The Screening Room

The film department at The Art Institute of Dallas will hold its third annual student short film festival on Tuesday. The films are the product of a five-day student video race, in which each three- to five-member team wrote, shot and edited their five-minute film. The only boundary was that they had to use the same prop, line of dialogue, theme and location for the film. The films will show beginning at 6 p.m. at the new Studio Movie Grill at Central and Royal Lane, with an awards ceremony to follow.

I wrote a post for our technology blog about a press conference being held today by Nasa to (presumably) discuss the discovery of ice on Mars.

So, to accompany the post, I attached a trailer for the classic Arnold Schwarzenegger-on-Mars flick Total Recall. This movie came out in 1990, and I was shocked at how amateurish the trailer was:

The trailer gives away some major plot points (Arnie shooting his fake wife), but doesn't really tell you what the movie is about.

And the pacing is terrible. It's a bunch of disjointed, jumbly clips that seem picked at random.

By contrast, consider the trailer for The Dark Knight.

This is a masterpiece of design, giving you just enough clues about the basic plot (the Joker is insane and wants to kill Batman and burn Gotham to the ground) without spoiling the best parts.

The editing is also superb, and the clips blend seamlessly together while the music weaves a sense of tension and epic combat:

The evolution of the trailer is really amazing. Wired, for instance, has made the semi-sarcastic suggestion that Oscar statues should now be awarded for the best movie trailers.

Probably not a bad idea, actually.

Read Heath Ledger's Joker is the latest in a string of good villains and tell us your favorite movie villains.

The Angelika Dallas and the Video Association of Dallas are pairing up Thursday night for a special screening of The Puffy Chair, the feature debut from writer-director duo Mark and Jay Duplass. The comedy, which screens at 7:30, centers on a a man's cross-country mission to deliver his father's birthday present, the title chair.
Before the film, the Duplass Brothers' short This is John will screen. The 8 minute film, about a man trying to record the perfect outgoing message on his answering machine, put the filmmaking brothers on the map when it earned a place in the Sundance Film Festival
I talked to Video Association of Dallas head honcho Bart Weiss this afternoon, and he had high praise for the short, saying it goes to show that you don't need high-tech production value to make a good film -- sometimes simple is best.
So why all the hubub about the Duplass Brothers? Their latest film, Baghead, hits the Angelika on Aug. 8. To get ready for its arrival, the Angelika is holding a baghead contest, looking for the most creative baghead. The winner gets $100 worth of Angelika Cinemoney. Entries must be submitted to angelikasubmissions@gmail.com by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, August 7.

The Omni Theater reopens Saturday, Aug. 9, with three films: Dinosaurs Alive!, Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs and Deep Sea. Museum members can preview Dinosaurs Alive! on Aug. 8 during Members-Only Day.

Get tickets beginning August 1 online at fortworthmuseum.org, by phone at 817-255-9540 or at the box office from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Ticket prices are $7 for adults; $6 for children (ages 3-12) and seniors (60 and older). Admission is free to Museum Discovery Plus Members and $2 off for Museum Discovery Members.

Some interesting blog posts from around the Pottersphere, regarding fans' reactions to the first Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince teaser trailer, released last night.

MTV.com's movie blog says:

This first trailer, in fact, isn't really a trailer at all -- not in the sense that we've grown accustomed to, anyway. Most trailers tell you about story. This trailer, conversely, tells you about character, the character of the young orphaned wizard who grows up to be the most powerfully Dark sorcerer of all-time. It's a bold departure from most trailers (including the previous ones in the Harry Potter series), but one which immediately sets an ominous, foreboding tone.

Meanwhile, MTV.com's Shawn Adler goes on to say, we're also getting some hints about what we likely won't see in the final, two-part film of the series, Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows.

Note: MTV.com's blog comments include Book 7 spoilers -- a caveat for those of you who may only watch the Harry Potter movies, and who have somehow managed to avoid knowing how J.K. Rowling's book series ended a year ago...

Or so he told David Letterman. Read about it here: DUI charge may be blemish to LaBeouf's rising star.

In today's world, crack-smoking Amy Winehouse earns Grammys and sings for Nelson Mandela's brithday. Christian Bale, who did something not-very-nice to his mom and sister, is riding The Dark Knight juggernaut -- a flick that stars an actor who died from mixing some serious meds ... yet still survives amid Oscar buzz. And we tend to forgive our celebrities when they admit to having "problems." I ask you: Do you really think Shia's star will fall?

