A Blockbuster Summer
It’s been a long time since there was a summer full of movies that I looked forward to going to the theaters to watch. A very long time. I think I definitely would call 2009 “a blockbuster summer”! (2009 Movie Picks)
Movies Growing Up
I first remember summer blockbusters and wanting to go watch movies probably starting in junior high; I think it was junior high probably in 1984 or 1985. At the time, it was the “thing to do”, to go hang out at the mall. If memory serves, we spent most of our time hanging out at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, the Galleria of Valley Girl fame. (Aside: I was in elementary school during the height of the valley girl phase in the early 1980s. One of the girls in my class was even an extra in the movie.) Though as I got into high school we started going to more malls (having friends with cars) including the Northridge Fashion Center and others.
(At some point I’ll have to write my story about Indiana Jones from 1981.)
What is a Blockbuster?
The “original” summer blockbuster is generally credited as the movie Jaws in 1975, and was defined as a movie that grossed more than $100 million. Other blockbusters were Star Wars in 1997 and Indiana Jones in 1981. (Today, even most mediocre movies can gross $100 million and the definition, I think, is a little less well defined.)
Much of the info I’ve linked to is from Wikipedia, but I do recall watching a special on cable that covered these same basic details.
Although ‘blockbusters’ were initially created by the audience, after a while the term came to mean a high-budget production aimed at mass markets, with associated merchandising, on which the financial fortunes of film studio or distributor depended. It was defined by its production budget and marketing effort rather than its success and popularity, and was essentially a tag which a film’s marketing gave itself.
Blockbuster (entertainment). (2009, July 8). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:09, July 8, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blockbuster_(entertainment)&oldid=301022646
Personally I think the turning point was Dick Tracy in 1990, where the hype (aka “marketing”) exceeded the expectations. Until then, for me at least, a summer blockbuster really was a good movie, one typically full of action and adventure, and one that I’d go to see again. After that the movie marketing machines got into the game and tried to hype up movies to blockbuster status.
Picking Movies to Watch
One of the first sites I started following on the Web with any regularity was Dark Horizons, probably in 1997 or 1998. Before the Web, it was a matter of watching trailers the previous year, or seeing a newspaper article, advertisement or something on TV. Much of the time, I think most people found out about movies that were already out.
Here’s a snippet from it’s history at archive.org:
‘Dark Horizons’ has become one of the hottest sites around to find out the latest news, images, clips and reviews of all the current and upcoming blockbuster films. Also included are some great episode guides to your favourite cult TV shows, as well as a weekly breakdown of films and shows screening in both the US and Australia. The site is non-commercial and has been established purely to inform those eager movie-fanatics who want the latest goss. Become one of the 60,000+ people who visit the site each week and see what all the hoopla is about. The ‘Base of Operations’ is Sydney, Australia and I update at least every second day so regularly reload pages for the new info. Contact with that young Australian guy who runs this site (aka. Garth Franklin)…
Franklin, Garth. (1998, December 6). Dark Horizons. Retrieved July 18, 2009 from Internet Archive Web site
http://web.archive.org/web/19981206212352/www.darkhorizons.com/index2.html
Dark Horizons has changed a bit since then, but it still does an admirable job of setting out the movie release schedule for the year and linking to trailers and promos of the movies.
Annually, I’ve used Dark Horizons to create a list of the new movies for the year. I’d rank them as “5”=Must see in theaters, “4”=Good to see in theaters, “3”=Maybe see in theaters, “2”=Rent (to be honest I’ve never marked anything with a “1”, but that’s the scale…).
I think I usually come up with 4-10 new movies that I’d like watch each year. Probably two or three of them are “Must see in theaters”. 2009, however has been different. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve set aside some time to go watch the movies, but more likely this summer has a great crop of movies. Almost as if the studios saw the economic troubles coming, and had a great slate of movies set to release to help the public take their minds off the economy.