3 to See in July

3. The Last Airbender

With no reviews to speak for it yet, it's still largely unknown if M. Night Shyamalan's latest will be a collosal waste of time and money. I don't think it will be good, based mostly on the recycled Lord of the Rings plotline it seems to be following, and the corny dialogue that's present from the first second of the trailer. However, I do have to give the film props for what it does have, which is Dev Patel, spectacular elemental visual effects, and an amazing musical score by James Newton Howard. At the very least, that puts the film ahead of most childrens flicks this summer, with one huge exception. It deserves a look, if only to see if Shyamalan could actually do worse than The Happening.

2. The Kids Are All Right

This is the time of year when Oscar contending flicks start cropping up, and this is one of the big ones. The film follows two lesbian parents (Julianne Moore and Annette Bening) who had children from the same sperm doner (Mark Ruffalo), and how their children (Mia Wasikowski and Josh Hutcherson) meet their father for the first time. It's an original story, and a very inventive concept. The trailer speaks very much about how these children have had an interesting childhood, and how they feel they've been lacking some sort of parent figure in their lives. This film got raves coming out of Sundance, and it looks like it could be a solid bid for Best Picture this year.

1. Inception

The fact that this movie is at the top of this list should surprise nobody. In fact, I'd be surprised to find a list of top films of July that this film wasn't on. We could go on to list the many reasons to see this movie, stemming from Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio, the "existential heist" plotline, whatever emotional backing the film has, the all star cast, the amazing visual effects, and the original concept, but by the end of the day we'd probably have over a billion reasons to see this movie. I don't think anybody could've guessed the road this movie would take a year ago, when the teaser was released with Inglourious Basterds. Even now, I don't know what to make of the movie. When somebody figures out what that spinning top image means, be sure to let me know.