Though the movie's release is still a good three-and-a-half months away (Nov. 21, to be exact), the first teaser trailer for Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince was released tonight -- and it will soon be seen in theaters, when The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor opens this weekend.

Check the trailer out in HD here.

The new Potter film has a couple of acting-dynasty casting notes. Young Tom Riddle, who later becomes evil Lord Voldemort, is played first at age 11 by Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, the nephew of Ralph Fiennes, who plays the snakelike Dark Lord in his present-day form. Later, Tom as a teenager is played by Frank Dillane, son of British actor Stephen Dillane, who recently was seen as Thomas Jefferson in HBO's much-lauded John Adams miniseries. Coincidentally, the elder Dillane also has experience in playing a powerful wizard: He portrayed Merlin in the 2004 film King Arthur.

Alicia Keys and Jack White will team up to perform the theme for Quantum of Solace, this November's next entry into the James Bond franchise. The song was originally slated to go to Amy Winehouse, but, um, she's been kinda busy lately. The pairing of White and Keys marks the first time that a Bond theme has been performed as a duet.

'Knight' and pay
Another week, another record for The Dark Knight. The hit of the summer pulled in $75 million in its second weekend, bringing its total to a whopping $313.7 million in its first 10 days. That smokes the record for fastest film to cross the $300 million mark, besting the previous mark of 16 days set by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest in 2006.

After getting over my fear of a let-down from the tastiness that is Hellboy, a great comic-booky film based on a comic book (if you follow me down that road), me and mine finally decided to gird our loins and walk into the theater to watch Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The movie wasn't that long, we figured, so we wouldn't rue the day that it might have taken to watch it. But it was important to watch, as we do invest an inordinate amount of time in watching the first one.

All I can say is, "My bad." Too many sights in that film for these sore eyes. Me and mine silently agreed to never speak of it again, mostly by avoiding eye contact for a bit of the ride home and then finding other things to talk about. Ah, well. Room was left for a third installment of the franchise ... and third time's the charm, or so they say.

The first trailer for Oliver Stone's W. has made it to the Internet. (If you click here and scroll down the page just a bit you can watch it.)
From the 30-seconds of film we get to see, the movie looks like it will focus on what drove the president to seek the White House. We also get a look at the supporting players in the film, and though we don't hear them speak, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney and Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell look to be spot on.
It should come as a surprise to no one, however, that at least these 30 seconds aren't particularly flattering of No. 43 -- Stone has been one of the president's harshest critics. So why would he make the film before Bush's term is up? The guess here is that Stone hopes it will have some kind of influence on the upcoming election. Michael Moore tried that by releasing Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004 and that didn't seem to have any impact. We'll see about W.

UPDATE: An alert Screening Room reader alerted me that the above link was forced to take down the trailer, but it seems to be working fine on the E! Network's site here.

The Express won't reach area screens until October, but the buzz has already begun. The Express is short for "the Elmira Express," otherwise known as Ernie Davis, the Syracuse University running back of the late 1950s who died of leukemia before he could play in the National Football League. There is a strong local connection to The Express, aside from Texan Dennis Quaid playing the role of Syracuse Coach Ben Schwartzwalder. One of Mr. Davis' bigger moments occurred in the Cotton Bowl Game of January 1960. Mr. Davis played the game with an injured hamstring but still led Syracuse to victory over the University of Texas. (Please click the Continue Reading link at the bottom of this entry.)

Photo: Ernie Davis, No. 44, during his days at Syracuse University

Click here to watch a trailer of the film:

I had a nice phone conversation today with Javier Bardem, he of the crazy hair cut and best supporting actor statue for No Country for Old Men. He called from Madrid to promote his new movie, Woody Allen's Vicky Christina Barcelona.
We talked about working with the Wood Man, shooting in his native Spain, all stuff I will get to in a future story for the print edition. But one bit of news came up when I asked him about what imdb.com lists as his next project, the Joe Carnahan-directed Killing Pablo. The Web site lists Bardem as playing Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar in the film, with Christian Bale co-starring.
Bunk, says Bardem.
"IMDB is full of movies I'm going to make that I haven't heard of," he said. "I know Joe Carnahan, who is a great guy, and we were talking about doing the movie, but due to different situations I'm not going to do that movie next. I don't know if he's going to do it or not."
So where does the hamburger phone play into all of this, you may ask?
When I went to plug in my tape recorder to my phone today, I realized that all of my phones at home are cordless and won't work with the adapter for the recorder. So I frantically looked to see if I had a corded phone anywhere in the house.
Salvation came in the form of my hamburger phone, a replica of the one that Juno uses in the movie that the studio sent out as a promo item.
I've received enough swag items in my days in this job to fill a museum, but this is the first time I can ever remember one saving the day.

