July Movie Watching

July is such a great month for movies, maybe because it's always the "lighter" fare.... you'll see them just to get out of the heat. Somehow, just saw four theatrically this month. It would have been five but I got sick from dinner a third into Public Enemies. This is only the second time in all my moviegoing years that I had to leave the theater and miss a movie (can't remember the name of the first movie but I do remember rushing home on the subway in NYC!). Never got around to seeing PE, but it kind of (and surprisingly) bombed. The little I saw looked just average.

Saw Year One (it was a free screening!). My friends bemoned how awful it was and I wasn't about to argue. The makers didn't try too hard on this one. It was one of those movies where the only time spent after coming up with the premise was on the casting.

Bruno was, unfortunately, a letdown. It did have a few scattered laughs and shocks, and it at least proved how brilliant Borat was in retrospect. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher were in the theater when I saw it, that was cool.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was, to me, the best Potter after the (brilliant) Prisoner of Azkaban. Although I like the series, these two are also, unfortunately, the only really good ones: it'd be hard to pick third place from the rest. So, it's nice they pulled this one off. The only bad thing about it is was the conclusion, which only works at a mid-chapter level. What I liked best about the movie was that I really felt like I was a part of the Potter world while watching it. A bit lengthy, but not too bad.

Lastly, I saw Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Again a free screening, but I gotta tell ya, within minutes I was wondering why the hell I went to it. I guess since I haven't seen the other two (theatrically or otherwise) I felt compelled. Ugh. And it's yet ANOTHER IN AN ENDLESS LINE OF ANIMATED MOVIES ABOUT A LOST FRIEND THAT NEEDS TO BE RESCUED!!!! ENOUGH ALREADY ANIMATION PEOPLE. GET A NEW STORY LINE!!!