Summer Movie Awards 2012

Hey everybody, well here we are again, after another weekend and at the end of another Summer and just in time for the Official and totally not made up movie awards ceremony: “Totally Not Planned Out and Utterly Inconsequential Awards of the Summer Awards!… 2”!!! Just like Oscars, but nobody cares. Oh wait… nobody cares about those either? Well then… by all means.

Best Two Words of the Summer:

Puny god. (not blasphemy toward the God)

Also the only two words he speaks. Man that’s a win.

If you’ve seen the Avengers you know exactly what this is. If you haven’t seen the Avengers yet… see it. Literally the first time I watched this movie the crowd was laughing so loud at the part prior to this that I missed this line entirely. And yes I did see it twice. And yes my wife did come with me both times. Cause she’s awesome.

Best Tom Cruise of the Summer:

Ba ha ha. I’m kidding. Nobody wins with Tom Cruise. Nobody.

NObody.

Best Kids Movie:

Ice Age 4: No Seriously… It’s Ice Age 4

Okay the main competition for this was between Brave, Paranorman and Ice Age 4. I liked Brave a lot, and I thought ParaNorman was really good but in the end I’m giving it to Ice Age 4 because I was honestly very surprised by it. I know Pixar movies are going to be good, they’re Pixar movies. Pixar makes movies like I put up random pictures of muskrats.

See?

Ice Age 4 was a really solid movie that I didn’t think was necessarily going to be bad but that I wasn’t exactly flipping out about either. In the end it was just fun. Like a random picture of a muskrat.

In retrospect… they don’t actually look that fun do they?

Best Performance By a Woman Everyone Seemed to Hate for No Reason: 

Anne Hathaway

I’m not even an Anne Hathaway fan and I honestly hoped she would do well in this movie just because everyone on the internet pitched a hissy fit and screamed for their teddy bear as soon as the casting choice was announced. And speaking of bears…

Most Adorable Bears:

Brave.

Very little competition here.

Sequel I Most Didn’t Watch:

Madagascar 3

Can we all agree that the only redeemable parts from the first two movies were the parts where King Julien was hilarious? Not that I’m not a fan of incessant pointless talking and the EXTREMELY awkward section of the movies where a Giraffe is in love with a Hippo but… Oh wait yeah I’m not a huge fan of that and I hope I never watch this movie…. I’m sorry King Julien…

Movie That Probably Made Me a Better Person:

Amazing Spiderman.

No seriously. You know what I learned from Amazing Spiderman? That sometimes you’ve got to enjoy a movie. Sure I could debate the finer points of Tobey McGuire (I spell his name differently every time so if that’s not right just wait for it to come around again) vs. Andrew Garfield. Or Gwen Stacy vs. Mary Jane but ya know what? I don’t want to. I just want to relax and watch a movie. So there world!!

Movie I Surprisingly Didn’t Watch: 

Dark Shadows.

I was really excited about this movie originally but… I don’t know. Maybe it was the horrendous reviews or the fact that I feel like I’ve already seen Johnny Depp play this character or the fact that it seems to be less of a “Hey here’s a cool idea for a movie” and more of a “So what movie can we make that has Johnny being weird in it?”

Movie I Unsurprisingly Didn’t Watch:

What To Expect When You’re Expecting.

Hey look, it’s a ridiculously generic movie that I can’t relate to which stars a bunch of people I sort of hate!!! yay…

Let me just post the movie synopsis from IMDB:

A look at love through the eyes of five interconnected couples experiencing the thrills and surprises of having a baby, and ultimately coming to understand the universal truth that no matter what you plan for, life doesn’t always deliver what’s expected.

Ha ha ha…. That’s probably the funniest thing I will ever post.

Real Life Version of a Disney Character That Horrified Me The Most:

This person.

SOOOO creeped out.

Man Who Scared Me The most:

Bane.

Say what you want about Tom Hardy’s mask and not being able to really hear what he was saying but… man… the guy was horrifying.

And a return from last years column:

Pleasantest Surprise:

The Avengers

Here’s the thing. I really like Josh Whedon, I also really like Thor, Iron-man and the Hulk. I tolerate Captain America. But when was the last really good super-hero mashup movie that you watched? If you answered “never” you win. Honestly I was way too afraid The Avengers was going to be terrible to be too excited about it but then… well then it was awesome. And I believed in love again.

Best Movie of the Summer:

Ohhh… yeah I can’t call it. I’m sorry… my heart is not strong enough. Dark Knight Rises, Avengers… this song goes out to both of you. May I one day own you on DVD….