Three films this summer have made a big deal of keeping their plots tightly under wraps. The first, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, featured a storyline about aliens that left many wondering why Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford couldn't take better control of George Lucas. Next up was The Happening, the next installment in the M. Night Shyamalan spook-by-numbers series. It, too, opened solidly with $30.5 million, but the reviews were pretty harsh and its gross has fallen more than 60 percent each week that is has been out.
And now we have The X-Files: I Want to Believe. All most fans knew about the film before this week was that Mulder and Scully were in it. But once the reviews started to pour in, they learned a little more -- it stinks. (Need proof? It got only 28 percent positive reviews over at rottentomatoes.com.)
The common thread running through all of these movies is that the studios relied on the brand to sell the movie rather than informing the audience as to why they may want to come back for the next edition. So a word to the wise the next time a plot is "closely guarded" -- it's probably just code for "we'd tell you more about the plot, but even we don't think it sounds that good."

Though George W. Bush will beat him to the punch when Oliver Stone releases W this fall, a movie centering on Bill Clinton seems on the way as well. Patrick Goldstein, who covers the movies beat for the Los Angeles Times, interviewed Peter Morgan recently, who confirms that indeed a movie focusing on Clinton's relationship with Tony Blair is in the works. Morgan envisions it as the capper on his political trilogy that started with The Deal, which focuses on Blair's rise to power (and out on DVD Tuesday) and continued with 2006's The Queen, which earned Helen Mirren an Oscar.
Morgan is hopeful that Stephen Frears, who directed both films, and Michael Sheen, who portrayed Blair in each, will return for part three.
Now the only question is: Who will play Bill? No doubt Darrell Hammond's agent is awaiting a call. For more on Goldestein's interview with Morgan, check out the Times' Big Picture blog.

Tom may be right about the box office prospects for The X-Files. But I think it's a fun coincidence that a story has just emerged about Apollo 14 astronaut and moon-walker Dr. Edgar Mitchell maintaining that aliens have indeed been among us and have had their appearance hidden by the governement. Now if they could get an alien to promote the film, that could really pull people in...

Straight from the story: "It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it. "

Just wanted to get out there the day before it opens to say the X-Files movie may be the most unaccountable and hopeless movie release of the summer. Here's a show that ended five years ago, when its shelf-life was already running out. And now, five years later, here's comes the big-screen return.

I understand that X-Files has a devoted community of hardcore fans on the Internet, but in any sort of broad, pop-cult-buzz way that drives the requisite masses to make a successful movie opening, X-Files is completely off-the-radar. Today's young-movie-goers have a new generation of cool/sexy/spooky science-fiction-fantasy-conspiracy projects to obsess over. They've never heard of and/or don't care about the X-Files. And for the boomers/GenXrs who did watch X-Files? They've moved on. Nostalgia and taut, paranoia-and-suspense-driven drama don't really go together.

If Speed Racer's shocking freefall at the box office earlier this summer taught us anything, it's that consumer awareness and brandname relevance have a breathtaking brevity in today's overloaded/A.D.D-driven cultural marketplace. Nostalgia was a boomer thing. To today's audience of young media consumers, yesterday was an eternity ago.

X-Files opening will be like a Star Trek convention -- hardcore (and perhaps costumed) fans only. Weekend total, maybe $11 million..

Magnolia at the Modern will present "Still Moving: Classic Films from MoMA," a wide-ranging film series curated from the 21,000 titles in New York's Museum of Modern Art, from Aug. 14-17 and 21-24.
The series kicks off Aug. 14 with Street Angel from 1928 and will show 14 films over its two-weekend run. Other films that caught my eye are His Girl Friday (Aug. 17), The Boy with Green Hair (Aug. 24) and On the Waterfront (Aug. 23). The series focuses on films from 1928-54; a complete schedule can be found here. Guest speakers and other events tied to the series will be announced later.
Overall, it looks like a good chance for a lot of us who haven't seen some of these classics on the big screen to take a look.

