Willie Wonka, Summer Movies and expectations

I watched Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory tonight. That is the 1971 Gene Wilder version of that movie. It was good. It was a movie I always liked, though I think that it may be a little overblown as a "cult classic." I will go see the new one tomorrow, though I dont have high hopes. Im not sure why that is, but something about it just looks kind of bland. Im kind of tired of Tim Burton by now though. Beetlejuice was great and all, because it was different but I think he has run his course a little bit. Im not hating though, I just dont have high expectations.
Now that leads me to the summer of 2005. The theme of the summer would appear to be "that was better than I thought it'd be" I feel like I have said that after every movie I have seen this year. Low expectations or great movies. A little of both I'd say. I thought Fantastic 4 would be awful and I ended up liking it. I thought Batman and War of the Worlds would be pretty good and they ended up being very good. Cinderella Man was interesting. I did not want to see that movie. I assumed it would be pretty good, but I thought it would be kind of boring. Turns out, not at all. It was very interesting. I think Madagascar may have been the only movie that was about what I figured or worse. Oh, and Dark Water. That had no where to go but up and still was as bad as I thought it would be. And then of course there was Star Wars. Talk about expectations. There has never been another movie with more riding on it than Star Wars episode III. Heres a movie I have been waiting to see most of my life, and it met and exceeded all expectations.
There seems to be a lot of talk about this summer being a dissappointment, but I simply don't see it. Im not sure how it has happened but I feel like people have gotten carried away with expectations. That is not to say that I dont think that every movie should be good. Im a filmmaker. At least somewhat. So there is no excuse for making bad movies. That being said, Im not sure what you want out of a movies like Fantastic 4, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Longest Yard. These are movies that are made for a purpose. They are like carnival rides. They're fun. I think this is one of the best summers in a while. With Wonka, Wedding Crashers, the Island, Bad News Bears and Dukes of Hazzard left to go. So I'll run down the best of list so far.

1. Revenge of the Sith
2. Cinderella Man
3. War of the Worlds
4. Batman Begins
5. Mr. and Mrs. Smith
6.The Jacket
7.Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
8.Fever Pitch
9.The Longest Yard
10The Fantastic 4
11House of Wax
12Hitch
13Bewitched
14Herbie
15Madagascar
16Mrs. Congeniality 2
----------------------------------The Good Line------------------
17Sin City
18Dark Water
19White Noise
20Boogeyman
21Cursed

everything above the line is on the plus side of mediocre and everything below is, well uh..below.


We will likely see both Wonka and Wedding Crashers tomorrow. So we will see where that goes.

-T