thoughts on some summer flicks

let's not call this a review, because if you wanted that you could go to the Herald, the Times, or some other professionals opinion.

The Kids Are Alright: I was rooting for The Kids Are All Right. A movie with Julianne Moore, Annette Benning, Mark Ruffalo, the girl who loves gay boys from United States of Tara and the new Alice, about lesbian parents whose kids decide to find their sperm donor, Mark Ruffalo? I'm in. The biggest draw for this movie was the actors, names with long lists of accolades on IMDB, and they delivered, the problem was the script logic. Halfway through I was wondering what happened to the kids? Mark Ruffalo's organic chef character (who was dating a half-ass written character of the beautiful black girl played by an ex-America's Next Top Model) was unbelievable, unchanged, and underdeveloped- he was like a cartoon strip character. The characters were frustratingly unmotivated, things happened just to happen and in the end, the kids were not alright. 

Despicable Me: The fact that the "minions" from Despicable Me are in a commercial for IHOP really freaked me out; overmarketing is like a tell-tale sign for me of a movie that is going to be over-hyped and underwhelmed, but Despicable Me was far less annoying than I expected. I knew that I was going to like it when the opening credits rolled and I realized just how stellar the cast was. If Julie Andrews, Jason Segal, Russel Brand, Will Arnett and, of course, Steve Carell, thought it was a funny enough script to take then I should like it too right?
I was happy to see that first awesome trailor of the little boy falling into the pyramid and it deflating was the first five minutes of the movie, and the rest of the movie was fresh. I hadn't already laughed at all the good jokes from the preview. The movie was a perfect summer flick, and it didn't fall prey to the problem that so many comedies have had as of late- it was nice and short. There were good twists that caught me off guard, but I didn't find myself thinking it was over ten times, it was over when it should have been and left you loving those little minions, wanting to give Steve Carell a big hug, and all in all happy to have spent your time watching it.

Grown-Ups: There were two good things about Grown-Ups, the poster for the movie with a yearbook picture of the bromance cast, and the two kids that played Adam Sandler's kids. That's it.