OK, since my last post, I managed to catch up with Captain America, Cars2 and Cowboys & Aliens. 

Neither Cars2 nor Cowboys & Aliens is going to change my best movie rankings, however, neither of them are going to change my worst movie rankings either.

Perhaps, because the reviews have been mixed to negative for both films, I went in with low expectations and managed to have a reasonably good time watching both films.

Cars2 was a smart animation movie which I suspect adults would enjoy more than kids, as they would be able to better appreciate the references to classic live action spy movies. Nevertheless, the animation and the locations were outstanding.

Cowboys & Aliens was a tad too long and suffered from the casting, in my opinion. I found it difficult to look past the larger than life personalities of Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig. The movie would have benefited from casting someone else in the lead roles. Also, the script could have been a bit tighter, but I think there were too many cooks in this kitchen...just looking at the big names among the producers credits gave me a headache - Spielberg, Ron Howard/ Brian Grazer, Ryan Kavanaugh, Damon Lindelof/Alex Kurtzman/Roberto Orci (JJ Abrams' writing team), not to mention director Jon Favreau who is a pretty good writer too. How could the script accomodate the opinions of all these heavyweights?

That brings me to Captain America. I really enjoyed this film. If Cowboys & Aliens had trouble with the casting, then Captain America got it perfectly right. Here's the catch, the casting for both movies was done by Sarah Finn, so it could be the the heavyweight producers of Cowboys & Aliens didn't give her a free hand, whereas Marvel (which also has a bunch of opinionated creative people) worked well with her on Cap America. Highlights for me were the performances of Stanley Tucci as Dr. Erskine, the ever dependable Tommy Lee Jones as Col. Chester Phillips, the always creepy Toby Jones as Dr. Zola and of course, my favourite weird man Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull. Not to forget a great understated role by Chris Evans as Cap...perhaps the most understated performance by any actor playing a superhero in the past 20 years. The dialogue was hugely entertaining and really reminded me of the snappy dialogue from movies set during that period in the '30s and '40s.

I would actually rate Captain America very close to X-Men: First Class as my favourite superhero movie of the summer, though perhaps just short of being my favourite movie of the summer.

So, the summer movie season is pretty much over. I have missed out on a few, but have caught most of the big titles. Here's my scoreboard so far. 

Best superhero movie - ok, my bad on this one. I have seen only X-Men: FC and Thor. I haven't yet seen Capt. America and Green Lantern. At the moment, X-Men has my vote and I think it will stay at #1. Thor was fun and the chemistry between the leads was good. Will be interesting to see how Capt. America stacks up against Thor. I don't think Green Lantern is in the discussion. I also didn't bother to watch pre-summer release The Green Hornet. It was part of the in-flight menu on one of my flights recently, but after 2 minutes, I found it tedious to watch. Whoever thought that Seth Rogen would make a good crime-fighter has to have his head examined. 

Best animation movie - I have seen Kung Fu Panda2, Rio, Rango and Gnomeo & Juliet. I haven't seen Cars2 and The Smurfs yet. To be honest, none of the movies have really captured my imagination. Rango was smart and interesting as was Gnomeo & Juliet. Rio was reasonably entertaining, but the songs were unbearable. Kung Fu Panda2 was ok, but forgettable and the story a bit of a mess. I haven't heard great reviews about Cars2, so I don't expect much when I eventually watch it. I have no idea what to expect from The Smurfs. I expect Winnie the Pooh to be reasonably enjoyable, but not particularly memorable. So, I guess it's a tie between Rango and Gnomeo.

Best sci-fi movie - ok, this list is going to include some pre-summer releases, such as Battle: LA, The Adjustment Bureau, Source Code and Limitless. Then there are the big summer blockbusters, namely Super8 and Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Transformers3. I really enjoyed all the 4 pre-summer scifi films, with The Adjustment Bureau probably the winner, followed closely by Source Code. Among the summer releases, it is a close tie between Super 8 and RotPotA. I haven't watched Cowboys & Aliens or Spy Kids 4, but from the reviews, I am guessing they won't threaten my top scores.

