Roeper’s Top Five

Richard Roeper has named (500) Days of Summer his number film of the summer. As follows:

Best movies of the season:

1. “(500) Days of Summer”
2. “Inglourious Basterds”
3. “Up”
4. “The Hurt Locker”
5. “District 9″

Honorable mention: “Public Enemies,” “Julie and Julia,” “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” “The Hangover,” “Funny People,” “Star Trek.”

And speaking of Inglorious Basterds, I was remiss in not posting this interesting Mark Blankenship column from HuffPo on the deeper meanings of the Tarantino film:

Maybe I’m alone here, but I say the film is about something more.

To begin, I’d argue that Tarantino has consciously chosen to make a movie about hating Nazis because Nazis are the only people that most of the Western world agrees to hate. And since most of us concur that their actions were evil, Hitler and the Nazis often become abstracted into general symbols for dark deeds. I mean, it seems like every time one politician wants to belittle another, or a student wants to complain about a teacher, or hell, a fry cook wants to bash her shift manager, they all resort to calling their enemy a “Nazi” or “Mrs. Hitler” or some such thing.

I haven’t seen all of them so I would feel uncomfortable with such a list. I know that Hurt Locker and 500 Days would be on it. Off to see District 9.