Best of Summer!

This summer I was determined. Determined to see at
least one movie every Friday – maybe more than one if necessary. I just
wanted to see as many movies as possible. I was largely successful in my
goal though I am willing to admit that I didn’t have the strength to plunk down
ten hard earned dollars for MEET DAVE. Sorry.

Making it through almost all the summer’s releases made me
think I should probably have some closure. I thought this while watching
THE KARATE KID (one of my favorite 80s movies) so I thought we’ll run through the Best of Summer ’08 using
KARATE KID as a guide. Mr. Miyagi will always show us the way…

“You’re the
best…AROUND!”

The KARATE KID theme song goes to this summer’s
clear winner – THE DARK KNIGHT. It truly is the best around this summer in
both money and quality. We’ve waited years and years for a comic book
movie like this and we’ll probably have to wait years and years for another one. If it were humanly possible, I’d carry you off on my shoulders.

“STRIKE FIRST. STRIKE HARD. NO MERCY
SIR.”

Few movies have kicked off the summer as well as
IRON MAN did this summer. Any other non-DARK KNIGHT summer, IRON MAN would
have owned the competition but it’ll have to settle for a close second.
But IRON MAN came first, it hit hard and it had no mercy on our souls.

“You pretty okay
too.”

Miyagi’s response when Daniel tells
him he’s the best friend he ever had goes to THE INCREDIBLE HULK. The big,
green guy didn’t get the love that Iron Man or Batman did this summer, but that
doesn’t mean he was in a far inferior movie. THE INCREDIBLE HULK was a
perfect popcorn movie. It didn’t take itself too seriously but wasn’t
stupid either. Ya did good Norton.

“This is it. This is the end of the
line.”

To the poor Indiana Jones. He deserved so
much better than KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL but that’s what we got. And
after that I don’t think there’s any recovery. It’s the end of the line
for Indy. The poor guy nuked his own fridge.

“Fear does not exist in this dojo, does
it?”

NO SENSEI! But fear exists in the movie
theater and especially during THE STRANGERS. With high-concept horror
movies like THE HAPPENING and MIRRORS failing to achieve their goal, a little
lo-fi movie like THE STRANGERS wound up ranking a lot higher on the tension
scale. Maybe because it was, oh, I don’t know, somewhat scary?

“Whole life have a balance. Everything
be better.”

Because summer movies aren’t all about
superheroes and sequels, I give this a three-way tie to STEP BROTHERS, PINEAPPLE
EXPRESS and TROPIC THUNDER, the three funniest movies of the summer. I’ve
tried to pick my favorite of the three but they both made me laugh equally as
hard so they’ll have to share the prize. But these three movies perfectly
balanced out the TDK, IRON MAN and HULK trifecta to make one hell of a
geektastic summer.

“You’re a pushy little bastard, ain’t
ya? But I like that. I like that!”

Miyagi confronts Kreese in his dojo prompting the
“pushy little bastard” line above. The HAMLET 2 promotions were
a bit much towards mid-August but I really dug the film and it’s sad that it
didn’t find a bigger audience. Hopefully on DVD this pushy little bastard
can find a second life…

“This damn bike! I hate this bike. I
hate this freakin’ bike! Stupid bike.”

Daniel’s misdirected anger at his bike after the
Cobra Kai’s ran him off the road and down a giant hill can also describe my
feelings while watching THE CLONE WARS. Later in his baby-faced rant,
Daniel pounds his fist on a wall and tells him mom he just wants to go home;
back to the way it used to be. If only George Lucas had that same
feeling. It took a screening of the original trilogy to wash the bad taste
out of my mouth after this one.

“Man who catch fly with chopstick
accomplish anything.”

Will Smith caught a fly with a chopstick when he
opened HANCOCK, a movie with bad buzz and terrible reviews (38% on Rotten
Tomatoes) and was still able to make lemonade out of those lemons. As of
now, HANCOCK is the fourth biggest movie of the YEAR proving that Will Smith
really can accomplish just about anything.

“Get him a body bag, YEAH!!!”

Mrs. LaRusso tells Daniel this when
they arrive at their new home in California. Sadly the same applies to THE
X-FILES. They’ve talked about movie X-Files movies but after watching the
dreadful I WANT TO BELIEVE, it’s time to hang it up. Mulder can go sell
hot dogs from a cart and Scully can go do whatever it is Scully does in her free
time. Just please – no more movies.

“Sweep the leg. You got a problem
with that?”

One of the best quotes from the movie and I had
trouble finding a movie to match it up with. In the end, I choose WALL-E
because that little robot swept my leg in the best possible way. It made
only a few million more than KUNG-FU PANDA but WALL-E had barely any dialogue
for about an hour. Long live Wall-E!

“I tell you what Miyagi think! I think
you dance around too much!”

I personally thought that MAMMA MIA! was about as
much fun as shoving splinters under my fingernails but the film made over $100
million in the US and over $300 million overseas proving that singing and
dancing to ABBA songs is a popular pasttime no matter what I think.

“Wax on. Wax off.”