Nine Bullets in a Clip:

1. For the casting and directing alone of German actor Christoph Waltz and what the actor does with Quentin Tarantino’s character of Hans Lander, it is a single performance like none other that makes Inglorious Basterds, in my opinion, one of the greatest films of all time.

District 9 is a Sci-Fi film on par with anything Hollywood has done. Solely a South African production, with Peter Jackson’s backing and probably his computer graphics people from New Zealand involved, it is an alien film similar to Alien Nation (1988), with remnants of James Cameron’s Terminator (1984) and John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), and at times Carpenter’s They Live (1988). It has that sort of B film on the cusp of something great feel to it. Or should I say, like some of those successful Science Fiction B films on the edge there is always a great film there that stays true to its context so much so they usually shy away from sound tracks by popular artists, or those tie-ins with fast food chains (partly because of budget, mostly to retain the persona of reality). District 9 is one of those films that won’t have mass appeal like Independence Day or Armageddon, or Transformers; no real stars or sports illustrated swimsuit girls to exploit. Just solid craftsmanship to hide the fact that none of what you see is real. Or is it? Science fiction, good or bad, is usually coded with social and philosophical commentary. And director Neill Blomkamp does a fantastic job with all of that.

One of the best of the summer line-up thus far. I’d say better than Star Trek. And you don’t have to know who these guys are in the G.I. Joe scheme of things. It’s all laid out for you here, in very simple terms with deceptively savvy direction and writing to kind of string you along. But of course if you’re a fan of the 12” figures from the 60s, or the animated series from the 80s I think you’ll be surprisingly satisfied. Of course nothing is as good as your twelve-year-old imagination might have made the Joe adventures out to be.

I’m biased when it comes to Judd Apatow films. I think the guy and his band of genitalia-joking, go-for-the-broad-stroke-joke-every-time characters can do no wrong. Provided Apatow writes in the charming disposition of the lovable average guy who’s just trying to make a living and stay afloat but keeps getting caught in the awkward moment, like in Knocked Up, or in 40-Year-Old Virgin, or like the high-school boys of Freaks and Geeks; always the little guy overcoming figurative sand in his face to succeed in getting the girl. Funny People loses a little of that charm, though it keeps up with the Apatow brand of humor just fine. For the first forty-five minutes that is. The last hour and forty-five minutes though had me squirming because it was so darn long, with no resolution in sight and an ending that just left me worried for the future of Apatow films.

It takes huge kugeln to make a movie like Bruno, as an actor and creator after following the success of Borat. Bruno is really Borat part zwei – more of the same social and cultural commentary, hidden in the seemingly naïve exploration of America and, this time out, a few hot spots around the globe. The film is at its best when it’s remarking on relationships as volatile as the one between Israelis and Palestinians, and when Bruno explores the deep rooted beliefs of America’s South. But it fails in its attempt to create a story because it doesn’t really need one. And therefore at times the gimmicks and shock attack on little America, while funny and periodically randomly fresh, feels heavy-handed and set-up more so than Borat.

The last hour of Public Enemies starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard and Billy Crudup is spectacular. It’s the kind of rich portrayal of characters and action you find in an Eastwood film around Oscar time, and artful enough in its photographic approach to be treated as such. With the kind of individual inner conflict that has even the strongest male personality in the film lighting his cigarette from the wrong end.

This film is prototypical big budget Summer blockbuster movie. If you like Michael Bay films such as Armageddon, The Rock, Bad Boys, or Con Air then you definitely need to see this Transformers film, and certainly the one before it. In fact, it’s the perfect movie for the Fourth of July weekend. It’s very patriotic incorporating the U.S. Military and a cavalcade of GM concept cars. Just like the first one.

And the $201 million box office take since its release on Wednesday the 24th is nothing to laugh at. It made $60.6 million in one day. But for deeper storylines and rich character development, you’ll be wise to go elsewhere.

Holding on strong at the box office with a huge take of $183.2 million, The Hangover released June 5th is proving to be the sleeper hit of the summer. And in my opinion it’s the funniest film of the year thus far.

