Get ready for the movie event of the year.

How many times do you hear a silly line like that in previews? Does it really make anyone more excited about a film? Do people fall for lines like that? Anyway, we're running right up on to the Spring and Summer movie season. Since I'm a fan of, how shall we say, less artsy movies I really enjoy this time of year. I like the arty movies, they're fun, but in my core my favorite genre's have action and adventure or comedy and those mostly happen in the spring and summer. I did one of these about this time last year and it's been on my mind this week. So here we go with my thoughts of upcoming hollywood films I'm interested based solely on what I know about the people making them and their trailers:

Starsky & Hutch (3/5)

Who knows if it'll be good. But the comedy pedigree is impressive. It's it's not funny it will be kind of like Death to Smoochy where you wonder how talented people come together to make crap. Seriously: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Juliette Lewis, director Todd Phillips (director of Old School and Road Trip.) This one is the subject for my first movie night of 2004.

Hidalgo (3/5)

I just want to see if Viggo has legs beyond The Lord of the Rings. We've seen him in some other stuff, but let's see if he can parlay his success. As Jason says, this looks like it will regard itself with just the right amound of seriousness.

The Girl Next Door (3/12)

Guy says there is huge buzz about this one on the Fox lot. Rotten Tomatoes only has a few reviews for it but it's at 89% so far. I'm excited.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (3/19)

I really like when Jim Carey plays a more serious character (Man on the Moon, The Truman Show, yes even The Majestic.) Plus the director used to make a lot of Bjork videos, so he has the right pedigree for a weird-ass, mess with your mind kind of movie.

Jersey Girl (3/26)

All hail the return of Kevin Smith. I named my site after an obscure quote from one of his movies, think I'm a fan? Who cares if Beniffer is in it, I'm watching primarily for the dialog. Kevin, it's been too long...

HellBoy (4/2)

This will be terrible, but it's a comic book movie. And I feel a strange obligation to go to comic book movies, even really bad comic book movies. I'm not sure why I torture myself like this...

Walking Tall (4/9)

The Rock has really been establishing himself as a full blown action movie star. Can he keep it up?

The Whole Ten Yards (4/9)

I really liked The Whole Nine Yards and most of the same people are involved. Silly comedies like this typically aren't anything special, but alternatively it isn't too hard to make them decent. I figure this one will fall inside that spectrum.

The Punisher (4/16)

I'm torn about this one. I really, really want it to be good since the Punisher is a cool character, but deep down I know it's going to suck (much like Hellboy.) The trouble is the whole movie is amateur hour, no one involved has really done much else. Every now and then a green team will come up with something good, but much more often it goes the other way. I fear it will be a bad year for comic book movies.

Kill Bill Volume 2 (4/16)

I'm not really sure how I never managed to see Volume 1, I know I'll absolutely love it and I love Tarantino films. My hope is they'll put it back into theaters (or on DVD) before this one releases. Either way, with volume 1 as good as it was (I have trusted sources) Volume 2 should be a good time.

Van Helsing (5/7)

The march of bad comic book movies continues. The trailer for this reminds me a whole lot of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and we all know how that turned out.

Troy (5/14)

Ah, this is when the summer movie season will officially begin, with the first over-hyped action epic. Lets wait for reviews to see if it's actually any good - it'll be hard to tell from trailers alone.

Shrek 2 (5/21)

I loved the first one and even the ride at Universal Studios is great. They'd have to work hard to screw this one up. One of the movies I'm really looking forward to this year.

The Day After Tomorrow (5/28)

Hey look! We're going to watch the world get destroyed by CG natural disasters caused by humanity's irresponisibility! Wait, haven't we done this a few times in the last few years. I can't remember a good one of these, think they can break the streak?

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (6/4)

Come on, it's Harry Potter. I excited about this one and The Goblet of Fire since this is where the stories start to get dark. Bad things start happening and play time is over. From what I've read and seen in trailers this movie is going to stay true to that, which means they will likely be more serious and compelling for us grown ups...

The Chronicles of Riddick (6/11)

Ug, for some reason I have a special place in my movie library for Pitch Black. And I really like the Riddick character (he made the movie.) It's made by the same people as the first one, but I think they actually got a budget this time, so it won't have that gritty charming B-movie feel. I really want this to be a good sequel, but the look and feel I've seen so far puts bad memories of Alien: Ressurection in my mind.

The Terminal (6/18)

Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Steven Spielberg - that's enough to perk my ears up right there. But they have a fantastic premise too: a guy traveling from a small country has to start living in an airport terminal becuase his country ceased to exist during his flight, so his passport is no good. Imagine how long it would take to sort that beauracracy out...

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (6/25)

The look and feel of this one it terrific. Yes, it's strange, but it's a wonderful throwback to the 30's and the pulp fiction (not the movie, the genre of books.) I'm even more impressed that this is an original property - it's not a film version of a comic book or an old story or a bunch of other random things. I figure this will either be spectacular or fall flat on its face. I'll get to find out which in June.

Spider Man 2 (7/2)

I just saw the theatrical trailer last week and I was very, very impressed. Another movie I'm really looking forward to.

King Arthur (7/7)

Antoine Fuqua (Training Day and Tears of the Sun) will save this from mediocrity. Plus Keira Knightley continues her rise by playing Guinevere. I was skeptical, but the trailer gave me faith.

I, Robot (7/16)

I've read just about every story Issac Asimov has published about robots. His writing isn't great, but his ideas are fabulous. There's a huge source of excellent material to work with so as long as they don't dumb it down this should at least be intruiging. But Alex Proyas is in charge (among other things The Crow and especially Dark City) so I have to assume he'll keep it smart and challenging.

The Bourne Supremacy (7/23)

The Bourne Identity was a reasonably good action thriller in a genre I really like (people who are exceptionally good at what they do and get by by being both smart and a bad ass.) That's enough to get me to buy a ticket to the sequel.

Catwoman (7/30)

I'm scared... I love Batman. Haven't they done enough damage with Batman Forever and Batman and Robin? But still, I try to hold out hope. Then I see a picture like this.

The Villiage (7/30)

Until M Night Shyamalan makes something I really don't like I'll go see anything he does.

Alien vs Predator (8/6)

Alien vs Predator has a long history in the comic world and it's a really cool idea. Two bad ass alien races going head to head (since without some luck and Hollywood formulas they would have wiped the floor with humans.) Will it be any good? It's just hard to get these kinds of movies right. I mean really, how often are alien monster movies good? They're hard to do. Can the director of Resident Evil, Soldier (baaaad Kurt Russel movie), Event Horizon and Mortal Kombat do better then he has in the past? I wouldn't make any bets on it.

Blade: Trinity (8/13)

Wow, you sure can tell we're into August (traditional dumping ground of bad action movies. Blade was decent, Blade 2 was pretty crappy. Think the trend will continue? I do.

Yikes, that's a lot of movies and I even left out a bunch (really anything aimed at teen girls like 13 Going on 30 or Mean Girls.) With the exception of two weekends in late April there's at least one every week from now until mid August. There's some that should be great, some that should be terrible, and lots on the fence. Let's see what happens.

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