World's greatest summer movie preview!

In looking over the list of this year's summer movie offerings, one thing is clear: Originality was not high on the list of priorities.

If you take away all the sequels, remakes or flicks based on a TV show/comic strip/video game, you're left with ... not a whole lot.

Summer blockbusters tend to be safe choices that are designed to have a built-in audience. So taking risks is not common this time of year. But really, was the world crying out for a film version of the "Marmaduke" comic strip? Or the "Prince of Persia" video game?

Here's my rundown of the summer, helpfully divided into those I think are promising, those I think will be at least tolerable, and those I'm painting a black circle around on the calendar. (Somehow, I just know I'm going to be otherwise occupied on the day of the "Piranha 3-D" screening.)

THE GOOD

Splice (June 4) -- This horror/thriller looks promising. It's about two wayward scientists who combine human DNA with other creatures, with horrific results.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (July 16) -- Yes, this is exactly what it looks like: A live-action version of the famous broom sequence from "Fantasia" starring Mickey Mouse. With the same crew from "National Treasure" -- Nic Cage, Jerry Bruckheimer and Jon Turtletaub. I know you think I'm crazy right now for putting this in the "good" column. But watch the trailer; it actually looks like fun.

Toy Story 3 (June 18) -- Say this for the Pixar folks: They're not hasty. It took them 11 years to make another installment in the franchise that launched computer-generated animation. This time around Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Jessie and the gang are shipped off to a daycare center. Given the pedigree, I've got high hopes.

Jonah Hex (June 18) -- Josh Brolin plays a scarred, cursed bounty hunter who's after the man who slew his family. Megan Fox, back in the sexy sidekick role where she belongs, plays a prostitute. With John Malkovich chewing the tumbleweeds as the villain, and the combo of Western and horror genres, this one looks like a keeper.

Despicable Me (July) -- Screw the super-heroes, the super-villains are the most fun! That's the idea behind this animated romp about the world's number-two villain (Steve Carell) who thinks he should be number one. Sound original? That's because it is! Not based on anything other than the filmmakers' creative minds. Imagine that.

Inception (July 16) -- Director Christopher Nolan teams up with Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page in a mind-bending drama about a world in which the human mind and technology are intertwined. The trailer looks freaky-deaky.

Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Undead (June 11) -- I actually don't know anything about this film; I'm recommending it strictly based on the title.

Dinner for Schmucks (July 23) -- Ditto. Any chance to sneak profanity in a foreign language into pop culture is a positive thing in my book. As for the plot: It's like that River Phoenix movie "Dogfight," but funny and with guys.

Eat Pray Love (Aug. 13) -- Julia Roberts plays a woman with a midlife crisis who dumps her marriage and career to travel the world seeking serenity. Could be this summer's "Julie & Julia."

THE BAD

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (May 28) -- Let's start with the fact that Jake Gyllenhall and Gemma Arterton are decidedly not Perian. In fact, they're about as far away from Arabian as you can get. They're anti-Persian. Other than that, this looks like a normal summer actioner with lots of computer-generated destruction. Problem is, the track record of movies based on video games starts at dreadful, and then goes downhill.

Grown Ups (June 25) -- I've always liked Chris Rock. I think he's one of the edgiest, most original comic talents of the last quarter-century. But have you noticed that whenever his career needs a little boost, he runs back to fellow "Saturday Night Live" alum Adam Sandler to co-star in one of his boneheaded flicks? He's back again in this story of summer camp chums from the '70s reuniting as fortysomething losers. With Kevin James, David Spade and Rob Schneider ... yep, they've got the whole awful crew assembled.

The Expendables (Aug. 13) -- Sylvester Stallone continues to roll the stone up the hill for the comeback only he and his agent want to see. He wrote, directed and stars in this adventure about a group of mercenaries hired to overthrow an evil dictator. With Jet Li, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Marmaduke (June 4) -- A family comedy based on a comic strip that is only read by people under the age of 6 or over 60. Watch the trailer: CGI pooches doing line dancing. My soul actually shriveled a little when I saw it.

The Other Guys (Aug. 6) -- Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson are the baddest, hippest cops on the beat -- but they're not the heroes of this story. Will Farrell and Mark Wahlberg play wannabe detectives toiling in their shadow. Farrell's really been dogging it lately, and Marky Mark is not exactly the first name that comes to mind when you think comedic timing.

Killers (June 4) -- Ashton Kutcher stops Tweeting long enough to crank out another movie that reminds us why he doesn't deserve to be a star. He plays a super-spy who hooks up with unsuspecting normal girl Katherine Heigl.

Shrek Forever After (May 21) -- It may seem harsh putting the jolly green ogre here, but the third movie really, really sucked. Seeing as how the careers of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz have all tanked lately, this fourth entree feels like it's just here for the green -- the papery kind.

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore; Piranha 3-D; Step Up 3D; Predators; Nanny McPhee 2 -- Do I really need to say anything? OK, two words: Colossally unnecessary.

THE MEH

Iron Man 2 (May 7) -- I've already seen it as I'm writing this, so you'll have to read the review to see why it ended up in the "meh" lineup. Tony Stark gets a competitor and a partner, each in their own super-suit.

Sex and the City 2 (May 27) -- The first one was actually quite good, but I can't say I'm psyched up for another two hours of fashion fetish, bitchy dialogue and romance gone awry.

Twilight: Eclipse (June 30) -- The vampires and the werewolves team up to fight some bad vampires.

The Last Airbender (July 2) -- M. Night Shyamalan tackles the summer blockbuster in this adaptation of a popular TV cartoon show.

MacGruber (May 21) -- A mildly amusing 10-minute television comedy sketch parody of a somewhat entertaining '80s TV show gets stretched out into a feature-length comedy.

Get Him to the Greek (June 4) -- A quasi-sequel to "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," which forgot to include Sarah Marshall and all the other characters except for Russell Brand's twit Brit rock 'n' roller. Jonah Hill is back, but playing an entirely new character.

The A-Team (June 11) -- Probably will be fun, but also is totally unnecessary. Does it really have anything to add to the cheesy legacy of the TV show other than CG explosions? Plus, to put it in mathematical terms,T=BA, and anything not T≠BA.

