As anyone who’s ever seen “”The Room”” or “”Piranha: 3D”” will attest, devoting two hours of your life to a bad movie can be just as gratifying as devoting your time to a good one. All that really matters when the credits start rolling is whether or not you enjoyed yourself. Following are the five most entertaining movies of this summer, some good, others just good at sucking.
Bridesmaids
The first chick-focused flick out of the Judd Apatow School for Filthy Comedians turned out to be the funniest movie-that-was-actually-trying-to-be-funny of the summer. Through pratfalls and impressions of penises, Kristen Wiig proudly earned her biggest leading role yet, bolstered by a too-cute, too-sociopathic supporting cast. On a comedy landscape redundant with hangovers and change-ups, Wiig’s quirky opus dominates in every measurable category. See it now (right now) if you haven’t.
Fast Five
VROOOOOOM, BOOM! Shoot that guy! Steal that thing! Who cares about motivation? BLAM, SCREECH, DAMN! Now The Rock is shooting guys and stealing stuff too! This flick is six cylinders of full-throttle, armor-piercing nonsense, and there’s a reason it’s one of the year’s top-grossing movies. Hey, do you think they’ll call the next sequel “”Six Cylinders””? KA-CHING.
Hesher
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is at his best in the greasy mop-top and Metallica t-shirt of Hesher, the maybe-hallucinated heavy-metal manifestation of one family’s impotent rage against mortality. Spenser Susser’s manic-depressive coming-of-ager (also starring a sad sack Rainn Wilson and hipster Natalie Portman) packs in some of the most tear-jerking and life-affirming scenes of summer. The movie is worth seeing for Hesher’s plot-catalyzing eulogy alone, which culminates in the PBR-guzzling outlaw declaring, “”I have a nut!”” Yes, he’s talking about his balls. It’s heartwarming.
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
After 15 minutes of dour exposition (re: sourpuss Harry groaning, “”I need to talk to the goblin””) this movie is nothing but epic wizard battles and heart-wrenching closure. Plus, it’s the symbolic termination of a multi-decade cultural phenomenon. Even if you don’t give a snitch, it’s fun to be part of the moment.
X-Men: First Class
No film this summer had a more even distribution of moments that were OMG badass and moments that were WTF stupid. Magneto using superpowers to kill Nazis: awesome. Yelling ginger bat kid: dumb. Charles and Magneto forging an Obi-Wan/Anakin-style bromance: awesome. Daddy issues bug girl: dumb. But remember, every irredeemably lame thing Hollywood gets away with doing to your childhood heroes is one more thing you get to rant about over post-movie brews.
