Last night I went to a panel at Housing Works Bookstore called “The Last Shot” on the state of the summer blockbuster. Afterward, some friends and I were talking about what we had heard, and one lamented that the panel seemed to overly dwell on the embarrassments and messes of summer 2011. I don’t fault cohosts Zach Baron and Sean Fennessey for this; they opened with some paragraphs from Entertainment Weekly writer Mark Harris’ takedown, in GQ, of “Top Gun” (which he later referred to as an “artificial villain”) and the movie-marketing culture that produces films like “Transformers 3” and is forced to make “Green Lantern 2” a hit. (I believe it was Slate’s Dana Stevens who referred to the latter franchise as “like the banks — too big to fail,” even though the first installment tanked pretty splashily.)

That said, just because I’m feeling extra chipper, here are some highlights for me of this movie season:

• “Bridesmaids” and its success. I have already paid to see this movie twice, and may yet go a 3rd time.
• Subsidiary to that, the announcement soon after of new projects for “Bridesmaids” cowriter Annie Mumolo (Scared Plane Woman if you’ve seen the film) and costar Melissa McCarthy (who played Megan) — because it doesn’t move anything forward just to have one big box-office success.
• The risk of oversaturation by Jason Bateman. 
• Those major comic-book blockbusters that flopped didn’t linger around to poison the national discussion. Prior to last night I hadn’t thought about “Green Lantern” in weeks, and that was a sorely needed break.
• “Super 8,” a sweet little monster movie with more than a hint of scare, but good enough to take the whole family.
• While it didn’t completely work for me, the last installment of the “Harry Potter” series wrapped it up with grace without losing any of its 3 leads (or any of the major players, with the exception of Richard Harris [R.I.P.] as Dumbledore).
• Michael Fassbender, from British character actor to major franchise player.
• The August promise of ensemble comedies like “Crazy Stupid Love” and “My Idiot Brother.”
• That the failure, or at least disappointing performance of, Olivia Wilde’s major projects (“Cowboys & Aliens” and “The Change-Up”) means she will soon fade into obscurity. Okay, I’m reaching, but a lady has to dream!

Results of a straw poll I took on Twitter reveal a four-way tie for the summer’s worst movie between “Bad Teacher,” “Cars 2,” “The Hangover 2” and “Transformers 3.” My pick would probably be “Bore,” I mean “Thor.”