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I even love movies during the long, cold, boring winter months, when it seems like every new release is shameless drivel that the studios are just trying to purge from their shelves.
I love movies all the time. But if I had to pick one time in all the year when I loved movies the most, it would be this week. Because this week, folks, the summer movie season began.
It’s not necessarily that I think the big-budget, big-everything summer flicks are the best movies of the year — in terms of overall quality, they’re often the worst. But when we see movies like “Indiana Jones,” “The Dark Knight” and “The Incredible Hulk,” we’re re-embracing the very idea that made film so popular in the first place — the absolute, untarnished wonder of it. Summer movies are all about pushing forward in what we can do onscreen, and that is just as thrilling and powerful now as it was 100 years ago.
But in our late-spring eagerness for all things sequel, action and CGI, it’s easy to forget summer’s other big offering: laughs. Comedies, in general, don’t get the attention or the box office success of other films, but summer comedies have been building momentum, thanks in part to the raging success of last year’s “Knocked Up” and “Superbad.”
This season we’ve got even more to look forward to, and as excited as I am about Indy and Batman, they’re not the only things on my docket this summer. Behold, my most anticipated summer comedies:
‘Son of Rambow’
OK, including “Son of Rambow” on this list is cheating a little, because I actually got the chance to see this movie myself a few weeks ago on a trip to Los Angeles. But I just couldn’t resist. The story, set in the 1970s in Great Britain, follows young Will Proudfoot, a member of a strict religious sect called the Brethren. Will isn’t allowed to so much as watch television, but when a troublemaking classmate exposes Will to a bootleg copy of “Rambo: First Blood,” the two boys decide to make their own sequel, “Son of Rambow.” This movie is, quite simply, wonderful — funny and poignant and a real tribute to the incredible wonder of movies, and what that meant in the days before the Internet and YouTube. It’s not playing everywhere, but if you get the chance, don’t miss it.
‘Space Chimps’
I have to admit, I know very little about this animated family movie, except that it follows three chimpanzees who are blasted into space to overthrow an alien dictator. But the movie is voiced by SNL star Andy Samburg, Patrick Wartburton, and Cheryl Hines, and features the kind of Monty Python-style silliness that’s the perfect antidote to big self-important summer blockbusters. And did I mention it’s about monkeys in space? (Opens July 18)
‘Step Brothers’
I’ve actually grown quite sick of Will Ferrell’s comedies (“Talladega Nights,” “Anchorman,” “Blades of Glory”), which seem to all be a tiny variation on the same overused formula. But the trailer for “Step Brothers,” Ferrell’s new movie about two adult slackers who are thrown together when their parents marry, made me nearly fall off my chair laughing. Ferrell and frequent cohort John C. Reilly play the titular stepbrothers, and I’ll go see this movie just for the scene where the boys decide to make their own bunk beds. Classic Ferrell. (Opens July 25)
‘Tropic Thunder’
The biggest and most anticipated (by me, anyway) movie on this list is a big-budget comedy about a group of actors who are abandoned by their frustrated director right in the middle of filming a war movie in the jungle. With that great, “Three Amigos”-esque premise and the all-star cast (which includes Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Tom Cruise, Tobey Maguire and Robert Downey Jr. as a method actor so intense that he dyes his skin black for a role), this movie is pretty much guaranteed to open big and make gobs of money. And as a special bonus, word on the Internet is that it just happens to be pretty great, too. (Opens Aug. 15)
‘Hamlet 2’
There’s many kinds of comedy, but the word being used to describe this particular indie film is “twisted.” The story of a high school drama teacher (Steve Coogan) who writes a sequel to Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, “Hamlet 2” features disinterested inner-city kids as the unwilling theater troupe, Elizabeth Shue playing a embittered, alternate-universe version of Elizabeth Shue and musical numbers about a time-traveling Jesus. Need I say more? (Opens Aug. 22)
A Wisconsin native, Melissa Olson has a film degree from the University of Southern California. She now works in Madison for the television program “Discover Wisconsin.” E-mail comments to her at mfo.usc@gmail.com.
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