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Now that the post-Oscar season wasteland known as spring cinema is over, Hollywood is ready to unleash its best box-office-baiting offerings. With stories ripped from the pages of source material as beloved as C.S. Lewis and Chuck Palahniuk, students will be heading to the air-conditioned heaven of their local megaplex with high expectations and emotional investment fully in check.William Lacayo, 18-year-old political science major, is all about embracing the fanboy in him. “I want to see ‘Iron Man’ for the same reason I want to see ‘Speed Racer’: I’m a nerd like that,” he admitted.
Jose Martinez, 17, undecided, feels the same way. “I love comic adaptations. Watching your favorite comic book on the screen is so awesome.”

Martinez is most excited about the upcoming ‘Iron Man,’ the big budget treatment of a second tier Marvel superhero, whose star Robert Downey Jr. has deemed the film “the ultimate nerdgasm.”

In June, Iron Man’s fellow Marvel man, the Hulk, will be given a second chance at big screen success, this time with Edward Norton starring as the moody green giant. Though some students said the Hulk they saw five years ago left a bad taste in their mouths, most are willing to give Marvel’s own production a shot.
“The one that came out a couple years ago was kind of crappy, but I heard this version is awesome, so I’ll be there,” said Richard Sanchez, 18, culinary arts.

Sixteen-year-old engineering major Byron Fuentes, keeping it classic, has his eyes towards the caped crusader. He’s eager to see the late Heath Ledger’s turn as the Joker.
“I want to see ‘The Dark Knight.’ In the trailer I saw, Ledger looked like the real thing. Like, if I saw that character in a parking lot, I’d go, “Dude, where’s my car?” and all you’d hear is his creepy laugh.”

Sarah Nuno, 18, undecided, thought she was completely in the dark on summer movies. “Honestly, I don’t know any of the new movies coming out,” she said. But when reminded of ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,’ she immediately took back her words. “Oh, yeah! I’ll see that because it’ll be an instant classic,” she said.

The long-gestating fourth installment in the mega-series picks up in 1957, 19 years after the action of ‘ The Last Crusade.’ The story, heavy on Cold War intrigue, finds Indy venturing into the heart of the balmy South American jungle on a search to uncover the secret behind the Soviet-coveted titular crystal skull.

“All those movies are great. I want to see if Spielberg and [producer] George Lucas can pull it off again, but I definitely want to see if Harrison Ford can manage it. He’s older now,” Cory Sayles, an 18-year-old graphic design major, said of the sexagenarian sex symbol.

Another Indy fan, 25-year-old accounting major Frank Ortiz, is excited by the prospect of Cate Blanchett’s turn as a femme fatale.

“Wicked,” he said. “They’ve never had a girl villain in the Indiana Jones series.”

Ortiz is also game for the ‘Sex and the City’ movie, with one caveat courtesy of his wallet. “As long as it’s the only ‘Sex and the City’ movie, we’ll watch it. We spent too much money on the DVD box set. It definitely wasn’t for me,” he said.

With his documentarian spirit, Alex “Panda” Chih, an 18-year-old photography major, is keeping it high-minded. “I’m seeing ‘Super High Me.’ It’s like ‘Super Size Me’, but instead of eating McDonald’s this guy [comedian Doug Benson] abstains from weed for 30 days, then immediately after, he smokes huge amounts of it for 30 days straight to see what happens.”

On a weed-related note, there’s ‘Pineapple Express,’ starring James Franco and “Knocked Up’s” Seth Rogen, who penned the script.

“I like all those stupid ‘Superbad’ kinds of movies. I love that the plot is as simple as two stoner guys on the run after seeing a cop kill someone, and that the whole thing lasts for two hours,” said Melissa Corona, a 20-year-old pre-med student.

Stacy Partida, a 20-year-old film studies major, gave her take on the Judd Apatow formula. (Apatow produced ‘Pineapple.’) “It’s all about the pacing,” she said.

Partida also wants to see “Choke,” the film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s (“Fight Club”) 2001 novel.
“I didn’t know they were doing a movie. That’s really cool. I want to see that, even if I haven’t seen a trailer yet,” she said.

Andrea Abuata, a 21-year-old film student, is seeing “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” Woody Allen’s Barcelona-set tale of romantic entanglement starring Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson and Javier Bardem, minus his “No Country” man-bob.

“I love Woody Allen. I’m curious to see what he does in this new location, since he’s predominately filmed in New York City and recently London,” Abuata said.

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