Searching for Inception

So Jackie wrote on my wall noting that it seemed like there weren't many good movies coming out this summer. Now as someone who awesomely (read: probably not awesomly) perpetually looks at IMDb's Coming Soon section and follows movie news and trailers far too much, I had to beg to differ! But I wanted to also break it down in writing, and try to give an idea of upcoming movies to people who were curious about what this summer has to offer. Now there are plenty articles out there about this stuff (including this one, which I plan on reading after I write this, an article that is also a preview of Bill Simmons' new website, what what: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=110502/preview/molly-lambert-on-2011-summer-movie-preview), but hopefully you'll enjoy my thoughts on things.

I'm gonna rank these based on movies I'm least looking forward that I feel are worth mentioning, to movies I'm most psyched about/suggest most. Go here: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/summer/ or here: http://www.imdb.com/nowplaying/2011/05/ to check out more regarding these movies. I'll try to say what I think of the upcoming movie... but seeing as I was very off on my expectations for the first two and their reviews, I don't know how good my opinion will be (though I was pumped for Inception for months before it came out, and that totally paid off).

Mr. Popper's Penguins (June 17): Why is Jim Carrey in this movie? I'm confused. Is this what adults felt like when I would be super-pumped as a kid to see Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls?

Cars 2 (June 24): So uh, don't judge me, but I haven't seen the first one still. Yeah, I know. This is like the only Pixar movie I haven't seen. But if I know Pixar, they're only doing this because they have a good script for a sequel... I hope. fingers crossed. And if it's good, I'll check the first one and then this one, you got it.

Everything Must Go (May 13): Starring Will Ferrell in another of his comedy/drama-type roles. Not sure if this will be as good as Stranger Than Fiction, but I'm curious to see. The trailer seemed a bit cheese, but Rebecca Hall is in it (The Town, aw yeah), and Notorious B.I.G's son (say wha).

Larry Crowne (July 1): Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, but this doesn't seem that good.

Bad Teacher (June 24): I didn't even hear about this movie until its poster was pointed out to me after Fast Five. So uh, I don't know what the studio is going for here. Cameron Diaz hasn't really had a good track record recently, but it's nice to see Phyllis from The Office in a flick, and JT is at it with another movie. Jason Segel too. But yeah, the lack of buzz around this film is strange to me.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (May 20): Johnny Depp is back, and so is Geoffrey Rush, who were two of the main highlights of the original trilogy (sorry Orlando Bloom). Penelope Cruz is cool, and Ian McShane apparently played a badass in Deadwood... so this could be interesting. Apparently there is a new type of couple in this one played by two-lesser-famous folk, so it'll be interesting to see if they can be the next Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. I'm not too psyched for this one... but I bet it won't be half bad.

Midnight in Paris (May 20): Woody Allen movie starring Owen Wilson. Trailer seems to have promise... I'm not a big Allen guy but I liked what I saw in the trailer.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (August 5): Franco may have sucked as an Oscar host, but he was great in 127 Hours, and the trailer looks intringuing. I'm not saying I wanna watch it, but I don't think it'll be turrrrible.

The Change-Up (August 5): These guys are funny. The concept is dumb, but it could be good.

Horrible Bosses (July 8): Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie from It's Always Sunny. And Jennifer Aniston. This could be funny, and I wanna see how Charlie does in a feature film...

Bridesmaids (May 13): I've seen like 3 different versions of trailers of this movie, and none of the 3 have made me that uber-pumped about it. But I want it to be good, and I also didn't really like The Hangover trailer when it first came out, so I'm hoping this will still be good. I like most of the actresses a decent amount in this one. Judd Apatow's Twitter has been selling out with Tweets and RTs about this movie for what seems like 20 years, so it better be good, or I'm gonna punch Apatow myself.

The Tree of Life (May 27): Terrence Malick is a filmmaking legend who I've yet to come to appreciate. I saw The Thin Red Line when I was a kid, and I didn't really get it, but I imagine I'd like it more now. I haven't seen any of his earlier stuff or The New World, but this new one looks cool. Brad Pitt as an angry, tough dad? Sean Penn, even though I think he overacts sometimes? The trailer looks cool. What is that tree about? How trippy and confused am I gonna be watching this movie?

