Summertime Resolution

I'd like to take a minute here to advise my thousands upon thousands of loyal readers that reviews of theatrical releases for the next few months will be fewer and farther between as I have resolved to see only the big name summer releases I really, truly do want to see. Thus, no "Angels & Demons", no "Star Trek". I pondered seeing that "Management" movie with Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn this weekend but, nah, I chose to indulge in "The Merry Gentleman" a second time. (And be very, very thankful I'm not unleashing one of my 18,000 word rants in relation to why I love this movie so much and why the Oscar race for Best Actress should already be over - so behave, or else.)

The only bad part was "The Merry Gentleman" got moved to the crappy theater in Chicago (for instance, at the showing I attended all the previews were in the wrong scope) after a mere two week run at the very nice, quite classy, well run Landmark Cinemas. I just don't get it. Honestly, I don't. Here we have a full-blooded masterpiece, far better than anything released all of last year, and it's at the Landmark for fourteen days while the outrageously inferior "Sunshine Cleaning" gets to shack up at the same place for almost two months now?

I guess it's just more proof that I don't understand "what people want" when it comes to movies. Maybe people merely think they want to see "The Merry Gentleman" but when they peruse the movie times they can't find the tiny blurb for "The Merry Gentleman" (if it's even made it to their city at all) and then see the bold lettered ad for "Angels & Demons" screaming at them from the middle of the page and then they see it has a 10:00 AM show and 11:00 AM and 11:30 AM shows and a show at noon and at 12:30 and then there's the 1:30 and the 2:30 and the 3:00 and the 3:30 and the 4:00 and then you've got the 5:00 show followed by the evening shows at 6:00, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30, 8:30, 9:30, 10:00, 10:30, 11:00 and midnight and think, "I must be confused. Obviously this is the movie I want to see."

(Not that I'm here to discourage people from seeing a movie I haven't seen. So let me quote the words of the Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips who says "Angels & Demons" is "like being waterboarded by exposition" and the words of the esteemed New York Times' A.O. Scott who says "The only people likely to be offended by 'Angels & Demons' are those who persist in their adherence to the fading dogma that popular entertainment should earn its acclaim through excellence and originality." Sounds like a CAN'T MISS hit!)