Get the jump on summer blockbusters (and a few quieter pleasures).
To fans of the big-budget blockbuster, spring can feel like little more than that long, irritating season between the holiday family fantasies and the summer drop-your-popcorn franchise extravaganzas (such as the upcoming
Superman Returns
,
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
and
Miami Vice
). But don't be misled: Some of the year's
most anticipated
releases will hit the screen before the first of June-as well as a handful of indie treats-so flee springtime with its tiresome lilacs and desire,
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and take refuge from your juniper allergies in the refrigerated comfort of the moving pictures.
March 17
It's déjà vu all over again with
V for Vendetta
, an adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel originally slated for a November 2005 release-which would have made sense, considering that its hero costumes himself as Guy Fawkes (as in "remember, remember/the 5th of November"),
the better to commit terrorist acts against an Orwellian fascist state. But since one of the things he blows up is the London Underground…ah well, what's four months between friends; especially when the friends concerned are Hugo Weaving as V and Natalie Portman as his shaven-headed protégé?
Meanwhile, in our own dystopian universe,
She's the Man
recycles the plot of
Twelfth Night
. In apparent ignorance of Title IX, Viola (Amanda Bynes) decides to cross-dress, impersonating her twin brother Sebastian so she can play soccer for his school ("Illyria Prep").
Let's hope
Thank You for Smoking
tastes good like a satire should; Aaron Eckhart plays a charmingly amoral tobacco industry spokesperson, with Maria Bello and Cameron Bright also appearing in this black-as-tar comedy (based on Christopher Buckley's novel). Steve Harvey's
Don't Trip…He Ain't Through with Me Yet
sees the infamously
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raunchy King of Comedy toning it down for a church audience. Vin Diesel hopes to be Sidney Lumet's made man in true-life mobster/courtroom drama
Find Me Guilty
; while
Don't Come Knocking
reunites author Sam Shepard with director
Wim Winders and costar
Jessica Lange.
March 24
Spike Lee does the lucrative thing with
Inside Man
, his first attempt to go commercial; starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen (
Closer
) and Jodie Foster, this plotty big-budget thriller about a bank robber (Owen) and his hostage negotiator (Washington) should be compulsively watchable, if also a guilty pleasure. Also released this weekend,
Stay Alive
goes in a completely novel direction: It's a PG-13 horror flick in which a virtual-reality game becomes sentient, killing its teen players in an increasingly elaborate and disgusting variety of ways! How do they
think
of this stuff?
You may have thought that the world did not need an entire movie devoted to this comedian; irrespective of your wishes, here is
Larry the Cable Guy: The Health Inspector
nonetheless, in which Mr. "Git-R-Done" visits ethnic restaurants, giving rise to all manner of hi-LAR-ious situations. We hope for a bit more from
Lonesome Jim
, directed by Steve Buscemi; Casey Affleck plays the title character, a disaffected twentysomething who, having
failed" in New York, returns to his family home in Indiana and all its attendant dysfunctionality. Mary Kay Place is his cheerfully intrusive mother, Liv Tyler is the sweet single mom for whom he falls and there will almost certainly be a faux-naïf finger-strummed guitar soundtrack à la Zach Braff or Wes Anderson.
Director Randall Miller gives us
Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School
, with Robert Carlyle (
Carla's Song
) as a widower finally able to love again thanks to the attentions of Marisa Tomei; an astonishing array of supporting actors (Mary Steenburgen, Donnie Wahlberg, Adam Arkin, Sonia Braga, Ernie Hudson, Danny DeVito and John Goodman, to name a few) might crown this the season's Lord of the Dance.
March 31
Here's a title to strike fear into taste-loving hearts everywhere:
Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction
. Yes, Sharon Stone returns as the icepick-wielding bisexual whose blonde ambition has apparently taken her, like Woody Allen, as far afield as London; there she toys with the likes of David Morrissey, Charlotte Rampling and David Thewlis, since even Michael Douglas chose to stay away from this follow-up to Esterhaz's 1992 original. You
too are better off with another sequel,
Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
; Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary again voice a trio of unlikely food-chain prehistoric friends (woolly mammoth, sloth and saber-toothed tiger). Richard Linklater sidles into sci-fi with
A Scanner Darkly
, using his rotoscoping animation technique to bring us yet another dystopian future (based on Philip K Dick's story). Just how bleak a future? Well, it's set in the OC and stars Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson, which sounds plenty dystopian to us (though to be fair, we also spot the inestimably rock 'n' roll Robert Downey, Jr.). In further science-heavy-on-the-fiction, Nathan Fillion fans can look forward to watching
Serenity'
s Captain Tightpants fight zombies in
Slither
. And though this pair of art films might not arrive in our humble town for some months, this weekend's their official release:
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
documents the manic-depressive musician's life and influence, while
Drawing Restraint 9
offers another frankly freaky experience inside the brain of its director and star,
Cremaster
artist Matthew Barney-also featuring the talents of Mrs. Barney, or Björk.
