The Third Stringer

It seems, to us at least, that a truly great romantic comedy is getting harder and harder to find at the movies these days. We’re unabashed fans of the genre—from the classics like The Philadelphia Story to this year’s (underappreciated) Definitely, Maybe, and tons of stuff in between. Heck, we even kinda liked 27 Dresses! However, if there’s one thing to be learned from seeing lots and lots of these movies, it is that nothing is as insufferable as a romantic comedy that doesn’t work. (Hiya, Made of Honor and P.S. I Love You!) And such is unfortunately the case with this weekend’s Everybody Wants to Be Italian.  read more »

The Olympics came to a close last Sunday night, with China once again showing the world just how freakin’ great it is (and scary, too!) at harnessing the manpower of a kajillion people to put on quite a spectacular synchronized show. But this weekend, a very different kind of Chinese story opens in theaters with Year of the Fish.

Year of the Fish is done in that dreamy fashion where real actors are in the scenes but then sort of watercolor-painted over—technically it’s called rotoscoped animation, but we’ll always just think of it as the Waking Life effect. The film opens with a giant red fish, who eyeballs the camera and opens his fishy mouth to intone, “Chinatown.  read more »

Ben Stiller’s directing career has been kinda quiet since 2001’s Zoolander, that goofy lampoonery of the male modeling world (an apparent favorite of the programmers at TBS and TNT) that tends to incite more than a few stoner chuckles. But the past seven years have been more about his acting, some good (The Royal Tenenbaums) and some fun (Night at the Museum, Madagascar) and some, um, somewhere in the gray maybe-it’s-a-rental zone (Along Came Polly, Meet the Fockers). So it’s been easy to forget that Mr. Stiller began his career writing and performing biting satirical sendups on The Ben Stiller Show. His latest directorial effort, Tropic Thunder, which he co-wrote with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen, does more than just bring back the bite—it brings out the claws, too.  read more »

We had high (heh) hopes for Pineapple Express, the latest boy-bonding-bordering-on-romance comedy from the prolific Judd Apatow universe. After all, it had what seemed like a perfect storm of elements going for it: the onscreen reunion between Freaks and Geeks’ Seth Rogen—who co-wrote the script with Superbad partner Evan Goldberg—and James Franco; a quirky, entertaining premise (more on that later); and behind the camera, indie favorite David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls). We went in wanting to fall in love. We left feeling confused and—gasp!—questioning the staying power of Apatow and his gang.

Pineapple Express asks this question: What would an action movie look like if the two would-be heroes were as constantly high as an elephant’s eye? Mr.  read more »

So, let’s just get this out of the way: The Dark Knight is apparently unstoppable—it’s bat-tastic, and it’s got legs (and wings!) and it will be number one for all time and make the most amount of money a movie has ever made ever in the history of moviemaking. O.K.? Moving on to this weekend, we’ve got The Mummy. Brendan Fraser returns as Rick O’Connell in this threequel, directed by Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious). If you’re like us, and the majority of your Mummy knowledge consists of snippets caught from the many TNT and TBS reruns of Mummy 1 and 2—don’t worry: There’s not much to catch up on here.  read more »

It was quite a Bat-tacular weekend, wasn’t it? Not surprising us in the least, but apparently still shocking to some, was that everyone went bat#@$% over The Dark Knight, which raked in a massive amount of moulah last weekend (158.3 million), setting all sorts of records—best first night, best three-day non-holiday-weekend, best performance for a movie with the word “Dark” in the title, etc.—and in general charting its course to world domination. Isn’t it nice to see this happen with a really good movie for a change?

THE BATMAN WILL no doubt take No. 1 this weekend (and the next, probably, too), but if it’s nonfantasy cinema you’re looking for, you’re in luck, as everyone seems to be releasing their documentaries right now.  read more »

It was a box office battle between two unlikely superheroes last weekend: the booze-bag Hancock played by Will Smith, trying to hang on to his Fourth of July domination, and Hellboy, a big red hero who loves kittens, Selma Blair and media attention. Surprise! Hellboy II: The Golden Army won it, earning over $13 million on just Friday alone. That’s impressive! But really, can’t we all just admit that we’re just killin’ time till The Dark Knight opens? Enjoy it while it lasts, Ron Perlman!

S0, YES, EVERYONE is in a tizzy over the new Batman movie opening this weekend, but it’s going to be awfully crowded getting into that IMAX theater for a while.  read more »

Just as we feared, audiences went just as nuts for Pixar’s Wall-E as critics did. This animated movie about the future—which seems to be inhabited by cute-talking little machines (thank you very much, Mr. Roboto)—took the top spot with $62.5 million in earnings. But there was even more for Hollywood box office watchers to shout about: Wanted did waaaay better than predicted, taking in over $51 million, thanks in no small part to the irresistibility of Angelina Jolie fondling firearms.

BUT NOW IT'S the big Fourth of July holiday weekend, traditionally a time of barbecues and swimming and, when the heat has everyone red and pooped, decamping for a couple of escapist hours in air-conditioned theaters.  read more »

Is it wrong to admit that we were quite pleased to see that The Love Guru missed the top spot last weekend? That honor went to Get Smart, the Steve Carell-starring remake of the 1960s TV comedy series; it pulled in $39 million while the grating Mike Myers vehicle earned only $14 million, taking a disappointing (for its studio) fourth place. Kung Fu Panda and The Incredible Hulk both hung in there, but we’re guessing they’ll get pushed out of the way this weekend when Angelina Jolie comes blazing through with the action-packed Wanted. And for the kiddies, there will also be Wall-E, the Pixar-iffic movie about a little robot (which we’ll be steering clear of).  read more »

We really do like him when he’s angry! Although general wisdom might have advised against bringing the Hulk—the mild mannered scientist by day, giant green ragey monster by night—to the screen again, after the Ang Lee’s adaptation went splat in 2003, The Incredible Hulk did pretty well last weekend. The Edward Norton-starring flick made $54.5 million, edging out Kung Fu Panda and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening. But what’s weird is that while The Happening was soundly trounced by most critics, it still managed to make $30 million and do healthy business overseas. Come on, Europe—you’re supposed to be the classy continent.  read more »

Holy Panda! Kung Fu Panda, the animated film from DreamWorks about a chubby, slacking, would-be Kung Fu fighter voiced by Jack Black, took the top spot last weekend, raking in over $60 million. That’s more than those boozy Sex and the City gals, who got bumped to fourth place. The film set a record for the best opening ever for a non-sequel DreamWorks ’toon, and comes in third place all time after Shrek and Shrek 2. Could the weekend’s back-breaking heat have helped fill up all those seats, we wonder?

