Your Guide To 2012 Summer Movies

The Avengers (May 4)

I hope you won’t judge this movie preview based on the fact that: A.) This movie has already been out for almost two weeks and B.) I haven’t seen it. I’ve been meaning to, it’s just that I’ve had one of those two week stretches where you have an insatiable appetite for alcohol and drugs.

The Avengers has been breaking all kinds of box office records. It represents the zenith of cross-promotional, unilaterally-integrated film marketing: built on a foundation of lesser blockbusters (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, etc.) manufactured with the overarching goal of delivering this project, The Avengers represents literally billions of dollars and unimaginable time and effort. Maybe that’s why it feels so obscenely crass — The Avengers is a brazenly transparent calculation, comprised entirely of commercial interests, contrived even by Hollywood blockbuster standards.

Studies show that people mistakenly tend to assume that their peers are less savvy and more likely to be illogically persuaded by advertising, so I won’t unjustly judge the millions and millions of people that have already packed the theaters for this monstrous tent-pole… they probably didn’t expect it to be any good, either. I guess they’re all just doing their part in contributing to the creation of an economically beneficial, cultural experience — and I promise to pitch in and do my part once I finish huffing this bag of cleaning supplies!

Battleship (May 18)

As alluded to above, a lot of people are up in arms about how Hollywood is so creatively destitute and openly shameless that it’s resorting to board games and children’s toys for launching multi-million dollar film franchises. I used to feel that way too, until I realized my life is pretty much just one long Apple Jacks commercial, so who the hell am I to judge anyway?

The Dictator (May 18)

If this is the one where Sacha Baron Cohen pretends to be a reprehensible dictator and films Americans making a bunch of social faux pas, then count me in. If it isn’t, then I don’t know — tell me what it’s about before you buy a ticket, okay? I mean, is Craig T. Nelson in it? Does it have an extra scene after the credits that we’ll have to awkwardly watch from the aisles because we already started filing out of the theater? Christ, you know what, just forget about it. I’ll rent it.

Men in Black III (May 25)

Will Smith is having one of those days where you see a really ugly person check their reflection in the mirror, and you can’t help but wonder, “Why bother?” And you’re not sure if you referring to the act of looking in a mirror, or their entire lives.

Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (June 8)

Finally, a CGI movie about talking animals! Phew.

Prometheus (June 8)

This has Michael Fassbender in it, so you’ll probably see his penis. Michael Fassbender and his penis are like the Robert Redford and Paul Newman of Michael Fassbender movies.

That’s My Boy (June 15)

Adam Sandler plays Andy Samberg’s father in this one. He keeps talking in that enjoyable Adam Sandler voice in the trailer. This one promises to be a real “laugh riot,” so sit close to an emergency exit in case you suddenly can’t stop crying and need to run out of the theater and vomit.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (June 22)

This is definitely a good idea for a movie. I’m hoping it’s really successful so I can finally start shopping my George Washington: Stupid Dead Asshole with Wooden Teeth script, which has at least 80% as good of a concept as this movie does. A couple of my friends read it and they said it was “really long.” But in a surprised voice.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (June 29)

I’m just hoping this doesn’t have subtitles, because I accidentally sat on my reading glasses the other day.

Magic Mike (June 29)

Channing Tatum plays a male stripper, but hopefully the kind of male stripper with a really good investment portfolio. ‘Cuz those guys have a really hard time finding work once they hit their early 50s.

Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Program (June 29)

Oh, boy. I’ll have to make sure I can make it out of the house for this one. The only reasonable plan would be to spend the preceding days whispering personal affirmations into the mirror while rubbing my penis over the Braille alphabet.

The Amazing Spider-Man (July 6)

Even though the last Spider-Man movie just came out like five years ago, and most people really liked the series and the cast and the director, and each one made a butt-load of money, this is a brand new one that starts the story completely over. I guess they thought that was more convenient, or something.