If you had plans to catch either Gunnin' for that # 1 Spot or Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, better make like the wind. Both of them will play through Thursday before leaving local screens. Chris Vognar really liked Gunnin' (he said so himself in this review). Of course, he is a basketball nut of unnatural proportions. Meanwhile, Gonzo scored 86 percent positive reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes and is directed by no less than this year's Oscar winner for documentary filmmaking, Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side).
So if you are a fan of the doc, you may want to make it over to the Dallas Angelika (for Gunnin') or the Magnolia (for Gonzo) by Thursday night, lest you have to wait for the DVD.

As we passed along in a post yesterday, Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper have called it quits on At the Movies, blaming contractual and philosophical differences with the show's owner, Disney. And today, we find out that their replacements will be Ben Lyons of E! News and Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies.
I can't say that i am too familiar with either of these guys, but I think it is telling that they chose to go with non-newspaper critics. Seems to me like it sends one of two messages (or possibly both).
1. Disney doesn't believe in the infuence of the newspaper critic, chosing to go with people already associated with television.
2. The new direction of the show, rumored to be focusing more on Hollywood in general rather than straight movie reviewing, wouldn't work for newspaper critics who often perfer to focus on the actual movies.
Either way, it's hard for this newspaper person to get too excited about this announcement.

Alone at the top
Records fell over the weekend like so many of the Joker's henchmen as The Dark Knight earned $158.4 million to claim the opening-weekend title previously held by Spider-Man 3. Along the way, Hollywood set an overall box-office mark of $253 million for a three-day weekend, besting the previous high from July 7-9, 2006, when Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest debuted.

The Associated Press reports:

Batman star Christian Bale was arrested Tuesday over allegations of assaulting his mother and sister, police and British media said. British media had reported that Bale's mother and sister complained they were assaulted by the 34-year-old actor at the Dorchester Hotel in London on Sunday night, a day before the European premiere of his latest film, The Dark Knight.

Continue reading the story.

What do you think? Share your thoughts.

Aside from the greatness that is The Dark Knight, I was distracted by a couple of things. Maggie Gyllenhaal is far better in the role of Rachel than Katie Holmes was. And, did you notice that a lot of the actors already have iconic characters in their pockets?

Christian Bale plays John Connor in the upcoming Terminator: Salvation; Gary Oldman played Bram Stoker's Dracula; Michael Jai White was Spawn; and Tommy Tiny Lister played "Debo" in the Friday series. (Guilty pleasure alert: He was also the wrestler "Zeus.") How's that for random?

(Spawn © 1997 New Line Cinema Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Spawn, its logo and symbol are registered trademarks of Todd McFarlane Productions. All Rights Reserved.)

One of the more intriguing movies lurking at an area theater is the documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, now playing at the Magnolia. During the Watergate summer of 1973, I was interning at the Washington Post and had the pleasure of spending an entire day with Dr. Thompson. It's one I'll never forget. We met for lunch, where Hunter drank a lot of beer. A friend of his, the son of JFK aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr., dropped by, and Hunter's stories went into overdrive. I learned a lot and had an amazing time. Hunter autographed my first-edition copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with his memorable HST signature, and like an idiot, I gave it away a few years ago to a young soldier headed to Iraq for the second time. I hope he's enjoying it. I wrote a story about the long afternoon for a Dallas-based underground paper called The Iconoclast. I no longer have a copy of even that. Oh, well. The movie is really cool but doesn't drive home a key point about Hunter -- despite all the wild bravado, he was actually an incredibly kind man. That was certainly my experience and that of hundreds of other young journalists. We will never see the likes of HST again. When he was on, he was really on. His insights about Richard Nixon were unforgettable. Whenever I tell my sons about Nixon, I will tell them to read HST.

Photo: Hunter S. Thompson with his wife Anita after their wedding in 2003.

