doesn't subconsciously wish it was all real! maybe it's NOT more of a sick snuff porno than a gritty horror movie! maybe it WON'T make me feel like i've watched the worst parts of hostel parts 1 & 2 on repeat for 20 days and then vomited until i got the shakes! how much further can the proverbial envelope be pushed? will eventually the next horror movie from a promising young director that wants to "challenge what can be considered film" be just...damn, i can't think of anything worse and to-the-sadistic-point than a woman getting tortured and trying to escape as the movie's ENTIRE premise. predicted grade: F.

i now pronounce you chuck and larry: a full month before its release, i was already hearing from people that it's "actually not that homophobic." i hate that. how am i supposed to hate a movie about adam sandler and kevin james pretending to be gay when people are already defending it, before it's even released? i hate those who try to stop the hate. you know what else i hate? people who say, "a piece of art cannot be racist/homophobic/sexist." cuz you know what? if somebody feels offended by a piece of art because of its projections of and emphasis on race, sexuality, or gender (regardless of how it may be a stereotype, or an attempt at discourse, or WHATEVER), just let them be offended. let them call it homophobic. because you know what? in the deepest caverns of my blackened heart, i honestly believe that for every gay person that actually goes out and sees this movie and thinks, "huh i guess that wasn't ALL just gay panic jokes and adam sandler/kevin james probably learned how hard it is to be gay and ostracized by the majority of society after all," there are many many more subhuman straight men who see this movie and walk out of it still thinking (maybe not saying aloud, but thinking), "haha faggots." so you might say, "chris, that's an absurd estimation and assumption on your part." and i then say to you, oh that's right, i forgot about all those people who take life lessons to heart from an adam sandler movie. the point is, if adam sandler made a movie where he was in blackface for 90 minutes and then at the end of the movie washed it off, looked in the mirror, threw a lamp at it in slow-motion as a sarah machlachlan song soared overhead, and then went off to visit his black friend who was in jail, nobody would say, "well actually it's not THAT racist." predicted grade: F.

i don't have anything to say about harry potter, except i do NOT look like ron weasley or whatever the character's name is. and my agony experienced by random strangers telling me this will not end until this overbloated circus of a franchise ends. i will see the simpsons movie, although i haven't watched the show in 4 years or so and i stopped looking up when there would be a simpsons movie online about 6 years ago. oh and license to wed is out and ready to be ignored by everyone, including myself.

This entry was posted by chris, on Sunday, July 08, 2007. You can leave your response.