Quick Reviews Catch-Up Part 2: Summer Flicks

Continuing my rally to get to the land of semi-timeliness...and now we get to the movie industry's prime time.

Star Trek Into Darkness: A couple of the nods to the TV series were actually a bit much for me. I don't think it was good as the previous film. My grade: B+

Now You See Me: At times fun, stupid, mystifying, ridiculous...I had an idea of who was behind everything but was only half-right. I can't explain more without spoilers. My grade: B

The Internship: Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson reunited. No "Wedding Crashers" - not as raunchy nor as funny - somewhat predictable, at times charming but too stupid too often. My grade: C+

The Great Gatsby: Visually spectacular. I say this despite the fact that I got a 3D upgrade for free because the theater loaded up the 3D version by mistake for a 2D showing, so they had to give everyone the glasses. I'm not a 3D fan. Anyway, visually spectacular. Some of the music from the touted soundtrack fit well, some of it was jarring. Acting, though, was not good. If I never hear Leonardo DiCaprio call someone "old sport" again it'll be too soon. My grade: C+

Iron Man 3: Robert Downey Jr. is fantastic in this role, as usual, but the plot was lacking. Not as bad as Iron Man 2 but not as good as the first (and nowhere near "The Avengers"). My grade: C+

The Purge: The premise that for one night a year all crime is legal is provocative, but I was unsurprised at almost everything that happened. Not many sympathetic characters in this. My grade: C-

After Earth: Who comes up with a script that has Will Smith play a cold military dad and Jaden Smith play his son, a sour, whiny military cadet, in a future where the earth is a very bad place and humans live elsewhere, and the plot keeps Will in one place doing nothing most of the time? Will's talent and charisma (and whatever talent and charisma Jaden has) are totally wasted. My grade: D.

Quick Reviews: May 2012

Since I continue to procrastinate and waste time (not entirely wasting it, as I've had some stuff to deal with as well), I have to lump together the films I've seen instead of trying to do post after post. After today I've got seven that I've seen since the start of the "summer" movie season (which this year was, I suppose, the week "The Avengers" was released, which was before Mother's Day). Since I saw four of them in May, I'll wrap them up. Really, though, what's finally spurring them on is the one I just saw a few hours ago, so stay tuned.

Marvel's The Avengers: Do I really have to refer to this as "Marvel's"? Anyway, I am a bigger fan of the DC superheroes -- although with their "New 52" crap driving me away from the comic book stores, not to mention the better success of the Marvel character movies, it's a bit harder to say that. I have high hopes for "The Dark Knight Rises," but once Christian Bale's final Batman movie is over with, anyone trying to make a DC movie will seriously need to step up their game to come close to what "The Avengers" pulled off.  I was so dazzled that I had to really think of a reason to not give this a perfect A-plus grade. I finally came up with this: there's an obligatory scene where some of the heroes fight each other. This happens in the comic books and almost always is contrived -- they have to fight each other before teaming up to fight the bad guy. Even though in this movie it was almost plausible and understandable plot-wise, it was still there. My grade: A.

Dark Shadows: It started with a surprisingly long prologue before getting to the 1972 setting for the main story, which turned out to be quite disappointing. I love that Johnny Depp throws himself into these roles, and there were a few moments that were enjoyable, but resurrecting this old TV show just seemed totally unnecessary. My grade: C-minus.

The Dictator: If my generalization is correct, people mostly loved Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" and mostly hated "Bruno," although I loved both,

My iTunes Shuffle Baker's Dozen 9-16-09

This shuffle continues to perturb me with its repeats. Two important questions: one, why did two songs from the same Will Smith album play back-to-back, and two, why do I own this Will Smith album?

A Dream's A Dream-Soul II Soul
Jack U Off-Prince
Let's Go Out Tonight-Craig Armstrong feat. Paul Buchanan
Fire-The Pointer Sisters
What's New Pussycat?-Tom Jones
French Kiss (Original Underground Mix)-Lil' Louis
Gettin' Jiggy With It-Will Smith
Big Willie Style-Will Smith
Little Sister-Elvis Presley
I Like To Score-Moby
I'm Going Bananas-Madonna
Do You Remember-Jill Scott
Same Thing In Reverse (Kamikaze Full Popswish Mix)

The T.O. Show: FAIL

First he had to sign with the Bills because no other team wanted him. Now, it seems that "The T.O. Show," the VH1 "reality" crapfest starring the NFL's biggest diva, Terrell Owens, isn't exactly a ratings hit. According to the Sports Business Journal, the show "wound up tied for the 798th-highest-rated cable show of the week with, among others, a 5 a.m. airing of 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' on Nick at Nite."

More people want to watch a sitcom starring Will Smith before he became the biggest movie star on the planet -- at 5 in the morning, no less -- than want to sit and watch the infamous T.O. throw another quarterback under the bus, or whatever it is he's doing on the show.

Can't wait for that episode in which lake-effect snow buries Buffalo and he can't get out of his house. Oh, the hilarity!