The Karate Kid (June 11) -- The ol' wimp-learns-martial-arts-to-fend-off-bullies-with-the-help-of-stern-teacher genre. They tried it with a "kid" who was pushing 30 by the end of his run, then they went to a teen girl (Hilary Swank). Now they're trying it with a preteen, Jaden Smith. With Jackie Chan in the Miyagi role.

Knight and Day (June 25) -- Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise reunite for the long-awaited "Vanilla Sky" sequel! I'm kidding, I'm kidding ... Cruise plays a super-agent who runs into a normal girl, upending her world. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it? It's basically "Killers," aged 12-15 years.

Salt (July 23) -- Angeline Jolie tackles a role originally written as a male character, a CIA veteran who is accused of being an undercover assassin sent to kill the president.

The Switch (Aug. 20) -- Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston are best friends. When she decides to use artificial insemination to have a child by herself, he swaps out the donor sperm for his own.

Letters to Juliet (May 14) -- A young girl travels the globe to find an old woman's long-lost love, and finds one of her own along the way. With Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave.

Just Wright (May 14) -- Physical therapist Queen Latifah is assigned to help a fallen NBA star (Common) and they fall in love.

Babies (May 7) -- A documentary. About babies. With no dialogue.

Robin Hood (May 14) -- Russell Crowe stars in the umpteenth version of Robin Hood -- no green tights, though. Directed by Ridley Scott, so it could be awesome. But really, did we need another Robin Hood?

Review: "Love Happens"

"Love Happens" manages to incorporate all the clichés of the romantic comedy genre, and hits all those for the dramatic weepie, too.

This weird and disappointing movie tries unsuccessfully to tell the story of a truly and deeply depressed man, and dress it up in the clothes of a quirky/funny romcom. So there are scenes of frivolous, spontaneous courting, followed immediately by dour bits where you think the protagonist is going to jump off a building.

There's even -- God help us -- a slow-clap scene. You know the kind I'm talking about: A large group of people responds to an emotional moment with one guy clapping slowly, which is picked up by the rest of the crowd and builds in an enthusiastic crescendo. As a cinematic device, the slow clap became hackneyed in approximately 1987.

Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart) is a self-help guru who goes around the country giving emotional pep talks to people about how to deal with personal loss. He's on the verge of becoming the next Dr. Phil, with a deal for a talk show, DVD distribution, radio program and the whole kabob looming.

Burke seems sincere, despite a money-hungry manager (delightfully played by Dan Fogler). After all, it was the loss of his own wife in a tragic accident three years ago that prompted him to write his best-selling book, "A-Okay!"
.
So, surely a run-in with a snarky flower-shop owner named Eloise (Jennifer Aniston) will brighten up his life. Eloise decorates the Seattle hotel where Burke's latest seminar is taking place -- and also surreptitiously scribbles obscure vocab words behind paintings in the hallways.
It's cute, but if someone really felt compelled to share terms like "quidnunc" with the world, why hide it?

By the way, a person who intentionally uses long, obscure words is called a sesquipedalianist, so you just know that one's going to turn up eventually.

Eloise and Burke don't exactly hit it off. In fact, she even pretends to be deaf in order to avoid his initial come-on. This leads to their next meeting, in which Burke gives her the finger. I have to give it to co-writers Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson -- you don't see too many screen couples flipping each other off.

But Camp, who also directed, just can't make sense of all the different and often conflicting things zinging around his movie. You've got Judy Greer as Eloise's slam-poet shop assistant, Martin Sheen as Burke's P.O.'d ex-Marine father-in-law, and Frances Conroy badly misused in a tiny scene as Eloise's mom.

And that's on top of the overriding incongruency of a guy who still hasn't gotten over his dead wife doing meet-cutes and falling-in-love montages to guitar-heavy music cues.

Sometimes pairing unlikely elements or characters together makes for movie magic. And sometimes "Love Happens."

2 stars

Review: "District 9"

One of the most thrilling movie experiences one can have is walking into a film you know next to nothing about, and being completely transported away to a wholly unexpected destination.

"District 9" is a South African film about an incursion of aliens coming to live on Earth, and being rounded up into a ghetto that gives the movie its name. That's pretty much all I knew about it beforehand.

It sounded like a knockoff of "Alien Nation," a 1988 James Caan flick with a similar theme. "District 9" starts out on an off-kilter, almost humorous note, but keeps layering in surprises and deeper subtexts.

The film unfolds in a documentary style. Our first encounter is with a buffoonish character named Wikus Van De Merwe, who sits in an office and talks in a bouncy sing-song pattern. It turns out he's a bureaucrat with MNU Alien Affairs, the public/private association tasked with overseeing nearly 2 million aliens housed in a shantytown outside Johannesburg.

Through archival footage we learn that the aliens' ship appeared one day over the city, sitting motionless and uncommunicative. Humans eventually cut into the craft and found a horde of starving aliens. Bug-like and chitinous, the aliens -- dubbed "prawns" in the same derogatory way people use terms like "gooks" -- did not seem to have much knowledge of the technology they carried with them.

It was theorized that these creatures were the worker drones of an insect-like alien race, and they certainly didn't seem very smart. They mostly scavenged bits of junk, and seemed to have a particular jones for cat food. So they were hoarded together and put into District 9 more than 20 years ago.

Now the human locals want the aliens moved to a concentration camp out in the countryside, and Wikus has been put in charge of the eviction and relocation. He was chosen solely because he is the son-in-low of the MNU chief, and because he's too out of his depth to oppose the heavy-handed tactics employed by the company's mercenaries. (The head merc is played by David James, who manages to be scary even when he's not doing anything.)

I don't want to say anything more about the plot, other than the relocation mission goes horribly awry, and Wikus finds himself forced to share the aliens' perspective.

Wikus is played by Sharlto Copley, who I was astonished to find is a first-time actor. Copley transforms his character over the course of the film from an inept corporate flunky into a sympathetic figure that the audience roots for. What a debut.