The Green Lantern (June 17): I like Ryan Reynolds, and I mainly just wanna see him in a good superhero movie. But we'll see how this goes. They're gonna be dancing on the line between awesome and cheesy on this one...

30 Minutes or Less (August 12): I'd love to see Aziz be a lead in a popular movie. And Eisenberg ain't half bad either. The trailer was funny, with some already good Aziz lines.

Captain America (July 22): Another movie where I wanna root for the star, Chris Evans, to succeed. Shoot, this guy made Cellular half-watchable (read: half-watchable. nothing more). It seems like a cool concept, but like I felt with Thor, I dunno how I feel about how they're gonna eventually connect this with the rest of the Avengers timeline. I guess they've come up with something cool though...

Thor (May 6): I thought this looked lame. The whole bring-Thor-to-modern-age concept seemed weird to me, and I'm still not as crazy about Natalie Portman as others. But watch out, because Thor is getting Iron Man 1-worthy reviews and seems to be on its way to replicate that Iron Man's success in the first weekend of May (though I don't think Iron Man had a Fast Five-type movie to compete with. 95% on Rotten Tomatoes so far. It must be doing something right. Also, it has Idris Elba aka Stringer Bell yo in it. Strangely they aren't putting him in the trailer at all. Weak, movie studio, weak...

The Hangover Part II (May 27): Oh boy here we go. Yes, the trailer is somewhat repetitive, but that doesn't mean the movie won't be funny. I think this one could be almost as funny as the first one, and I'm looking forward to it... the 3 main guys are funny. So is Ken Jeong... If you like the first one, I'd say to be pumped about this one...

Fast Five (now): So I actually got around to watching Fast Five yesterday. it started off its first weekend with the biggest movie opening of 2011 by far, and that says one thing: Summer movies are here. How was Fast Five? Well I've seen the first and third ones, and I don't really feel like getting around to the 2nd one ever, but damn was the fifth one fun! Crazy, right? Fast Five puts together all the fun characters from past movies that they can, throw them into a ridiculous plot in Brazil, but in turn gives the audience impressive and fun action scenes. The climax action scene is loads of fun, as are lots of other parts. Vin Diesel-The Rock fight? Sold. Awesome cheesy lines? You got it.

Is the movie ridiculous? Absolutely. You will unintentionally laugh at various points. But it's the good side of ridiculous, and it's fun, and it'll keep you entertained. This is the modern classic-type of action movie that Stallone or Van Damme used to give us, only instead it's with current guys like Vin Diesel, The Rock, and Paul Walker. And mix in a touch of Ocean's 11. Good stuff. Come expecting a fun, not brilliant, movie. You will be pleased.

X-Men First Class (June 3): I thought the 3rd X-Men was terrible, and I never got around to the not-so-great Wolverine movie. This one looks good though. Origin stuff can be tricky, but with story material like Xavier pre-wheelchair and his initial friendship with Magneto, combined with the always-intriguing-in-movies Cuban Missle Crisis and the director of Kick-Ass, and I've got high hopes for this one.

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (July 29): Is it weird that my friends and I caught part of The Notebook the other night, and Ryan Gosling was going out with Rachel McAdams, and now he's going after a character played by Emma Stone? Whatever. They're both funny, and Steve Carell's character has promise here. This movie is getting some hype. I'm curious about it.

Cowboys & Aliens (July 29): Daniel Craig is a g, and Harrison Ford still gots it, I bet. I read an early review of the first 30 minutes or whatever of the movie, and they loved it. Olivia Wilde ain't half bad either. The title is absurd, the concept is absurd, but I think Favreau can pull it off. He's money and he knows it.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (July 1): The second movie was disappointing, but Megan Fox is gone, it seems like they're giving more time to Tyrese Gibson and Josh Duhamel (remember that Aziz Ansari joke about Las Vegas? Good times), and it seems like they're grounding this more (with a city, I think Chicago, as opposed to pyramids in Egypt). I think this could be a winner. Shia's pumped, yo!

Harry Potter (July 15): I'm generally a disappointed fan in the movies, but I liked the Part I of Deathly Hallows enough (I just didn't like that it wasn't really a full film), and Part I saved a schload of crazy action for the last one. The trailer was electric, and it's gonna be crazy. I might even go to a midnight showing for this one.

