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I am going to continue talking about the summer. You know? There is something to distract us when everything else goes wrong and it’s called entertainment. Hollywood is the master of doing that. In fact, your life can be a huge mess, a big disappointment, you could be facing death, divorce, heartaches or whatever, there’s nothing that a bin-bam-pow-kiss-kiss-puff-sexy-sex and pop-corn won’t do to make you forget for whatever the shitty film lasts. Adorno used to call it the “Culture Industry”, a little machine to brain-wash you and make you complacent about your life, consume, and forget about political struggle and the injustices of “the system”, whatever that is; just sit back and relax, enjoy.

It’s tradition for Hollywood to leave their big films for the summer, and with big I mean the ones that are supposed to be seen by a lot of people, leaving millions and millions of dollars in revenue. Hey, films cost a lot of money and the producers need their investment to be rewarded, you know? It’s a business and all that bang-bang means a lot of bling-bling. So they save the big guns for the summer, when kids and specially teens are out of school and all of that. Normally, there is one or maybe two of this films that I will enjoy per summer. The rest of them? A bunch of SFX with no substance. Summers are famous for those. Some examples? The “Star Wars” prequels (we can exclude episode 3 if you like), The “Transformers” series, “GI-JOE”, the previous “Spider-Man” trilogy, and a lot of comic book films.

This summer was different though, entertaining wise. All the films I went to see did the job, meaning, I could enjoy them on a basic level and, sometimes, even further (thematic, cinematography, direction, and so on). It all started with “The Avengers”, well, if we don’t take the pre-cum of “The Hunger Games” into account. That one started on the spring but its success made it last until the early summer in many theaters. And wow what a movie that was. Granted, I didn’t know shit about the books, I didn’t know shit about the plot, but the movie grabbed me in its first ten minutes and didn’t let go. The plot was really good though we’ve heard the story before, some post-apocalyptic dystopia where the big spectacle (the big Hollywood) is letting real children fight for their lives in a brutal sport. However, the shots, the edits, and the takes, were all so successfully made (with maybe excluding the hallucination sequence which was a little bit cliché), that it amplified the level of tension and exhaustion for the viewer. Nicely done. Now, going back to “The Avengers”, there was nothing fancy about it, just a summer roller coaster driven by Downey Jr. and his mastery of the Starks character. It was too bad that I decided to see the previous summer flicks for the rest of the big comic superheroes, because, man! I mean, what was the deal with “Captain America” and “Thor”? Those two are some major league examples of the summer crap I was talking before. However, mix them with Starks, let Thor free, put a pussy-god as the villain, and finally get Hulk right, and it’s a feast for the little child in us.

“The Dictator” was a financial mess that I didn’t have the time to see, and I was not going waste a minute with a movie based on a board-game like “Battleship”. Sorry Mr. Neeson. Then “Men in Black 3” was released. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch this one because the second one was so bad, but then people were saying the third one was way better, and it was. I mean, the first one is the first one, but after “Men in Black 2”, a decent movie was possible. And they did manage to make a film entertaining enough, with a double plot that made kind of sense, I mean, in a universe where dogs are aliens in disguise and Woody Allen is a MIB agent. However, the best thing of the film was Josh Brolin’s performance. Of course, is Brolin, who is superb at the acting part, so no wonder he did a great interpretation of Tommy Lee Jones…well, I mean, a younger version of Jones. His acting, plus the whole “going back in time” thing (with a little hint of flavor of the 60’s and the ongoing “Madmen” series), made it worth the almost two hours.

I skipped some of the major blockbusters because lack of interest or time. So I let films that did well like “Prometheus” and some summer flicks like “Brave”, “Madagascar 3”, “Rock of Ages”, some naked men singing and, of course, President Lincoln chasing vampires. Hey, I’m into postmodernism and all but these historical blends with no sense at all scares off any intention I would have to read or watch them. Life is too short. I also let “Ted” get away. I wanted to watch that one, but time is a tricky thing when you are trying to finish stuff.

And then the way-too-soon Spider-Man reboot came. I didn’t want to see it, especially because I hated the past trilogy which, say what you will about the director and the SFXs, lacked substance and it was a bunch of CGI with a good director and actors, a bad script, and a bunch of nonsense like villains with no motive. Yet someone mentioned that it was better than that, and some friends wanted to watch it, so what the heck. The indie director of “500 Days of Summer” didn’t disappointed. Granted, CGI is way more perfected now that when Sam Raimi did his thing (which at some points seemed like a videogame), but this movie was about a little nerd trying to be cool with a down-to-earth SFXs and a decent Hollywood structure. It’s a high school film about someone getting cocky (and beaten up over and over again) because of a spider. At the end, wasn’t that what the comic was all about?

Finally, the summer ended for me with “The Dark Knight Rises”. Yes, there was “Total Recall” and “yet a new Bourne is out there and we have to kill him (before he makes it to Ecuador?)”, but it you want to end it with a bang you know the Nolan film is the way to go. It was not as complete as “The Dark Knight”, it lacked certain shots and musical elements to raise the tension. The film also depended on some copy/paste shots of the previous films (Godfather III, anyone?...not that it was as bad as that one), and it lacked Mr. Heath Ledger, better known as the step-aside-Jack Joker. It also had some campy jabs which one can’t stop but wonder if they were intentional or they were just oopsies on an overall great script. Plus, there was a huge breather in the middle of the film, while “The Dark Knight” never offered that venue. However, it was the film to watch. First of all, Mr. Nolan is awesome at the moment of mixing audiences and giving some bin-boom-bow for the SFX while adding some content for the others who also like to make parallels between cinema and our political existence. Say what you will about this one, but it had many people talking about it, and not just because of the Arizona shootings. There were a bunch of critics saying it was a political dismiss of the OWS movement, a “this is what it will look if the 99% take over”. Rolling Stones said the movie was about a douche who was not happy even when getting laid, and he was such a snob that he wanted to perpetuate for “his city” the miserable reality of his life, something like that. Nolan said it was all a coincidence and he intended to present was the corruption from all angles and the ethical dilemmas of the whole saga. In other words, what are the final consequences of the themes explored since the first movie. Mr. Zizek said it was about class struggle but in fancier words. The thing is, we got a bunch of people talking brainy stuff about a blockbuster, you can call it from art to propaganda, but it remains to be a lot about a summer blockbuster. All external readings aside, “The Dark Knight Rises” was the perfect ending for a perfect trilogy, Hollywood-wise. No other trilogy has become so close to make people satisfied on different levels, while still being a blockbuster. Nope, not even the original Star Wars, remember the Ewoks.

So, in terms of bin-bang-booms, Hollywood made a great offer this summer. There was something for everybody, even when originality was not part of the equation (again). It was a rare summer then, when we are used to a lot of shit and maybe one or two good enough. Now that it is all over, the Hollywood frenzy of the summer has my permission to die.