The aliens themselves are entirely computer-generated. Even their voices are not done by actors, but employ a series of clicks and scritches.

Director Neill Blomkamp, who co-write the script with Terri Tatchell, initially keeps his camera far away from the aliens, allowing them to be seen as scary and (literally) inhuman. As the story progresses, he moves in closer and closer on their faces, and picks out one in particular, who uses the human-given name Christopher Johnson. Christopher has a young son and seems craftier than his fellows; the walls of his shack are lined with bits of computers that he's evidently not using just for decoration.

"District 9" was based on a 6-minute short film by Blomkamp, which was discovered by Peter Jackson of "Lord of the Rings" fame, who then scraped together $30 million to make a feature version. I'd say Blomkamp hit the lottery, except it's audiences who are the real winners.

3.5 stars

Review: "Food, Inc."

You probably could guess this from the title, but if you're thinking of doing the dinner-and-a-movie thing with "Food, Inc.", don't make the mistake of scheduling the meal after the entertainment.

And this new documentary by Robert Kenner is entertaining, though also very sobering in its exploration of how the American food industry has moved from a farm-based endeavor to a corporatized near-monopoly that values speed and low cost over healthfulness.

It's also a film that makes it very clear from the outset that it has a point of view -- pro-organic food, pro-independent farmer, anti-corporation, anti-industrialization. The opening narration, after all, claims that we've reached a situation where "both the animals and the workers are being abused."

Kenner's tendency to lecture rather than explore occasionally bogs down his argument, as is the near-total absence of perspective from the big food companies (who, unsurprisingly, decline to talk). Even if one swallows his perspective, as I do, the unrelenting one-sidedness of "Food, Inc." adds an unpleasant tang to an otherwise intellectually satisfying meal.

Divided into sections with titles like "Fast Food to All Food" and "Shocks to the System," the documentary talks to farmers, food safety advocates, industry representatives and notable pundits like Eric Schlosser, writer of "Fast Food Nation," and "The Omnivore's Dilemma" author Michael Pollan.

There are images from inside the massive food-processing plants, including some surreptitiously recorded by employees, that demonstrate what a nasty, impersonal and often unsafe place it is through which our food passes. This is contrasted with an organic farmer who slaughters and cleans chickens behind his house while delivering a pointed critique of industrial methods.

Statistics are let fly that frighten and enlighten: In 1972, the FDA performed about 52,000 food safety inspections; today, that number is around 9,000. It's no surprise that cases of food contamination like E. coli are on the rise, as testified to by a mother-turned-advocate whose 2-year-old was dead 12 days after eating tainted hamburger.

There are also sections explaining what goes into delivering that 99-cent burger to your local fast-food chain, and the prevalence of corn-based products in nearly everything we eat.

One of the most jaw-dropping stories is that of Moe Parr. A chemical company named Monsanto holds patents on genetically-modified seed of crops like corn and soybean, and threatens litigation against any farmer who dares to save any of his seed corn for re-planting -- as has been done for generations. Parr is a 70-something who tows around an 1800s contraption that cleans seeds, so the company is suing him, even though his customers are the holdouts who refuse to use the altered seed. Still, his legal bills mount to the point he is forced to settle.

Kenner ends the film with a litany of exhortations against a black screen, urging viewers to buy food locally, use organic products, etc. "You can change the world with every bite" is the final message. It's a powerful one, although it would be more palatable if it didn't sometimes feel like it was being shoved down our throats.

3 stars

Catching up with "The Hurt Locker"

"The Hurt Locker" is possibly the best-reviewed film of 2009, and it finally opened in Indianapolis last Friday. Alas, no screening was made available to local critics.

I caught it today and it's a fine, fine film, though perhaps some reviewers have overinflated their opinions a bit. It happens all the time -- a few early influential critics in New York and LA rave about a film, it slowly creeps out to the marketplace, and more and more people feel compelled to pile on the bandwagon.

I'll certainly add it to my watch list for Top 10 movies of the year (if you're interested, the others currently on that list are "The Soloist," "Adventureland," "Moon," "Watchmen" and "Up"). But I wouldn't say it's at the top.

Perhaps the reason people are reacting to it with such enthusiasm is that "The Hurt Locker" is the first movie about the war in Iraq that doesn't seem to be playing politics or simply using the conflict as a backdrop to make a larger point. It's the "Platoon" for this generation -- a film about this war, these soldiers, their particular life-and-death challenges.

The story is set in 2004, the height of the insurgency and when sober minds on all sides of the political spectrum thought the whole thing might devolve into chaos. Into this blend of paranoia and fear steps Will James (Jeremy Renner, in a terrific performance), a bomb specialist who lives on the edge of insanity, and thrives on the adrenalin rush of risking his life every day to prevent things from blowing up.

Under his bed at barracks he keeps a large crate of electronic gizmos -- everyday stuff you could buy at Radio Shack, is how a fellow soldier puts it. These are parts of bombs that James has defused, ones that were especially challenging. He hates these contraptions designed to take life, but he also admires cleverly-designed bombs.

James is assigned to a bomb squad after their last specialist was killed in the film's opening sequence. (The dead bomb expert is played by Guy Pearce, one of several prominent actors who appear in small roles, including Ralph Fiennes, David Morse and Evangaline Lilly.) Anthony Mackie plays Sanborn, whose job is keep James safe, and is put off by his reckless ways. Some people would call the risks James constantly takes bravery, but Sanborn is the careful, seasoned soldier who knows they're just foolhardy.

The third member of the team is Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), a young soldier who's worried about whether he has the mettle to do what it takes in the field. Eldridge blames himself for his former bomb expert's death -- he saw the bomber waiting to set off the explosion with a cell phone, but failed to act -- and is receiving counseling from an Army psychiatrist. Eldridge challenges the doctor to come out in the field and witness what they have to put up with every day, which leads to tragic results.

The scenes that stick out most in audiences' minds will probably be the sequences that take place with James working in a special suit designed to protect him from a bomb blast. With its layers of Kevlar and helmet, it resembles an astronaut's gear. As James walks alone down dusty streets, checking piles of junk for bombs, it seems like he is traveling through an almost alien landscape. Director Kathryn Bigelow, a master of kinetic action scenes, keeps the audience on edge, expecting an attack or explosion from any angle.