In the past two days, both Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper have said they are calling it quits on At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper and both have more or less said that they disagree with the direction that Disney wants to take the show. A Chicago Tribune story says that the Mouse House wanted to move the show in more of an Entertainment Tonight direction with more of a focus on Hollywood.
To which I ask: Don't we already have a ton of shows like that?
What made Ebert & Roeper (and Siskel & Ebert before it) special was that it was a simple show featuring two guys talking about the movies -- and none of the peripheral stuff surrounding them. If Disney wants to change the show's focus, that's their decision. But they should know going into it that they'll just be entering another show into an already crowded field.

*Okay, probably not. But with a synopsis like this, it's hard not to judge:

Duck (PG-13): A man and a duck struggle for survival in future L.A. (Philip Baker Hall, French Stewart, Bill Cobbs)

(Courtesy VideoETA. Scroll down to find the Duck entry)

The Dark Knight earned an estimated $155 million this weekend, breaking the 14-month old record of Spider-Man 3 by about $4 million. Putting Batman just over the top were likely all of those midnight screenings on Friday, as The Dark Knight earned $18 million on them alone, breaking the record for biggest midnight opening previously held by 2005's Revenge of the Sith. And that figure doesn't include the cash it earned from numerous 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. screenings.
So why all the fuss? My guess is that the Heath Ledger curiosity played an even larger role than we like to give it credit for. Once word came out that his performance actually lived up to the hype surrounding it, The Dark Knight became a movie that you HAD to see this weekend if you wanted to be part of any conversation on Monday.
Judging by these numbers, it sounds like you all will be able to share in the chit-chat.

The Dark Knight can already lay claim to one record: biggest midnight opening. In earning $18.4 million on its early Friday showings, the film surpassed 2005's Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith to take the crown.
Several theaters also showed the film at 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Friday, so this one may have a chance to take down Spider-Man 3's all-time opening weekend of $151.1 million. It was thought that Dark Knight's 152-minute running time would hamper its cause, but if theaters are adding screenings at crazy hours, that can help make up for its fewer waking-hour showings.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Jonathan Levine and Josh Peck, the director and star of The Wackness for a story that ran on Thursday. We spent most of the time talking about the role that music plays in the film, which is set in Manhattan in 1994, right at the end of hip-hop's glory days (IMHO).
But another part of getting the vibe right was the dialogue, which is a trickier task than just collecting a solid soundtrack.
"Initially I just started using 'dope,' 'word,' 'ill,' 'whack' -- I had like five root words that I worked off of," Peck said about his preparation for the film. "Sometimes I would trip up and say to [co-star] Method Man, 'What's good?' and Jon would say, 'Yo, we didn't say that.'"
Ultimately, I'm not as in love with the dialogue as I am the soundtrack. It's just as hard to listen to a white teenager say, "I'm mad depressed, yo!" in 2008 as it was in 1994. But the film still hits on some levels, especially when Peck's character, Luke, is pursuing the out-of-his-league Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby) and learning that she may not have his best interests in mind.
Regardless, you'll at least be bobbing your head and tapping your feet throughout. And that's not such a bad way to spend 90 minutes.

Tired of waiting in that line at the Dallas Angelika that can stretch all the way to Margarita Ranch? Starting today, you have another option. The Angelika Film Centers in Dallas and Plano have partnered with online ticket seller Fandango to sell advanced tickets to Angelika shows. To purchase the tickets, go to fandango.com or call 1-800-Fandango. Then you can skip the lines by picking up your tickets from kiosks located inside the theaters.

From Movie Critic Chris Vognar:

I will be studying at Harvard University on a Nieman Fellowship until June 2009. I still have a few stories filed, which will run in the coming month, but The Dark Knight is my last movie review for a while. As that cuddly Terminator fella once said, I'll be back.

The Dark Knight (A-)

Mamma Mia! (C)

The Wackness (B)

Space Chimps (C)

Alexandra (B+)

If you're having trouble getting a ticket to The Dark Knight (I know a lot of you are), you can at least see his car on Friday. The Batman "Tumbler" car will be at the Cinemark Imax theater (LBJ @ Webb Chapel) from 1-4 p.m. I doubt they'll let anyone drive it, but if it's any consolation, that thing must get horrible gas mileage.

Dallas Morning News Movie Critic Chris Vognar will talk about the summer movie season so far with Christopher Kelly of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Think starts at 1 p.m., and you can listen live on KERA's Web site.

If you're not all Heath-Ledgerd and/or Dark-Knighted out yet, check out this story.