THIS WEEKEND, we’ll see a showdown between Edward Norton in The Incredible Hulk (like Shrek, big, green and often exceedingly grouchy) and The Happening, the latest from M. Night Shyamalan (brace yourself for the inevitable “I so saw that twist coming”). But for those seeking a little something off the beaten path, there’s the quirky personal flick My Winnipeg from the ever-inventive Guy Maddin, filmmaker of numerous shorts and nine other features including The Saddest Music in the World and Brand Upon the Brain!, which played at last year’s New York Film Festival accompanied by a live orchestra. In the film, Mr. Maddin tackles his Canadian city of birth, examining the idea of trying to break out of your hometown (think Bruce Springsteen) and the ties and personal mythologies that often keep you right where you started. The director describes My Winnipeg as more “docufantasia” than documentary, which is fairly accurate. Shot in stark black and white, with actors portraying both the director and members of his family (his deceased father is represented by a rug), the film mixes archival footage with the director’s home videos. Everything is set sort of dreamily, with a narration that seems more beat-poetry-like than plot-driven. Winnipeg is apparently no different than any other town in its quirks and pride (since 1888, on the first day of winter, there’s been a citywide scavenger hunt with the first prize being a one-way ticket out of Dodge—though no one ever actually takes it, as the point of the exercise is apparently to discover through a day of city scouring that there’s no place like home). Mr. Maddin describes himself as being enchanted and intoxicated by this city where he’s lived for the past 50 years, but also “bitterly disillusioned.” Among the history and minutiae of Winnipeg that Mr. Maddin provides (and there is a lot), there’s also an awful lot of personal ground covered, too; one almost has the tickling sensation we’re watching some sort of B-roll from a looong Freudian therapy session. We’re not convinced that tourism is going to jump in that part of the world thanks to My Winnipeg, but as with his previous films, one must admire the originality of Mr. Maddin’s work.

My Winnipeg opens Friday at the IFC Film Center.

svilkomerson@observer.com

Are we the only ones entirely unsurprised at the floor-wiping by Sex and the City at the box office this past weekend? The label-crazy estrogen-filled girlstravaganza pulled in over $55 million dollars, knocking Indy out of the top spot, and setting all sorts of records for romantic comedies and R-rated films. What we have learned from all this: Robots, wizards and superheroes aren’t the only things to pack ’em in; it doesn’t matter if a script is too long and doesn’t entirely make sense if there are lots of fashion-porn montages and Mr. Big; and don’t ever, ever count the ladies out.

THE ONLY COMPETITION Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda face this weekend comes in the shape of a roly-poly panda in the aptly named Kung Fu Panda. Jack Black—who might be at his very best when animated—voices the movie’s hero, Po, a slacker bear working at his father’s noodle restaurant (and the dad, by the way, is a duck, though we never found out why, even though we wanted to) with dreams of becoming a Kung Fu master. Through various twists and turns of fate, Po is declared “The Dragonslayer,” and is invited to study alongside his idols, the Furious Five (Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey) under their guru, Master Shifu, a small animal of indeterminate origin. And just in the nick of time. As it turns out, Tai Lung—a baby cub adopted and raised by Master Shifu who went bad in adolescence—is back to seek revenge, and Po, as Dragonslayer, is charged with stopping him. The movie has a blinding number of famous names attached: Dustin Hoffman as Shifu, Ian McShane as the baddie (natch), David Cross as Crane, not to mention Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, and Angelina Jolie, as the somewhat pissed-off tiger. (Said Ms. Jolie in the production notes: “I was secretly hoping I got to be Tigress. I love her. She’s cool. She’s secretly who we all want to be. … I have a giant tiger tattoo on my back, and my kids always look at it, so it’s very important that I be the tiger.” Oh, Angelina. How could we possibly resist you?) The theme of the movie is an oldie but goodie—believe in yourself and you can do anything—and unlike other kid films we’ve seen recently (cough, Narnia), things never get so scary (despite Mr. McShane’s best efforts) that you couldn’t bring a real live child to this movie. You might even like it.

Kung Fu Panda opens Friday at Regal Battery Park, AMC Loews Lincoln Square IMAX and UA Court Street, Brooklyn.

svilkomerson@observer.com

Indy rides again! A grizzled Harrison Ford and his hat brought the much-anticipated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to the No. 1 spot Memorial Day weekend, bringing in $151 million domestically. But can you hear the clickity-clack, high-heel thunder of what’s coming next? Sex and the City has the estrogen-filled masses whipped up into a frenzy, so expect this one to rake it in as well, and no doubt spawn numerous articles about women who gathered for cosmos, shimmied into their best tube tops, linked arms, sang songs and had pillow fights or something before going to the multiplex. We can’t wait.

IF YOU'RE JUST not that into Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte, how about something scary? The Strangers is another movie we suspect is part of the grand conspiracy to make city dwellers never want to leave their tiny overpriced apartments for a quiet house in the country. Like the much-maligned Funny Games, The Strangers is all about the utter randomness of violence. Kristin McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) are in the midst of some heavy emotional drama—he proposed, but didn’t exactly get the answer he hoped for—when they crash at his parents’ vacation house. Of course, the house is in the middle of some spooky woods and there are no neighbors in sight, so when three masked strangers arrive and start terrorizing them, there is no way out. The movie is best before the mayhem actually starts: First-time writer-director Bryan Bertino gets right some priceless details as the couple—with nice performances by both leads—try to deal with the evening’s earlier fallout, and elevates his movie above other horror films. When the baddies show up and the frights begin, though, we must confess we had to cover our eyes and resume chants of “it’s only 85 minutes.” But overall? Mission accomplished: We’ll be vacationing in Brooklyn this year.

The Strangers opens Friday at Regal Battery Park Stadium 11.

THIS WEEKEND ALSO brings The Foot Fist Way. This is the first project from Will Farrell and Adam McKay’s Gary Sanchez Productions, and tells the story of a self-deluded Tae Kwon Do instructor who falls apart after his wife leaves him. The film was shot in just 19 days—and financed with a credit card—and features mostly newcomers, including writer-director-producer Jody Hill, Danny McBride (our martial-arts hero) and Ben Best as Chuck “The Truck” (not like Mr. Farrell’s Frank “The Tank”). Fans of Napoleon Dynamite should get behind this one—it’s got dozens of lines destined to be repeated ad nauseam by Murray Hill boys in the city and beyond.

