After the Lord of the Rings trilogy ended, I pretty much gave up on Hollywood for a while. Aside from the occasional gem (Batman Begins) and the Harry Potter movies, I'd written off most hopes of seeing anything worth seeing on the big screen again.

Man, did they take that as a challenge this summer? Between films I saw (Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda), films I didn't see but would've liked to if I had more time and money (Crystal Skull, WALL-E), films I'm going to see (Dark Knight), and films I want to see (Mummy: Dragon Emperor, Clone Wars), I seem to have been handed more films I actually approve of than in the past five years or so. Well, cool. I enjoy seeing films in theaters.

And yes, I enjoy the Mummy movies. I don't claim they're *great* movies, but they're *fun* movies to me, and I can appreciate a film that, when confronting the protagonists with a zombie(fied) horde blocking their escape, has them shun the tired cliche of abandoning their vehicle to hole up somewhere in favor of stomping the gas and plowing on through. And Scorpion King was awful, but enjoyably so.

Sole overheard line of a cell-phone conversation in the elevator which I would love to know the context for:

"Saint Michael? Or the angel Michael?"