Best fantasy movie - I have used this category definition to include movies as disparate as the pre-summer release Sucker Punch, Harry Potter 7.2, Pirates 4 and Conan the Barbarian. I guess the clear winner here is obviously Harry Potter...there isn't really much competition, is there? Special mention to Sucker Punch for the amazing visual experience and some good over the top B-movie performances.

Best comedy movie - I haven't watched a single comedy release from the summer. That includes The Hangover Part II, Bridesmaids, Horrible Bosses, Bad Teacher and Crazy Stupid Love. Not even Hop and Just Go With It from the pre-summer. So, can't give a score here. 

Worst movie of the summer - a close tie between Transformers: ROTF and Pirates of the Caribbean: OST. 

Best movie of the summer - I am taking the easy way out and declaring a 3-way tie for X-Men: First Class, Super 8 and Return of the Planet of the Apes. Of course, the consideration set for this should include Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, Meek's Cutoff and probably The Help, none of which I have seen because they haven't or don't come to theatres here. Another movie which did well at the box office, but I found difficult to categorize (and I haven't seen yet) is Fast Five. But I am guessing that because of the generic subject matter, it wouldn't be a contender. I think when all is done and dusted, Tree of Life or Meek's Cutoff could end up threatening my current 3-way tie for Best Movie of the Summer. Will try to do a final version of this by the end of September if I can find a way to see the remaining few.

RotPotA is a superbly paced, well written, well edited, dramatic action film that potentially can restart the Planet of the Apes franchise. I must admit, when I first heard about this movie, I couldn't understand why anyone would want to make a prequel to PotA, when the outcome (humans get taken over by apes) is already known. A bit like how pointless it was for George Lucas to make the Star Wars prequels. Then I watched the trailer and that shot of Caeser looking into the camera had a chilling effect on me. Of course, the movie was released a few weeks ago and is now a certified critical and commercial success. I just watched it a couple of hours ago. It was everything it promised to be. 
Clearly a lot of credit should go to the writers - I waited for the credits and saw 2 unfamiliar names - Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. I have now discovered they are a husband and wife team who have only written 2 other movie screenplays until now - one was for the thriller "Relic" (1997) and the other for the John Schlesinger crime drama "Eye for an Eye" (1996). What have these 2 been doing for the past dozen or so years since then? I don't know. I bet they are going to be very busy from now on, because the success of the movie has to do with the way the story is given enough time to breathe and develop. Then, director Rupert Wyatt and his two film editors have taken that material and turned it into a film that has hardly a wasted frame or a slack moment throughout its running time.
Of course, Andy Serkis is the true star of the movie. As I said on my Facebook page an hour ago, Serkis should be given an honorary Oscar for bringing Gollum, King Kong and Caesar to life in the last 10 years. Some of Caesar's facial expressions are heartbreaking.

Film buffs will enjoy hearing the words spoken by Charlton Heston's character from the original movie repeated in a different context here - "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" - this time spoken by Tom Felton, who is now free from having to play Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies.
There's a bit of macabre humour at the expense of James Franco's neighbour who never seems to have a good day.
On one hand, I am looking forward to a sequel. On the other hand, I don't want a badly made sequel to ruin the memory of this very smart, very entertaining adult thriller from the summer of 2011.

In late 2006, I read a scifi space opera/ political intrigue novel by Scott Westerfeld called The Risen Empire. I hadn't heard of Westerfeld until The Risen Empire started making the lists of best scifi novels of 2006. I discovered that he was a writer of young adult scifi novels. I tremendously enjoyed The Risen Empire, which was his first proper adult scifi novel, I think. I have been waiting for him to write another adult scifi novel, but there hasn't been one.
Meanwhile, while searching Amazon for recent steampunk novels, I came across a novel titled Leviathan, published in 2009, written by none other than Scott Westerfeld.
Last month, I finally got my hands on a copy of the book. What a great read! 
It is set in an alternate history at the start of World War I. In fact, the plotline deals entirely with the circumstances leading to WWI. 
In this world, Europe is divided into two groups - the Clankers and the Darwinists. The Clankers, represented by the Austro-Hungarian empire believe in the power of machines and have fabricated giant and complicated mechanical constructs for transportation, weapons, etc. The Darwinists, represented of course by Great Britain, home of Charles Darwin, have managed to unlock the secrets of the genetic code and have bred hybrid domesticized animals.
This forms the backdrop for our two protagonists - Alex from Austria and Deryn from England. Their paths cross amid much high adventure and action, most of it aboard a giant living airship called the Leviathan.