For me, though, the scene that will stay with me is a firefight the bomb team gets into out in the middle of the desert. They meet up with some British intelligence officers and get pinned down by sniper fire. There's a long stretch where James and Sanborn are waiting to see if all the enemies are dead, with Sanborn manning a massive scoped rifle and James acting as his spotter. It's a reversal of their normal roles, where James is the showboat and Sanborn is there to back him up. James, choking on the heat and dust, asks for the last juice pack. Slowly and methodically, he opens it up and punctures the juice with a straw, then leans over and puts it to Sanborn's lips so he can drink without taking his eyes off the scope. These two soldiers have been at odds up till now, even exchanged blows, but it's in this moment that they truly become comrades.

"The Hurt Locker" is a tough, unsparing and brutally honest portrait of the war in Iraq. Let's hope there are more to come.

3.5 stars

DVD review: "Fast and Furious'

The "Fast and Furious" franchise comes full circle with the fourth film, which reunites original cast members Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Michelle Rodriguez as gearheads driving tricked-out cars through an improbable and seemingly endless series of chases.

Justin Lin, who also directed the third movie, "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," delivers an aggressively stupid action film in which all the women are hoochies with ample cleavage and booty shorts, and all the men are so overpumped with machismo that every exchange of dialogue becomes a duel of glares and snorts.

The cars are the real stars of the movie. Both Diesel, as criminal Dom Toretto, and Walker, as undercover fed agent Brian O'Conner, drive a variety of cool vehicles during the course of the movie, nearly all of which end up in a pile of twisted debris. Toretto's black Charger makes a return from the first film, along with a number of American muscle cars and tuner imports.

The plot involves Dom and Brian infiltrating a Mexican heroin-smuggling ring. There's a big race to determine who will get to join the faceless drug lord's crew of drivers. Dom wins, but then Brian inexplicably is allowed to come along too, which kind of renders the race pointless. It's undoubtedly galling to the drivers who crashed during that race, at speeds that must have left them in the hospital, or mortuary.

"Fast and Furious" comes in single- and two-disc versions. Both include a gag reel and director's commentary by Lin, which tends to stick to pedantic shot-by-shot descriptions.

The two-disc version also includes a digital copy of the film, a short movie called "Los Bandoleros" about Central American crime, and a variety of making-of featurettes. One shows Vin Diesel attending stunt driving school in preparation for the shoot, will another is a breakdown of how they shot the opening heist of a big rig towing five fuel tankers.

Movie: 1.5 stars
Extras: 3 stars

Reeling Backward: "On the Waterfront"

Everyone's personal filmography contains some holes, and "On the Waterfront" was one of the biggest in mine. I'm glad I plugged it.

Some movies fade with time, or their setting or stories become antiquated. Right before I started watching "Waterfront" I put on another Marlon Brando movie, "Teahouse of the August Moon," and didn't get 10 minutes in before I turned it off. I'm sure it's a fine film, but I was too put off by Brando portraying a Japanese man, complete with eye prosthetics and pidgin English ("Sank you velly much.")

"On the Waterfront" has an immediacy and punch that renders it timeless. Even the setting of New York dock workers intimidated by mobsters feels like it could have jumped out of a New York Post headline in 2009.

Nowadays the film is remembered for one thing: Brando's performance, captured in the famous "I coulda been a contender" speech in the back of a taxi. It is indeed a knockout, and Brando embodied an entire new way of embracing film acting. Up until him and his ilk, movie performances were essentially seen as stage acting that is recorded. So everything is big and broad. Brando's more naturalistic approach makes you believe that Terry Malloy is just another street hood who shrugged his way into our lives.

The contender dialogue is great, but the moment of the film that floored me is when Father Barry, the priest played by Karl Malden, stands at the bottom of ship's cargo hull and gives a sermon over the body of a dead worker who's just been killed by a falling load of whiskey. It was made to look like an accident, but everyone knows he was offed for daring to testify against the corrupt union bosses. Malden stands there, his speech slowly building from a benediction to a call to arms, even as mob chief Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) stands at the top and glowers. Some of his flunkies throw vegetables and even bottles at Father Barry, but he keeps on thundering away. Terry decks one of the mobsters for throwing stuff at the brave priest, and this is the real turning point for his character, the moment of truth when he decides to defy the bosses.

Johnny Friendly looks upon Terry as something of an amusing pet. A former boxer, Terry took a dive at the orders of Friendly, who had fixed the betting, and became just another palooka with a bent nose and swollen eye sockets. Friendly tosses him cush jobs like a master turning over his scraps to a dog. Terry isn't really a member of the inner circle, but his brother Charley (Rod Steiger) is Friendly's right-hand man. So they get nervous when Terry falls for Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint), the sister of a guy he unwittingly set up to take the fall for Friendly's enforcers.

You want to talk about a great cast? "On the Waterfront" had three Oscar nominations for best supporting actor -- Malden, Steiger and Cobb. Brando won for Best Actor, and Eva Marie Saint won in the supporting actress category. Not to mention Academy Awards for best picture, director, screenplay, cinematography, editing and art direction.

Director Elia Kazan had one of the truly great careers, although his heyday only lasted from the late 1940s until the early '60s. He's reviled in some circles for testifying against fellow filmmakers in the McCarthy hearings. But his influence as a filmmaker is undeniable. Just watch -- and listen -- to any of the outdoor scenes, where the churn of machinery in the background seems almost timed to the rhythms of the dialogue, like another musical score beneath Leonard Bernstein's (also nominated for an Oscar).

"On the Waterfront" deserves its reputation as one of the greatest American films, ever.

4 stars

Review: "G-Force"

It's hard to play nice with a movie like "G-Force." Yes, I know films like this are designed for audiences that are only a small fraction of my age. It features cute computer-generated critters who act out, dance to hip-hop music and engage in noisome bodily functions that are eternally delightful to those who measure their years in single digits.

