Popcorn Movies (AKA Summer Blockbusters)

My little boy decides what I go and see. At the moment it's a toss up between Top Cat, Hotel Transylvania and Frankenweenie.

I've just seen Pirates, an adventure with scientists, which was really good.

for me, there will never be a popcorn movie series like the Indiana Jones Series. (with the exception of number 2 which was not great). Second (and ending) my list was Last of the Mohicans (the Daniel Day Louis version)
After that, everything else pales IMHO.

The recen Iron Man wasnt too bad but still the ratio of CGI to life was still >1 which is a dangerous place for a movie to be if it wants to be really memorable.

Think about how many CGI movioes that were really memorable. Even the Jurassic Park series , was, in my mind a great idea that was produced badly. CGI, to me, starts looking too cartoony and it almost is an unapologetic excuse for a lack of story.

I hear that theres a plan afoot to redo MOBY DICK. Im sorry, that movie with Gregory Peck was so bad (and the book itself wasnt much from which to draw) that I dont think it would rise in level as real popcorn entertainment (let alone high quality flickery)

Lord of the Rings didn't hit the spot then?.... or the Matrix?

the big ones for me were the Star Wars Trilogy (the first 3 films), Alien & the first 2 Indiana Jones Films (never saw the rest)

since i haven't seen a film in a theater since 1997 (actually apart from that one, it might have been 1989), i haven't seen any of the last twenty or so years worth of popcorn films until they came out on VHS and then DVD

i'm also amazed by the number of popcorn films i haven't seen, just a few, Jaws, The Pirates of the Caribbean series, the Jurassic Park series

not even close. LOTA was really kinda boring to the non-D&D crowd. Too much pomposity, not enough entertainment

I am probably the only person on the planet who has NOT seen, nor desired seeing the "Matrix " series.

Even SPiderman wasnt a popcorn movie for me. WAAYtoo much CGI that was noticeably phony. (like Titanic when they did lots of shots of the ship they could have inserted a Looney Tunes label.

Im quite critical of CGI when its used a a substitute for reality as a budget cutting means. When its used to stitch together some pieces of what used to be called "matte painting" it was at a higher level of believability. Like the CGI used in "mohicans" was based on a small state p[ark in North Carolina and was actually more an exercise in PHOTSHOP, than pure fishnetnet CGI.

Its funny , when CGI IS used in feature length cartoons, it fits really well when something new is tried. Like Hugo or Up. In my mind, both of these were ground breaking use of CGI in cartoon animation.

Saw the Avengers last week, pretty good in an all adventure, not much plot needed kind of way. I'm really waiting on Batman. I love the darker Batman more in line with the Frank Miller series of the 80's and I think it is a wise call to build this up as the finale instead of letting it run on and have the quality fall. The Frank Miller Batman was really my first introduction to the DC comic world (never read comics as a kid) and it completely changed my take on "graphic novels" as something that could make a serious statement so I'm glad that vision is making it to the big screen.

For me the greatest popcorn movie ever was Jaws. Second isn't even close, but second would be the Indiana Jones movies.

Ditto Jaws. I first saw it in a drive-in. I spewed beer all over my
friend's car's windshield when that head rolled out of the hole in the boat.

It's going to be a great summer for movies:

From Most Anticipated:
1. Prometheus
2. The Dark Knight Rises
3. Brave
4. The Avengers: I should be seeing it this weekend.
5. Dark Shadows
6. Men in Black 3
7. Hotel Transylvania
8. ParaNorman

And there are many more movies that may be good but I'll wait until I read a few movie reviews before getting my hopes up for seeing them in the movie theater.

Jaws was a great movie if it werent for that rubber shark. They could have made a really tense movie with this renegde hungry shark taking aim on a vacation village and the most wed eversee was the bigass fin and the shadow of the gint shark body. BUT, once you show the monster , it better be good. It wasnt, .

Even the damn teeth were made of rubber. I was at the movies with my (then wife and her father) We all lughed at the damn shark and that really spoiled the great plot that was building around this thing

There are many movies that had potential but just (IMHO) didt make it to full "popcorn" status.


Here is one area thatI guess, CGI could have helped bigly.

Here's an arbitrary list of incredible summer blockbusters!

Some actually might be screened this year in a park or two in NYC during the city's plethora of outdoor movie festivals.

Aliens (1986);
Back to the Future (1985) ;
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977);
Dark Knight (2008);
The Fifth Element (1997);
Finding Nemo (2003)
Jaws (1975);
Jurassic Park (1993);
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981);
WALL·E (2008)

Exactly same answer..............

I read a great review of The Beasts of the Southern Wild" Even the reviewer didn't care much for the beasts, whatever they were supposed to be. If it shows up in town, I'll probably take it in. Definately not described as Big Budget.

finally saw The Dark Knight Rises, what an underwhelming pile of ****

apart from the joker scenes in the second film, the first movie in the series is by far the best

Saw Flightand the Life of Pi.
Flight was a great movie of a really flawed guy whom we keep rooting for and he keeps leaving us down. (Thats enough for now)

Life of Pi was sorta good but the 3D just killed me (sight -wise). The thing that really bothered me was that all the CGI stuff was clearly not in the same planes as the humans.