Hmm... so I'll do the five best and five worst of the summer.

BEST:

5. Batman Begins. Christian Bale is one of of my two favorite actors. Batman is my favorite superhero. I fucking hate Katie Holmes. Two out of three ain't bad.
4. The Devil's Rejects. A complete mindfuck of a movie that cons the audience into rooting both against and FOR the Firefly family. Bill Moseley proves he's one of the best actors in the horror/shock genre. Bonus points to Zombie for casting Ken Foree as Captain Spaulding's brother.
3. Charlie and Chocolate Factory. Despite what some critics said, Johnny Depp's take on the character of Willy Wonka had me in stitches a lot of the time and grinning like an idiot the rest of the time.
2. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. I'm a hugely unapologetic "Star Wars" geek (hell, I even liked Episodes I and II), but to my mind "Sith" is the best SW movie NOT called "The Empire Strikes Back".
1. Sin City. Michael Madsen's embarrassing performance aside, this (early) film won the summer. Robert Rodiguez is officially forgiven for "Sharkboy and Lava Girl".

WORST (Note, this year I actually avoided most of the films I figured were going to suck blatantly, "Herbie: Fully Loaded" aside.. and, yeah, that wasn't bad enough to make this list):

5. War of the Worlds. The concept of using "Saving Private Ryan's" cinematography to depict the all-out invasion of Earth by pissed off Martians made me ignore the fact that this flick starred Tom Cruise and was directed by Steven Spielberg, who hasn't really been relevant since, well, "Saving Private Ryan". And I HAVE to point out that the number one thing that bugged me in this film (aside from Tim Robbins and the last twenty minutes) was the fact that Tom Cruise was trying to get ONTO that boat. With the tripods bearing down on me, there's no way in HELL I'd confine myself in an overcrowded vessel stuck in the middle of the vast ocean. That was just asking for death.
4. Prozac Nation. Technically this film is from 2001. However, its U.S. release was shelved for years because no one wanted to put the movie out, partially due to the fact that it was based on a whiney memoir by Elizabeth Wurtzel, who fell out of favor after declaring in her best emo voice, "9/11 was, like, really beautiful in a way, y'know?" and partially due to the fact that the film just blew chunks. Finally, Miramax dumped the goddamn thing out on DVD this summer and my friend conned me into watching it by uttering the words "Christina Ricci naked". And that's true. She is very naked in the first ten minutes of the film. This fact alone does not alleviate the frustration of having to sit through the ensuing two hours. However, the pie-fucker from "American Pie" gives a pretty decent performance.
3 . The Ring 2. If I can count "Sin City" as a summer film, I can count this one, too. Despite the fact that "Ring 2" was directed by the original Japanese director of "Ringu", the film STILL suffered from an overwhelming sense of "some idiot fatcat in a boardroom felt the need to 'Americanize' the story". Japanese horror is a lot of things, sensical not being one of them. At least it revels in its insanity. The Hollywood remakes of these films (I'm looking at you, too, "The Grude") try to coerce the narratives into a more coherent whole, the results usually being something like "Fuck you, I don't care". However, "Ring 2" DID contain the year's best one-liner, so far, with Naomi Watts yelling "I'm not your fucking Mommy!". Classic.
2. Bloodrayne. I know, I know. It's not due out until January 2006, but preview screenings have already happened, so I'll overlook the fact that I haven't yet seen Uwe Boll's latest turd and just say what we all know to be true: it's going to suck. Hard. I've heard that it's "better than his last two", which is akin to saying that having one's genitals removed via vegetable peeler is better than being killed by repeated rectal stabbings with a corkscrew.
1. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolow. Again, I haven't actually seen Rob Schneider's latest opus, but I was in a Showcase Cinemas multiplex the same day that this film was playing a few rooms over. The unrelenting stupidity of the picture traversed the distance between us like an airborne illness and I felt my unspent sperm killing themselves in my scrotum in the hopes of avoiding ever being born into a world where movies like "Deuce Bigalow" could exist.

Yep, that's it.

Syd Lexia wrote:

I just couldn't bring myself to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's gotten very favorable reviews, but the cynic in can't help but think it's because critics eat up (almost) everything that Depp and/or Burton do. Hell, I'm a big fan of both their bodies of work myself. But what I'm not a big fan of is remakes, especially when it's something as perfect as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I mean, fuck, what's next? The Wizard of Oz? Gone With The Wind? But mostly, the trailer just really didn't do it for me. The best line they could find to put in the trailer was "Don't touch that squirrel's nuts!" and that was a pretty terrible line. Oh, ha ha. Johnny Depp said nuts. If I was a ten, I probably would have found that hilarious... but I'm not. The other thing that bugged me is that fans of the movie have come in defense of it saying that it's actually truer to the book than the original. Truer how? Certainly not by adding in a subplot where Willy Wonka's father was an evil dentist.    Maybe I'll change my mind when I finally do see it though. It is incredibly hard to resist the combined appeal of Christopher Lee, Johnny Depp, and Tim Burton.

The trailer does it no justice at all. I'll say that right away. I had the exact same reaction when I first heard the "Don't touch..." line. And I know I'm swallowing a huge Hollywood buzzline here, but this is the one time where I honestly believe "remake" is the wrong term. It really is a "re-imagining", as stupid a term as that is. The best way to look at it is as another take on the book, not the prior movie. I think the two films combined could be shoved into a nice two DVD set together.

As far as the songs go, yeah, they got crapped on a lot and I don't really understand why. They're basically four wildly different styles that shakes things up a bit. I mean, the Veruca Salt one is practically a folk song. I'm not going to go so far as to say that this is Burton's best work (I'll still take "Ed Wood", the original "Batman", or "Beetlejuice" over it, but compared to some of the stuff he's been shoving out recently, it's a minor masterpiece). And, yeah, Christopher Lee always makes things better.

B.B.King wrote:

Fuck that. Burton was just looking to cash in on an idea,by making the movie just different enough so people considered it "new". Why didn't he make a movie based of the next book, "charlie and the great glass elevator". Plus,the "remake" was terrible. johnny depps worst movie by far. it ruined my childhood.

That's the first time I've heard that someone or something "ruined one's childhood" without George Lucas being mentioned, so I'm grateful for that. I don't know, man. I"m sorry you didn't like, but to each his own, I guess.