Sometimes I wish I could be like a Hollywood franchise and just “reboot” my identity every five or six years and pick out some poor schlub walking the down street and be like, “Okay, from now, you’re me… and Go!” And it’d be like, okay, now you’re the guy with a $60 bank account who’s banned from the library. So, uhhh…good luck with that. Sucker.

Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D (July 6)

Katy Perry stars in this movie that is presumably about her. It’s probably a documentary/concert movie about her or like that thing where you videotape yourself taking absurd doses of over-the-counter items like antacid or Vick’s VapoRub in the desperate hope that by sheer overconsumption you will transform yourself into another form or enter some kind of altered conscious or state of being, but you usually just wind up falling asleep crawling under the porch trying to get the god damned dog to give you the tennis ball back.

Never mind, I just checked — it’s a documentary about her.

Ice Age: Continental Drift (July 13)

This is a great movie to see with a small child that you really, really hate. If you’re having a hard time narrowing it down, just bring all the small children you really, really hate and try and get a matinee price or something.

Ted (July 13)

On one hand, I like going to the movies because you get to sit anonymously in the dark, and there’s no expectation of talking to strangers. On the other hand, you never know if the guy sitting next to you will turn to you after it ends and ask, “Hey, did you like the movie?” It hasn’t happened to me yet, which makes me worried that I’m “due” for it.

The Dark Knight Rises (July 20)

This film is about Leslie Nielsen. He’s probably in some role that requires him to be responsible and wise, like a brain surgeon or an air traffic controller, and the humor will arise from the juxtaposition from these expectations and his bumbling incompetence. I can’t wait to see it. I keep thinking about how if Carly Rae Jepsen was singing to Leslie Nielson in that “Call Me Maybe” song, when she got to the part that’s like, “Hey, I just met you and this is crazy/ But here’s my number so call me maybe,” he’d wait a beat and then deadpan, “Thanks, Maybe.” But the joke wouldn’t really work, because she might just think he was being coy about whether or not he was going to call her. Wait, this isn’t the movie where Leslie Nielsen’s an air traffic controller? Ah crap.

The Bourne Legacy (August 4)

Jeremy Renner replaces Matt Damon in this continuation of the Bourne series. I thought these movies were pretty cool until I remembered that I also wake up most days in a frenzied daze, unsure of my identity, frightened of my own past, and convinced that shadowy organizations are out to kill me. So, you know, it’s not really that original.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (August 4)

I hope this movie doesn’t have a scene in it that’s just like that time when I was in 7^th grade, and that really popular kid came up to me after school and was like, “Hey, uh, what sex position makes the ugliest kids?” and I was really excited that the popular kid was talking to me, especially since he had a few almost-as-popular kids with him (and a few girls who were really pretty). I stood there, debating whether to try and think of a really funny, witty answer to make them all laugh, or to tell him the true answer (which I knew), because it was pretty cool that he was asking my opinion about it, and maybe he needed to know for like a science project or something. I was finally about to answer when he got tired of waiting and went, “I don’t know, ask your parents!” Everyone laughed, even the Chinese foreign exchange student who hated me for no good reason.

But the joke was really on the popular kid, because he didn’t get to hear the truth, which is that the ugliest kids are made from that sex position where a girl accidentally gets pregnant from sitting on a toilet that some guy masturbated on. I’m the one laughing now, Jarred Brockman — I hope you’re happy with your ugly toilet-seat kid!

Total Recall (August 4)

If you could recreate moments from your own past, would you choose the best ones and risk tainting them, or pick the bad ones and try and fix them? Hollywood would rather just make a mockery of the good ones because it gives you a better gross per screen for your opening weekend. So, that’s one consideration if the opportunity should ever present itself.

The Expendables 2 (August 10)

I’m legitimately rigid with anticipation for this one. I was going to rip off the “No Girls Allowed!” sign from my tree house to bring along to the theater until I remembered that I haven’t gone up there since that run-over possum crawled in it to die. Sorry, but I’m just not so good with that kind of thing.

The Possession (August 31)

Finally, a horror movie about a demonically possessed child! Phew.