Irish Rican & El Guapo's Summer Look

By Ryan 'The Rican with the Irish name' McLelland on May 19, 2008

Irish Rican here.  Nothing brings me more thrills than the summer movie season.  This summer looks to at least promise enough chills and thrills to match my favorite summer movie year of all time - 1989.  Could 2008 beat a summer that brought us Batman, Ghostbusters 2, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, UHF, Point Break, Lethal Weapon 2, Say Anything, Do the Right Thing, and more?!?!?  Well Iron Man certainly kicked things off with a bang, didn't it?  This week certainly saw a crash and burn with Speed Racer as well. 

So what is Irish Rican most looking forward to?  What do I think is going to bite-the-big-one?  Here's a list of 3 flicks I think will be great and 3 that will blow chunks.

IRISH RICAN'S TOP 3:

1) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull



There's no denying that Harrison Ford still 'has it.'  For many of those who didn't believe he could put the fedora back on (myself included at times) that all came to a grinding halt when the trailer hit and we saw ol' Indiana trying to manage swinging from the rafters using his whip and failing miserably.  Put Steven Spielberg and George Lucas back along with Raiders of the Lost Ark's Karen Allen and new sidekick Mutt (Shia LaBeouf) and you have something that has been missing for a long time: an old fashioned exciting action movie. 

I've been gearing up for this the past few months with the three releases of the Young Indiana Jones DVDs (one even features Ford himself on the small screen) and I'm poised to proclaim this is the one film that will not disappoint.  New and old fans alike will come to the saga and those who think this may be the last film should start realizing that Shia LaBeouf could be poised to continue his role for many sequels to come.

Let's just get geeky here...it's INDIANA JONES.  I don't care how old Harrison Ford is.  The man can be 241 in his wheelchair chasing after Osama Bin Laden and I'll still be there to see it.  Because no matter how many bombs the man has done in recent years (Firewall=Barf Bag, Hollywood Homicide=several suicides in theaters) he can still pull people with his franchise films.  I don't wanna hear his too old.  If they announce Han Solo is coming back for Star Wars VII tomorrow fans would be overjoyed (especially if George Lucas wasn't directing).   The return of Karen Allen just makes this fourth film a bit more sweeter.   The fact that just the trailer to this film brought sweet tears to my eyes makes it the sweetest.
 
2) The Dark Knight



There are six comic book films hitting theaters this summer - Hellboy II, The Incredible Hulk, Wanted, Iron Man, and Hancock.  None of them can come even close to what Christopher Nolan has done with The Dark Knight.  From being the first feature film to shoot parts of the flick in IMAX to a performance as the Joker that will make Heath Ledger a legend for the next few decades this sequel to Batman Begins will hit cinemas like a ton of bricks. 

What's not to like when you get rid of the worst part of the first film (it rhymes with Matey Scolmes), bring back your stellar cast of Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman, while bringing in the ultimate baddies in Ledger and Aaron Eckhart's transformation from DA to Two-Face.  This sequel will be everything you wanted Batman Returns to be but will deliver.  The lone downfall: You'll be sad that Ledger won't be around to resurrect his character in the next sequel.

Let's just get geeky here...this film will kick some mother-flippin' ass.  The first one kicked ass, the cast kicked ass, and everything about this newest addition will kick ass.  Through good and through bad the Bat-films have endured to be the finest superhero franchise.  It has endured since the age of serials, endured a feature film in the sixties, endured Tim Burton, endured Ah-nuld, and has finally become the best superhero flicks out there.  I've only decided to do one superhero flick on the top 5 (sorry Iron Man...I still love you.  Call me and we'll do lunch) and it was a very easy choice to name The Dark Knight.
 
3) Wall-E



Pixar makes good films.  Even their 'decent' films blow most films out of the water.  So here we have a film about a robot who is cleaning up the Earth.  Most of his cleaning counterparts are long disabled and Wall-E continues with his programming until another robot lands on Earth.  Wall-E follows this robot back into space where he finds all of Earth's humans still living on giant pleasure ships waiting for Earth to 'be clean.'  Do the cutesy robots talk?  Not really - the film will have minimal dialogue.  Why is that a good thing?  Because Academy Award winner Ben Burtt is bringing his enormous cadre of sound making this flick sound like a BILLION bucks.

They showed us a ton of footage at last year's San Diego Comic-Con and that moved from feeling 'meh' about Wall-E to making the film a must-see.  The footage and sounds are that good that it is a film that draws you right in the second you see Wall-E rolling around cleaning our dear blue planet.  It has the makings of a monster hit that will sneak up on most movie-goers.  The flick will have amazing reviews and I have a feeling word-of-mouth will be high for this film.  I truly can't wait to bring my son to the theater to watch it.