Super 8 (June 10): Oh. Em. Gee. This is my Inception of the summer, the original movie I'm most looking forward too. I think this is the movie that will take JJ Abrams to the next stage, after proving himself in the TV world and with Star Trek. The father figure played by Coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights. Count me in. Just watching the trailer gives me chills, like the part where the main kid says to the disturbed guy that he believes him. Can this movie reach the level of a Spielberg classic? Looking forward to finding out.

And with that... we'll see what happens. Maybe I'm completely wrong on some of these movies. I'll always rather be wrong about thinking negatively of a movie than thinking too highly of it. But fear not, Jackie, and others. There's some promise for this summer. Maybe not an Oscar winner, but shoot, maybe so with Super 8 or Harry Potter, and it's the summer anyway, so we're talking about fun popcorn flicks that are hopefully above half-decent. You only get a Best Picture nom like Inception every now and then. And now I'm gonna read that other article previewing summer movies...

Friday Night Lights Forever, Six. Friday Night Lights Forever.

*There are no spoilers in this post. Anyone can read this, whether you've seen none, some, or all of the TV show Friday Nights Lights. This is both a celebration of the show and an invitation to watch it.

I remember when Friday Night Lights premiered on TV. I laughed at the thought of another TV show converting from a good movie, sure that it would be bad. Movies-into-TV usually goes pretty poorly... Dangerous Minds and Clueless come to mind. Even more ridiculous to me was that they would air it on Friday nights... even if that was the name of the show, that was no reason to stick a new show on a crappy TV night unless it was doomed to fail. I figured it would be an instant flop, cancelled in its first season. I never really thought of it for a few years.

I was wrong. I got into FNL between its 3rd and 4th seasons after hearing Bill Simmons and Patton Oswalt praising it on a podcast. Billy had talked it up before, after its first season, but I just read that article and didn't think much of it. But this time, they talked about how the main husband and wife characters portrayed the most realistic marriage on TV, how great all the characters were, etc., and I figured I should give it a shot. After the first few episodes, I was hooked. I've noticed a lot of people tend to get hooked within the first few episodes, if not after the excellent pilot.

I never knew much about FNL until I started watching it because, probably like you, I didn't follow it in its first few seasons. Props to those who did. It was stuck on a bad TV night with bad advertising and people not realizing it was good (guys thinking it was too soap opera-y, girls thinking it was a football show for dudes). It almost got cancelled after each of its first 3 seasons. Its second season was cut short by a writer's strike, and as it was the weakest of the 5 seasons, it's fortunate that DirecTV stepped in and made a deal with NBC to keep the show alive (DirecTV would get the rights to air the show first, and the season was cut to a 13-episode order, instead of a 20+ order that a network show might normally have. Does this call into question whether it's truly a network show? Meh... it still would show on NBC without any changes. I say it's a network show).

Friday Night Lights is no LOST. It never reached the popularity of it, nor did it reach LOST's huge cult following in the last few seasons that I was very much a part of. It was no West Wing, never receiving its huge share of Emmys or award acclaim. Instead, it just gritted it out to have the joy of having more seasons to tell its story. In a better world, it would have gotten more. Its weakest season was in season 2, when it supposedly folded to ratings pressure by trying to bring in a ridiculous, hopefully ratings-grabbing plot that flopped, along with a slight sophomore slump that may have been a result of story fatigue after it balls-out first season. Its Seasons 3-5 were superb though, with Season 5 making an argument for its best season, a rare pattern in television shows, especially network TV.

Friday Night Lights will probably impress you from the start, with a pilot that sets things up in such a great way. Watch for the awesome first season, where the show went for broke with storylines from all over the place (steroids, racism, Internet bullying, to name a few) and succeeded with most of them. Watch for chilling sports scenes, which you'll find a few of each season. Watch for the Taylor household, a dad/mom/daughter combo where the husband and wife have realer conversations and dynamics than any you'll see on TV, and the parents have a relationship with their daughter that is portrayed so rawly and so well.

Watch for Coach Taylor, someone who you will wish was also your life coach. Watch for Tami Taylor, a character who is so much more than a coach's wife in this show and maybe the show's most important character. Watch for the players who deal with the pressures of football, school, family, and life, with the weight of the town on their shoulders sometimes. Watch for the female characters who are strong women in their own right. Watch to see up close the personal lives of these characters in a way that is honest and at times emotional to witness. Watch to laugh with the characters, to celebrate with them, and to cry with them. And yes, you will cry. Or at least, for me, my allergies would start acting up.

