(note: This is not a breaking story about The Experts’ Guide on How to Kill Things That Go Bump in the Night getting optioned)
I’ve just come out of a screening of District 9, and my first gut reaction was that it may very well be the best movie I’ve seen this year. My wife was quick to call shenanigans on this claim – not that it wasn’t a superb movie, but that we’ve seen a lot of movies this year. After further review, it’s definitely on a short list of three movies at the moment. I’d rather not make a final distinction on which film is where on this chart, at least until after a second viewing for the top contenders.
Ordered by box office take, here’s the list of movies I’ve seen so far in theaters:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Star Trek
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Watchmen
Public Enemies
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Coraline
Crank: High Voltage
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Miss March

So what are the top three?
Star Trek – It was sleek, beautiful and told a story of heart and joy. It would be silly to go watch a movie like this and not just enjoy it for what it was.
Coraline – The most heartfelt of the bunch. Plus, I’m a big fan of the works of both Henry Selick (yay puppets!) and Neil Gaiman (yay magic!).
District 9 – There’s only one character in the entire film that doesn’t make some decision that’s awful or wrong or selfish. And that’s what makes this film so human.

The second tier of movies are those that I enjoyed thoroughly, and need to add to my video collections:
Crank: High Voltage – I still haven’t even watched the first Crank all the way through, and I’m not sure I want to. This one stayed so far over the top the entire time, it was inspirational to watch.
Watchmen – Earlier today I was watching a spoof film that was mocking Watchmen for being what it called unwatchable. In a true twist of irony, the spoof was terribly unwatchable. Meanwhile, I rather did enjoy the respect and treatment of this.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – This’ll probably rank as my least-favorite of the Potter movies, as it lacks a little bit of whimsy, but also cuts out the big climatic battle of the end. I understand the logic, though, as the next two films will be nothing but climatic battle, so this one is sacrificed for the greater good of the movie marathon.
Public Enemies – I’m a metronome of opinions on this one. It was very deliberate and a great character movie with some very good character actors (no, Depp is not a movie star, he’s a character actor). But it was very, very deliberate. And it was a bit too much who’s who of crime. I’d rather a lot more Crudup, Bale and Depp, and a lot less of the tertiary characters. So while I would start piling up lists of what I’d like changed, I’d always catch myself remembering this heist or that jail break, and it reminds me that this movie has a lot of slow-burning fun in it, too.

The “not nearly as bad as people want them to be” group
It’s been a weird summer for cinephiles. There’s been movies that have had unabashed hatred aimed at them, where even before the first preview stopped rolling, people wanted to hate on them.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – There are certain critics that do not like action movies with lots of explosions, which for some reason flocked to this movie. Why? Because enough degrading words can bring along a nice swarm of net hate. Me? I came for the giant fighting robots. What did I get? GIANT FIGHTING ROBOTS.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine – I came into this movie with the expectation that someone was going to jump up and punch a helicopter. That someone? Wolverine.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra – I wanted to hear “Knowing is half the battle.” I wanted to see hints of blue lasers and red lasers. And I already knew that “Real American Heroes” was involved. I wanted the characters to have the skills as described in their cardboard dossiers from the 1980s. I wanted respect for my childhood. And I wanted it to be something that a current 10-year-old boy would look at and scream, “AWESOME.”

The Actual Duds on this list:
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li – I don’t know what I was thinking. I was playing a lot of SF4, so it was a kick. But then Balrog started using a gun and Gen used a fireball, and no one really had any clue or care as to backstory they were doing. Seriously, if Charlie Nash shows up and doesn’t die in a mysterious way to bring Guile into the story, then what the heck is his purpose?
Miss March – Don’t judge. I saw this one for free, and I nearly walked out of it. Probably should have.

What’s next:
Inglourious Basterds (August 21)
9 (Sept. 9)
Zombieland (Oct. 9)
Where the Wild Things Are (Oct. 16)
Sherlock Holmes (Nov. 13)
maybe Avatar (Dec. 18)

Movies that I’ll make effort to see later at home:
Big Man Japan
I Love You, Man
Angels and Demons
The Brothers Bloom
Terminator Salvation
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Up
The Hangover
Land of the Lost
Year One
Brüno
Funny People
Ponyo
World’s Greatest Dad
The Princess and the Frog

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