Surveying the summer's silver screen selections

By Jackie Ammons     8/20/09 7:00pm

Call me sentimental, but watching a movie in the theater is an emotional experience for me. The larger-than-life screen, the booming sounds and the novelty of watching a film for the first time is a thrill that seems new and exciting each time I go to the theater.This summer was no exception. It seemed that each movie I watched over the last couple months had some kind of personal connection to me, either because of the screening location or the individuals with whom I saw the films.

At the beginning of the summer in May, I scoffed at the idea of seeing Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Amy Adams), successor to 2006's Night at the Museum, which was set in New York City's American Museum of Natural History. My Thresher review ("Uninspired casting confuses, not amuses in Night at the Museum," 1/12/2007) of the original film was less than stellar, and I cringed at the thought of sitting through yet another havoc-filled, Jumanji-esque movie.

But while interning in Washington, D.C., I had the opportunity to see a nighttime screening of the second installment on the IMAX at the actual filming location, the Smithsonian Museum. While the theater location for Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian didn't make the film quality any better than the original, it was more than exciting to walk out of the empty museum that night and see where the scenes in which Stiller ran through the museum to save General Custer and where Adams' chat with the Lincoln Memorial statue took place.

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I also learned in May that Fast & Furious (Vin Diesel) films are still bad and will remain so in perpetuity, even after the franchise's fourth installment came out. But I liked the experience of watching the movie in a drive-in theater in rural Virginia, with pickup trucks lined up, couples curled up in their cars and testosterone-induced engine-revving as we left the drive-in. It was the perfect setting for a car movie.

June rolled around, and all of my girlfriends wanted to watch The Proposal, so I saw it twice. As chick flicks go, The Proposal was great, and my girlfriends and I discovered one important fact: Ryan Reynolds can actually act, and Sandra Bullock can make a nude scene hilarious. (Who knew?)

In July, I got a taste of independent films with (500) Days of Summer. Every part of this movie exceeded my expectations. Listening to the fantastic soundtrack - Regina Spektor and The Smiths, to name a few - coupled with watching the on-screen relationship between Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the latter having starred in my childhood favorites Angels in the Outfield and 10 Things I Hate About You, made for an interesting viewing experience with my friend who just broken up with her long-term boyfriend. Tissues, anyone?

And an indie film wouldn't be an indie film without some sort of odd stylistic twist, and (500) Days of Summer delivered by jumping through time to reveal the couple's rise, crest and denouement, with Day 40 following Day 315 following Day 17, etc. (500) Days of Summer navigated skillfully through the non-chronological showing of their relationship, and piecing together every different part was a joy in and of itself.

There were other films this summer that didn't quite give me an emotional high, but their box office results topped the charts. Summer is the home of blockbusters, and this summer exceeded such expectations. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince marked the sixth installment of the Harry Potter saga, grossing more than any previous Harry Potter movie by netting over $255 million in box offices, about the same haul the bachelor party movie The Hangover rang in, only with less of the teenage hype.

Other male-targeted films such as Star Trek, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Terminator Salvation hit the theaters, allowing non-Trekkies to enjoy the sci-fi classic, post-Batman Christian Bale and, of course, Megan Fox.

Dreamworks released the third installment of its Ice Age franchise with Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 3-D, and Pixar proved yet again that it is the expert on children's films with its latest hit, Up, also in 3-D - all the while whetting its audience's appetite for next year's Toy Story 3.

Of course, there were also the spectacular box office flops of the summer. Sacha Baron Cohen's new culturally-confrontational film Bruno brought in a measly $60 million and didn't quite meet expectations that followed his previous hit, Borat. In the same way, Cameron Diaz failed in her attempt to fall into a serious role in My Sister's Keeper, which garnered less than $50 million. And Nia Vardalos came up short of her My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame in her new Greek film My Life in Ruins, to the tune of under $9 million, not to mention her other obscure film with John Corbett, I Hate Valentine's Day, which received about $10,000.

Nonetheless, it was a great summer for films. I got a good dose of film-watching ethos, audiences watched incredible movies (for the most part) and box offices enjoyed significant returns, even during these tough economic times. Plus, I got to be sentimental, and see where all the hoopla about Megan Fox came from.

Jackie Ammons is a Brown College senior.

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