Watch for the second season, which is still good, just not as good as you would hope. Watch for the third season, where the show found a new spark while starting to say goodbye to some characters that were just too old for a show focused on high school football. Watch for the fourth season, a slightly more inconsistent season because of the transition of new characters, and yet a season filled with episodes of excellence and one of the best transitions you'll ever see for a show where TV characters left high school. Watch for the fifth season, a wonderful send-off that ends the show so well, on top of its game, still giving you chills and tears.

Friday Night Lights has a small cult following now, loved by the few who have seen it at this point. I imagine in the next few years, it'll get more and more love as it makes the rounds in conversations, similar to how The Wire has become more well-known in the years after its last season. It has cemented its place as the best sports TV show ever (not really a big competition, when you consider that there are mainly just things like... Playmakers... and... uh... but the fact that there are so few shows kinda proves how hard it is to make a show like this. I guess White Shadow, an old show, is supposed to be quite good. And how did I almost forget to mention Hang Time?). But I think it can also make a case for one of the best network shows ever and probably my personal favorite network drama. I've mentioned some of its great aspects, and I'll concede that there are some weak aspects about it (some minor plots and characters being dropped without much explanation, and a few storylines that were just weaker than they could have been). But the highs it reached and the consistency with which it reached those highs? Top-notch.

I plan on getting the whole series on DVD. There aren't many shows I'll do that for (The Wire and Arrested Development... maybe Mad Men and Breaking Bad when they end... maybe not Lost, and I'll see about sitcoms in the future)... but this show just brought it, and I love it. I might even get a shirt too, to rep. I'll truly miss seeing the stories of these characters, rooting for the team, and wondering what would happen next.

If you watch the show, I hope you feel likewise. If you haven't, I encourage you to check out the pilot and see how you feel. I think the pilot is great, and I think the second episode keeps up the quality instead of being a letdown. And it'll go on strong from there. You can get most of it, I think, on Netflix streaming. Or DVDs. Or... through uh, other means.

This was the little show that could. Boy, did it. And so I say, not for the last time: CLEAR EYES. FULL HEARTS...

How Many of These Movies Have You Seen?

I thought this might be fun. I'd seen some posts (via Kate Steele first!) talking about the BBC list of 100 books to read and how BBC believes most people have read only 6 of those 100 books.

That topic eventually randomly led to some friends and I deciding to see how many movies we had seen in the AFI Top 100 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI's_100_Years..._100_Movies_(10th_Anniversary_Edition)] - we did the 2007 edition, not the 1997 edition). Out of the AFI Top 100, I've seen 53.

Also, we did the top 100 movies from the IMDb Top 250 (http://www.imdb.com/chart/top). This one is more biased toward a certain target audience (i.e. young male adults like me), and I certainly have used this list more in my past to consider what movies to watch, so it turns out that I've seen 74 of the current 100.

It should be noted that this list changes here and there (Inception will definitely get lower over time, as new movies typically peak at the start. The Dark Knight was #1 at its start. And movies will fall in and out of the top 100). But yeah, I thought some of you might enjoy seeing these lists and seeing how many of these films you had watched. Cheers.

The movies I've seen are in bold.