But is it too much to ask for a kiddie flick that's at least passably endurable for parents and other grown-ups? I know not every children's movie can be "Finding Nemo," but is "The Rescuers Down Under" too high to aim?

"G-Force" is about a group of guinea pigs who are trained as secret agents for the government. Oh, there's also a mole who hangs out underground and handles the computers.

The rodents' voices are done by Tracy Morgan, Penelope Cruz, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi and Jon Favreau, so you know exactly what kind of character each is doing. Morgan does an Ebonix-spewing dude named Blaster; Cruz is the saucy Latina Juarez; Rockwell is the heroic team leader Darwin; Buscemi is a nervous guinea pig accused of ferret ancestry; and Favreau is the chubby non-spy pig with delusions of awesomeness.

The actors appear to have recorded their scripted lines, and then spent some studio time reeling off non-sequitar exclamations that are then animated into the action scenes. So you'll see CG guinea pigs flying through the air or running from explosions, and they'll say something that doesn't even fit the moment.

Anyway, the plot: A scheming industrialist (Bill Nighy) has cooked up some plan named Clusterstorm that will activate the computer chips he has secretly embedded in his vast array of consumer electronics. They set a 30-hour countdown, at which point he will activate the plot and all the gizmos will do something ... well, we don't know what, but really nasty.

Problem: After at least a dozen references to the ever-dwindling time count, Nighy finally sets things in motion by pushing a button. At one point he even shows off the button he's going to press. Question: If you have a button that can do what you want right now, why do you need a countdown? Why wouldn't you just push the button immediately?

I should mention that the human leader of G-Force is played by Zach Galifianakis, who played the man-child in this summer's biggest sleeper hit, the raunchfest "The Hangover." I can only hope there's no crossover audience.

1 star

Review: "(500) Days of Summer"

"(500) Days of Summer" is a thoroughly charming romantic comedy that's not built like a standard romantic comedy.

There is no contrived meet-cute moment. There is no long and arduous delay before they realize they are in love, with unlikely obstacles preventing the recognition of their passion. There is a big stumbling block that comes along to drive them apart, but it does not play out like a Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock vehicle.

The stars are Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, two twentysomething Gen-Yers with quirky personas and indie film cred. We believe them as a couple, and we believe them when they're threatening to split up. Their connection and the dissolution of it are both convincing, and entertaining.

Gordon-Levitt plays Tom, trained as an architect but working at a greeting-card company as a writer. I liked how even though this occupation is supposed to represent a dead end in Tom's life, it's still presented as a pleasant to work filled with people who get more fulfillment out of writing pithy sayings for cards than Tom does. Clark Gregg plays the boss, and when Tom is going through a rough patch with Summer he politely inquires about his employee's black mood, and switches him over to funeral and sympathy cards. In today's labor environment, this man qualifies as a saint.

Tom's life changes when Summer starts working at the company. He's totally smitten with her, but tries to hide it behind a veil of nonchalance. His dude-friends (Geoffrey Arend and Matthew Gray Gubler) and precocious preteen sister (Chloe Moretz) urge him to go for it. Tom would probably keep on dithering, until Summer corners him in the office copy room and plants a kiss on him.

Marc Webb directs from a script by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. All are relative newcomers (this is Webb's first feature film, and the second for the writers, who also paired up on this spring's "Pink Panther 2"), and bring a fresh voice and breezy tone to this genre.

The story is told in a non-linear fashion, with the title referring to how many days since Summer and Tom first met. It switches all around, though, so early on we know that they break up, at least temporarily, somewhere in the low 300s. Days 50-100 or so are the magic time, when they're in that "stupid love" phase, trying out the beds at the IKEA store while people are watching them.

Summer is upfront with Tom, explaining that she doesn't want a relationship right now. But he's a bit of a romantic, believing that the minute he laid on Summer he knew she was the one for him.

There's a magical scene where Tom is overjoyed after his first night with Summer, which builds into a big musical number in the park that bears a suspicious resemblance to the one in "Enchanted." I nearly fell over laughing when he checks his reflection in a window, and he's feeling so great he sees Han Solo staring back at him.

I won't say anything about how "(500) Days of Summer" ends, other than it's probably not what most people are expecting -- but it feels right. This delightful, smart and funny flick just fits.

3.5 stars

Hilarious Bruno recording

I saw this and had to link/embed it. As one observer put it, more hilarious than anything in the movie itself.

Back in the day as an assistant manager at a movie theater, I recorded plenty of these messages myself -- although I never had as much leeway as this guy's bosses gave him.

Another video clip from "9"

I've posted about this forthcoming movie before, which I'm eagerly looking forward to. It's an animated film based on an Oscar-winning short from a few years ago. Check it out.

The film, appropriately enough, is being released on 9/9/09.

Reeling Backward: "Panic in Year Zero"

The early 1960s were the height of the Cold War, when the possibility of nuclear annihilation was a very real thing. We tend to look back on that era with a bashful nostalgia -- duck 'n' cover and all that. But to the people who lived in that time, the idea was pervasive that even if they survived a nuclear war, they'd have to struggle to survive in the chaotic aftermath.

"Panic in Year Zero" exists as a perfect document of those fears and mindset. It has a fairly mild message to it, personified by a typical middle-aged dad who finds himself doing all sorts of terrible and callous things in order to ensure his family's survival. "I went looking for the worst in others, and instead I found it in myself," he realizes near the end.

The father is portrayed by Ray Milland, who also directed the film. Nearing 60, paunchy and with a not very convincing hairpiece, Milland was in 1962 nobody's idea of a matinee idol. But he had a lengthy career, first as an able leading man -- he won the Best Actor Oscar for 1946's "The Lost Weekend" portraying a chronic alcoholic -- and then segueing into roles in cheap, schlocky films, and finally a third act on television. In all, he worked steadily for more than 55 years. Few could say as much.

I haven't been able to find any information on the budget for "Panic," but it's rather obvious that it was a cheapie. The entire cast probably doesn't number even a couple dozen, and most of it was shot outdoors as the family roughs it after the nuclear blast destroys their home in Los Angeles.

