I hope you die on opening night, and die through opening weekend, and get negative word of mouth, and never make it up on back end sales, and lose every penny of your investment, Sarah Marshall

Armchair shrinks, movie fans, L.A. billboard zealots and personal detractors, what does the following say about me?

The summer movie season is coming, and the neighborhoods are full of ads. I see them everywhere, sometimes for stuff I should theoretically be interested in seeing: I enjoyed 2.5 of the Indiana Jones films, enough so that a rote, lackluster, unimaginative, uninteresting marketing campaign should not keep me from wanting to see the fourth installment in the trilogy. I also find the idea of Bob Downey as Iron Man vaguely intriguing.

And yet the only movie I have any desire to see is Baby Mama. Let me rephrase: The bus posters for this movie are the only film advertisements around right now that do not fill me with weltschmerz and contempt.

Actually, I just looked up Baby Mama, and I think I don't even want to see that. I initially took it to be some kind of surreal picture with Amy Poehler doing an adult/child performance like Martin Short in Clifford. It turns out it's actually got the dullest concept imaginable, though the following IMDB note still gives me some hope:

Movie Connections: Spoofs Silkwood (1983)

Anyway, am I speaking solely for myself or is anybody else out of sympathy with the lineup of coming attractions? I'm only referring to the marketing. It seems to me we're in a real movie-magic doldrums, but that could just be my own dolorous dullness...