Your Weekend Movie Guide for July 2010

Does anybody today even know what Cinerama was back in the 50s?
These were movie outings that were true entertainment experiences. Today? They layer on 50 million dollars worth of video game graphics and ten dollars worth of script. Voila! You have a movie. Well, not really.
Here's my monthly service to you. I'll scope out the ads in the LA Times and tell you what I think you should see or avoid. With emphasis on the latter.
Despicable Me: This is either some dreary cartoon or Nancy Pelosi's memoirs.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice: If you go in expecting a revisit on Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, forget it. This is just another CGI-laden mess from Disney, who stopped knowing how to make decent live action features when Fred MacMurray died.
Grown Ups: Adam Sandler, David Spade, and Kevin James are in it, which means the title must be ironic. Sandler also wrote the script, which might actually make this garbage smell even more.
The Last Airbender: Was there a first Airbender? Refresh me please.
Knight and Day: Tom Cruise is back in a movie. And nobody bothered to sound one of those alarms like they do when a tsunami is coming?
Toy Story 3: The best movie of the summer that does not feature Joan Rivers.
Joan Rivers - A Piece of Work: The best movie of the summer that does feature Joan Rivers.
Ramona and Beezus: When I saw the ad for this, I was shocked. I remember these characters from books that I read when I was in the fourth grade! It took that long for them to make a movie with them. That would be the slowest moving development deal ever. The author of these books is Beverly Cleary and she's still alive at 94.
Salt: Angelina Jolie in some tired action yarn. Definitely limit your intake.
The Karate Kid: The needless remake is still hanging around and I doubt it's gotten any better since my Weekend Movie Guide for June 2010.
Mademoiselle Chambon: A romance between a married man and his son's teacher. Suddenly, the mental image in my head is my father kissing Mrs. Acunto from French class. Somebody please slap me now. And, yes, by the way, folks, that really was her name.
Inception: The media hype has begun. I've heard this is the greatest thing ever filmed. I saw the previews during the All Star Game and it looks dreadful, especially with those awful video-game-like slo-mo explosions. I felt for those good reviews once before. When Inception's director came out with that vastly overrated and just plain terrible "Dark Knight."
Predators: It's probably a sci-fi movie, but it's also a great name for a documentary about anybody in Congress who voted for Obama Care.
The Girl Who Played with Fire: Probably burned.
The Twilight Saga - Eclipse: I want some kudos. I've yet to see a single frame of anything involving this nonsense.
Get Him to the Greek: Here's your first opportunity to avoid that asshole Jonah Hill.
Cyrus: And here's your second opportunity to avoid that asshole Jonah Hill.
I Am Love: Hardly. Have you ever read this blog on a Wednesday?
Kings of the Evening: During the Depression, a Black guy returns home after spending years on a brutal chain gang in prison. I'll wait for the prequel.
Farewell: The true story of a KGB colonel who helped to hasten the end of the Cold War. I looked at the cast list and buried way down is David Soul from "Starsky and Hutch." I mention that only because I have nothing else to say about this movie.
The Kids Are All Right: But the adults? Maybe not so much. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are a lesbian couple raising two teenagers. Mother and Mother Knows Best. Major, major Oscar buzz. And not a single special effect. Friends who have seen it are in love with this movie.
Winter's Bone: There is also major Oscar buzz for this, but I know nothing about it. And I don't even have a joke about it.Dinner last night: Pork chops and potato pancakes.