I have to admit to a certain affinity for stories like this, where people wander the wasteland after society's rules have broken down, and they must impose a new order of their own making. Stephen King's "The Stand" remains one of my favorite books, and "The Road Warrior" is a film I return to year after year, always finding something new.

The Baldwins were on their way to a weekend getaway when the mushroom cloud appears behind them. The father quickly surmises that they've got to find a safe place to hole up. After dodging insane traffic on the highways, the father takes increasingly desperate steps to protect his wife and teenage son and daughter.

First they buy a ton of groceries. When the hardware store owner won't let the father purchase handguns without a waiting period, he robs him. When a price-gouging gas station owner attempts to charge him $3 per gallon of gas -- how outrageous! -- he punches him out and takes off without paying. Later, he even lights the highway on fire so they can stop traffic and get across. At least one innocent motorist is consumed in the flames.

They finally find a cave, and set about building a stable camp life. Even when radio broadcasts announce that the military has set up refugee camps, Mr. Baldwin refuses to budge. It's more than about safety. The father has seen his world turned upside down, and his own vision of himself as a civilized man, too. At least out here I have some measure of control, he says, even though there are looters and rapists about.

"Panic in Year Zero" isn't a particularly good or bad movie, but the enjoyment in watching it today comes from the peek it gives us into Cold War mindsets of that era. The way people thought probably closely resembles how we all felt in the days after Sept. 11. It's been almost eight years without another large-scale attack on American soil, and it's amazing how fast complacency has crept up on us again. Somewhere in between paranoia and ignorance lies wisdom.

2.5 stars

Indy Film Fest starts today!

The Indianapolis International Film Festival kicks off today with a screening of "(500) Days of Summer." Things really kick into high gear tomorrow, when a full slate of movies starts showing.

The biggest change this year is that it has changed locations to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. There are only two theaters, but with a single consolidated venue there will be as many screenings this year as last.

We have been working our butts off over at The Film Yap to provide extensive coverage with reviews and interviews. Keep coming back every day of the festival, as we'll be highlighting different material as we go, and adding more.

Make sure to head over to the festival's Web site to check out movies and showtimes. Then come back to The Film Yap for news and views!

Review: "Rudo y Cursi"

I'm not sure if I can remember a movie that started out so strong and took such a misguided turn as "Rudo y Cursi." This saga about two brothers who are picked literally off a dirt field to become national soccer stars begins as an insightful and vivacious portrait of rural Mexican life. Once they become rich and famous, though, it quickly devolves into a predictable and tiresome morality play that feels like a close cousin of those trashy telenovellas.

Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna became international stars when they starred in "Y Tu Mama Tambien" eight years ago as lusty graduates out for a wild spin. "Rudo y Cursi" reteams them along with Carlos Cuaron (brother of Alfonso), who wrote the screenplay for "Mama" and this film, and also picks up directing duties.

Beto (Luna) and Tato (Bernal) are brothers -- or possibly half-brothers; it's not entirely clear -- who work collecting bananas in an outlying Mexican province. They're considered the best soccer (or football, as it's known everywhere in the world except the U.S.) players around, with Tato a flamboyant and prolific scorer and Beto (nicknamed "Rudo") a pugnacious goalie.

One day a recruiter named Baton shows up. While waiting for his flashy sports car to get fixed, he catches their game and immediately offers a pro contract -- but only to one of them. He already has too many clients and can only handle one more. The brothers agree to a penalty kick to decide, with the headstrong Beto instructing the somewhat dimwitted Tato to kick to his right. Alas, they get the my right/your right thing screwed up, and Tato gets the shot at the pros.

This infuriates Beto, since playing pro soccer has always been his greatest ambition, while Tato dreams of becoming a famous singer. Beto has his own problems, since he keeps gambling away the meager earnings his wife puts away for their two small children.

For awhile Tato rides the bench on his team, and Beto stews back at home. But then Baton calls up Beto for his own shot at fame, and Tato finally gets on the field and makes an immediate impact. Nicknamed "Cursi" by the media, soon he's got a swank house, a big SUV, a music video in rotation, and his girlfriend is the TV celebrity he used to slobber over back at his little village.

It's right around this time that the whole movie heads south. Given Tato's misplaced conception about both his musical abilities and the devotion of his lady, and Beto's inability to stay away from the poker table, the rest of the movie sets itself up exactly the way you would think. The last 45 minutes or is just waiting around for the inevitable to dominoes to fall where they must. Frankly, I was just waiting impatiently for the movie to end.

It's too bad, because the first half of "Rudo y Cursi" is as interesting and viscerally engaging as any film I've seen this year.

2.5 stars

Reeling Backward: "Sullivan's Travels"

"Sullivan's Travels" is a strange and wonderful movie. It's a film about filmmaking, and has been cited by numerous directors and screenwriters as one of their favorite films, among them Joel and Ethan Coen, who named their movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" after the name of the film that the protagonist in "Sullivan's Travels" wanted to make.

John Sullivan is a big-shot Hollywood director known for making light comedies that rake in money. This, of course, is an apt description of Preston Sturges, an successful writer and director of comedies who used this movie to comment on his own career.

Sullivan wants to give up comedies to make a big, important film, and by the end of his journey he learns that there's nothing more important than making people laugh. Sturges made a movie filled with slapstick and quite a bit of silliness, but also with a harsh eye toward the state of America at the tail end of the Great Depression and before Pearl Harbor.

Sully decides that he hasn't suffered enough to make a tragic picture, so he resolves to go out on the road as a tramp with only a dime in his pocket so he can experience the hardships of the common man. His heart is in the right place, but the execution is sloppy: He has a small pack of journalists, assistants and even a cook following him around in a recreational vehicle to make sure things don't get too hairy.

He runs into a failed actress played by Veronica Lake, in her first major film role. She's only credited as "The Girl." I was surprised to see that she was already wearing the iconic wavy haircut that became her trademark; somehow I would have thought that would come later. She's absolutely lovely, of course, and when she dresses up as a boy to accompany Sully on his travels manages to become even more adorable. Even better, she proves to be a crackerjack at comedy, tossing zingers with star Joel McCrea with some real crackle.

