I like summer movies. I like the wow moments. Sometimes you only get one or two and a lot of dreck in-between. Last year TRANSFORMERS set a new standard for me by being almost completely without merit...except that the number of genuine WOW moments went into the double digits!--I loved it! And now this summer, we're getting wow moments in the threes and fours...and...what's this?...there's some pathos and acting and (gasp) STORYTELLING happening at the movies this summer. Corporate cinema gets a clue? What strange universe is this...?

Here's my ranking (btw I admit I am fickle and my opinions may relate to my own happiness level or whether I overate at lunch time...but so far...)

1. Wall E
Simply beautiful. This one doesn't really belong in the list with these others. Though I must admit, the pace of it has kept me from rushing back to see it again as I did Nemo, Monsters, and Ratatouille. If I could just pay $2 a pop and watch the short, I'd do that several times, for sure.

2. Tropic Thunder
So incredibly funny and only offensive to people who think dumb Hollywood-types should not be the butt of jokes. Those are the only people being mocked. And they are well and cleverly mocked indeed! I will say that the over-the-top gore does require a very post-modern suspension of suspension of disbelief. If you forget to disbelieve even for a second, it's pretty icky.

3. Indiana Jones
Yes it is silly but the sheer spectacle of it screams "ONLY Spielberg and Lucas can do this!" I loved it from beginning to end. The first three are silly, too, folks.



4. Hellboy 2
A fast-paced comic-book movie with good dialogue, interesting characters and genuine surprises! Fancy that!! btw I fell asleep in the first one and did not regret it.

5. Kung Fu Panda
The first non-Pixar computer animated venture that offers some aesthetic inventiveness of which the Pixar crew must surely take note. And it's very funny, in spite of a hackneyed plot.

6. Horton Hears a Who
This made me laugh a LOT. And I was emotionally involved, too.

7. Iron Man
Robert Downey Jr takes it up a notch.

8. Hancock
Bad reviews lowered my expectations and it exceeded them! I enjoyed the whole thing...though I'm coming to assume that all hero movies will have a big, dumb, loud yawner of an ending and this was no exception to that rule.

9. The Incredible Hulk
Genuinely sympathetic characters and a wow moment or two...with another humdrum finale.

10. Journey to the Center of the Earth
We saw this solely for the neato factor of the 3D. And I'm totally jaded in this department...and yet it made me go NEATO a lot. So there. Damn dumb. But neato.

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And then there was
X. Speed Racer
Wow, this was the 2nd worst movie I've seen this year. Truly a shade-your-eyes-in the-back-row experience of swimming in neon vomit.

X. X-Files 2
This was inexcusable. I am a fan; I liked the first movie. This was squirmingly, inexplicably dull.

Yet to see:
Prince Caspian
The Dark Knight
Encounters at the End of the World
The Visitor
Harold and Kumar Fish for Nuggets
???