The Foot Fist Way opens Friday at Village East Cinema.

No surprise that The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian took the No. 1 spot away from the mighty Iron Man last weekend. But the sequel didn’t gross nearly as much as box office forecasters (and Disney) had expected, pulling in just over $56 million. Still, we’re guessing Narnia’s reign will be brief: Our old pal Indy is back this weekend with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. As much as we fear this might cement Shia LeBeouf as serious A-lister (a long way from Project Greenlight, baby), hooray for the return of Karen Allen!

UNFORTUNATELY, THIS WEEKEND also brings Uwe Boll’s Postal, described as an “over-the-top and hilariously subversive critique of modern day America.” A few days ago, The New York Times devoted over 1,500 words explaining why the German Mr. Boll—whose best-known movies (Bloodrayne, anyone?) are based on video games—is the most despised director around thanks to his unspeakably tasteless films. And yet, even with the preparation, we were shocked by how crass Postal is. The plot (if you can call it that) revolves around a mild-mannered man (Zack Ward) who becomes involved in a plan with his religious charlatan uncle (played by Dave Foley, of Kids in the Hall and NewsRadio fame) to steal a valuable shipment of “Krochy” dolls and somehow ends up facing an underground cell of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden in a Nazi-themed amusement park. In the first 15 minutes, there is a 9/11 parody that involves two hijackers fighting about the number of afterlife virgins promised to them, and Mr. Foley (Oh, Dave Foley! What are you doing in this movie?) keeps up the current tradition of full-frontal male nudity when he appears naked, taking a noisy dump. Yuck. And that’s nothing compared to what follows—Holocaust jokes (in “Little Germany,” where you can pay using gold teeth), a cat having a gun shoved up its rear end and used as a silencer and … do we need to go on? Mr. Boll seems to delight in being as controversial as possible, so we kind of hate that we are taking the bait. In the Times article, Mr. Foley compared Mr. Boll to Andy Kaufman. We wish we could rise above our admittedly bourgeois sensibilities to recognize something subversive and genius in Postal. But, actually? No, we don’t.

Postal opens Friday at Cobble Hill Cinema in Brooklyn.

Poor Speed Racer! The much-maligned flick from the wacky-pants Wachowski brothers failed to make even a dent in Iron Man at the box office last weekend. Adding insult to injury, Speed Racer’s opening-weekend earnings were just about even with the Cameron Diaz-Ashton Kutcher romantic comedy What Happens in Vegas, which cost a whole lot less to make. Yeouch. Iron Man’s charmed run could come to an end this weekend, though, as the The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian hits theaters. Bring on the Tilda Swinton!

IN QUIETER, NON-SPECIAL-EFFECTS film news this weekend, Fugitive Pieces opens at the Quad Cinema. Based on the prize-winning novel by Anne Michaels, the film opens during World War II, where Jakob, a young Polish boy, witnesses the murder of his parents by Nazis, who then abduct his beloved sister. Jakob hides in a forest, and is rescued by a kindly Greek geologist (Rade Serbedzija), who smuggles him to Greece for the duration of the war, and then emigrates with him to Canada. Unsurprisingly, grown-up Jakob (Stephen Dillane) has loads of issues, frozen in a place where he can’t bear to remember things from his past, and yet unwilling to forget them.

For a film that covers such difficult ground, Fugitive Pieces stays true to the poetic language of its source material, and is a remarkably dreamy and lyrical movie (its director, Jeremy Podeswa, is the son of a Holocaust survivor, and clearly had an emotional connection to the story). Time flashes back and forth between 1940s Poland, ’60s- and ’70s-era Canada, and the whitewashed splendor of past and present-day Zakynthos—an island that seems too beautiful for any sort of atrocity, German or otherwise. Beautiful women appear to be Jakob’s undoing and, perhaps, salvation: As visions of his pretty older sister haunt him, his first marriage to a vivacious chattering blonde (played wonderfully by Rosamund Pike, who portrayed Jane Bennett in Pride & Prejudice) implodes, and he seems doomed to a loner’s life, scribbling his thoughts into a notebook.

We happen to be on a major Stephen Dillane kick at the moment, between his portrayal of Thomas Jefferson in John Adams and as an upper-crusty aristocrat in the upcoming Savage Grace. And remember his sweetly suffering Leonard Woolf in The Hours? He’s the perfect actor for this particular role, as he’s able to convey a symphony’s worth of emotional turmoil without saying a word. Dear Hollywood, more Dillane please!

Fugitive Pieces opens on Friday at the Quad Cinema.

O.K., temperatures may only sporadically hitting the 70s, but summer blockbuster season is officially here. Iron Man opened last weekend with a whopping $104.2 million stateside and another 96.8 million overseas ($201 million all together in its first five days). That beats even what the studio was hoping for (a mere $90 million domestically) and out there in Hollywoodland, executive types are thrilled that all the bemoaning and hand-wringing over the death of the box office was premature. Iron Man came in right behind Spider-Man in the top-ten best openings of all time. For irresistible star Robert Downey Jr., and the newly short-skirted (and likable!) Gwyneth Paltrow, this is a whole new world, as we’re guessing you could add up the grosses of their last four or five movies and not come near Iron Man’s one-weekend haul. Hey, Batman, are you ready for this jelly?

ANOTHER BIGGIE COMES our way this weekend: Speed Racer. This is the first directorial outing for the Wachowski brothers since the Matrix trilogy (though they wrote the screenplay for V for Vendetta) and we’ve been eager to see if Speed Racer could blow our minds the way Neo/Keanu did back in ’99. The answer is … sorta? But not necessarily in the way you might want your mind blown. It’s true that Speed Racer looks like nothing you’ve ever seen before—insane (insane!) colors, a wholly imagined universe of loop-de-loop race tracks, flying machines and Crayola-blue skies. Emile Hirsch stars as Speed Racer, a boy who idolizes older brother Rex Racer and is devastated when the object of his hero worship dies in a car crash. We could go on and lay out what the rest of the plot is about, but in truth, halfway through this movie we were rubbing our eyes and looking around to see if anyone else was as confused as we were. Because we were lost somewhere around the time we were trying to understand the role of the monkey (yes, we know it’s from the cartoon, but whatever), and wondering what it was Susan Sarandon, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Matthew Fox and Mr. Hirsch—all talented actors—were thinking about as they delivered lines of dialogue that never went quite far enough to be camp, so instead ended up just sounding … flat. And bad, actually. (It’s never good when snickers arise over things that aren’t supposed to be funny.) We’d like to give this movie the benefit of the doubt—we get that it is geared toward preadolescent boys who will be delighted by the colors and the speed and won’t miss anything like characters or plot. But can’t we have both? And if so, can we request one that doesn’t induce a headache and vertigo?

