Last year’s summer movie season, in the wake of countless disappointing potential blockbusters, was (say it with me now) pure indie heaven: Fahrenheit 9/11, Before Sunset, Super Size Me, A Home at the End of the World, Napoleon Dynamite, We Don’t Live Here Anymore, Garden State and Maria Full of Grace were some of the season’s (and year’s) best. But what this summer lacks in small-indie prestige, it makes up for in wonderfully sequel-less tent-pole bombast; studios are releasing the "must-see spectacle of the summer" every weekend – and ultimately, isn’t that truly what the season is all about? (Note that all release dates listed apply to North America and are subject to change.)
We start with the obligatory big-Oscar-contender-released-in-the-summer picture, a tradition lovingly maintained by the likes of Unfaithful, Road to Perdition and Seabiscuit. This year, it’s Million Dollar Baby-in-the-Depression boxing drama Cinderella Man (June 3). Considering it stars Oscar-winner Russell Crowe, Oscar-winner Renée Zellweger, and is directed by (yup, you guessed it) Oscar-winner Ron Howard, the trailer already has "Best Picture" written all over it; the last time Crowe, Howard, and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman collaborated, they produced A Beautiful Mind. But if The Aviator taught us anything, it’s that early Oscar frontrunners are easily KO’d by a left hook.
The season is all about the blockbusters, and this year’s crop is anything but vanilla. Kingdom of Heaven kicks off the summer on May 6, and proves why this fall’s Elizabethtown just got more exciting: it’s the first film since forever that doesn’t feature Orlando Bloom in armor or pirate garb.
Batman Begins hits cinemas June 17, directed by Christopher Nolan, the man behind 2001’s genius Memento, and with American Psycho’s Christian Bale filling out the (finally) nipple-less bat suit; if the awesome trailer is any indication, Nolan’s earthy, stylish-noir touch will help us forget the campy Batmans of years past.
Continuing the comic-book trend is July 8’s Fantastic Four, and Michael Bay, Ewan McGregor, and Scarlett Johansson take on cloning in The Island (July 22). After such cinematic gems, er, lunk-head spectacles as xXx and The Fast and the Furious (cue migraine), director Rob Cohen returns with the Jamie Foxx-starrer Stealth (July 29); and check out June 10’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith to catch the sizzle (or fizzle) between Brad and homewrecker-who-broke-up-Hollywood’s-golden-couple-and-therefore-shan’t-be-named (somewhere, our dear Jen is hoping the film tanks).
War of the Worlds (June 29), based on the classic H.G. Wells novel, teams Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg with cute little Dakota Fanning; looks promising: the previous Cruise-Spielberg team-up produced 2002’s oh-so-stylishly-cool Minority Report.
But what’s sure to be, by far, the biggest hit of the summer – and the year – is the one we’ve been waiting for for decades: Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith concludes the saga, and as we all know will be released May 19.
George Lucas has called the third prequel "a real tearjerker," and is being touted as the darkest, most emotional and most intimate of the Star Wars films; it’s the first to get a PG-13 rating from the MPAA. But most importantly, Sith will hopefully rid our memories of the tragic horror that was The Phantom Menace and the FX-laden disaster that was Attack of the Clones.
The laughers are plentiful. SNL alums Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler try out soccer and football in Kicking and Screaming (May 13) and a remake of The Longest Yard (May 27), respectively. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson don’t RSVP in July 15’s The Wedding Crashers: the trailer is hilarious if gleefully immature, and the best part is Rachel McAdams (a.k.a. Regina George) co-stars!
Another remake is The Pink Panther (August 5) starring Steve Martin and Beyoncé, though the trailer is nothing but annoying and unfunny; and for some period humor, try Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm (July 29), with Matt Damon, Heath Ledger and Monica Bellucci.
Nicole Kidman perfects the nose twitch as Samantha, with Will Ferrell and Shirley MacLaine in Nora Ephron’s twist on TV classic Bewitched (June 24); and Jessica Simpson fills Daisy Duke’s tight denim short shorts in the big-screen adaptation of The Dukes of Hazzard (August 5). And after 15 years, Jane Fonda returns to the screen in the Meet the Parents switch-up Monster-in-Law (May 13), co-starring Michael Vartan, the hilarious Wanda Sykes, and monster-in-fur Jenny from the Block.
For those who love to scream in the dark with a bunch of popcorn-munching strangers (comme moi), the summer’s scary offerings bring Halloween early this year.
