Ok, so 2009 hasn’t been the greatest year for film. It started out with a bang and a lot of promise, but has not lived up to the expectations. There have been a few gems : Star Trek, Coraline, The Hangover, Drag Me To Hell, Pixar’s Up and to a lesser extent I Love You, Man. However, the list of stinkers is longer than you can imagine, with such shining examples as : Paul Blart Mall Cop, X-Men Origins : Wolverine, Fast & The Furious, Bride Wars, Land Of The Lost and I could go on and on.

So, my fingers and toes are crossed that the remainder of the year will wash the bad taste out of my mouth.  Here then, is a list of the movies scheduled for the rest of 2009 that I believe will offer the most entertainment for your hard earned bucks.  Some may currently in limited release, but wide release is what you’re looking at here.

The Hurt Locker : Wide Release Unknown

Public Enemies : July 1st

Miyazaki’s Ponyo : August 14th

Inglourious Basterds : August 21st

The Boat That Rocked : August 28th

Mike Judge’s Extract : September 4th

Shane Acker’s 9 : September 9th

Zombieland : October 9th

Where The Wild Things Are : October 16th

Avatar : December 18th

So little is still known about this film, but James Cameron seems to know what he’s doing. He has promised something earth shattering, something unique. Nothing is guaranteed, but at the very least, you will be entertained.

Sherlock Holmes : December 25th

What better way to ring in the summer blockbuster season than with every one’s favorite X-Men superhero? Well, I can think of quite a few, but I’ll also bet $85 million on the fact that no one cares what I think.

Yes, the summer certainly ups the eye-candy level when it comes to theatrical movie releases, but this isn’t always a good thing.  Quite a few directors feel the need to take away the aspects of their films, such as…. well, acting, plot, intelligence.  These aspects are often replaced with exploding helicopters, ironic one-liners, skimpy outfits and even more exploding helicopters.

I really had low hopes even before Wolverine started up.  I mean, who actually enjoyed X-men 3?  Sure, X-men 1 and 2 set relatively high standards for what a comic book movie SHOULD be.  These low hopes were not only reinforced, but perhaps even lowered a tad more, especially when the Deadpool sequence started up.  But I digress.

From the get go, you know this is all about Wolverine, tracking his past and walking through how he became the person he is today.  Fighting in every major american war probably does something to your psyche, which would explain why his brother, Sabertooth (played by Liev Schreiber, not Tyler Mane) is such a grumpy bastard.  Once the tone is set, the movie quickly becomes a mess, taking you from locale to locale, trying to cram in as many new superheros as possible.

During the entire movie, you feel as if you’ve seen it all before and it’s probably because you have.  You are constantly bombarded by cliché after cliché, scratching your head as to the some of the decisions made by the director.  On numerous occasions, I actually murmured to myself “What the hell are they doing?” or “What is going on?”.  It feels like it was thrown together, while trying to capitalize on the obvious popularity of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.  As with a lot of the summer blockbuster ‘popcorn flicks’, I tried to switch my brain off, but I just couldn’t and I really shouldn’t have to.  Comic book movies can be well written, they can be smart and they can still be fun.

Synopsis : With a strong performance by Hugh Jackman and a convincing role played by the fantastic Danny Huston, it’s a shame to see this one crash and burn, in more ways than one. The stink left from X-Men 3 really hasn’t worn off and ‘Wolverine’ merely fans the sheets.

Now, before this list starts, let me stress this list isn’t just my personal selection. It is simply a list of movies I believe everyone should see (please keep in mind it’s only movies announced for release in 2009, some may get pushed back).

(continue reading…)