AFI

1 Citizen Kane

2 The Godfather

3 Casablanca

4 Raging Bull

5 Singin' in the Rain

6 Gone with the Wind

7 Lawrence of Arabia

8 Schindler's List

9 Vertigo

10 The Wizard of Oz

11 City Lights

12 The Searchers

13 Star Wars

14 Psycho

15 2001: A Space Odyssey

16 Sunset Boulevard

17 The Graduate

18 The General

19 On the Waterfront

20 It's a Wonderful Life

21 Chinatown

22 Some Like It Hot

23 The Grapes of Wrath

24 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

25 To Kill a Mockingbird

26 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

27 High Noon

28 All About Eve

29 Double Indemnity

30 Apocalypse Now

31 The Maltese Falcon

32 The Godfather Part II

33 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

34 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

35 Annie Hall

36 The Bridge on the River Kwai

37 The Best Years of Our Lives

38 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

39 Dr. Strangelove

40 The Sound of Music

41 King Kong

42 Bonnie and Clyde

43 Midnight Cowboy

44 The Philadelphia Story

45 Shane

46 It Happened One Night

47 A Streetcar Named Desire

48 Rear Window

49 Intolerance

50 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

51 West Side Story

52 Taxi Driver

53 The Deer Hunter

54 MASH

55 North by Northwest

56 Jaws

57 Rocky

58 The Gold Rush

59 Nashville

60 Duck Soup

61 Sullivan's Travels

62 American Graffiti

63 Cabaret

64 Network

65 The African Queen

66 Raiders of the Lost Ark

67 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

68 Unforgiven

69 Tootsie

70 A Clockwork Orange

71 Saving Private Ryan

72 The Shawshank Redemption

73 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

74 The Silence of the Lambs

75 In the Heat of the Night

76 Forrest Gump

77 All the President's Men

78 Modern Times

79 The Wild Bunch

80 The Apartment

81 Spartacus

82 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

83 Titanic

84 Easy Rider

85 A Night at the Opera

86 Platoon

87 12 Angry Men

88 Bringing Up Baby

89 The Sixth Sense

90 Swing Time

91 Sophie's Choice

92 Goodfellas

93 The French Connection

94 Pulp Fiction

95 The Last Picture Show

96 Do the Right Thing

97 Blade Runner

98 Yankee Doodle Dandy

99 Toy Story

100 Ben-Hur

IMDb Top 100

1 The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

2 The Godfather (1972)

3 The Godfather: Part II (1974)

4 Inception (2010)

5 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

6 Pulp Fiction (1994)

7 Schindler's List (1993)

8 12 Angry Men (1957)

9 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

10 The Dark Knight (2008)

11 Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back(1980)

12 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003)

13 Seven Samurai (1954)

14 Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)

15 Goodfellas (1990)

16 Casablanca (1942)

17 Fight Club (1999)

18 City of God (2002)

19 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring(2001)

20 Toy Story 3 (2010)

21 Rear Window (1954)

22 Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

23 Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

24 Psycho (1960)

25 The Usual Suspects (1995)

26 The Matrix (1999)

27 The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

28 Se7en (1995)

29 Memento (2000)

30 It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

31 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

32 Sunset Blvd. (1950)

33 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

34 The Professional (1994)

35 Forrest Gump (1994)

36 Citizen Kane (1941)

37 Apocalypse Now (1979)

38 North by Northwest (1959)

39 American Beauty (1999)

40 American History X (1998)

41 Taxi Driver (1976)

42 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

43 Vertigo (1958)

44 Saving Private Ryan (1998)

45 Amélie (2001)

46 Alien (1979)

47 WALL·E (2008)

48 Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

49 The Shining (1980)

50 Spirited Away (2001)

51 Paths of Glory (1957)

52 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

53 To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

54 The Pianist (2002)

55 Double Indemnity (1944)

56 The Departed (2006)

57 The Lives of Others (2006) 50

58 M (1931)

59 Aliens (1986)

60 City Lights (1931)

61 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

62 Requiem for a Dream (2000)

63 Das Boot (1981)

64 The Third Man (1949)

65 L.A. Confidential (1997)

66 Chinatown (1974)

67 Reservoir Dogs (1992)

68 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

69 Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

70 Modern Times (1936)

71 Life Is Beautiful (1997)

72 Back to the Future (1985)

73 Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

74 The Prestige (2006)

75 Raging Bull (1980)

76 Cinema Paradiso (1988)

77 Singin' in the Rain (1952)

78 The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

79 Some Like It Hot (1959)

80 Rashomon (1950)

81 Amadeus (1984)

82 All About Eve (1950)

83 Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

84 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

85 Inglourious Basterds (2009)

86 The Green Mile (1999)

87 Full Metal Jacket (1987)

88 Braveheart (1995)

89 The Great Dictator (1940)

90 Bicycle Thieves (1948)

91 The Apartment (1960)

92 Downfall (2004)

93 Up (2009)

94 Gran Torino (2008)

95 Metropolis (1927)

96 The Maltese Falcon (1941)

97 The Sting (1973)

98 Gladiator (2000)

99 The Elephant Man (1980)

100 Sin City (2005)