I Feel Like I Don't Have Much To Say

today. I just can't think of anything to write about.

I'm pretty obsessed with How to Train Your Dragon right now, so let's talk about this:

This year so far has been pretty terrible when it comes to movies. The Top 5 best-reviewed films of this year so far include 4 movies that were only released in limited and Toy Story 3. While the Top 5 at the end of the year does sometimes look a lot like this, by the summer months, we should be seeing more films that people have actually heard of in the Top 5 - at least one more. Toy Story 3 was amazing (it's probably going to be my pick for the best of the year/decade/my life, etc.)

Look at the Top 10 though - only one of them came out in wide release, too, and that was How to Train Your Dragon, coming in right after TS3 at 6th. The other four were Exit Through the Gift Shop, which I saw, the movie that won Best Foreign Film (so technically it came out last year, anyway), and two other films that most people have never heard of this.

The Oscars expanded the Best Picture playing field to 10 films last year so that wide releases would get attention and they'd get more ratings. Sadly, in a perfect world they would do this because there are 10 very deserving films. Back in the 90s, 80s, 70s, etc., people had heard of the Best Picture nominees. People had SEEN them. Does this mean movies are getting worse in general, or does it just mean that Hollywood productions are starting to lose steam? I'm thinking the latter.

Another thing: when the two best wide releases of the year (so far, but I might wager that they still will be in December) are animated films, I think that means that we need to start giving more credence to the animation genre. Animation is SO GOOD. Every year my top film is usually animated. Last year, it was Up. The year before that? WALL-E. Most widely-released animation isn't as good as Pixar, but every Pixar film is just as good, if not better, than the live action films that come out around it. Same with the limited-release Miyazaki films (I think Tales of Earthsea is this year; last year, it was the pretty good Ponyo), which always place in my EXCLUSIVE "Best of the Year" list. (It's exclusive because it only exists in my head.) DreamWorks either is really good (HTTYD, the original Shrek, and I guess Kung-Fu Panda even though I thought it was boring with AMAZING animation) or really horrible (every other film they've made except Shrek 2, which I for one liked). I almost didn't see HTTYD because the ad campaign was so horrible; they were selling it as yet another pop culture-referencing, stupidly kiddy film, which it isn't, AT ALL. People need to understand that animation is not just kid's fare anymore, and even when it is targeted towards kids (like Ponyo), most animation studios don't seem to get that "kid's film" does NOT equal "idiot's film."

This summer, the movies have been pretty lackluster, TS3 aside, obviously. This has been griped about a lot lately, mostly in passing, apparently, because I can't seem to find many articles. Here's one. Every movie that people hoped would be good turned out to be horrible or mediocre. Iron Man 2 had high expectations and fell flat, critically. I heard a LOT of people say that it was awful. Robin Hood was bad and failed commercially, too; Prince of Persia, The A-Team, Jonah Hex. The only summer film to come out that's gotten good reviews (ONCE AGAIN OTHER THAN TS3 I WILL REITERATE THIS OFTEN) is The Karate Kid, another "kid's film."

The only movies coming out that I'm excited for this summer now are Inception and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Nothing else seems like it's going to be worth the money to me. Despicable Me's been getting good reviews; The Kids Are All Right's supposed to be good, although that's in limited. The Sorcerer's Apprentice (starring Hiccup!) looks like it could be pretty decent. But even though the word on these movies may be good right now, it's more likely than not that they'll end up being the same old dreck that's been pumped out all year. I call it the MacGruber effect: a movie gets positive early buzz but ends up having a negative consensus. But I guess we'll see.

I hope this summer picks up in terms of movies, but I don't see that happening.

(On a side note - does anyone want to get an email saying that a new post has been published? Let me know and I can sign you up for that.)