Coming May 20 is Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist, Paul Schrader’s original prequel that Warner Bros. scrapped and replaced last year with Renny Harlin’s lackluster Exorcist: The Beginning. See Paris Hilton die in May 6’s House of Wax with Chad Michael Murray and Elisha Cuthbert.
Trying to shed her cutesy image, Kate Hudson takes on bayou voodoo in The Skeleton Key (August 12), and The Motorcycle Diaries auteur Walter Salles directs Jennifer Connelly in the latest J-horror installment, Dark Water (July 8).
Two masters of the genre return: George A. Romero, after last year’s utterly terrifying remake of his classic Dawn of the Dead, adds a fourth episode to his landmark zombie trilogy with June 24’s Land of the Dead; and from Wes Craven, the Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street mastermind (let’s try to forget Cursed), comes airplane thriller Red Eye (August 19), starring the talented Rachel McAdams and 28 Days Later’s Cillian Murphy.
Watch its trailer, the most clever I’ve seen all year: what at first seems like the perfectly bubbly romantic comedy instantly spirals into a mind-bending puzzler, so mystifying and almost frightening in its ambiguity. What is Red Eye about? Ghosts? Aliens? Hijacking? Lost luggage and killer flight attendants? The more you read about it, the clearer the plot becomes, ruining the initial narrative uncertainty; I suggest you enter the theater with nothing more than this.
In every summer, there are the sleepers and the indies, films that, through the marketing word-of-mouth wildfire, become box office surprises. Take last year’s Napoleon Dynamite, the $400,000-budgeted Sundance fave that earned $45 million from its rabid MTV grassroots campaign. One of this year’s successes could be Crash (May 6), written and directed by Oscar-nominated Million Dollar Baby scribe Paul Haggis. Starring Sandra Bullock and Don Cheadle, the ensemble drama explores race relations in a post-9/11 LA drug drama Layer Cake (May 13) has could-be James Bond, Daniel Craig, and has already created some buzz in the UK; and Keira Knightley plays the titular heroine of Domino (August 19), the true story of model-turned-bounty hunter Domino Harvey.
I can’t wait to see June 3’s Lords of Dogtown, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, whose feature film debut was the amazing and shocking and brilliantly provocative Thirteen; and a fantastic cast of Susan Sarandon, James Gandolfini, Kate Winslet, Mandy Moore and Christopher Walken sing and dance in writer-director John Turturro’s musical Romance & Cigarettes (August 19).
But what will be one of the biggest indies of the year is the MTV-pushed Hustle & Flow (July 15), about a pimp (Terrence Howard) with aspirations of becoming a rapper. The film sold at Sundance for $9.5 million, and overall a $16 million three-picture deal went to producer John Singleton, the biggest deal in the film festival’s history.
And of course, there are cinematic offerings for the kids, who are out of school and badgering their parents for tickets to the next Shrek-tacular family-friendly fare. In what hopefully won’t be as bad as Shark Tale, Dreamworks has Madagascar out May 27. As usual, the studio has big names voicing its leads, including Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith and David Schwimmer, cashing a post-Friends paycheck. Filling the A Cinderella Story void for the season, we have The Perfect Man (June 17) with (quelle surprise!) Hilary Duff, who sets up her mom, Heather Locklear, with Sex and the City’s Chris Noth.
Teen bestseller The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (June 3) is adapted for the screen, with Gilmore Girls’ Alexis Bledel and Joan of Arcadia’s Amber Tamblyn; and Lindsay Lohan takes on the beloved Love Bug in Herbie: Fully Loaded (June 24). And I can’t wait to see what Tim Burton and Johnny Depp do with July 15’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a remake of the 1971 Willy Wonka classic which itself is an adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel. Freddie Highmore, Depp’s Finding Neverland co-star, plays the title character and one of the lucky golden-ticket winners; the trailer is already filled with Burton’s incredibly sumptuous candy-colored visuals, and Depp seems to be having so much fun playing an androgynous Wonka.
• Watch In Good Company. From the director of About a Boy comes this unassuming, surprisingly smart, funny and delicately poignant comedy about a middle-aged executive (Dennis Quaid) and his 20-something boss (Topher Grace). The film proves why Grace should already be a star by now; if you don’t want to take a chance on the remake of the 1979 cheesefest The Amityville Horror, take in this glowing comedy.