McCrea was known in 1941 as a poor man's Gary Cooper -- anything Cooper turned down, he got. So he was shocked to learn that Sturges wrote this role especially for him.

After recovering at Sully's mansion for a few days, they set out again and this time manage to encounter some genuine hard times. They sleep on a crowded floor, and Sully has his shoes stolen. Things really take a dark turn when the shoe thief later encounters Sully and knocks him cold and stuffs him into a train car. Then a trainyard bull beats him senseless, and when Sully recovers he bloodies the bull and gets sent to prison.

The swampyard jail sequence, despite taking up only a fairly short amount of screen time, packs a wallop of an impact. It seems to have inspired a whole generation of jail-themed movies, from "Cool Hand Luke" on down. The brutal chief guard, the toadying trusty, and the soul-draining work in the hot sun just leap off the screen.

I have to admit I warmed slowly to "Sullivan's Travels." It starts out very light and slapsticky, but gets darker and better the further it goes on. How ironic that Preston Sturges had to make a dramatic masterpiece to prove the value of laughter.

3.5 stars

Review: "Brüno"

"Brüno" is fun and outrageous, but like its predecessor "Borat" -- they are so similar that it's best to consider this new one a sequel -- it outstays its welcome. Although barely cracking the 80-minute mark, there are parts that are painfully funny and others that are just painful.

This mockumentary's trademark is embarrassment. Sacha Baron Cohen unleashes an outrageous character on everyday unsuspecting folks to see how they'll react. The joke is supposed to be on the victims, but often it's Baron Cohen who bears the brunt.

Brüno is an Austrian male model and television host so outrageously gay as to make stage queens wish he would tone it done a bit. He wears skin-tight outfits of ridiculous hues and construction -- including one that is made entirely out of Velcro. This is at a huge fashion show, and of course he gets stuck to all the various bits of clothes and pushed out on stage.

This is delicate material. In trying to get a reaction out of peopleto such an absurd figure, Baron Cohen has to indulge in every caricature of homosexuality imaginable -- the lisping speech, an insatiable need to hit on straight men, an infatuation with trivialities likes clothes and sex toys. There's a scene where Brüno attempts to marry his assistant-cum-boyfriend, but it's played for yuks rather than making a statement.

All this is not to dismiss the funny parts of the film, which are many. The culmination is a scene where Brüno enters himself as a contestant in a cage-fighting event attended entirely by bloodthirsty hillbilly skinheads, and then proceeds to perform a make-out session with his opponent. The look on the audience's face is one of total shock and awe. They're so flabbergasted they don't even remember to be angry (for a while -- soon the emotions, and some fold-up chairs, get sent flying).

I very much enjoyed a section where Brüno gets invited to a swingers' party. He tries to act straight -- getting attacked by a female dominatrix is part of the mix -- but keeps gravitating back to the guys, even as they're in mid-coitus with women. They get very upset, and the idea of someone who regularly engages in group sex feeling shocked is pretty hilarious.

Another great bit is self-defense lessons from a gruff karate master. Brüno says he wants help in defending himself from a homosexual, and eventually the whole session devolves into a big smackdown fight with dildos.

Other parts, though, just fall flat. In one bit Brüno, in his never-ending quest to become famous, resolves to make a celebrity sex tape. Unfortunately, his choice of a target is then-presidential candidate Ron Paul. When Brüno drops trou on the unsuspecting congressman, the results are nails-on-chalkboard excruciating rather than funny.

Similarly, a hunting expedition with some good ole boys, with Brüno making a nude overture in the middle of the night, manages to make us feel sorry for the rednecks.

If you liked "Borat," I expect you'll like this new movie, since it's another helping from the same pot, with merely a different character running the show.

2.5 stars

Reeling Backward: "Exodus"

"Exodus" is a big, sprawling (209 minutes) epic about the birth of Israel. It uses fictional characters, but infuses the production with enough historical fact to lend it a certain sense of verisimilitude.

Paul Newman plays Ari Ben Canaan, a Jewish commando responsible for transporting 611 Jewish refugees from a British internment camp on Cyprus to the land of Palestine, as it was then known. Eva Marie Saint plays Kitty Fremont, an American nurse who gets caught up in the exodus and eventually falls for Ari, in one of the most unconvincing cinematic romances I've ever seen.

The film was directed to Otto Preminger, one of the most active directors of the 1950s and '60s. It was notable that Dalton Trumbo was credited as screenwriter, since he had been blacklisted. He continued working steadily through the '50s, using other writers as fronts. "Exodus" marked the first major film in which he was given an official credit, and doing so effectively ended the blacklist. In 1960, besides "Exodus" Trumbo also wrote "Spartacus," another huge-scale epic. Not a bad year.

"Exodus" is a decent film, but its first half is stronger than its second. That deals with the actual exodus, which includes a neat bit where Ben Canaan impersonates a British officer and fools them into supplying their own trucks and crew to carry the refugees to a ship. The ship is promptly blockaded, but a hunger strike by the Jews draws world-wide attention, and eventually they are allowed to go on to Palestine.

From there, the middle section is taken up by a prison break to spring Ben Canaan's uncle, who's the leader of the Jewish terrorist organization. The last third or so deals with the United Nations vote to partition the land for a Jewish state, followed by the violent aftermath.

I should mention the strong performance by Sal Mineo as Dov Landau, a hotheaded young Jewish revolutionary. Mineo is one of those wonderful supporting actors who sometimes get forgotten with the passage of time. He was nominated for an Oscar for this film, as he was five years earlier for "Rebel Without a Cause," when he was just 16 years old. He was stabbed to death in 1976.

I have to admit that it's only in recent years that I've learned much about the founding of Israel. So "Exodus" acts as interesting document (somewhat fictionalized) of recent history that many people know little about. As a work of cinematic fiction, it's somewhat weak, but certainly an enjoyable spectacle.

