Looking Forward To... SUMMER

Iron Man 2 opened this past weekend racking up $128 million, good for the fifth highest-grossing weekend of all time. And thus begins summer movie season.

Looking over the list of movies coming out between now and the end of August, I'm not really finding much to feel excited about. Take for instance Iron Man 2. I very much was looking forward to this until the reviews came in. They all pretty much stated that the film was just okay and definitely not as good as the first. I'll probably still end up seeing it, but then what else?

This weekend is the opening of Ridley Scott's Robin Hood starring his Gladiator muse Russell Crowe and to be honest I'm not exactly rushing out in theaters for this one. The rest of May is actually worse as my picks ranged from the stupid (MacGruber and Shrek Forever After) to the oh GOD WHY (Prince of Persia and Sex and the City). No thanks!

June is a veritable wasteland full of lame ass comedies with more lame ass comedies. Only Pixar's Toy Story 3 seems to be worthy of anyone's time. And who amongst you didn't watch the trailer and teared up a bit? The A-Team could be fun and the cast looks good so it's piquing my interests a bit. Maybe if enough of my friends want to see it (so far no one is saying anything), I may see it with them. And I almost forgot, in most likely very limited release, I Am Love with the lovely and superbly talented Tilda Swinton also opens this month.

July has some potential, but for the most part I'll probably wait until I can see a few of them on Netflix. One definite exception to that is Christopher Nolan's Inception starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Marion Cotillard. I've done my best to not read any synopsis or even see any trailers. But how wicked cool is the cast and the poster? Other possibilities include Salt (because Angelina Jolie does summer blockbusters well) and, in limited release and possible Oscar contender, The Kids Are All Right from Focus Features starring Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, and Mark Ruffalo.

August is usually where movies go to die. Or is that September? Not sure. In any case, it's not too bad this year since as pumped as I am in seeing Inception, I'm equally as excited to see Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I'm a bit (okay a lot) of a Wright fanboy ever since Shaun of the Dead, so I'm just disappointed that I don't already OWN this movie. Then there's Eat Pray Love with Julia Roberts and James Franco which looks okay as well as Sundance favorite HappyThankYouMorePlease from director Josh Radnor, also the star of one of my favorite shows How I Met Your Mother. Haven't heard much about the film other than it's a crowd pleaser. Can't think of a better way to end summer than with one of those.

So looking back at my post, the number of films I want to see is higher than expected with eleven possible choices. Last summer I saw five films that eventually made their way to my top ten movies of the year. So I'll hope for the best. What about you?