Never mind the fact that my school just let out for spring break. It’s a beautiful 77 degrees in New York City today, the outdoor bars are open and I’m wearing shorts for the first time this year. Plus, the Entertainment Weekly Summer Movie Preview just arrived in my mailbox, giving me the signal that it is officially the blockbuster season. Sure, May 2nd isn’t for two more weeks, when technically Iron Man begins the summer movie stretch (can’t we just pretend The Forbidden Kingdom is the first summer action flick?), but nothing says, “break out the beach ball,” like the bible of blockbuster buzz.

Yet there’s something strange about this year’s issue. There’s a little less marketing-agency-fueled promotion and a little more reality checking. Maybe it’s because these days, thanks to the web, most moviegoers have already heard about the big releases. That would explain why EW devotes most of its two-page spread on The Incredible Hulk to describing its troubles:

On March 11, Nikki Finke’s industry blog, Deadline Hollywood Daily, broke news of the scuffle between Marvel and Norton, declaring it a “feud.” And suddenly it was. Communication between Norton and Marvel seems to have stopped. “”The press is what kept Edward and Marvel from talking to each other,” Leterrier says. “[The argument] was nothing, but then it became something big.”

And that chunk comes after already setting up some less than exciting words about the movie:

It’s unfortunate that Hulk has been generating negative publicity lately, because there’s a lot at stake for Marvel: The company’s first two films, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, are being released this summer. Marvel’s decision to cast Norton as Banner was a gutsy choice in more ways than one. Norton is an enormously respected actor, but the Fight Club star also has a reputation for being an intense presence behind the scenes.

Considering EW is typically one of the bigger places for publicizing movies, the negativity of the article is “unfortunate” indeed. And it’s not just Hulk that gets the bad buzz treatment. The first sentence for the Sex and the City spot reads: “The Sex and the City movie was supposed to come out ages ago. Remember?” Way to point out the problem of post-relevancy, EW. Can’t you be more up, as in the case of the first sentence for Wall-E (”Pixar has never had a flop.”)?

At least the preview does have a new kind of highlighter box, in which a number of just-off-the-radar movies are given due attention. Entitled “What the #@!* Is … “, we now get the goods on such significant yet smaller summer movies as The Foot Fist Way, The Mother of Tears, Hamlet 2 and … umm … Space Chimps.

In case you actually think this summer is going to be filled with awesome popcorn flicks, pick up the magazine, on newsstands now.