May 2, 2008, 12:53 GMT
Los Angeles - American summers were once the time to go for hikes, swim in lakes and frolic at the beach. Now they're the time to forget about outdoor pursuits and hunker down in dark air-conditioned buildings to gaze zombie-like at a movie screen.
Iron Man, which is yet another US comic book turned action flick, stars Robert Downey Jr, whose edgy sarcasm has won rave reviews.
How else is one to take in the more than 100 movies that are set for release before September by a Hollywood movie industry ever more reliant on the summer season for the bulk of its corporate profits?
At least this year's crop offers more than the usual mindless drivel squarely aimed at the teenage boy population that still represents Hollywood's most loyal demographic, video game addictions notwithstanding.
That's the opinion of Kenneth Turan, a Los Angeles Times film critic and one of the most respected movie buffs in the country who confessed that the previous years' slates of almost unadulterated drivel had nearly put him off cinema for life.
'In some years, things got so dire that I couldn't find a film I even wanted to see, let alone review,' he wrote Thursday. 'The summer of 2008 is shaping up as an unusual one for me. I'm actually looking forward to seeing several films on offer.'
That might be far from the ringing endorsement other film buffs are yearning for, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
Starting with this weekend's first hoped-for summer blockbuster, Iron Man, even those cinemagoers whose tastes occasionally rise above the puerile will have something to appreciate. Iron Man, which is yet another US comic book turned action flick, stars Robert Downey Jr, whose edgy sarcasm has won rave reviews.
Look out also for The Matrix auteurs the Wachowski brothers, whose return to the big screen in a family-rated road-racing thriller Speed Racer could expose a new arena for their talent.
But those movies are really just opening acts for the biggest star of the summer, Indiana Jones and the Kingdon of the Crystal Skull, which hits screens on May 22.
The fourth in the Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford yarn-rippers comes out 19 years after the previous installment, and unless all the creators have in the meantime become demented, it should provide some of the best fun and action seen in years.
For those of you who wonder whether Ford might be too old to take on armies of evildoers single-handedly, have no fear. He will be assisted on screen by up-and-coming star Shia LaBeouf, who plays his son.
Polls have shown Indie to be the most eagerly awaited movie of the summer - which isn't surprising considering how long we've had to wait for it. But it had close competition from Sex and the City, a reprise of the risque television comedy about free-living New York bachelorettes.
Another popular pick is the Batman opus The Dark Knight, which stars the late Heath Ledger in a sinister portrayal of The Joker, a sinister role that some Hollywood watchers believe might have driven him to the accidental drug overdose that caused his January death.
You'd probably want to keep your kids away from the Batman film - but there's plenty else for them to see. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is the second installment of the classic fantasy franchise, which many hail as just as accomplished as the Lord of the Rings blockbusters.
Lighter fare is available from DreamWorks, whose Kung Fu Panda looks like a clever, amusing animated martial-arts frolic, and from the ever-accomplished Pixar, which is releasing Wall-E, which it hopes will do for robots what Finding Nemo did for fish.
The list goes on with movies like Wanted from acclaimed Russian director Timur Bekmambetow, starring Will Smith as a burned-out superhero. There's Meryl Streep in the Abba musical Mama Mia, Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher in the romantic comedy What Happens in Vegas, and Don't Mess With Zohan, which stars Ben Stiller as a bumbling Israeli secret service agent.
There's plenty of high-brow material out too, to the delight of Turan and other film buffs - from the US torture expose Standard Operating Procedure, to Gonzo: The Life and Works of Hunter S. Thompson and Werner Herzog's look at life in Antartica in Encounters at the End of The World.
Who knows, maybe the beach will have to wait after all.
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