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Kim Hollis: What movies have you watched lately, and what do you think about them? What are your most anticipated remaining summer films?

Jason Barney: For me, the summer movie season starts with April vacation. Hollywood has managed to push its summer movie schedule into early May, which is great, as I rush out to see a lot of the March and April movies when the big budget films arrive. Having a drive-in nearby makes it easier, as I can grab two films in one night.

I have seen 17 films in theaters since the start of April vacation. The Croods and The Call were two we enjoyed at the Sunset Drive in here in Vermont. Then my girlfriend and I tried to pay attention to some of the indie offerings, so we saw The Place Beyond the Pines and The Company You Keep. Both were excellent. We were able to take in Oz the Great and Powerful before it left the area. The Great Gatsby was good enough. Mud was excellent. I am a huge Star Trek fan and was hoping it was going to be a success. Domestically it has disappointed, but Paramount has to be happy with the worldwide take. In the House was a great French film. I would highly recommend it; perhaps one of the best of the year. Pain and Gain was awful. 42 was pretty good. Then we had another drive-in adventure....taking my son and nephew to see Epic. They fell asleep in the back seat as we watched Iron Man 3. The Hangover Part III was okay. After Earth was better than I expected because everyone said it was so terrible. The Purge was well worth watching. The most recent film we took in was Before Midnight, which was painfully excellent.

I am very excited about the second half of the summer movie season as there are far more offerings for July and August than there were in May and June. If I remember correctly, only Memorial Day Weekend had three films opening. There were some weeks where just one new film came out. If you look at the release schedule July has one weekend where four films hit theaters, all the rest have at least two wide releases. I was a little shocked to see that August has three weekends with four different films with a wide release. Not to mention the indie films that will squeeze into the schedule....it is looking to be a marvelous second half. I am looking forward to The Wolverine, Red 2, Elysium, RIPD and Blue Jasmine. And of course - all of the kids’ movies coming out.

Max Braden: I've seen seven movies in theaters so far this year. At the moment, Iron Man 3 was my favorite of that group. I still think Iron Man was the best of the trio, but Iron Man 3 was unexpectedly funny (maybe due to Shane Black's influence as director?). Ben Kingsley stole the movie. Star Trek Into Darkness was good, but it feels like they're playing Mad Libs with the story elements and then rushing through them. I like the new crew but they just don't have the charm of the originals. I liked Oblivion a lot, because it felt a lot like a sci-fi movie from the ‘80s. The automatic probes were more intimidating than Robocop. The visuals were excellent. I just caught World War Z this weekend and was also entertained. I had been hesitant after seeing the trailer, because I don't like zombies that are suddenly faster and stronger than people normally would be, but it didn't bother me during the movie. I was shifting around in my seat and actually looking around corners after leaving the theater at 1 a.m., because there are a bunch of really harrowing close calls in the movie.

Olympus Has Fallen had a good attack setup, but the villain's plot reveal was just ridiculous and ruined the movie. Fast & Furious 6 also had some good chase moments, but as I'd seen noted elsewhere, it's more about the testosterone than the cars now. I kept thinking Jason Statham was the villain in this movie because I could hear his voice (intentional, I think, in the first scene), and kept thinking they had put some weird makeup on him and were going to take it off but never did. Now You See Me is a fun heist movie with neat effects, but there's just no groundwork for the end reveal. It's not a movie that's going to stick with me, though it might be one of those you have to watch whenever it shows up on cable.

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