In a nutshell, it says maybe The Dark Knight's Joker isn't the best performance to remember Heath Ledger by.

I haven't seen 'TDK,' but it's going to have to be some kind of wonderful to overshadow 'Brokeback Mountain' as Ledger's best performance in my eyes. What say you?

After months of counting down, The Dark Knight is upon us. Screenings start tonight at midnight, and you can get a sneak peek at Chris Vognar's review. So tell us what you think. Follow the links below or comment here on the blog:

Survey: Grade The Dark Knight

Survey: Who was the best Bruce Wayne/Batman?

Survey: Which Batman film was the best?

Survey: Is The Dark Knight overhyped?

That's the question posed over on the Fitness blog, where they are all over an article that came out in the Scientific American that discusses that question. See what they found out here.

'Golden Army' takes the gold
Hellboy II: The Golden Army earned $34.5 million in its debut, knocking off fellow crime-fighter Hancock from its perch as the nation's top movie. Hellboy II was released by Universal after Sony, who released the original Hellboy, passed. Sony may be wanting a do-over on that one, as the sequel earned $11 million more than the original on opening weekend.

Counting down the days/hours/minutes to the release of The Dark Knight? Me, too. Here's a few things to keep you occupied for now:

Showtimes: Regular theaters

Showtimes: IMAX theaters

More: Summer Movie Guide

Slideshow: From Batman to The Dark Knight

Video: Watch the trailer

Link: Official Web site

Link: Why So Serious?

Survey: Grade The Dark Knight

Survey: Who was the best Bruce Wayne/Batman?

Survey: Which Batman film was the best?

Survey: Is The Dark Knight overhyped?

The July 30 opening of The Rocker will begin a three-week run of movies opening on Wednesday, a trend in movie exhibition that is starting to get on my nerves. In the past, the non-Friday opening was reserved for a couple of special occasions, namely for movies opening around holidays (Christmas, Fourth of July, etc.) that didn't fall on a Friday. But now it seems as if any ol' movie can move up its opening by a few days and give the impression that it is somehow "important."

The Dallas Video Festival is experimenting with its format for its 21st edition, going with two series instead of its traditional four-day run.
The first series, called The Program, will feature video art and begin July 26. It continues for five consecutive Saturday evenings (times vary) at Conduit Gallery, 1626 Hi Line Drive.
The formal festival will run Oct. 3-5 at the Angelika Film Center at Mockingbird Station (5321 E. Mockingbird Lane) and will show the usual wide assortment of video programming from around the world that the festival is known for.
For more information, go to www.videofest.org.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (C)

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D (B)

Gunnin' For That #1 Spot (B+)

War, Inc. (C+)

Bloodline (C-)

Meet Dave

3-D is having a moment. Yup, it's come a long way from the floppy cardboard and red-and-blue plastic you might remember from Jaws 3-D. With better technology -- and much cooler glasses -- 3-D is making a comeback.

I saw U2 3D earlier this year, and it was definitely worth it. Yeah, I would have enjoyed the movie either way, but I was definitely impressed by the technology. And while I didn't exactly feel like I was at the concert, there were moments I leaned to see around a head in front of me -- a head that wasn't actually in the theater.

What do you think about this resurgence? Will you chose Journey to the Center of the Earth's multi-dimensional version over the flat-screened variety? Does it add to the movie experience, or is it merely a gimmick to put more bodies in theater seats?

Summer's superhero
If it's the 4th of July weekend, it must be Will Smith on top. Hancock, the story of a hard-drinking, cantankerous superhero, topped the weekend with $66 million, marking the fifth time that Mr. Smith has opened a movie at No. 1 over the holiday weekend. Hancock earned $107 million from its July 1 opening to Sunday.

/film reports that many theaters are offering 6 a.m. screenings to meet the demand for next week's The Dark Knight. So far, it looks like that won't be the case here, but who knows? Wired reported on June 27 that the film was already selling out in advance sales.

Would you go see The Dark Knight at 6 a.m.? Is there ANY movie you'd see at 6 a.m.? Staying up until midnight is one thing, but waking up that early is another.

Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips says that The Dark Knight (opening July 18) is a sure thing:

The new Batman picture...will be the biggest of the summer, the biggest of the year and one of the pop cinematic phenoms of the new century. Even if it wasn't very good, it'd be big. But it's very good. It's potent blockbuster filmmaking -- grander and more unsettling than director Christopher Nolan's previous entry in the franchise, Batman Begins.