Speed Racer opens Friday at Regal Union Square, Regal E-Walk 42nd Street and AMC Loews Lincoln Square IMAX.

All hail Tina Fey! The lady we are forever indebted to for making smarts, sass and eyeglasses sexy propelled Baby Mama to the No. 1 spot last weekend with over 18 million smackeroos, beating the stoner set who chose Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. What does this mean for you? That between this and last year’s Knocked Up and Juno, expect Hollywood to start spawning (hee!) tons of pregnant-y flicks, which will get less funny with each trimester.

MEANWHILE, FOR PEOPLE who care about such things, this weekend is an anxious one, as the industry waits to see what happens when summer officially kicks off with the first of the season’s Big! Ass! Blockbuster! Iron Man. Comic-book geeks have been all frothed up over this one for ages, and the movie did the smartest thing possible by casting Robert Downey Jr. in the lead as Tony Stark. Mr. Downey is one of those actors who is impossible not to like, both through his sheer talent and the fact that not too long ago he seemed destined to be a True Hollywood Story casualty. The first 30 to 40 minutes of the film are the most enjoyable, as we’re introduced to Tony Stark, the brain behind the most advanced weaponry used by our government, and a Howard Hughesy, cocktail-swigging, womanizing wit. While in Afghanistan to demonstrate his latest shock-and-awe weapon, he’s captured and forced to invent himself a way out of danger. Thanks to some high-tech body armor, he escapes. Once home, the appeal of blowing things up has lessened, and with the origins story firmly in place, the action becomes about his quest to create the Iron Man persona fans know, and fight the objections of his business partner (a delightfully devious Jeff Bridges), and the U.S. Army, which doesn’t appreciate the helping hand. Our only small issue with the picture is that once Mr. Downey is encased within the Iron Man suit, the actor’s impeccably expressive face is lost and we’re left with, well, a robot. In an odd bit of casting, Gwyneth Paltrow plays Stark’s long-suffering assistant, Pepper Pots, and it appears to be a smart move on both the actress’s part and director Jon Favreau (who has gone way beyond his work in Elf ): The quality of the acting elevates this action film into something that’s more interesting than just cool special effects—which the film has plenty of. Oh, and on the next inevitable go-round, we hope that Terrence Howard gets more to do.

HOPING TO PICK up the ladies out there, or those shut out of Iron Man, is the romantic comedy Made of Honor. A few things to get out of the way: We love ourselves a rom-com, and while most of them follow a fairly standard formula, when done right even the predictability of the plot can be pleasurable. Not so in this one (starting with the title!), which is odd since the two leads, Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey (attempting to play a character at least 10 years younger) and Michelle Monaghan, are both sparkly and charming. But the obvious twists and turns and gags deaden their charisma, and the true laughs are few and far between, as one waits for the movie’s inevitable conclusion.

We woke up Monday morning to a pretty big surprise: the funniest-naked-breakup-scene movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall did not take top box office honors last weekend. That spot went to The Forbidden Kingdom (Tag line: “The path is unsafe. The place is unknown. The journey is unbelievable.” Read: boy movie), which features Jet Li and Jackie Chan co-starring for the first time. Kung fu kicked Apatow ass! This weekend brings a couple other yuckfests—Baby Mama, the of-the-moment Tina Fey-Amy Poehler surrogate mom comedy and, for the lava-lamp lovers, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. But how can we laugh when another movie gives us so much to cry about?

Errol Morris’s latest, Standard Operating Procedure, quite frankly freaked us out. The documentary is an in-depth investigation into those infamous 2003 photographs that depicted American soldiers abusing and torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. In past films like The Thin Blue Line (about the 1976 murder of a Dallas policeman, and which resulted in helping get a man off death row) and The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara, Mr. Morris has shown a great capacity for detailed and surprising research, and a compellingly simple, equitable and unblinking approach to filming his subjects. This time around, the filmmaker was able to coax into telling their sides of the story most of the soldiers featured in the photographs, including the much-loathed Lynndie England—of leash-holding, thumbs-up fame (who, interestingly, was caught up in a romantic triangle within the prison; “I was blinded by being in love with a man,” she bitterly eye-rolls)—as well as investigators and witnesses.

It’s the context of what happened outside the pictures that clearly interests Mr. Morris—and just think, what if the images we saw weren’t the worst of it? As Mr. Morris deftly illustrates (and considering the subject matter, rather beautifully), there’s something even more terrifying than the fact that these young kids—going stir-crazy and scared out of their own minds in a war zone—were left to abuse and torture without supervision: They might have been merely a link in the chain of command of a corrupt and power-hungry post-9/11 U.S. military. By the end of this deeply unsettling film, you’ll realize you have more questions than answers about what really happened at Abu Ghraib. Mr. Morris himself describes Standard Operating Procedure as a “nonfiction horror movie.” We couldn’t agree more.

Standard Operating Procedure opens Friday at the Angelika Film Center.

We could go into an oh-so-increasingly-familiar rant about the fact that Prom Night—a movie whose tag line is “It’s midnight. Everyone’s ready to go home … but someone has other plans”—was the most popular amongst audiences last weekend (lesson learned: people cannot resist the horror flicks) … but what’s the point? We’ll skip it. Besides, we’ve got more interesting news! We know what’s going to take the top spot this weekend: Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

This movie (directed by Nicholas Stoller) is yet another from the unofficial Judd Apatow Company Players: Jason Segel, that tall drink of water from Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared and Knocked Up, is the captain of this one, writing the screenplay and starring as Peter Bretter. At the start of the film, Peter, completely in the nude, gets dumped—in a scene destined for canonization—by longtime girlfriend, TV star Sarah Marshall (played with blue-eyed bitchy perfection by Kristin Bell). As he goes deeper into the bell jar (the crying, the obsessing, the anger—why is it funnier when it’s a man in pain?), he’s advised by his stepbrother/best friend (played by SNL player and Apatow cohort, Bill Hader) to take a trip and get away from all things Sarah Marshall. Peter jets to Hawaii and ends up running smack into his ex and her new beau, bad-boy rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand, who steals every scene he’s in). Mila Kunis plays a doe-eyed concierge, and from Mr. Segel and Ms. Kunis’ first exchange, it’s pretty easy to see the romantic comedy boy-meets-girl-loses-girl-discovers-things-about-himself-finds-girl train coming down the track. However, there are still some goofy surprises along the way (like, Dracula: the puppet musical …). Mr. Segel is a deeply sympathetic and likable leading man, and his script has more then a couple laugh-out-loud moments; it’s not everyone who can make good jokes about both Flavor of Love and Sex and the City.

