the dog days of summer

For some reason, studios have gone more and more in the direction of bringing out the biggest and most anticipated movies in May, leaving little for June and almost nothing for July. And don't even get me started on August. So here we are, in early July, and our two big movies are Transformers 2 and Public Enemies. Obviously Transformers 2 is supposed to be terrible. No surpirse there. It looks like loud, clangy, suped-up garbage. But Public Enemies doesn't look a whole lot better. So Johny Depp is in it. So what. It's a Michael Mann movie and honestly the guy hasn't made a well-paced movie since HEAT in 1995. Everything the man does is slow in the name of art. His movie Collateral with Tom Cruise as a hitman had no reason to be slow and yet it still was. And even HEAT, much as I love it, was too slow for it's own good at times. Well, Public Enemies doesn't look any better.

So what's out that's worthwhile? the same stuff that was out and worthwhile three weeks ago, maybe more. Up and The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three, and The Hangover. Those three movies. Those are the ones to see. And I'm hoping that I'm not wrong about Pelham, but it could really go either way.