Phillips also calls Christian Bale's co-star, the late Heath Ledger, "a marvel, a one-man insane clown posse." Yikes! I can't wait. Count me as one who will definitely be in line for this film.

The Rocker, starring Rainn Wilson of The Office fame, will have a sneak preview on Wednesday (July 9) at 7:30 p.m. at AMC NorthPark. Mr. Wilson, who plays a washed-up drummer from an '80s hair band in the movie, will take part in a Q&A session with the audience after the screening.

To try to get into the screening--it's first-come, first-served--you'd need to add the Sonic Red profile to your MySpace page, print out the page and bring it to the theater. Organizers recommend arriving early. (Dallasites love their early screenings.) More info here. Dallas is "City 3."

Midsummer movie report

Summer movie guide

Opening this week:

Hancock (B)

Brick Lane (B-)

Gonzo: The Life And Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (B)

The Animation Show 4 (B+)

If you weren't geeked out enough about Hellboy next week, here's a little something to tide you over (for a whole 20 seconds):

Not enough? Understandable. Apple.com/trailers has lots more goodies to help you waste time before the three-day weekend.

With Hancock out this week, it got me thinking about who are the top performers when it comes to having both recording and acting careers. Admittedly, it's pretty subjective, but I think Will Smith may be the top dual threat performer of all time. His movies have grossed more than a billion dollars and he's been nominated for two Oscars; on the music side, he was awarded the first-ever rap Grammy and he's had several No. 1 hit singles.
That being said, I don't think it's a slam dunk. Here are the other four performers who I would consider to be in the top five. I'm sure that I am forgetting someone, so I am relying on you all to serve me up good
-- Frank Sinatra: The music side needs no discussion as he's maybe the most famous and loved crooner in American history. But he was no slouch on the big screen either, as he was nominated for best Oscar for The Man With the Golden Arm and he won the supporting actor award for From Here to Eternity.
-- Barbra Streisand: She may be Sinatra's female counterpart when it comes to music. On the movies front, she has been nominated for five Oscars, winning the best actress award for Funny Girl and for a song in the film A Star is Born. She also gave memorable performances in The Prince of Tides and The Way We Were.
-- Cher: Between her solo career and her duo with Sonny Bono, she's sold more than 275 million records worldwide and is resposible for the biggest selling dance single ever, "Believe". She won an Oscar and Golden Globe for Moonstruck and she picked up another GG for Silkwood, for which she was also Oscar-nominated.
-- Bette Midler: She's got a pair of Oscar nominations (For the Boys and The Rose) and four Grammies to show for her storried career (and a Tony to boot).
So there's the list. I also considered Elvis, but his movies were really more vehicles for him designed to sell more records. Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Lopez, Queen Latifah and Jennifer Hudson also crossed my mind, but they all still have a ways to go to match this bunch. So, again I ask, who am I missing?

It's time to explain my recent spotty performance in the blogosphere, and perhaps hope that anyone noticed. You see, Ive come down with a bad case of what the kids used to call Senioritis. Except I'm not about to leave school. I'm going back.

From Hollywood Reporter:

Christopher Guest is joining Fox's sequel to Night at the Museum.

The Spinal Tap star will play Ivan the Terrible for the comedy adventure, officially titled Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

Also joining the cast are Jon Bernthal (Al Capone), Bill Hader (Gen. George Armstrong Custer) and French actor Alain Chabat (Napoleon).

The film, directed by Shawn Levy, reunites lead Ben Stiller with castmates Robin Williams, Ricky Gervais and Owen Wilson.

Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, who penned both "Museum" films, will make a cameo in the sequel, playing the Wright brothers.

Museum was a box office success for Fox, grossing $574 million worldwide. With the Smithsonian as the centerpiece, the studio and Levy kicked the current production up a notch by getting the rare chance to film portions of the movie in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.

Dynamic duo
Wall-E is short on dialogue, but its $63 million opening weekend spoke volumes about audience demand for high-quality animation. The Pixar gem combined with Wanted, which impressed with $50.9 million, to mark the first time that two movies each earned more than $50 million since Memorial Day weekend last year, when Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Shrek the Third turned the trick.