There’s been a backlash against Judd Apatow building for a while now; it starting during last summer’s Knocked Up and Superbad hype and kicked into full gear around the releases of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Drillbit Taylor, both of which flopped. But is it right to turn on Team Apatow? One could make the argument that as a producer he’s spreading himself a bit thin—he has another two projects (including August’s Pineapple Express, written by Seth Rogen) coming out this year. And we’re getting a little tired of seeing the same faces pop up over and over again (Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd are cute, charming and totally unsurprising here). Still, Mr. Apatow certainly produces a very funny movie for every couple of duds, and this is one of them. Not quite sold? Forgetting Sarah Marshall is worth it for the Stephen Baldwin and Jason Bateman cameos alone. Trust us.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall opens Friday at Clearview Cinema at First and 62nd.

Hollywood types are scratching their heads over George Clooney’s Leatherheads, which only brought in $13.5 million when Universal reportedly had been hoping for something closer to $20 million. How could this be? Didn’t the moviegoing public realize this was George Clooney? Folks are wondering how it is that one of the most likable movie stars around continues to be in movies that people ignore (ahem: One Fine Day, which we love, by the way; Solaris; Intolerable Cruelty; etc). It just doesn’t seem right considering that 21—soundly batted around by critics—took top honors for the second week running. Come on people, stay strong … we only have a few more weeks till Iron Man comes out.

SPEAKING OF IRON Men (ba-dump), Keanu Reeves returns to the big screen this weekend with Street Kings, and oh, how we’ve missed The Keanu. Here’s the thing about Mr. Reeves: He’s consistently sort of flat, and weird in his delivery (has he ever been more believable than as sweet-but-daft Todd in Parenthood?). But somehow, over the course of his career—Point Break years, The Matrix ones, hell, even the Constantine and The Lake House days—he’s become someone we feel genuinely fond of. A Keanu Reeves performance is a comforting thing, like reading a book a second or third time. Which is perfect for Street Kings, a movie we swear we’ve seen at least three other times before. It’s based on a James Ellroy book, directed by David Ayer (who wrote Training Day), about an LAPD cop who is forced to question his loyalties to his team and his captain after a fellow officer is murdered. Can you guess, in a secret-super-twist, who turns out to be the villain? If you can’t, just watch the preview, as it’s clearly revealed! Mr. Reeves is surrounded by a stellar cast—hi, Jay Mohr!—that includes Forrest Whitaker, who seems to be having a lot of fun, and unlikely hot man Hugh Laurie. The movie may be predictable, but somehow, perversely, it’s still pretty entertaining.

Street Kings opens Friday at AMC Magic Johnson.

WE FULLY EXPECTED to love Smart People. It had everything that we like in a movie: a smart cast (Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page, Thomas Haden Church) and a funny premise (crotchety professor tries to find love), and seemed right in that Juno-Little Miss Sunshine-The Family Stone-The Squid and the Whale-Wonder Boys-Nobody’s Fool wheelhouse. Which was maybe the problem. For when you take apart the film, directed by first timer Noam Murro, everything at first glance seems to work—funny dialogue, good music, chemistry within the cast—and yet somehow nothing ever seemed to click into place. We couldn’t put our finger on what the precise problem was—maybe Dennis Quaid’s odd choice in his character’s speaking voice?—and, it’s not Ellen Page’s fault that she has been cast again as a sassy, fast-talking, preternaturally smart teen (this time, she’s not pregnant, she’s a young republican). The standout was Thomas Haden Church who livened things up every time he was onscreen … which wasn’t, sadly, enough.

Smart People opens Friday at the Angelika Film Center and City Cinemas Third Avenue.

Every time we think the weekend box office can’t surprise us, something comes along to make us say … really? Last weekend, the surprise prize went to 21, the blackjack movie we know, logically, we can’t truly judge without seeing, but yet we still feel like we kind of can. Doesn’t the preview tell us all we need to know? Kevin Spacey is doing Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth pouts prettily, and that cute guy from Across the Universe picks up where Edward Norton left off in Rounders. Meanwhile, like the other, less interesting Iraq movies that came before it, Stop-Loss was kinda ignored (and did less business than Superhero Movie). Hey, let’s all pretend the war isn’t happening together!

THIS WEEKEND WILL bring what feels like an unbeatable combination: Martin Scorsese and the Rolling Stones in Shine a Light. Mr. Scorsese has made great use of Stones music throughout his career, and here he pays back the ultimate fan favor with this lush and shockingly engrossing concert movie, which took place in 2006 at the Beacon Theater as part of Bill Clinton’s 60th birthday celebration. We’ll be perfectly honest: while we’ve always enjoyed the Rolling Stones, we were never what one might consider a superfan. And as for Mick Jagger, our first memory of being aware of him coincides with the unfortunate 1985 video for “Dancing In The Streets” with David Bowie (yeouch!). So while we recognized that Mr. Jagger and the gang were once considered supercrazy sex gods back in the day, we thought of him as the older, big-lipped guy in the blousy green shirt and tight-belted trousers. However, about halfway through the second song performed in Shine a Light, when Mr. Jagger—in his mid 60s—strutted like an alley cat across the stage, swiveled his hips and raised his hands above his head (revealing an impressively taut torso) everything changed. We were fantasizing about sex with Mick Jagger. Good gravy, what sort of black magic does this man possess? But perhaps this is both a credit to the man himself—who expends a charismatic energy onstage that should make Justin Timberlake weep—and to Mr. Scorsese, who managed to bottle it, and do the impossible: translate the thrill and exhilaration of a live performance to a movie screen. The film allows the band to do what it does best—perform. Particularly fascinating, too, is the black-and-white archival footage Mr. Scorsese weaves in of the baby-face gents wearily trying to adjust to fame. And in case anyone was wondering, Keith Richards is freakin’ hilarious (we finally understand Johnny Depp’s homage to him in Pirates of the Caribbean), and we could watch him smoke, cough, sing and woozily grin all day.

Shine a Light opens Friday at the Clearview Ziegfeld theater.

