Summer is a season that asks us to observe such time honored traditions as the family barbecue, the trip to the beach, and checking out the summer blockbusters. The "summer blockbuster" is a longstanding tradition in the film industry to put out their biggest and flashiest in the hopes of luring the students fresh out of school into the air conditioned theaters. Whether they are big budget explosion laden action films, CGI soaked sci-fi flicks, star studded heart warming comedies, or sweetly simple children's movies they make up the usual fare throughout the summer months.
The tradition is considered to have started with the remarkable success of Steven Spielberg's Jaws in the summer of 1975 and ever since, the months between late May and early September have been considered prime real estate. This period is Hollywood's cash cow and each year's roster can be marked out by their budget and mass media advertisements just as easily as their release dates. Among the most popular of this family of films are such classics as Terminator (1984), Top Gun (1986), Star Wars (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Ghostbusters (1984), Animal House (1978), Forrest Gump (1994), and Toy Story (1995). These movies may be unlikely to win an Oscar but are still fun and beloved to movie goers of all ages and as such should not be ignored.
This summer season, however, we have a line-up made up of sequels (How to Train Your Dragon 2, 22 Jump Street, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), remakes (Maleficent), and movies inspired by TV shows (Transformers 4: Age of Extinction & Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) or novels (Filth & The Giver) or comic books (Guardians of the Galaxy & Sin City: A Dame to Kill For).
Yet with so many options out in theaters today and ticket prices steadily rising over the past few years why should you spend your money and precious time away from the blistering heat watching a bad film? This blog will hope to answer that question through critiquing the the movies, there origins, and how well they lived up to their hype.
In order for this blog to take a serious look at these "Blockbusters" I will attempt to look beyond simple entertainment and will be writing my reviews on the basis of questions like:
1. How well did the trailer set up the film?
2. How well did the movie stick to its source material?
3. How well did the use of special effects help the storytelling?
With these questions I hope to use this blog to steer you away from Hollywood's next big failures and, hopefully, make your summer in the theaters more enjoyable.
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