Media critic Tom Maurstad is busy reviewing new movies, so he's letting his alter egos handle the summer movie preview.
It's time for our annual look at summer movies. To provide a discussion about those whiz-bang-pow spectacles, we present an e-mail exchange between esteemed film critic T. Alfred Maurstad and pop-culture enthusiast Tommy Boy Maurstad.
Tommy Boy: Let me kick off this exchange because summer is my season. Summers in Texas are long and hot and summers in the theater are loud and flashy – and that's just the way I like them both. Movies in the winter, like the weather, turn cold and gray with everyone looking for their Oscar nomination. But in the summer, art takes a back seat to entertainment. T. Alfred: You say that as if it's a good thing; the two don't have to be mutually exclusive, you know. And I reject your premise that the summer movie season is a celebration of flash and a dead zone of substance. If you'd stop updating your Facebook page or playing Call of Duty long enough to notice, you'd see that things are changing. Summer isn't just about boom-pow-crash, anymore. There are some good movies opening. TB: Please. You say "good movies," and I reach for my remote control. You and certain Hollywood producers can try to rewrite reality, but it won't change. It takes more than a summer release date to be a summer movie. The new Terminator movie with Christian Bale, Terminator Salvation, is a summer movie. The new J.J. Abrams-directed Star Trek is a summer movie. A movie about Julia Child starring Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)? That is absolutely not a summer movie. TA: You cautioning me about rewriting reality? That's rich. What about the way Hollywood has transformed summer into an ever-expanding season? Summer used to be three months – June, July and August. Now the first "summer" movie, Wolverine, has already opened and we're only to the first weekend in May with "summer" movies like Citizen Game (a futuristic horror-thriller centered on a deadly video game) and Whiteout (based on a graphic novel and starring Kate Beckinsale) scheduled to come out through September. We're approaching the point of year-round summer. TB: From your keyboard to the Hollywood gods' iPhones. Summer movies are about spectacle-making, not about intricately detailed character-driven storytelling or award-winning actors finding an infinite variety of ways to convey the realization that life is hard. If I want that, I'll watch cable TV. What I want from my summer movies is to be wowed. I want the giant dorsal fin slicing through the ocean in Jaws; I want the White House blowing up in Independence Day. Show me something I haven't seen before or done so much bigger and better, I don't care that it has been done. TA: I'll grant you that there's a strong, even primal desire for the kind of experience you're talking about, maybe even more so this summer with the economy still slumping. A trip to the movies for a two-hour escape may be as close as a lot of people come to a vacation this summer. It's just the mindlessness of so much of this summertime cinematic spectacle; I'm not so much wowed as wearied. TB: I've already mentioned Terminator Salvation – a prequel that's set in the future, how postmodern cool is that? – so I'll just rattle off some of the other summer movies I'm waiting for. I wasn't all that crazy about the first Transformers movie, but that doesn't mean I won't be there on opening day for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. That should be a pure eye-candy adrenaline rush. And my inner nerd can't wait to see the Harry Potter saga conclude with The Half-Blood Prince. TA: Oof, that's another thing about summer that we hadn't mentioned – it's the season of sequels, although have you noticed? The numbers have disappeared from the new installments' titles. It's not "Transformers 2" or "Terminator 4." Hollywood has replaced numbers with colons, as if they don't want you to be reminded of how many of these they've made. Just the franchise name. Movies really have become brands. TB: Yeah, isn't it great? In that spirit, I can't wait for J.J. Abrams' rebooting of maybe the greatest brand name in pop culture, Star Trek. Early buzz is through the roof. I can't wait. TA: Uh-huh, may the force be with you or nanu-nanu or whatever it is you people say to each other. I'm looking forward to Chéri , the new Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons) movie that has a gloriously 50-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer taking up with a 19-year-old man-boy (Rupert Friend). And while Cameron Diaz is usually in your kind of summer movie, she's starring in My Sister's Keeper, based on Jodi Picoult's beautiful novel about a mother forced to make some terrible choices trying to save her daughter with cancer at the expense of her other daughter's sanity. TB: Whoo-hoo, can't wait; nothing says summertime fun like cougars and cancer. I'm also both eager and anxious at the prospect of Quentin Tarantino's new movie, the World War II adventure, Inglourious Basterds, starring Brad Pitt. I hope it will be great; I'm afraid it will be awful. But I can't wait. TA: Here's the funny thing: After all the pointing and counterpointing over summer movies, I know that the movie each of us is most looking forward to seeing is the same one, Public Enemies. TB: Absolutely. That's the movie of my summer: Johnny Depp as public enemy No. 1 John Dillinger and Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent who tracks him down. Machine guns blazing, all those fedoras and old cars flying – how can it not be great? TA: And don't forget Michael Mann directing. The director who went from making Miami Vice on television to some of the most stunningly designed and brutally beautiful crime films ever made. You see? Art and entertainment can come together, even in the summer. TB: Fine. This one time, you're right. Now bring on the spectacle. P.S.
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