Looking Forward To... SUMMER

Summer movie season kicked off last week with Thor expectantly topping the box office charts, but unexpectedly doing so as a favorite among critics as well. I'm hoping this bodes well for Joss Whedon's Avengers, because damn him for getting involve since now I actually have to care about these stupid superhero movies! BTW Thor is Natalie Portman's fourth movie this year.

The rest of May actually doesn't look too bad as well. My most anticipated film from the lot is probably Terence Malick's long-awaited film The Tree of Life starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and dinosaurs! Apart from the super gorgeous and super pretentious trailer, I have no idea what the film is about. Another auteur, Woody Allen, also has a film this month, Midnight in Paris, starring Rachel McAdams and Owen Wilson. Advance word from Cannes seem to be good, so I'm excited for it. In the comedy front, there's the sequel to The Hangover which I'll probably check out when it comes out on DVD. What's more intriguing is Bridesmaid which seems to be a female version of the other film. It has Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Jon Hamm. I'm also interested in Hesher, an indie film starring Joseph-Gordon Levitt as a rock star and with her fifth film of the year, Natalie Portman. Finally, Johnny Depp teams up with Geoffrey Rush and Penelope Cruz for a totally unnecessary Pirates of the Caribbean film, subtitled On Stranger Tides.

June starts out strong, then sort of limps to a finish. The first weekend is chock full of films I need to see now. There's X-Men: First Class with James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, which I'm ridiculously excited for probably because I'm such a huge X-Men nerd. There's also a great looking Focus Features' film Beginners starring Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer where Plummer plays McGregor's gay dad. Finally, there's Beautiful Boy with Michael Sheen and Maria Bello, a harrowing film about two parents dealing with the loss of their son who is responsible for a school shooting. The following week, J.J. Abrams' super mysterious film Super 8 premieres and that one just looks like a great old-fashioned summer film. The rest of the month contains films that I may or may not check out depending on my mood from Ryan Reynold's Green Lantern to Pixar's Cars 2 (wait I probably should see the first one first) to Bad Teacher starring Justin Timberlake, Cameron Diaz, and... wait I think I can skip this one. I mean really now.

July has a little bit of something for everyone. Of course there's your big budget summer action films like Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Cowboys & Aliens. All of them have impressed via trailers, but I'm only really looking forward to the latter. Why? Read the title again and that should tell you EVERYTHING. Speaking of big budget films, Harry Potter ends this month as part 2 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows premieres. In the other end of the spectrum are the comedies with really awesome ensembles. There's Larry Crowne which stars Tom Hanks who also directed and co-wrote the film. Julia Roberts, Taraji Henson, Bryan Cranston, and George Takei are also in the cast. The team that brought us last year's delightful Easy A is back with Friends with Benefits starring Mila Kunis, Emma Stone, Woody Harrelson, Justin Timberlake, and many more. Finally, there's Crazy, Stupid, Love with Steve Carrell, Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei, Julianne Moore and Emma Stone. I, along with everyone else loved the trailer. Finally, Dominic Cooper stars in The Devil's Double doing double duty as one of Saddam Hussein's son and his double.

August is, well, a bit random. Don't know much about Rise of the Planet of the Apes but it stars James Franco, Tom Felton, John Lithgow, and Andy Serkis. There's also The Help, based on a book, starring Emma Stone (is she trying to be in more movies than Natalie Portman this year?) and Viola Davis. There's a few horror/thrillers such as Final Destination 5, Fright Night (with David Tennant and Colin Farrell), and Weinstein's Apollo 18. Comedy-wise there's 30 Minutes or Less with Jesse Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari and Our Idiot Brother with Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Hugh Dancy, and Zooey Deschanel. But my most anticipated film this month is probably One Day, a love story through the years starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. And I almost forgot The Debt, starring Helen Mirren and Sam Worthington, which comes out on the last day of the month.

So as per usual, that's a lot of films. I wish I had the money and the time to see them all, but at the very least I'll see them all eventually thanks to Netflix. Gotta love technology.