2.5 stars

Reeling Backward: "Adam's Rib"

"Adam's Rib" is billed as one of the great Golden Age comedies, but it's actually a fairly thought-provoking artifact on the war between the sexes, circa 1949. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, in one of their nine cinematic pairings, play Amanda and Adam Bonner, a wife-and-husband pair of lawyers. They're financially comfortable, in early middle age, apparently childless, and seem made for each other. He's a New York assistant district attorney, and she's a prestigious defense lawyer. They get caught up in a sensational case of a woman who tried to murder her husband, with him prosecuting and her defending.

From a legal standpoint, the case is open-and-shut. The wife (played by Judy Holliday, in one of her first major roles) stalks the husband (played by Tom Ewell, best remembered as the man tempted by Marilyn Monroe in "The Seven Year Itch") all day to his rendezvous with his mistress (Jean Hagen). In one hilarious bit, she even consults the manual that came with the pistol she just bought to learn how to shoot. Anyway, she confronts him and shoots him, though not fatally.

Amanda's defense is a contrived one: That society places a double standard on how philandering men and women are treated. That may be true, but to argue that anyone has a right to gun down their spouse for cheating on them is absurd. Amanda tries to obscure this fact with a barrage of courtroom antics, like calling a circus strongwoman as a witness. What this has to do with the case at hand is unclear. In the course of her questioning, Amanda has the burly gal lift Adam over her head, humiliating him.

The film is intercut between the court scenes and the Bonners' life at home, which as you might guess grows more and more stressed. At one point they are exchanging massages and she gives him a playful swat on the behind. When he reciprocates a few minutes later, Amanda accuses him of intentionally abusing her.

David Wayne has an interesting role as their next-door neighbor, Kip Lurie. Kip is a Broadway showtune composer, and clearly intended to be homosexual -- or at least a 1940s caricature of a gay man. He has all the cliched mannerisms you would expect, even sporting an ultra-short haircut that's similar to the styles favored by lots of gay men today. At one point, Adam quips that it wouldn't be hard to turn Kip into a woman, because he's already halfway there. And yet, Kip pursues Amanda with a joking yet serious determination. As the court case is making front-page news on a daily basis, Kip writes a song, "Farewell, Amanda," that quickly becomes a hit. In actuality, it was written by Cole Porter.

"Adam's Rib" is a thoroughly enjoyable movie, although as seen today it's less knee-slapping funny than wry and clever. Hepburn's legal strategy may be bunk, but her insistence on the equal treatment of women is never scoffed at or made light of. Perhaps this is due to the presence of George Cukor, who specialized in films with strong female protagonists -- including "Born Yesterday," starring Judy Holliday, made the following year.

The film was also co-written by a woman, Ruth Gordon, known mostly for her feisty old-lady roles as an actress, most notably in "Harold and Maude." She was a successful television writer before parlaying her sassy attitude in to big-screen success. Now that's progress.

3.5 stars

Reeling Backward: "Pumping Iron"

It is more interesting to talk about "Pumping Iron" than watch the movie, although as documentaries go, it's not bad. Make that "docu-drama," for in subsequent revelations about the 1977 movie that propelled the fortunes of Arnold Schwarzenegger in particular and weight lifting in general, its participants cheerfully admit that most of the film is fake.

Well, the intense training is real, as is the competition, such as it is. Although I must confess I am one of those people with a very narrow definition of what constitutes a sport. Basically, my rules are that a game must be won by objective criteria only -- most points scored, fastest time, etc. Anything where you go out and do your thing, and then after you're done some judges tell you how well you did, is by definition subjective and therefore not a sport. That knocks out about half the Olympic events.

But anyway, what I mean is that the 1975 Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe contests were not rigged, and therefore are real as depicted in "Pumping Iron." But virtually all the drama about Schwarzenegger as the playful, egotistic champion vying against the humble upstart, Lou Ferrigno, was brazenly manufactured in order to make the story more interesting, and therefore garner enough attention from financial backers to complete filming.

In the making-of documentary included with the film's 25th anniversary DVD, Schwarzenegger confesses that he was never worried about Ferrigno, who didn't even come in second. Schwarzenegger won his sixth consecutive Mr. Olympia title, and promptly retired from professional bodybuilding to pursue a career in Hollywood. Ferrigno went on to his own slice of fame as TV's Incredible Hulk.

Schwarzenegger also reveals that he lied about skipping his own father's funeral to train for a competition, and myriad other things he says or does in "Pumping Iron," simply to build up his persona. It's even revealed that Schwarzenegger intended to retire after his fifth Mr. Olympia title, and only went for a sixth so he could star in the movie.

Similarly, a lot of the other little conflicts in the movie were engineered by filmmakers George Butler and Robert Fiore, including the theft of a contestant's T-shirt by a competitor in order to psyche him out. Although how these hulking giants, who must go through shirts like dental floss, could be so upset about a missing T-shirt as to throw off their performance is beyond me.

I don't necessarily blame Butler and Fiore. The film is only about 84 minutes long, and as Schwarzenegger himself says, if all you had was footage of them lifting weights and posing, it would get very boring rather quickly.

Still, "Pumping Iron" is a watershed in filmmaking because it not only shined a spotlight on the weird little subculture of bodybuilding, but actually made it acceptable for mainstream society. Suddenly, action movie stars all had to be bulging with inflated muscles.

Now to bodybuilding itself.

I have always considered bodybuilding ridiculous, puzzling, and harmful. Watching the movie, we are presented with a group of men whose most ardent passion is watching themselves in the mirror. They lift weights not to grow stronger, but to look stronger. Take a look at the bodies of Olympic weightlifters, and you'll see they bear little resemblance to the tanned, swollen limbs and torsos popping with veins of the bodybuilders.

Then there's the posing. They practice for endless hours in the mirror, smearing oil on their bodies and tanning in the sun. Then they gather together for a flex-off.

A sport? This is narcissism organized into competitiveness -- two of the worst traits of masculinity.

3 stars

New podcast: Moldy remakes

Our new podcast is now up and ready for your listening pleasure over at The Film Yap.

This week's topic is moldy remakes -- when they take a movie or TV show from 20, 30 or more years ago and decide to breathe new life into it.

You can listen here, or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.