I have a hot date today with a mother of three who needs to get out of the house. She wants to see a movie. She wants to see Get Smart but I’m not so sure. And then there’s Hancock, which (don’t spoil it for me) apparently takes a hard left halfway through and leaves half the crowd booing and half the crowd cheering. Not sure which half we’ll be in and I hate to waste a night out just to find out. There’s no way Becky’s going to see Wanted – I’m not sure if this movie even has a plot, a point or great acting but it has Angelina Jolie. Shooting stuff. Angelina. Jolie. I’m just sayin’. Angelina Jolie is in it. I might enjoy that. Perhaps that’s not a good thing. We’ve seen King Fu Panda and WALL-E already. Actually, that’s all we’ve seen this Summer. Oh, the exciting life of parents. What else is there?
Have you seen anything lately that you would risk your reputation (and possible banning for life from this website) to suggest?
My favorite movies of the summer have been Kung Fu Panda, Wall-E, and Speed Racer. I wasn’t that impressed with Get Smart myself and decided to sit out Hancock.
I’m afraid I don’t have any suggestions for you.
Hmm, I have seen both Hancock and Get Smart, and I really enjoyed Get Smart. I’m not very familiar with the original, though, but my husband is, and he didn’t like it at all. There are a couple of off-color jokes/scenes, but that’s about all I recall.
Hancock definitely contains a twist, and I felt like the first half of the movie was better, but I enjoyed it overall. The language was pretty harsh for a PG-13, though.
I haven’t seen Wanted, but I have a few friends who did and weren’t crazy about it, as they couldn’t figure out what the point of it is.
I loved Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda. I don’t even have kids, and we saw both of those voluntarily.
And hey, there’s always Kitt Kittredge, the All-American Girl. 
If you’re ever looking for a rental, we thoroughly enjoyed Be Kind Rewind, a Jack Black movie that was surprisingly charming and funny.
I highly recommend La Misma Luna – Under the Same Moon. It is a film about a mother in Mexico working to give her son a better life in the States. The Spanish/English film had this American crying on an airplane full of French travelers.
The Visitor isn’t half bad. It’s definitley an M. Night movie as far a suspense goes but it doesn’t have the same flare his other movies had.
I liked Prince Caspian better than LWW. I think it deals with maturer themes than the first.
I haven’t seen Iron Man but I’ve heard it’s the best comic book/action hero movie in years…
Ooh, I forgot about Iron Man! I loved that movie. Definitely one of my favorites this year.
And apparently all I do is go to movies…
(We have a theater that shows first-run movies for $3 and $4 at night.)
All I’ve seen lately have been duds (The Happening and Hancock… the best parts of both were all in the trailers!). If you haven’t seen Iron Man yet, and if it’s still in theaters near you, it would be my top recommendation. Excellent story, well-made movie, great acting.
I did not like Iron Man at all. And I think I’m the only one. Might have been something I ate.
Have you looked into the more independent/non-mainstream films? http://www.belcourt.org is a Nashville theater that should have other options like Mongol (epic film on Genghis Khan)- haven’t seen it, but looks more interesting than most other mainstream films out now (to me – my wife would probably disagree).
We liked both Hancock and Get Smart. I don’t think you could go too wrong with either (unless you aren’t a big fan of the word a**hole… then I’d skip Hancock.)
Does this mean that Becky will be wearing her Team Building Exercise ‘99 t-shirt to the picture show?
A man can dream.
Crap…I called it the The Visitor when I meant to type “The Happening”…apologies…
I saw Wanted. It was OK. The action sequences were phenomenal. The plot was lacking, and the acting was mediocre to good. My biggest beef with the movie were the two gratuitous sex scenes, which were completely unnecessary for telling the story.
When you started the title with “It’s Wednesday . . .” I was expecting to read something about business socks.
I have no current movie recommendations that you have not seen already. If I were to suggest a video, I would say rent Bella. Little known movie from last year, but excellent. Take your laptop and sit in the car – pretend you’re at a drive-in theater.
Don’t see The Happening unless you want to be scarred for life. Eck!
Prince Caspian was really good but probably not in theaters any more.
I’ve heard Wanted was terrible if that makes you feel any better…
That’s all I’ve got.
I’d second Bella, just didn’t mention it because I figured it wasn’t in theaters any longer. That was the last movie we saw in a theater since we end up going out to about 1 movie a year. Great movie, great message.
The pseudo-drive-in idea is nice, might win bonus points for romantic atmosphere! Not that marriage is a point-based system, just saying…
Support Christian subculture! See “Fireproof”!
Wanted sucked. It was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It was a redneck version of The Matrix, only not good at all. Instead of computers the evil backdrop was a giant LOOM.
I saw this for free and I wanted my money back.
While I’m thinking about it, a few weeks back I got a fantastic movie from the library called The Island – a Russian movie called Octpob, not the Ewan MacGregor film. Really good film about a WW2 survivor who becomes a quirky monk. Good Christian theology, great film.
My wife struggles with subtitled films and tends to fall asleep in anything longer or less exciting than a Law and Order episode, but I loved it. Just trying to recommend it to as many people as I can.
Thanks for the tip on Fireproof, hadn’t heard about that yet. Looks good.
Indiana Jones was pretty good. It was a little out there, but still good nonetheless. But, I’m one of those people who like Rocky V and the latest Rocky (can’t remember the name) just because I was a huge Rocky fan and everyone else hated it.
Ha. I saw Wanted and Hancock this past weekend and liked both. I did think Wanted was a bit lame, but if you like big shooting scenes (which I doubt) those are cool, and there’s eye candy for both sexes with James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie.
I also liked the first half of Hancock better…loved it in fact, but wouldn’t write the movie off totally based on the second half.
Despite Dale’s slip-up, The Visitor is actually a very good movie, but I don’t know if it is still playing.
See Iron Man if possible. It is great. If not, I enjoyed Hancock. Most other people haven’t. Skip Wanted unless you really like bad Fight Club/Matrix ripoffs. (The action sequences are good though.) Angelina Jolie is annoying in everything.
I’d just go see Wall E again.
How could I forget Prince Caspian? I enjoyed that movie.
And Shaun, you aren’t the only one who didn’t care for Iron Man. I didn’t hate it, but it certainly isn’t as great as everyone claims it is.
I saw Wanted. It was amazing. Made me want to be an assassin.
Rent “The Italian”
“The Visitor” is the best film of the year so far, followed by “Flight of the Red Balloon.” You should check out “Son of Rambow,” too, Shaun.
“The Happening” is a complete joke, painfully bad.
Wall-E totally looks like the robot from “Short Circuit”… minus the cheesy 80’s style of course
there were sex scenes in Wanted??! Not the version i saw. Hancock. . i agree. . first half great, second half just dumb. Hope you had a great date night??!
I don’t have kids, and Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda sound a lot more exciting than any of those other films.
Being in Africa for a week and a half, I’m late to this party, but I would suggest renting “Vantage Point” (or flying Air France from Paris to Johannesburg where you can see it for free). It had beauty and truth in the ending that I was so not expecting. It made me cry. Really.
I’d recommend against Vantage Point. It’s the one movie I’ve seen this year that, when it was finished, I walked out of the theatre physically sick to my stomach. The trailer sold it as an intelligent drama, and it was nothing more than a pointless action movie with an extremely high body count.
I don’t think you were paying attention.
I unhappily guessed the “surprise” to Vantage Point in the first five minutes.
It didn’t make me sick to my stomach though, I just didn’t think the execution was on.