Goodbye Summer… I knew ye not well enough…

*Sings softly into the full moon*

Ice Age 4… mostly.

So I don’t know whether you guys know this or not (because I’ve never ever never mentioned it before on this site) but I’m ridiculously excited about the new Batman movie coming out tonight.  So excited that I am now going to share with you a poem that I have written to Batman:

Dear Batman, I have…

Yeah okay, never mind. Anyway just to avoid writing another lengthy love letter to Batman/Chris Nolan (check out my reviews of Inception and Dark Knight) I’m going to talk about something else. Something different, something not at all related to my most anticipated movie since ever since was a since.

Micah Reviews: Ice Age 4: The Dark Knight Rises… I mean: Continental Drift… yeah.

Shouting “Ice burg ahead” suddenly seems a bit superfluous huh?

The Plot: For those of you not familiar with the Ice Age series here’s a brief recap.

Ice Age 1: A Mammoth (Manny), a Sloth (Sid), and a Sabre Toothed Tiger (Diego) form tight bonds of friendship as they escort a human baby to safety.

Ice Age 2: Queen Latifah plays an annoying character that ruins the movie.

Ice Age 3: Realizing what happened in Ice Age 2 the designers quickly send the Manny, Sid, and Diego on a long journey far far away from Queen Latifah. It’s a much better movie.

Which brings us to Ice Age 4. Ice Age 4 opens up in the bleak City of Gotham where Batman must… Ahem… Ice Age 4 opens up with Manny trying to deal with the fact that his daughter is growing up and that she’s hanging out with a rough crowd and making poor life decisions… or something. Anyway through a crazy series of events that no one saw coming Manny, Sid, and Diego are separated from Manny’s daughter and the voice of Queen Latifah  and sent careening off into the open ocean as the Continents begin to split apart.

Pictured Above: NOT Queen Latifah

The three friends (accompanied by Sid’s mostly insane Grandmother) must try and find a way back home, avoid the pirate vessel of “Captain Gut” and even maybe find a little romance; all the while trying to keep Queen Latifah out of the movie as long as possible. Also Batman.

 The Positives:

Manny, Diego, and Sid are still three really fun characters. The movie has some really sweet ideas and believe it or not the new “main” character it introduces (the Grandma) really works well with the established group. The parts with the three (four) of them are definitely the highlights of the movie!

Overall the humor in the movie is very well done (with one major exception I’ll get to in a second… maybe two… because there was no Batman). Laughs are plenteous and well placed and even through some of the more boring parts of the film you’ll keep watching.

Almost… but not really at all….

I have to take a minute here and applaud Wanda Sykes for her brilliant job playing the Grandmother. Her lines are spot on and she really became one of my favorite characters as the film progressed. Wanda’s still got it!!

The Negatrons:

No Batman.

The movie is split into two distinct parts: The parts that feature the three main characters. And the parts that are boring. Through the whole film there’s this side-plot with Queen Latifah and Manny’s daughter having to escape some sort of ridiculously slow moving landslide and honestly it felt like the whole thing belonged in a separate movie. A separate, terrible movie.

There’s a random completely not funny musical number thrown in here as well that feels really out of place and purposeless. Like someone throwing a Porcupine into your apple pie. It’s not that you have anything against porcupines… just not in your pie.

In Conclusion:

I really like Ice Age 4. The main characters are so familiar and well known that they effortlessly pull off that “friends on a road trip” sort of feel. Sure Queen Latifah’s parts are boring, but she’s nicely counter-acted by the wonderful Wanda who delivers a stand out performance! On the whole it’s a great film that you can enjoy with the whole family and Spiderman. (Did  I mention I got a new Spiderman game? Cause I did. And it looks awesome… expect to hear more on that soon.)

I give it 4 lack of Batman’s out of 5.

Okay fine, fine I can’t hold off anymore!!

The Three reasons I’m ridiculously excited about Batman.

1. He’s Batman.

2. Bane.

That’s more like it!

I wasn’t really sure how I felt about Bane but the more I read about Tom Hardy and how much work and thought he put into this character the more I am really excited to see what he does with him.

3. A Tale of Two Cities:

A couple weeks ago I read this awesome article where Chris Nolan (the Director of the Batman Trilogy) talked about where his inspiration for this film came from. Usually this is where Directors say something like “I watched cartoons when I was a kid,” or “I read the script and thought it was awesome,” or “I just sort of made it up as I went along” (Thank you Michael Bay). But you know what Chris Nolan said?? “A Tale of Two Cities.” That’s right: Batman, and a Tale of Two Cities. And THAT is why Chris Nolan is so much more awesome then just about everyone else… except Batman.