April 7
Jennifer Aniston's annus horribils last year was unfortunate (
Rumor Has It
,
Derailed
) but she may be back on track in
Friends with Money
, Nicole Holofcener's (
Lovely & Amazing
) Sundance selection, which also stars Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener and Joan Cusack.
Lucky Number Slevin
(no, that's not a typo) provides a job for Josh Hartnett as an innocent Jewish hit man ("My son the gangster!") assigned to kill the son of a rival crime boss, the Rabbi (Sir Ben Kingsley, still enjoying his recent streak of villainy); director Paul McGuigan's done himself a favor (or three) by also casting Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis and Stanley Tucci. It's interesting to think what those three actors might have done with
The Benchwarmers
, a comedy instead starring David Spade, Jon Heder and Rob Schneider as friends who form a baseball team to revenge themselves on their traumatic childhood memories of Little League. Adam Sandler produces as well as co-starring, though the role originally meant for Chris Farley will be going to
Napoleon Dynamite
himself, which is a real head-scratcher. Mo'Nique's proud to be one of the
Phat Girlz
, playing a plus-size fashion designer who discovers that the Nigerian man of her dreams doesn't share our anorectic American aesthetic. And Antonio Banderas is ready to
Take the Lead
in this drama of a volunteer dance teacher in the New York City public schools (based on the true story of Pierre Dulane-as in,
Mad Hot Ballroom
).
April 14
Bring on the summer titles with the numbers in 'em, starting with
Scary Movie 4
; Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) must save the world from giant homicidal iPods while also lampooning everything from the shower scene in
Psycho
to Tom Cruise going psycho on poor Oprah. Disney's animated
The Wild
calls Kiefer Sutherland as a "teenage lion" born in captivity in New York and accidentally released in Africa (how you gonna get 'em back in the zoo after they've seen Nairobi?), and Eddie Izzard plays a koala. Yes, we know there are no koalas in Africa. Director David Slade (not Spade!) finally comes up with some
Hard Candy
; Patrick Wilson plays a 32-year-old photographer who picks up a young woman (Ellen Page) on the Internet-with unexpected consequences. Ever seen
Audition
? Let's just say that two important props are…a knife and an ice pack. And the weekend's indie releases include
The Notorious Bettie Page
(with Gretchen Mol as the sexy 1950s pin-up whose bondage photos eventually led to a Senate investigation) and
Kinky Boots
(
Dirty Pretty Things
' Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a drag queen whose fashion sense could save a dour English footwear factory).
April 21
Brotherhood of the Wolf
director Christophe Gans helps turn yet another videogame into a film with
Silent Hill
, in which Radha Mitchell searches for her sick daughter in a deserted and distinctly creepy town.
American Dreamz
seems oddly familiar, a satire of a popular television singing contest; Hugh Grant plays its ingratiating host, and Dennis Quaid the
Dreamz
-obsessed US President-while Kim
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Basinger's First Lady in
The Sentinel
, with Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland starring as Secret Service agents assigned to prevent her husband's assassination.
Bring It On
's Jessica Bendinger returns to the sports genre with
Stick It
, a gymnastics flick starring tough girl Missy Peregrym and Jeff Bridges in the Bela Karolyi slot. Since penguins have been so successful, what about owls? TV personality Wil Shriner directs
Hoot
, based on the novel by Carl Hiassen about an environmentally minded teen who protects a flock of endangered wise fowl. It's not your mom's Passover movie: Michael Lerner plays the patriarch of
When Do We Eat?
, whose son slips him a hit of MDMA; under the influence of the hug drug, Dad becomes uncharacteristically warm and fuzzy, to the shock of his squabbling tribe.
April 28
From the nervy to the nerve-wracking: British director Paul Greengrass takes on the first feature film about 9.11 with
Flight 93
, a real-time account of the passenger uprising on one of the hijacked planes; and
Men in Black
's Barry Sonnenfeld attempts to direct Robin Williams in
RV
, a National Lampoonish comedy concerning a family roadtrip to the Rockies. Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne costar as stage parents in
Akeelah and the Bee
, a dramatized version of the breakout documentary
Spellbound
(relocated to south Los Angeles); Tyrese Gibson takes matters into his own hands in
Waist Deep
, playing an ex-con who must jeopardize his probation to save his son, kidnapped in a carjacking. We're excited about
Water
, the final installment in Deepa Mehta's trilogy spanning 20th century Indian history, about "widow houses" in 1930s Varanasi. It took Mehta nearly five years to finish the film, sequel to her incredibly sensuous
Fire
and
Earth
, due to the inventive, tireless and extreme protests of Hindu fundamentalists (including professional suicide attempters and death threats, which eventually forced shooting to relocate to West Bengal). Similarly anticipated:
Art School Confidential
,
Ghost World
director Terry Zwigoff's second adaptation of a Dan Clowes comic, starring Anthony Minghella's son Max (
Bee Season
) as antihero art student Jerome, who's confronting his lack of talent-and the fact that the girl he idolizes loves another artist-when he's unexpectedly charged as a murder suspect, and things begin to look up. John Malkovich also co-stars, perhaps picking up the Steve Buscemi weirdo torch.