SPEAKING OF IRRESISTIBLE, we have to raise the white flag on George Clooney, too. He’s so—yes!—charming and likable we want not to fall prey to his silver fox allure! Same goes with Leatherheads, a movie that would have been a hard sell if anyone besides Mr. Wonderful was behind the camera and onscreen. The movie takes place in 1925, when professional football was becoming a legitimate sport. Mr. Clooney has given his film luscious 20’s costuming and music—in fact, a golden hue of nostalgia hangs over this picture, which pays homage to screwball romances, Frank Capra-esque storytelling and period sports flicks. Renée Zellweger is charged with playing super-sassy Chicago Tribune reporter Lexie Littleton, and the actress looks fab in pencil skirts and little hats and red lipstick. Ms. Zellweger manages to get around the rat-a-tat dialogue competently enough, but it’s Mr. Clooney who seems the most at ease. If ever a man was made to drink scotch in a speakeasy, sport a newsboy cap and toss off clever quips, it’s The Clooney. The movie suffers from a lack of identity (Is it a wink-wink old-fashioned romance? A nod to The Natural? A comment on the greed and capitalism that are regular parts of professional sports?), and misses the elegance of Mr. Clooney’s previous directorial work, Good Night, and Good Luck. It’s also about 25 minutes too long. That said, it’s possible to relax into the pleasures of art direction, score, and watching a real movie star at work.

Leatherheads opens Friday at the Regal E-Walk and Battery Park Theaters.

Guess who (yuk-yuk) cleaned up again at the box office this weekend? That giant animated elephant star of Horton Hears a Who! earned another $25 million, staying at the top of the heap for another week. We were sort of surprised that it beat out both the previously unstoppable Tyler Perry—Meet the Browns came in at No. 2—and Judd Apatow-produced/Owen Wilson-starring Drillbit Taylor. But apparently America wants its stories G-rated and animated! If this is true, the following movies might be in a wee bit of trouble, as they are both deeply unsettling in entirely different ways.

STOP-LOSS HOPES to buck the trend of Iraq war movies going bust at the box office. (Remember Rendition? The Kingdom? Lions for Lambs? We didn’t think so.) This one has the über-talented Kimberly Peirce as director, producer and co-writer (along with Mark Richard)—it’s her first feature film project since 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry—along with a scarily photogenic cast that includes Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Timothy Olyphant. The term “stop-loss” (coming from the financial world) describes an unfortunate loophole that allows the army to retain soldiers who would otherwise be allowed to retire after their contracted tour of duty. Mr. Phillippe plays (with great poise) Sgt. Brandon King, a patriotic soldier from Texas who believes in the war and serving his country, but is disillusioned with the army after getting stop-loss’d. Here’s the thing about this movie: There are plenty of details to pick apart (What kind of accent are Channing Tatum and Abbie Cornish attempting? What the heck happened to all those scenes from the previews that are mysteriously absent from the final print?), but the power and emotion of the overall picture is undeniable. More than 80,000 soldiers have been affected by stop-loss orders, and that chilling statistic will stay with you far longer than anything else—though we would be remiss if we didn’t point out that we always want more Timothy Olyphant (and we could have done with some more Ciáran Hinds and Witness bad guy Josef Sommer, too).

Stop-Loss opens Friday at Regal E-Walk and Battery Park theaters and Chelsea Clearview Cinema.

SHOTGUN STORIES IS written and directed by Jeff Nichols and produced by David Gordon Green, of All the Real Girls, Undertow and, most recently, Snow Angels fame. And it shows: the languorous camera shots, the sparse dialogue, the beautiful cinematography—it’s all reminiscent of Mr. Green’s work. The movie, which takes place in cotton-field-dotted Arkansas, is about two sets of half-brothers. They share a father, who’s a different man for each family—an alcoholic who named his sons Son, Kid and Boy before changing his life, finding God, marrying a new woman and having four more sons (with proper names). After their father’s funeral, a feud breaks out among the two families (Greaser-Soc style!) and, as always, violence tends to beget more violence. Mr. Nichols shot the film in 35mm in what he describes as “anamorphic 2:35 aspect ratio,” after being influenced by a re-released print of Lawrence of Arabia at age 15. None of the lead actors have the physical beauty of our would-be husband, Peter O’Toole, but they look authentic and are every bit as sympathetic and compelling.

Shotgun Stories opens Wednesday at IFC Film Center.

Get ready for lots more animated films to head our way thanks to the gigantic opening of Horton Hears a Who! last weekend, which pulled an amazing $45 million-plus at the box office, making it the biggest opening thus far of 2008 (beating Cloverfield, for which we are thankful). Prepare yourself for all sorts of puns. (Don’t believe us? “It’s a who-mongous opening,” said Fox senior VP of distribution Chris Aronson). Whoo-ray! And it should be interesting to see what will happen this weekend, as Tyler Perry, a man who directs, writes, produces and stars in über-successful movies—Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea’s Family Reunion, and Why Did I Get Married—has Meet the Browns in theaters nationwide. We’d love to tell you how it is, but they weren’t screening it. Huh! Shutter, a horror movie starring Joshua Jackson (hi, Pacey!), and Owen Wilson’s big comeback Drillbit Taylor (written by Seth Rogen, yet another member of the Judd Apatow universe) also weren’t available for perusal before press time. Hmmmm. We’re suspicious.

LUCKILY, WE DID get to see Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna), a warm and very bighearted film from first-time feature director Patricia Riggen. The movie (which got a standing ovation after it’s premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival) is about a 9-year-old boy, Carlitos (Adrian Alonso), who has been left behind in Mexico while his mother works two jobs in Los Angeles. After his grandmother dies, Carlitos decides to make the journey solo across the border with the help of some inexperienced college students (one of whom is played by America Ferrera). The movie skillfully splits into two parts: Carlitos’ journey—one that involves terror and peril in unexpected places—and that of his mother, who’s played by the luminously beautiful Kate del Castillo. The performances are great across the board, particularly the charmingly grumpy Eugenio Derbez, who begrudgingly comes to Carlitos’ aid. Believe us when we say there wasn’t a dry eye in the theater when the credits rolled.

Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna) opens Wednesday at Clearview Chelsea Cinemas and BAM Rose Cinemas.