I have been reading/hearing about Suzanne Collins Hunger Games trilogy for some time; I first heard about the trilogy when it was announced that the first book was being adapted into a big budget Hollywood movie. Casting news soon followed with some well known young actors being cast - Jennifer Lawrence who was nominated for an Oscar at the tender age of 20 (she also played Mystique in this summer's X-Men: First Class), was cast in the lead female role. Then came news that Liam Hemsworth was being cast in one of the 2 male leads. I don't know anything about Liam Hemsworth, but his surname already marks him out as a potential rising star...he is the brother of Chris Hemsworth who played the title role in Thor. And Josh Hutcherson was cast as the 2nd male lead...he played one of Robin Williams' kids in the comedy RV about 5 years ago and came across as a very capable young actor. Then a few weeks ago, I read that Lenny Kravitz had been cast as some character called Cinna.
Meanwhile, I started seeing the books in prominent positions on bookstore shelves.
Now I was really intrigued and had to find out what this story was all about. I knew it was set in some dystopian post-apocalyptic future, where teenagers have to fight it out in some sort of contest. I also knew there was a female lead and 2 male leads - yeah, that set-up is a no-brainer given the success of the romantic triangle in the Twilight series. 
So, last week, I started reading The Hunger Games...and I finished it in just 4 days flat. That's a pretty good achievement by my recent standards. Even given the fact that it's a young adult novel, therefore not really full of heavy prose.
In some ways, the plot is reminiscent of another trilogy I read as a kid - The White Mountains trilogy by John Christopher. That also features a human population that has been subjugated to a semi-rural state of living by an authoritarian rule (it was aliens in the case of The White Mountains). It also features a social system whereby the rulers target children as soon as they approach their teens. And eventually, it's these teens who find a way to free humanity.
There is also a very strong connection with the plot of the Japanese cult film Battle Royale.
The Hunger Games is written in the first person, the story being told by the character of Katniss Everdeen (to be played by Jennifer Lawrence), who lives with her family in a coal-mining community. Her best friend is Gale (to be played by Josh Hutcherson). There is another boy in the community called Peeta (Liam Hemsworth) who she barely knows at the start of the story. Their community, called District 12, is one of 12 districts being ruled by an authoritarian regime called Panem in the remnants of what was once North America. To punish the districts for their past rebellion, the rulers of Panem demand a 'tribute' from each district every year, in the form of one boy and one girl (between the ages of 12 and 18) who must participate in a fight to the death, all played out on live television for the entertainment of the citizens of the Capitol, where the rulers of Panem live.
The story begins on the day of the draw of lots for the latest Games. I won't reveal any plot points of course, but most of the book deals with the actual Games and the participation of the key characters in these games. 
Of course, it all ends well...or does it? There is clearly something wrong, which obviously will get resolved in Books 2 (Catching Fire) and 3 (Mockingjay).
I am now mid-way through Book 2. It doesn't have the same pace and freshness as Book 1, but of course, I am a captive audience now and will have to read through the 2nd and 3rd books to find out what happens.
Incidentally, the film is being directed by Gary Ross (Seabiscuit). But what was really interesting is that Gary Ross has requested his close friend, none other than Steven Soderbegh to jump in and help him meet the tight production deadline by shooting the 2nd unit footage!!! That's the icing on the cake for me. Looking forward now to a good movie adaptation, which might rival the success of the Twilight series.