May 5
Tom Cruise has a new impossible mission-to redeem himself in the public's leery eye with
M:I3
. Cloaked in secrecy, besmirched with weird rumors (the Scientologist trying to brainwash Scarlett Johansson?), filming of this installment has had revolving-door directors, writers and co-stars, but it seems the final combination of JJ Abrams plus Michelle Monaghan, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup, Maggie Q and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers could actually work. Creepy as Cruise is,
An American Haunting
's bound to be scarier, with already-spooky Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek heading up this turn-of-the-century ghost story, which is, like
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
, ostensibly based on a true story. I
n the Land of Women
gives
The OC
's Adam Brody a chance to stretch his wings as a young TV writer dumped by a famous actress; fortunately Olympia Dukakis, Meg Ryan and Kristen Stewart are around to help him pick up the pieces.
May 12
Johnnies be forewarned:
Poseidon
has nothing to do with the Greek god of seafaring, but is instead a remake of a disaster flick some of us thought was perfect the first time around, 1972's
The Poseidon Adventure
. Wolfgang Petersen (
Das Boot
,
The Perfect Storm
) certainly has the clout to direct this, and having Richard Dreyfuss and Kurt Russell on board can't hurt, but how will he function without Gene Hackman (much less Ernest Borgnine or Red Buttons)? Lindsay Lohan does a
Freaky Friday
with
Just My Luck
, in which she magically swaps her unerring ability to have the toast land butter-side up for Chris Pine's haplessness. For footie louts, there's
Goal!
with Kuno Becker as a soccer-crazy LA barrio kid who snags a tryout
with Newcastle United; costarring Alessandro Nivola (
Junebug
) and Stephan Dillane (
The Hours
), with a cameo from David Beckham,
Goal!
may not start a riot, but it
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seems to have begun a franchise, with two sequels already in production.
May 19
Can 15 million worldwide readers have appalling taste? These and other urgent questions of the ages will be answered at last in Akiva Goldsman's adaptation of
The Da Vinci Code
, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks with a weird slicked-back 'do, an emaciated-looking Audrey Tautou and the phlegmatic Jean Reno. Expect international sets to rival those of James Bond or Jason Bourne and the gasp-inducing revelation that…Christianity has its roots in pagan Goddess-based religion. Imagine! Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling and Gene Wilder provide voices for a raccoon, a turtle and their forest chums who must survive suburban encroachment in
Over the Hedge
, directed by Tim Johnson (
Antz
). Less kid-friendly,
See No Evil
relates a little-known peril of community service: serial killers, apparently, as a group of teens repairing a low-rent hotel are, wait for it, murdered one by one. Finally,
The King
stars Mexican heartthrob Gael García Bernal as Elvis (no, not that Elvis) a young Naval recruit who returns to his hometown to reunite with his father (William Hurt-yes, that William Hurt), whose repeated rejection of him sets off an unexpected chain of events; the screenplay's by Oscar nominee Milo Addica (
Monster's Ball
), but the buzz from Cannes was lukewarm at best.
May 26
Ushering in the really big blow-'em-up whoopie movies is
X-Men: The Last Stand
(should we believe them?). Patrick
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Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn and the rest of the gang must defend their kind even more fiercely now that a "cure" for their aberrancies has been found and humans seem ever-disposed to rid the world of weird people who can set things ablaze and fly and suchlike. In a mystifying reversal, franchise director Bryan Singer left to take over
Superman Returns
from Brett Ratner, who's now directing…
X3
. We're promised an X-Person resurrection (cough
Phoenix
cough) and assorted groovy new mutants, chief among them being…Kelsey Grammer. Hard to believe, but there you go. The only other release scheduled for this weekend doesn't stand a chance, alas, against the final battle for the control of the planet:
Confetti
, a quintessentially British take on Christopher Guest, as three eccentric couples (tennis lovers, tone-deaf musical theater fanatics and clothes-shedding "naturists" duke it out mockumentary-style to see who'll win a contest for Most Original Wedding of the Year.
