Every year during these long winter months, there always seems to be a lull in the movie industry, besides the yearly release of the horrible winter horror movie, (yeah, you heard me, “The Rite”) there isn’t much to enjoy.

I did go see “The Green Hornet,” – I recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet to just wait and make it a Red Box rental – and “The King’s Speech,” which I believe is a must-see for anyone who likes a good drama movie.

It’s months like these where Hollywood basically tells us to save up our money so that they can take it all during the months of May, June, and July. Students off of school go see the midnight showings. The hot, unbearable July days make an air conditioned room with a giant screen where people can buy overpriced candy, popcorn, and drinks seem like heaven on earth.

I’m all right with Hollywood taking my money as long as they actually give me something worth seeing. Looking at this past summer, I was okay with the spread, but there are some movies I wish I could have gotten my money back from, or even my time for that matter. Below is a list of what I saw last year and my thoughts about them.

• “Iron Man 2” This movie, for me, was a letdown. My only thoughts as to why this was is that the main plot was crowded with so many little subplots that the overall movie never had time to grow, which left me with an unsatisfactory ending.
• “Prince of Persia” If you don’t already know this, hopefully my words will save you the trouble of spending your cold hard cash: the only reason I went to see this was because I was bored. This was Disney’s latest attempt at establishing another giant franchise like Pirates of the Caribbean. Fortunately, the box office reception spoke for itself and this movie was condemned to the five dollar DVD bin at Wal-Mart for eternity.
• “Toy Story 3” The first two Toy Story movies were landmarks in the industry for their animation and story lines and the third one didn’t disappoint.
• “The A-team” I saw this movie over winter break, but I believe these guys deserve a sequel because, overall, this was a solid summer movie filled with great jokes and giant explosions to make any audience happy.
• “The Last Airbender” The only thing I will say about this movie right now is that it is extremely funny; I recommend this to anyone who wants a laugh with their friends to see this pile of crap.
• “Inception” I wanted to end on a high note; this movie deserved two trips to the theater and it was money well spent. Also, to clarify, the top is slowing down at the end.

With exceptions to the rule like “Inception” and “Toy Story 3” (there are others, but I’m just going with what worked last summer), Hollywood has tried to cash in every year on some type of market. It’s not like there aren’t some great ideas out there, but instead of looking for cool new ideas, they just dish out crappy sequels or movies that shouldn’t even be made. Much of my frustration about this comes from seeing “Transformers 2” and “G. I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra”.

The first “Transformers” I had no problem with; it had an understandable plot, humor that everyone could be on board with, the standard plethora of Michael Bay explosions and the hot girl who ends up with the guy at the end, so what’s not to enjoy? So I think when the writers and producers got together to think of how they could make a better movie, they said, “Let’s do the same thing, but just add more because what worked the first time will be even better the second time.”

Let’s see… where do I start with this train wreck of a sequel? How about the gigantic amount of dumb sexual jokes: dog humping dog, robot humping girl, sector seven dudes’ thong underwear (there’s many more, but I’m just going with the highlights) and the coup de grace, “I’m directly below the enemy’s scrotum.” Really?!?

Then there was the obvious shot at African American stereotypes with autobots Mudflap and Skids (A robot with a gold tooth isn’t funny).

Throw in a plot line that made no sense, an hour and a half of the movie devoted to Shia Labeouf running in a desert with a sock of dust that’s supposed to save Optimus Prime during giant robot battles (this whole problem could’ve been cut down to twenty minutes by having one of the autobots transform into some vehicle and drive Sam to the destination) only then have him die and go to robot heaven, then come back and save the leader’s life for whatever pointless reason.

The explosions got boring after the first billion. “21 Guns” by Green Day was overplayed, throw in a girl terminator and that was what filmmakers call a movie. Even director Michael Bay said this movie was terrible which is what he is hoping to correct with “Transformers 3” this summer. I think “G.I. Joe” speaks for itself like “Prince of Persia” did, but there is a sequel in the works for that movie as well so only time will tell. The only advice that I think Hollywood should take is that summer movies can be good but the phrase “There’s such thing as too much of a good thing” should be taken into account.