MEANWHILE, ADAM CAROLLA continues to confound us. We kind of ignored him back in the days of Loveline (who could concentrate on him when Dr. Drew was around?) and were slightly annoyed by him on the The Man Show. So when we heard about The Hammer, based on a screenplay co-written by Mr. Corolla and starring him, about a once-promising amateur boxer who, at 40, loses his job and his girlfriend in quick succession and decides to get back in the ring for a shot at the Olympics, we sighed. Deeply. We imagined a Rocky/Cinderella Man/Big Daddy/Slackers-type mess. And we were kind of right! The movie is certainly silly and at times makes no sense whatsoever, but yet we still sort of liked it? We can’t really put our finger on why, except that Mr. Carolla is actually quite charming, and the movie has a few standout scenes that made us laugh out loud. Not quite a knockout, but close enough.

The Hammer opens Friday.

Golly, is it summer blockbuster season already? Last weekend, 10,000 BC—which is, from what we understand, a movie with good-looking prehistoric types sporting crazy hair and scrambling around rocks with saber-toothed tigers—took over the top spot by earning over $35 million. This weekend, while some will allow themselves to get freaked into the next millennium with the terrifying and bad-dream evoking Funny Games, others can escape with the kiddies to Horton Hears a Who! We must confess we weren’t one of those kids raised on those wacky Dr. Seuss books, so we didn’t know the plot going in: an elephant named Horton hears a cry for help coming from a speck of dust floating through the air. Turns out this speck contains an entire civilization (cue stoner whoa), Who-ville, whose mayor needs Horton’s help getting their tiny world to a safe place. The cast assembled is impressive: Jim Carrey—a man whose entire career is thanks to his cartoon face—provides the voice (and over-gesticulating) of Horton; Steve Carell (who steals the movie) voices the mayor of Who-ville; Carol Burnett (!) plays the mean, naysaying (and suspiciously soccer-mom-like) kangaroo; Will Arnett is a baddie vulture; and Isla Fisher, Amy Poehler and Seth Rogan have supporting roles. There are enough fun sight gags for the young ones in the audience, and more sophisticated jokes for their parents (it’s the same production gang that did Ice Age, one of our most favorite recent kid movies). The movie’s motto—“A person’s a person, no matter how small”—is, after all, a great one to impart (though unfortunately adopted by pro-life groups against the author’s wishes). However, one can’t help but wonder, particularly during one climatic scene when all the frustrated and scared subjects of Who-Ville raise their voices together to cry out “We are Here!” just what exactly is going on—and how long it will be till one of the democratic candidates references the flick.

Horton Hears a Who! opens Friday at United Artists 64th Street and Second Avenue theater, Regal Battery Park

MEANWHILE, IT'S COMMON knowledge around here how freaked out we are by outer space … and yet we still keep getting assigned movies that terrorize us! This time it’s Sputnik Mania, a fascinating documentary about the 1957 U.S.S.R.-launched satellite, the first to orbit the earth, which made our country go bananas with awe and fear. Liev Schreiber narrates the amazing archival footage of the events that followed the launch of Sputnik, ones that brought the United States and Russia so freakin’ close to the brink of nuclear war, it’s dizzying. Director David Hoffman used the best-selling book Sputnik: The Shock of the Century, by Paul Dickson, as his source material, and draws unsettling parallels to the world 50 years ago and the one today. Let’s just say that watching President Eisenhower handling a terrifying crisis with goodwill toward all mankind makes us sort of sad about the current leadership. Also, on a slightly different note, the press material for this film states that NASA wants to build a moon base by 2024. Oh, future … will you ever stop?

Sputnik Mania opens Friday at IFC Film Center.

Do you ever get the feeling that a good majority of the country would line up just to watch Will Ferrell eat beef jerky and read the phone book (probably in his underpants)? Semi-Pro took the No. 1 spot this past weekend—though with only $15 million in sales; we’re wondering if people are choosing to stay home and catch up on Lost (which is currently short-circuiting our brain) or watching movies on demand. And speaking of ... Now for a public service announcement: If you, for any reason at all, think you should rent Good Luck Chuck, please heed our warning and set yourself on fire instead. (Dane Cook, no más! That goes double for you, Alba.) O.K.!

THIS WEEKEND, PARANOID Park, the latest from Gus Van Sant—moody auteur behind My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting and Elephant—hits theaters. Adapted from the Blake Nelson novel of the same name, the Portland, Ore.-set film is about a high school skateboarder who accidentally kills a man and decides to say nothing. What follows is a Dostoevsky-esque meditation on guilt and consequences … through the eyes of a teenage boy, which means not a lot is said and one has to trust visual evidence. And what visuals! As in his past films, Mr. Van Sant plays with his story’s narrative, and employs dreamy, beautifully long shots, lavishing attention on his young stars. He cast many of his actors through MySpace, and with their awkward limbs, bad skin and fidgety feet, these kids feel almost uncomfortably authentic (except Taylor Momsen—little Jenny Humphrey from Gossip Girl—who shows up in a supporting role). Like in Good Will Hunting, Mr. Van Sant puts singer-songwriter Elliot Smith’s music to great use, with the shadow of Mr. Smith’s suicide five years ago adding an extra layer of poignancy.

Paranoid Park opens Friday at Angelika Film Center.

THERE ARE MANY things in this life we have no desire to do. Right up at the top would be to climb Mount Everest. We’re not sure what drives people to undertake the journey, and we really, really don’t understand why someone blind would attempt it. In the documentary Blindsight, six sightless Tibetan teenagers set out to get up the 23,000-foot peek on the north side of that big-ass mountain, guided by famous blind Everest climber Erik Weihenmayer. The hardest thing about this movie was trying to resist the urge to scream “Don’t do it! Turn back!” at the screen. However, in addition to the suspense of possibly seeing a blind Tibetan child fall to his death (we’re not telling!), director Lucy Walker does an excellent job of making each member of the expedition team a fully drawn character, and the children and their individual stories are all respectfully presented. (There’s also a hot American “seeing” doctor who goes along to help. Hellooo, doctor!) Still, we feel the need to ask again, why, why, why?!

Blindsight opens today at IFC Film Center.

Hey, how about those Oscars? We doubt it was just the DayQuil that had us thinking this was one of the best shows in ages … it had more to do with the fact that this year the movies were just so darn good and deserving (all those sweet foreigner acceptance speeches really helped, too). Isn’t it hard to come back to reality and realize that it’s still just February and we’ve got some time to kill before we see anything new that will be worthy of an Oscar? (And, ahem, here you go: Vantage Point, about the attempted assassination of the president told from five different perspectives, took over the box office this weekend—smell you, Jumper!)

