On summer movies

Summer is here in spades: it’s supposed to get up to 90 this week. Which means that it’s officially summer movie season chez Household Opera. While I’m no great fan of the kind of summer movies that feature car crashes, meteorites, and/or giant tidal waves swamping New York, I nonetheless find my cinematic tastes changing when summer rolls around. I start craving lighter entertainment to go with the lighter clothes and lighter foods of the season. For instance: this weekend my friend Tonya and I saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and a good time was had by all.* I was especially happy to see Emma Thompson, on whom I had a big crush during her Shakespeare Movies with Kenneth Branagh era, playing Professor Trelawney as a cross between my hippie-ish 7th grade homeroom teacher and the Delphic Sibyl. (But there should have been more Alan Rickman!) Then I made a stab at Serious Film Appreciation by renting Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract, but I started falling asleep three-quarters of the way through. Now is not the ideal time to try to understand what Peter Greenaway is all about. I’d much rather watch movies with hippogriffs and werewolves.

As an added inducement to summer movie frivolity, there are free outdoor movie screenings here every July and August. The movies aren’t first-run, but it’s still fun to watch them outside after dark, surrounded by an affable crowd of people who will shriek at the scary parts in The Others or cheer on George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou? I won’t get to see all of this summer’s offerings, but I will get to re-watch Pirates of the Caribbean (yay, Johnny Depp in eyeliner!), Chicago (I wonder if people will sing along?), and a few others.

I suspect I’ll be doing quite a big of movie-renting as a means of breaking up the monotony of packing for the move. I’ve also been feeling the urge to post capsule reviews from time to time. In short, this may be the season of movie-blogging. Full speed ahead! Oh, wait, it’s summer. Lazy meander ahead!

* Though I wouldn’t exactly call this installment in the series "light." Those Dementors were creepy.

3 Responses to “On summer movies”

  1. Clancy says:

    Be sure to watch plenty of “stylish thrillers”! LOL

  2. Somewhat says:

    Be sure to watch lots of things with Alan Rickman and Johnny Depp in them. You have EXCELLENT taste 😉

  3. Michelle says:

    Loved O Brother Where Art Thou. We’ve worn ourselves out with it now but we watched it repetitively doing the geeky latin and french dictionary thing when it first came out. Love Chicago, have seen it at least ten times. You know how I felt about Pirates from postings when it opened. I watched The Others recently for a second time and I could not believe that I’d forgotten the surprise ending.
    Summer of movies sounds awesome. Don’t miss Shrek 2. It’s *not* better than the first in my opinion but it’s as good.