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Looking back over the summer of 1994, I can safely say that it's a serious candidate for the worst movie summer of all time. It's a jumble of big-budget flops, bad sequels, awful kids' movies, all-but-totally-forgotten comedies and other general misfires. Worse, and even more alienating, there were three high-profile, highly-acclaimed and much-beloved hits that I just couldn't go crazy for. Yet I remember that summer very fondly for delivering one perfect summer movie, which I saw on the perfect day, with all the right friends. Even if I never saw anything like it again all summer, it was worth it. (The titles of my favorites appear in bold.)

May 13: The summer started out early and promisingly with Spike Lee's warm, nostalgic Crooklyn, which is still one of his most underrated films. Then we got Alex Proyas' remarkable The Crow, which, despite the eerie overshadowing of Brandon Lee's untimely death, turned out to be a solid sci-fi/action/comic book movie.

May 20: Right now, we're in the era of remakes and reboots, but there was a time when the hottest ticket was big-screen remakes of old TV shows. Director Richard Donner put aside his profitable Lethal Weapon series for a version of Maverick, which seemed to me too slick and self-aware to make much of a lasting impression. (It was a big hit, though.) That same weekend, Gus Van Sant dropped the first of the summer's big bombs, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.

For anyone disappointed that Robin has been left out of the recent Batman films (I hope you are few), there is good news: Warner Bros. is developing a movie version of the DC comic Teen Titans. Robin is one of the original members of the young super team, and though he has not always been part of the group, it is certainly a possibility that he'll make it into the movie -- if only because of his familiarity to mainstream audiences. The Hollywood Reporter does report that Nightwing, a character who is sort of like an alternative version of Robin (he is the older incarnation of the original Robin, Dick Grayson), is already a definite character. However, because the continuities of DC Comics confuse the dickens out of me, I really have no idea if Nightwing and (the more-recognizable) Robin could both be a part of the movie's team.

Warner Bros.' interest in doing a Titans movie is not surprising, but it is interesting considering the studio is also currently working on a Justice League film. Mostly, I see this project as being an attempt to cater more to a young audience as well as to market the thing as comparable to X-Men. But will it actually be hip enough to attract the kids and smart enough to be as good as the (first two) X-Men films? So far the studio is on the right track with the hiring of Mark Verheiden to script the movie. Comic geeks and TV fans may know Verheiden as a writer for the comic books The Mask and Timecop, as well as their movie adaptations, and as writer-producer for the shows Smallville and Battlestar Galactica. The movie is being produced by Akiva Goldsman (Constantine) and Kerry Foster.