Continuing with this weird cinematic limbo-land is a film that’s been batted about since it premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, Penelope. Directed by Mark Palansky, the movie is a modern fairy tale about a rich heiress cursed with the snout of a pig. Seriously. Only true love will free her blah-blah-blah, but most of the men sent her way by her parents—who have kept her locked away—tend to go screaming for the door.

Let’s start with the good: The film stars Christina Ricci as Penelope and James McAvoy (cast in this before his Atonement stardom, clearly) as a roguish down-on-his-luck lad. The two actors are each so naturally charming that they manage to bring some grace to this muddled picture, which never seems to be sure what it is. Even with a pig snout Christina Ricci is adorable, and Mr. McAvoy’s wobbly American accent can’t mask his leading-man charisma, but the film never seems to find it’s footing. There are moments with the whimsical sets, all lush, jeweled colors for a fairly-tale feel, create an atmosphere of Tim Burton-lite, but Penelope teeters uncomfortably between campy romantic comedy and love-yourself-for-yourself-you-go-girlfriend message. For instance, when Penelope tires of being cooped up in her fancy house and runs away to see the real world—yes!—she keeps a scarf wrapped around her face the whole time, and just looks like someone who just popped in from the cold. During her travels she meets a new friend, played by first-time producer Reese Witherspoon—and hey, we think Ms. Witherspoon is a fine actress but trying to believe her as a Vespa-driving toughie is a stretch. The cameos are fun; Catherine O’Hara and Richard E. Grant play Penelope’s overprotective parents, and Peter Dinklage shows up as a reporter intent on unmasking Penelope’s secret (oh yeah, we think there is some message about media and fame and tabloid-ism in there somewhere, too). But mostly, we came away wondering what the movie could have been like if it had been directed by, well, Tim Burton. We’re guessing … better.

Penelope opens Friday at United Artists theater at 64th and 2nd Avenue.

Just as we feared it would, Jumper ruled the box office this weekend, demonstrating either the fact that no one reads reviews, people inexplicably want to see Hayden Christensen’s work or there really is nothing else around in this inter-season dredge of studio pictures out there. Sigh. Prepare yourselves for Jumper 2, and you guys have no one to blame but yourselves. So! We were delighted to tuck in to The Duchess of Langeais (or Ne Touchez Pas la Hache for all you smarty-pants), which will be opening at the art houses this Friday. The film comes from French New Wave director Jacques Rivette (whom we’re happy to see still working, at just shy of 80). Mr. Rivette is famous for his experimental style and somewhat insane running times (one cut of Out 1 was 13 hours long in its original form), and best known here for his films Celine et Julie vont en Bateau and L’Amour fou.

THE SCREENPLAY FOR The Duchess of Langeais is based on the Balzac story (and we trust our much more literate colleague, Andrew Sarris, when he says the film abides faithfully by the novella). The movie concentrates on the cat-and-mouse game of seduction between Antoinette (the alluring Jeanne Balibar), the Duchess of Langeais in question—a married but still very flirty fixture at the lavish balls of Paris during the Restoration—and the broody and grizzledly handsome general, Armand de Montriveau, played by Guillaume Depardieu. First, an aside on Mr. Depardieu: We’ve had a soft spot for the son of Gerard since back in the early 90’s, when he starred in Tous le Matin du Monde (and a photo of the actor looking devastatingly French and full of ennui—in a beret—somehow found its way to our bedroom wall). The years, they have changed him, and the once scarily pretty actor has, at age 37, taken on a full load of world-weary charm. (Our nostalgia led us to some research, discovering Mr. Depardieu had his leg amputated in 1995. Ouch!) The movie cuts between the present day (which involves war and cloisters and a nunnery) and five years earlier, when the seemingly-destined-for-unhappiness pair first meet. The movie moves along at a measured, darkly ironic and lusciously costumed pace, the chemistry between the two principles is palpable, and after a long run of films populated by bright shiny young things (Cloverfield, we’re talking to you!), it was a relief to the eyeballs and soul to see two people in a different demographic box of life wrestle with love, intimacy and humiliation. Get to it, tout de suite!

The Duchess of Langeais opens Friday at the IFC Film Center and Lincoln Plaza Theaters.

And it will be—those slick Super Bowl commercials looked pretty irresistible, right? Except the problem with Jumper is that the film never goes into any deeper territory than those 30-second glossy spots. But that’s not the only problem; there’s also the film’s star, Hayden Christensen. We have always been mystified by certain actors’ careers, and Mr. Christensen has one of them. He was great when he was playing a liar, or at least someone suspiciously unconvincing, in Shattered Glass. But then, around the time he was Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels, we started to realize that Mr. Christensen is just a naturally unconvincing actor who once lucked into the perfect role. In Jumper, based on the 1992 book by Steven Gould, Mr. Christensen plays David Rice, a man who discovers he has the ability to teleport anywhere in the world he can imagine. The possibilities are endless: surfing in the Maldives, cocktails in London and maybe a swing through a bank vault for some cash … all before lunch. There is the obligatory back story appropriate to mythic tales and comic books: an unhappy childhood, a mother who left when Rice was 5-years-old, the childhood romance with an apple-cheeked girl who grows up to be the apple-headed Rachel Bilson (a.k.a. Summer from The O.C.), etc. Through it all, Mr. Christensen’s face remains impressively impassive, and his delivery is breathtakingly flat. The most frustrating thing about the movie is seeing what it could have been, for the idea and special effects are actually pretty cool. Samuel L. Jackson (can he not just say no, or what?) is pretty f’n scary as the baddie, and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliott all grown up!) is so much better than Mr. Christensen as the sidekick that we found ourselves wishing for a casting teleport-switcheroo. Don’t even get us started on the random appearance of the lovely Diane Lane. Director Doug Liman has done so much better in the past (Mr and Mrs. Smith, The Bourne Identity) that we’re guessing all the behind-the-scenes problems that plagued Jumper’s production, including all the last-minute casting changes, got the best of him this time.

Jumper opens Thursday at AMC Loews 19th Street East 6, Regal Battery Park Stadium 11 and Clearview First and 62nd.

GEORGE A. ROMERO sure does love himself some zombies. The legendary writer-director behind Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead is back with Diary of the Dead. And apparently this time the only thing scarier than dead people coming to life and lurching about trying to eat human flesh is the Internet (thank you!). Or so it goes in this low-budget horror film, which is either a deliberately campy commentary on the current need to document everything (the main characters, while being chased by zombies, record everything and upload to a Web site) or just plain off. But it did make us realize