IRISH RICAN'S HONORABLE MENTION:  The X-Files - I Want To Believe



It was a hard pick for an honorable mention - it came down to X-Files and Mummy 3.  I don't think Mummy 3 will be a great film because the other two weren't great films.  They were FUN films and I do believe the third one will be fun as well.  I do miss The X-Files terribly so that's what brought me to this honorable mention. 

Every time the series is on sale I buy one or two seasons.  Right now I have six seasons and the feature film and they rock.  There's three more seasons for me to go and I'm probably not going to get to them before The X-Files: I Want To Believe.  Will it matter that I missed the last three seasons?  Probably not especially since David Duchovny missed the last two himself.  This time around the film isn't centered on the mythology which made X-Files so cool.  No it has to do with some 'monster of the week' plot.  Or does it? 

Do we really know?  Director Chris Carter doesn't really care about sharing information with us.  He just wants our butts in the seats and getting the grosses on this way over $100 million so we can enjoy more X-Files movies in the future.

Will the movie be good?  Unlike the last film they've had several years to hone the script.  Hopefully that works in their favor.  Reuniting Mulder and Scully is wonderful since they weren't together for those last few seasons.  So even if the movie is about a mutated Care Bear stalking some villagers while Bigfoot is spotted eating some picnic baskets I won't care.  It's a new X-Files movie.  I'll sit back and rejoice, knowing all is truly right in the world. 

Unless the movie sucks.  Then I'll be licking gummy bears and tossing them at the screen.

IRISH RICAN'S BOTTOM 3:

3) The Love Guru



I haven't enjoyed a Mike Myers film since the first Austin Powers.  The second and third Powers films were decent but were just rehashes of the first film.  It's like they took the first script, crossed some stuff out, added some stuff, and changed the names (though the addition of Mini-Me rocked). 

Proving that you can't go back to the well we now have the horrible looking Love Guru which makes me groan every time I see a poster, TV commercial, or trailer.  It screams bad.  It screams not funny.  Even with Justin Timberlake, Verne Troyer, Ben Kingsley, Jessica Alba, and Romany Malco this thing will be a mess.  Shit even with Brad Pitt, Bill Paxton, Bruce Lee, James Dean, Orson Welles pre-wine cooler commercials, my grandma Flo, Han Solo, Neo, Buckaroo Banzai, Bender Bending Rodriguez, Bill & Ted, and Jesus this movie would still be god-awful.

Not only that but I'm sure peeps of Indian culture will most certainly be offended by this idiot trying to ham it up for laughs.  I can only hope that this is not a film I'll be reviewing in theaters.  Myers has long run
out of steam.  My advice?  Go rent So I Married An Axe Murderer and the first Austin Powers instead of going to see this garbage.

2) Sex and the City: The Movie



This one is very hard for me to put on the bottom 3 and I'm sure there's a legion of female fans who will already cry fowl for including this on the bottom list.  I loved the show and will admit that I've seen....every episode.  I've also seen every episode of Brisco County, Jr. and Parker Lewis Can't Lose so hopefully that balances everything out.

Sex and the City was a great show and it could possibly be a great film.  There's been so much hype about it and that's what scares me...can the film truly live up to the hype?  Can it really add anything to the show or will it just be another train wreck bad TV adaptation?  All the players are back including the creators, stars, and writers so it has everything going for it.  That's why the disappointment could be that much greater.  The flick might really rock and if it does I guess I'll be happy - but something tells me that fans might watch this film and think, "why didn't they just leave the TV show as it was?"

I can easily admit that this pick could be the worst of my bunch and has the possibility of being quite good.  Or the actresses could look 105 years old on screen.  Either way a legion of female fans will be there no matter what the hell I think.

1) The Incredible Hulk



You know it is bad when two months before a film is set to be released there is no trailer.  No poster.  No teaser poster.  No teaser trailer.  No pictures of The Hulk.  Just random released images of Edward Norton doing things in a lab.  Yeah - because that's what fans want to see.

Finally the poster comes out.  It blows.  Bill Bixby called down from heaven and said, "I already did that and did it better ya mook."  The trailer came out and it still looks like damn Steroid Gumby.  Now the Abomination is in the film and he looks like a CGI piece-o-crap.  Then we find out the last 20-30 minutes is a brawl between Hulk and Abomination.  Well with the shitty lookin' CGI this is one finale that looks to bore the living shit out of me.

I'll be honest: I don't think technology is to the point where we can do Hulk.  We can do all these dinosaurs and Star Wars monsters yet we can't do a convincing Hulk.  Hulk still looks like shit and no matter how many great actors you put into the film the monster still doesn't sell it.  And the fact that they aren't releasing more on this film - more posters - more trailers - just tells me that this might be the biggest Marvel piece-of-shit since...um...Spider-Man 3.  But that movie really sucked.  However The Incredible Hulk's Steroid Gumby may overtake Emo Peter for possibly the worst big budget Marvel film.  The whole "It has Edward Norton" thing doesn't work for me now that I saw that shoddy trailer. 

