To recap... now that summer movie season 2012 is a wrap, we're polling contributors, friends and YOU about your favorite and least favorite things of the summer. It's just a glass of something light and bubbly to raise, gulp down quickly and bring a little closure before the heavier stuff hits.
In Part 1, we heard from a few good men and here's two more voices for Part 2. Parts 3 and 4 are the podcast this weekend!
KATEY
who you know and love from Cinema Blend and the occasional podcast here...
Best Movie I Saw All Summer:
I'm surprising myself by answering Magic Mike. It's got more confidence, more imagination and more willingness to let it all hang out than most anything else the studio system produced all year.
Scenes I ♥ So Much I Thought My Heart Would Burst:
1) Natasha's interrogation scene at the beginning of The Avengers-- I've always been wishy-washy on Whedon but his feminist credentials are unbeatable. 2) Norman's confrontation with the witch at the end of ParaNorman, some of the most dazzling and daring animation for kids I've ever seen. 3) The completely insane vampire-chase-on-horseback scene in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, a not-very-good movie that I admired for its insane ideas all the same.
At Least The Theater Was Air Conditioned:
Hit & Run. Bad, self-indulgent filmmaking coupled with an awful audience that laughed at every dumb joke that made me cringe.
If Only "Hulk" Had Smashed...:
Battleship, to save Taylor Kitsch from himself.
Mash-Up ~Two Summer Characters I'd Like to Introduce: Hushpuppy from Beasts of the Southern Wild and Snow White from Snow White and the Huntsman, to teach her a thing or two about making your way through nature and asserting your power in a world that wants to shove you down.
Rank the "Magic Mike" Strippers:
I actually wrote an article with this exact ranking!
Jiminy Cricket, he's flown the coop!"
- Edward Norton in Moonrise Kingdom
JA of MNPP
Best Movie I Saw All Summer:
Moonrise Kingdom, which I only fell even more in love with on a second viewing. Everything feels just right, from Frances McDormand's sweater over house-dress ensembles on up. Or maybe Todd Solondz' Dark Horse, which broke my heart into fifty thousand little pieces.
Scenes I ♥ So Much I Thought My Heart Would Burst:
The Lovecraftian C-section to end all Lovecraftian C-sections in Prometheus and all of the stripping sequences in Magic Mike (although it wasn't really the "heart" part of my anatomy that was fit to burst....)
Things I Actually Learned (at summer movie camp!)
1) Joss Whedon should direct every superhero movie from now on (I figured as much beforehand but The Avengers circled and underlined my suspicions)
2) Woody Allen should probably only make a movie every two years.
3) Prostate exams and currency debates can totally add up to sexy.
Princess Merida, Katniss or Hawkeye?
Only one of these people twirled a dress right into flames, and as much as Jeremy Renner wishes, it wasn't him.
Choose only one archer! Katniss, Princess Merida or Hawkeye
The Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan's camera
Best Old Movie I Saw For the First Time This Summer - Go Me! :
I bet this is the first time that David Lean's "Kate Hepburn takes Venice" movie Summertime has ever tied for anything with Squirm, the 1976 earthworms-run-amok flick, but that's just how I roll.
Major Summer Crush(es): BOMER. CHARLIZE.
Mike beats Ken only because Channing can out-dance everybody else put together. From there it's The Kid, Dallas, Tito and Tarzan.
Mash-Up ~ Two Summer Characters I'd Like to Introduce:
Bane and Jackie & David Siegel from The Queen of Versailles, for obvious reasons
I don't really like the word 'depressed'. I prefer to say I'm in a tailspin."
- Greta Gerwig in Damsels in Distress
And that's it for us until the podcast! If you have your own blog, answer the questions in a post and I'll link up. Otherwise, what do you think of JA's and Katey's summer summaries? The "Katniss, Merida or Hawkeye"? question is such a roscharch. No two answers are quite the same!