20 flicks for summer 2004

Summer is almost here, and with it comes the prototypical onslaught of big-budgeted studio tripe. Below are flicks which both embrace and debunk the characteristics of summer moviegoing, which may well turn out to be worth your hard-earned green. They're arranged chronologically and categorically for your viewing pleasure.
1. "Van Helsing" (May 7) -- Sure, the special effects look shoddy and manhandling three monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man) into one movie is a tall order. But Hugh Jackman (a.k.a. Wolverine) and the babealicious Kate Beckinsale are in it, and that can't be a bad thing. Occasionally when things look this lame, they come full circle and turn out to be really rad. 2 - 6. "Super Size Me" (May 7); "Coffee and Cigarettes" (May 14); "Napoleon Dynamite" (June 11); "Before Sunset" (July 2); "Garden State" (July 30) -- In the midst of summer movie bombast, independent flicks can serve as a nice refuge. Here are the picks of the pack: With "Super Size Me," producer/director/guinea pig Morgan Spurlock investigates why Americans are so damned obese. In doing so, he sustained himself on nothing but McDonald's for a month -- kidney failure entailed. Sounds hilarious. "Coffee and Cigarettes" is a no-brainer. With a cast comprised of cool musicians (Jack and Meg White, RZA and GZA of Wu-Tang, Iggy Pop and Tom Waits) and cooler actors (Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett and Hollywood's favorite onscreen oddball, Steve Buscemi), all under the direction of Jim Jarmusch (who hit a career high with his last feature length, "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai"), this one's sure to impress or at least give a slight buzz. Sundance favorite "Napoleon Dynamite" has been described as a cross between "Dumb and Dumber" and "The Royal Tenenbaums." From where I'm sitting, that's a good thing. "Before Sunset" is Richard Linklater's semi-sequel to the immensely romantic and relatively unseen "Before Sunrise." Following on the successful heels of Linklater's "School of Rock," this should serve as a nice bridge between that and the Philip K. Dick adaptation "A Scanner Darkly" due in 2005. It seems as though this cat's emulating the career of Steven Soderbergh in oscillating between mainstream and fringe cinema -- smart move. Those of you who caught "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" here in B-town likely saw the trailer for "Garden State." Weird as this teaser was, it looked cool as all get out. "Scrubs" star Zach Braff directs from his own script, which many critics have compared favorably to "The Graduate," as that's one of my favorite flicks of all-time, this is something to get excited about. The dates listed are for select cities, so it's likely these flicks will be showing locally by the time you've returned from summer break. Bummer. 7 - 8. "Troy" (May 14); "King Arthur" (July 7) -- Two great historical epics about reams of great men, both of which will be sporting ketchup-spattered R ratings on their respective ways to the multiplex i.e. none of that pansy PG-13 shit! God bless America. 9. "Shrek 2" (May 21) -- Hell, kids need something to watch amid all the bloodshed. 10. "The Day After Tomorrow" (May 28) -- Initial trailers for this failed to impress me, but subsequent ones have looked cooler. Essentially, this is a '70s-style disaster flick with new-fangled bells and whistles from Kraut schlockmeister Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day") starring Donnie Darko himself, Jake Gyllenhaal. 11 - 12. "Zatôichi" (June 4); "Hero" (Aug. 13) -- Far East badasses Takeshi Kitano (who you may know as the face of Vic Romano on Spike TV's "MXC" or as the treacherous teacher from "Battle Royale") and Jet Li headline these respective imports of Japan and China. Kitano's playing a blind samurai in the former and Li an assassin in the latter -- both should be gnarly. 13. "The Terminal" (June 18) -- Spielberg. Hanks. Need I say more? 14 - 15. "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" (June 18); "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" (July 9) -- Actors Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and the Wilson brothers have assembled a comedic brat pack of sorts, starring in one film after the next with one another. Most of these flicks have rocked balls, e.g.: "Zoolander," "Old School," "Starsky and Hutch," etc. Well, the pattern seems to be extending itself with these excessively long-titled summer comedies, and the results should be similar. 16. "Spider-Man 2" (June 30) -- It's Spider-Man, damn it! Who doesn't want to see this? 17 - 18. "The Bourne Supremacy" (July 23); "Collateral" (Aug. 6) -- Hollywood big guns Matt Damon and Tom Cruise play assassins in this sequel to the inspired 2002 original and the long-awaited teaming of everyone's favorite Scientologist and "Heat" director Michael Mann, respectively. Both should be firing on all cylinders. 19. "The Village" (July 30) -- Director M. Night Shyamalan is batting three-for-three with me. "The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable" and "Signs" were all solid genre pictures with rewarding, twist endings. Given the precedent of the work he's done up until now and the cast assembled for this latest outing (Joaquin Phoenix, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Adrien Brody, etc.) -- this should be a scarily entertaining two hours at the movies. 20. "Alien Vs. Predator" (Aug. 13) -- Sure, "AVP" director Paul W.S. Anderson ("Mortal Kombat," Event Horizon," "Soldier," "Resident Evil") sucks bad enough to blow a golf ball through a garden hose, but these are Alien and Predator we're talking about. This is the stuff that comprised the wet dreams of the kid you bullied in high school and the nightmares of we normal filmgoing folk. If only someone had paged Ridley Scott, James Cameron or John McTiernan.