The Hangover successfully incorporates the one major plot device of the bachelor party genre of films which is the “get the bachelor back in time for the wedding” strategy. Doing that in The Hangover is a tad bit more difficult though for Stu, Phil and Alex who wake up in Vegas post party with no memory of the night before, and worse, no bachelor.

And it gets increasingly more tricky as the boys piece together the previous evening using the only clues and items they have—a baby, a tiger, Mike Tyson, a stolen cop car, angry Asian gang members, and an impromptu wedding at The Best Little Chapel in Vegas.

The old Land of the Lost TV show that ran on TV from 1974 to 1976 liked to think it was eons ahead of its time, and it probably was in the mid 70’s. Not as far advanced for TV as Star Trek was in 1965. But the chroma key fake video background set they used on Land of the Lost worked well for the show. It was the claymation dinosaurs that really sucked.

But if you were ten-years-old in the 70’s you didn’t care. Alien lizard men called Sleestak, shhhleeshing their way around caves beneath the Lost City were enough to make you wonder what lurks in the dark. Because it was the spark of these things that set the imagination off. I wonder today if there’s any spark at all, if in trying to create that perfect reproduction of life in HD and digital video if we aren’t losing some cerebral spark.

An adventure film for the whole family. If crying is your adventure.

Like all Pixar events, the short pre-show Pixar-ette film Partly Cloudy puts you in the mood for the big film that follows. Only it’s not all “lose-yourself-in-the-humor-of-life-represented-in-animated-form” kind of escapism like Toy Story or The Incredibles. You could be the world’s most emotionless person and ten minutes into Up you’ll be drenched in tears. Which makes you wonder about the title.

But Up is how you’ll feel once the film is over. Because you will feel uplifted. If not for the shear fact you’ll be over your tears and up out of your seat for the staff to clean the theater. Which is just the way it is.

I can’t say much about Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian other than Amelia Earhart is much cuter in this film than history’s photos seem to suggest. Ouch, that’s harsh. What does that say about how Hollywood re-writes history? That Amelia Earhart, the first female pilot to do a solo flight across the Atlantic in a single engine plane should be made to appear softer, curvier, more feminine than she really was to make her more interesting to a mass audience? Less of a tomboy? Well, maybe that’s the point. Over time, when you come to understand who Earhart was maybe there’s something there that suggests she wasn’t very feminine when in fact she was every bit as much a woman as your mother. So if you think of your mother flying over the Atlantic in that match-box of a plane you might think differently of what her accomplishments meant to (wo)mankind.

There is no controversy that I can see. And The Vatican should be thanking director Ron Howard and author Dan Brown for creating such an intriguing and beguiling look at Rome and Vatican City. I never thought I’d say this, but where can I buy tickets for a tour of The Vatican?

Just when you think Terminator Salvation is a Christian Bale film it becomes a Sam Worthington movie. They’re selling it as a Christian Bale film but Worthington is onscreen in Terminator Salvation, the fourth installment of the franchise more than Bale is and when Bale shows his face you might wish Worthington’s storyline would continue.

Unlike the other Star Trek movies, this eleventh installment based on the science fiction series created by Gene Roddenberry, starts from zero, which eighteen years from the last one featuring these guys opens the beloved characters and themes up to a new audience. And I was kind of hoping new and amazing fiction would present itself here but it doesn’t. That’s not to say I didn’t like it. In fact, I loved this movie but only because I’m a fan of the original series that ran on NBC from 1966 to 1969. So I’m a little more forgiving. The hardest thing to do though is see it through the eyes of someone who knows nothing of these characters. Could it hold its own without referencing the past? I say yes, but slightly.

The May 1st release of Wolverine marks the start of the Summer 2009 movie season, and what a textbook kick-off. Because of the tight summer release schedule it may be the only time of the year Hollywood really works hard for your dollar. Last summer’s top ten box office winners which included The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull made a combined 2.5 billion dollars. Wolverine begins this year with 87 million and I venture to say it will be another film from Marvel Entertainment to find its way into a list of the year’s top grossing films.