And so summer rattles along, with the year’s first bona-fide masterpiece finally under our belt. Lo and behold, it does appear that there might be another one on the horizon, maybe, if we allow that superhero movies can be bona-fide masterpieces. And for the record, I am certainly not talking about…

2.7.2008
…Hancock, which looks appealing only insofar as Will Smith is an appealing guy. Otherwise, the trailers seem to indicate a pretty dire concoction that doesn’t know if its a satire or not, with the distinct smack of racism lying over the whole proceedings: a lazy, drunk (black) superhero with a bad attitude must conform to what (white) people need of him. I’m not sure how this of all films got the July 4 slot.

4.7.2008
The blockbusters take a quick breather, leaving us just with some little indie flicks to fight the good fight against John Phillips Sousa and fireworks: The Wackness, in which nostalgia for the 1990s finally hits the big screen, and Diminished Capacity, which as far as I can tell is a comedy about Alzheimer’s. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

11.7.2008
Man oh man, the only thing better than Brendan Fraser has to be Brendan Fraser hurtling towards you in 3-D, and thank God we’ve got that magical combination coming in Journey to the Center of the Earth, which shall continue the beloved tradition of adapting Jules Verne without leaving much of anything in the original novel intact other than the title and maybe the setting.

For those of us who like a little bit of craftsmanship with our CGI, Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army shall also be opening this weekend. Me, I liked Hellboy just fine, and I love me some Guillermo del Toro, so my expectations might be a touch higher than they should be. But I also do love the spectacle of a box office failure getting a sequel because of good video sales.

Lastly, Eddie Murphy stars in a new sci-fi comedy, Meet Dave, because that shit always turns out well.

18.7.2008
Ah, here it is…after months and years of waiting, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight opens in the wake of tragedy. If it’s just as good as Batman Begins, it’s sure to be the best popcorn film of the year, and let’s face it: we all expect it to be a sight better than “just as good.” Raise a glass to Mr. Heath Ledger, whose untimely passing has cast a shadow over the film that was due to have been his crowning achievement.

About as far from “the film so dark that it drove an actor to the pills that killed him” is Mamma Mia! in which Meryl Streep dances and sings to ABBA in a movie based on the stage musical that every single middle-aged woman I’ve ever known either saw and loved, or desperately wanted to see.

Then, sort of triangulating how far you can get from either, is, uh, Space Chimps. About space chimps, I suppose.

25.7.2008
I was once passionately in love with The X-Files.

It wasn’t love at first sight. I’d be in the room when it was on, and I’d glance up and think “that seems okay,” but there was no electricity, not yet. It was only a couple of years later, when we’d spent a lot of time in the same circles that we hooked-up one night. “Here’s an episode with Charles Nelson Reilly as a sci-fi author” it purred in my ear. “And Peter Boyle as a psychic. There’s an ichthyosaur, and a man who persuades people to kill themselves, and funny murdering cockroaches.” “Don’t stop,” I whispered. “A two-parter that ends with a man bleeding black goo from his eyes in an abandoned missile silo. And an epic mythology about government conspiracies.” At that moment, I fell completely, and the next several months were a fevered blur of beautiful moments and memorable nights together. Well do I remember that last perfect moment we shared – “Agent Mulder died last night of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head!” it moaned as I gasped for air.

The afterglow was nice, but I began to notice that the show just didn’t care as much. “Wait, isn’t the black oil a sentient being that controls its hosts?” “Nah, it’s a virus that turns people to lizard monsters.” “Oh…that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.” “Yeah, but the Smoking Man has a son who may be Mulder’s half brother.” “Um, that’s kind of stupid.” I was sure things were getting bad about the time we went to the movies, and just sat there in bored silence.

Things got worse after that. Sure, we had a few fun times, but it seemed like the show wasn’t even trying any more. It tried a gimmick with the Bermuda Triangle that didn’t go anywhere; and one time it had Michael McKean being funny, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I should. At the same time, it tried to excuse itself with increasingly outlandish stories about aliens and the government, but none of that made any sense anymore. Things just kept getting worse – I could tell the show didn’t care at all – and eventually, it told me David Duchovny was leaving. That was bad enough, but it tried to bring another man in. “Oh, you’ll like John Doggett,” it said, but that silky purr had been swallowed up by a raspy cough, and I could barely contain my disgust.

Things ended a little more than a year later, but they’d been going hard for a while; by “Jump the Shark” or the terrible attempt to parody the Brady Bunch, we were just hatefucking, pure and simple. I couldn’t wait to get out, and I finally did, hardly able to hide my shudder at the gross spectacle of Mulder and Scully making out, or the Smoking Man melting in a nuclear fire. That was years ago, and I still remember, fondly, the good parts. But it’s hard to do that, sometimes.

Anyhow: the second movie, The X-Files: I Want to Believe opens today.

Also: John C. Reilly’s continued descent into the pits of shit alongside Will Ferrell – they’re Step Brothers! – and for no reason that I can possibly comprehend, there’s a mockumentary update of The Breakfast Club with the barbaric title American Teen. And the glossy, shallow Julian Jarrold is directing what I’m sure will be a glossy, shallow adaptation of Brideshead Revisited.