Let's cross our fingers boys and girls but something tells me you are going to need a clothes-pin on your nose to deal with the awful stench that is The Incredible Hulk.

EL GUAPO'S TURN!!

Ryan put up his list and he asked me to join him in talking about our most anticipated summer movies. Because Ryan's column needed to be dumbed down, I thought I'd offer up my picks.

So here we go, my top 5 most anticipated summer movies and the 3 I think will stink up the theaters:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - May 22nd



Despite what I've heard about this film (heard being 'it sucks ass') I'm still looking forward to this one the most. Why? Because it's a character I grew up with. Do I think they should have made another one? No. I think Lucas lost whatever talent he made us think he had twenty years ago, and Spielberg has had his butt kissed for so many years he thinks he can make anything good. Since our aging bearded dynamic donut eating duo made another one though, I'm gonna go see it like the rest of you and hopefully not complain later. And for the record, The Last Crusade, except for the father/son scenes, was a shitty movie. Sorry.

The Incredible Hulk - June 13th



Unlike Ryan, I'm actually looking forward to this movie. I'm a big Hulk fan who actually enjoyed the Ang Lee film (except for the messy 3rd act). This version of the Hulk doesn't look as good as the version in the previous movie but as long as he's destroying as much as possible i guess it doesn't matter that he looks like a giant post alcoholic binge turd. I don't think Ed Norton was really the best choice to play Bruce but he's one of my favorite actors and I think his screenplay will be pretty good.

Whoever is behind the marketing though is really fucking things up. They're not pushing this movie hard enough. Look what Paramount did with Iron Man. They CRAMMED that film down our throats. Warner didn't with Speed Racer and look at what happened to it, $20 million on it's opening weekend. Know what made more than that in its opening weekend? Waterworld. And that was back in 1995 and opened in 1,400 fewer theaters. Don't do the same thing with your film Universal. Learn from other studios and their mistakes.

Wall E - June 27th



It's a Pixar movie, and having seen the first 35 minutes of the film, I'm more than ready to see the rest of it. I feel bad for Angelina Jolie's Wanted movie that's opening the same weekend because it's going to get its ass kicked by Pixar.

The Dark Knight - July 18th



I liked Batman Begins, but having to sit through it a second time was a chore. It was too long and the first half of the film was kind of dumb and too Rob Roy-ish for me. But then again, I didn't want to sit through Batman's stupid origin again. Even though this film is supposed to be dark, it'll be fun for kids of all ages I'm sure. I'm not buying Heath Ledger's role as The Joker but I'm sure they haven't shown us any of his really crazy scenes yet. If this movie disappoints then the jokes on us.

Tropic Thunder - August 15th



Holy crap! A Ben Stiller movie that isn't going to suck? Just when Ben made me like him after his role in Dodgeball, he went and made The Heartbreak Kid and forced my hand into hating his guts again. But with RDJ (as he is now referred to by the cool Hollywood circle) helping him out, this comedy looks like it could be a big money maker and cap off what will be Paramount's biggest summer movie season to date.

Honorable Mentions: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Pineapple Express, Babylon A.D., Get Smart, Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Which I've already seen and is really good)

3 Movies I Could Care Less About:

Sex and the City: The Movie - May 30th



The day you get me to sit through a film about four aging vaginas who still think they're sexy is the day I quit this business. I have zero desire to see Sarah Jessica Parker on the big screen alongside the other three annoying bitches with dried up baby exiting canals. Watching Kim Cattrall in a sex scene makes me want to throw up. Oh, and speaking of Sarah Jessica, didn't she have to be euthanized when she broke both ankles in the Kentucky Derby?

The Happening - June 13th



M. Night Shyamalan's latest film looks as awesomely stupid as his last three pieces of crap. The world is on the brink of extinction just like his film making career is on the brink of extinction. I like how it was previously called 'The Green Effect' pretty much telling you why the planet was in danger before they changed the title. Sorry M, you lost your golden ticket years ago.

The Love Guru - June 20th



Do I seriously have to sit through more of Mike Myer's lame ass jokes? It's obvious the tone of this was meant to be for a 4th Austin Powers film, but somewhere along the way he changed his mind and it became this debacle. And with the awesome acting powers of Jessica Alba and Verne Troyer behind it, it's going to suck even more. What happened to the funny guy that was on Saturday Night Live?? I mean, you don't really have an excuse, do you? At least Jimmy Fallon does because he was never funny to begin with.

That's all she wrote boys and girls but what do you think?  What are the films you can't wait to see?  What are the ones you'll be having DVD bonfires for?  Let us know - ryan@latinoreview.com or george@latinoreview.com

Source:Latino Review