An event-driven summer movie season

Go 'Speed Racer,' 'Iron Man,' Indy and the Caped Crusader for what's shaping up as a hot summer on screen

BY GENE SEYMOUR | Special to Newsday

May 4, 2008

Ready or not, the circus is back in town. On second thought, we're definitely ready. The time span between the holiday movie season and the summer movie season somehow seems a lot longer this year.

The reasons? How about "Drillbit Taylor," "Nim's Island," "88 Minutes," "Semi-Pro," "College Road Trip" and "Fool's Gold" for starters? They call January through April a dead zone for good movies, but whatever's deader than dead pretty much describes this year's doldrums.

Yes, "The Bank Job" and "Horton Hears a Who" were pretty good. But were they the kind of movies that made you really, really need to go see them and really, really want to take people with you.

"Event" movies are more like it, and this summer is jammed tight with them, beginning with the hugely anticipated "Iron Man" and "Speed Racer" and coursing through the season with the returns of Indiana Jones, Batman and Hellboy along with such potentially pleasant multiplex visits by such TV faves as Maxwell Smart, Mulder and Scully, and Carrie Bradshaw's posse from "Sex and the City."

Yes, it sounds like the same gaudy parade of sequels, remakes and special-effects showcases that mark every summer. But for whatever reason (and not just the mostly mediocre stuff that's been flowing into theaters lately), we're more psyched than ever for the May-to-September carnival of cinema.

Dig in.