Slate editor David Plotz once called August “the Mississippi of the calendar ... beastly hot and muggy. It has a dismal history. Nothing good ever happens in it.” It’s also the time when Hollywood decides to release action movies like The Expendables 2, and yawny family films like The Odd Life of Timothy Green, which our critic Dan Lybarger finds underwhelming. Similarly Piers Marchant is disappointed in Ruby Sparks, which stars, and was written by, the often-delectable Zoe Kazan.
Not all is lost — Philip Martin finds the documentary Queen of Versailles a remarkably compassionate portrait of the taste-deaf rich. And ParaNorman may not be an instant classic, but it’s something to take the kiddies to.