Kaszycki: Summer flicks are lacking quality content

Each year, movie studios spend tens of millions of dollars promoting their batch of summer… Each year, movie studios spend tens of millions of dollars promoting their batch of summer movies. But what does it mean to be a “summer” movie?

It usually means having a very large budget with substantial cash for special effects. The “Spider-Man” series, particularly the latter two entries, illustrate this trend, as do the “Jurassic Park” films from a few years ago.

One major motivator behind this summer movie trend is its ever-faithful target demographic: teenagers. Whether it’s true, studios believe that teenagers are far more interested in the visual effects of the film than the story and the quality of acting.

Another reason might be the cultural image of summer. It’s a time to relax, a time to enjoy the sun and the water and occasionally hide indoors from mosquitoes. Kids have a three-month reprieve from homework and tests. Heck, most college students do, too, though I’ve always found the prospect of working full-time much less enjoyable, paycheck aside, than taking classes.

So who wants to tax his brain with a challenging movie? Who wants to watch heavy drama or intellectual sci-fi? We all want to see giant robots clashing into each other and cars speeding by one another. And we love muscle-laden thespians of dubious acting quality uttering monosyllabic lines — usually punctuated with profanity just mild enough to maintain the essential PG-13 rating — that even a marginally literate 10 year old can understand.

Sometimes summer movies launch their actors to stardom — “Independence Day” elevated Will Smith from popular rap artist and sitcom actor to major motion picture star, and the first “Transformers” movie dramatically elevated the star power of Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox.

Other times, however, summer movies rely on “bankable stars’,” well-known names which adorn the covers of gossip rags and spew from the mouths of borderline-brain-dead gossip show hosts. Tom and Cameron! Brad and Angelina!

Some credit — or blame — “Jaws” and “Star Wars” with the rise of the summer film, regarding the two blockbusters as the transition points from what they see as the edgier, more adult-oriented filmmaking of the early-to-mid ’70s to the popcorn cinema of the ’80s and onward.

Of course, they ignore that Hollywood has always made copious amounts of fluff — the two movies cited simply led to the creation of a season traditionally associated with big-budget versions of such films. “Jaws” and “Star Wars” are also American classics, masterworks of their genres.

And they’re not the last summer movies to receive critical acclaim, either. Roger Ebert, among other critics, lavished praise upon “Spider-Man 2,” calling it “the best superhero movie since the modern genre was launched with “Superman” (1978). Later, “The Dark Knight” captured the attention of critics.

While I loved “Spider-Man 2” and “The Dark Knight,” I’m far more ambivalent to the summer movie, overall. I don’t enjoy the summer theater experience — either the inflated price of the tickets or the loudness of many theater-goers.

And I don’t find it entertaining to occupy two hours of my life watching a movie designed merely to placate teenagers. Special effects only go so far. In the absence of a compelling story, they’re little more than a technological gimmick.

Rather, I spend far more time during summers catching up on older movies, including some of the more critically acclaimed films from the prior year, only then gaining DVD release. The price is marginal thanks to Netflix, and the comfort factor can’t be beat — no errantly cast chewing gum to dodge.

Winter is the fun movie-going season for me. The theaters are less crowded, diminishing both the noise and the likelihood of encountering said chewing gum or other such indignities. While plenty of the films are mediocre, there are those gems — serious movies of all genres designed for serious, even literate audiences. That is my “summer.”

I’m disinclined, however, to offer a doom-and-gloom assessment of the impact of summer movies on the future of American cinema. Technological innovation has made filmmaking — the process, not the creation of a quality product — easier, and the Internet is a wonderful vehicle for spreading word of mouth about smaller, cheaper films.

The victim might be the middle-budget film, the $30 million-to-$50 million budget investment with recognizable faces but no major stars. Much like foolish home investors who purchased properties outside of their price range, counting on steadily increasing home prices, studios have pursued productions whose costs necessitate huge returns. This leaves little room for middle-budget genre work, but like it or not, the big-budget summer movie is here to stay.

E-mail Steve at sdk13@pitt.edu.