What to Watch and What to Not Watch During Your Summer Vacation

I took my vacation riiiight before summer officially began, and I did it for you, brethren. I dedicated my week to watching movies* just so you’d maybe get some ideas of what to watch and what to avoid during your own vacation.

IN THEATERS

The Da Vinci Code

Ron Howard gets all boring again, and you will snore through this movie if you’ve read the novel**. As I keep saying, the book was written like a movie, with scenes and everything, so basically shooting it with live actors (who do a decent job) is a superfluous task. It gives you the feeling that you’re sitting through someone reading you the book aloud. Even the conservative Christian backlash*** provides no new excitement from the conservative Christian backlash that occurred when Dan Brown published the novel. You might find yourself grumbling involuntarily about the discrepancies between the film and book, but then you’ll snap to attention and realize that you just don’t care.

X-Men: The Last Stand

I’m a sucker for Wolverine. Everybody knows it. I love his claws, I love his chops, I love his jeans. I sort of want him to be my best friend. I was worried about this film because Bryan Singer was no longer directing (being too busy working on the new Superman movie, which is aiiight, I guess), and I thought the first two were nothing short of the best superhero movies I’d ever seen. But Brett Ratner, whose repertoire is limited to TV and the Rush Hour movies, managed to film those nutty mutants in a way that didn’t seem displaced from the originals at all (and doesn’t it seem like usually new directors in a series like this try to establish their own style at any cost?) It was really only a hair less awesome than X2 (2003) and probably on the same par as the original X-Men (2000). Plus the ending is cleverly timed and, as usual, leaves us grasping at the hope that we’ll be able to expect X-Men: Who’s Left from the Comics that We Haven’t Included Yet**** in 2009.


NETFLIX IT


Match Point

I like Woody Allen, but I don’t love Woody Allen, and I’ll be honest with you, for the first half of Match Point, I couldn’t find one shred of filmic evidence that Woody Allen had anything to do with this. This is a great thing! As anyone knows who’s seen one of his recent endeavors, the guy’s been stuck in a rut for years, recycling the same neurotic, paranoid boyfriend routine ad nauseam. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers's Chris Milton is hateful in his deceitful, shallow, coldness, and ScarJo does a pretty good job herself as his frustrated mistress. The whole film had a quiet feeling to it, and it took me awhile to realize that that’s what made it seem unlike a Woody Allen film***** – it was missing all the blubbering. If you find it difficult to get through the first half because you keep thinking “Wait, didn’t Closer already do this a year ago?”, stick around.

Munich



I had a weird conversation with my mom last night at their new house, where she was cheerfully going on about Katie Couric’s last stint on the Today Show this week. Then her face changed and she dropped her voice to a whisper so that my dad couldn’t hear her and said “In another life, I’m going to marry Matt Lauer.” There was no hint of joking in her face at all, the woman had made up her mind. “It’s something about his manner,” she explained further, still whispering. “Plus he is so handsome.” I told her that renting Munich was guaranteed to make her get over any painful Lauer wistfulness******. She looked doubtful.

“Remember the guy who played Hector in Troy?” I asked her. Her eyes lit up and she asked me to find out where the nearest Blockbuster was.

*Also riding bikes, playing minigolf, smooching, and the like.
** Especially if you finished the book approximately three days before you saw the movie, like I did.
*** Because, you know, the premise behind this badly-written novel that was so megapopular, easy to consume, and loved by the mediocrity-swilling masses is that CHRISTIANITY IS FAKE. Why doesn’t anybody else find that amazing? I mean, I’ve known that for years, but I’ve never written a book about it and then gotten America to read it, love it, and spend a ton of money on it. I’m impressed by Dan Brown, and you should be too, otherwise, he’ll sic the devil on you.
**** I’m so surprised they didn’t throw in Gambit or Jubilee. Or throw out Anna Paquin.
***** Annie Hall is great. Just wanted to make sure you knew I knew that.
****** Aside from that, Munich is a seriously good movie, creatively directed by Spielberg, that would still be good even if Robin Williams took Eric Bana’s place. Oh, sweet Jesus, maybe I don’t mean that.