5. Snakes on a Plane ­ Maybe this one isn’t that much of a surprise, except that I ended up having a lot more fun watching this movie than I thought I would. It took everything that I loved about really bad horror movies, but it made sure you knew that it was there laughing right along with you, as everything happens according to formula. It has great laughs and plenty of scares, and it’s really a shame that more people weren’t willing to give this a chance. It just won’t be the same experience on DVD or cable.

6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ­ The sequel to one of my favorite movies of the last ten years wasn’t bad and it had a lot of fun and entertaining moments, but there were still the moments that dragged or took things a bit over the top, particularly Keira Knightley, who was a nobody when she appeared in the first movie. Still, Johnny Depp was hilarious as Captain Jack Sparrow and Gore Verbinski took the effects even further, making it the most worthy $400 million grossing movie ever.

7. The Devil Wears Prada - Fine, so I’m a big old girly man for ranking this so high (and above Kevin Smith/Broken Lizards, too), but I really enjoyed this movie, not so much for the way overrated performance by Meryl Streep, but because I really have started to love Anne Hathaway in an inappropriate way and she was just great in this, as was Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, both of whom offered so many great laughs that it was easy to forgive the predictable romantic comedy formula.

8. Clerks II and Beerfest ­ This is my column so I’ll cheat if I want to. These were two of the funniest comedies I’ve seen this summer, and I found myself laughing at their raunchy low-brow R-rated humor despite trying my best not to. Both movies also showed a certain amount of growth in their respective filmmakers, Kevin Smith and Broken Lizard, even both of them still never found much of an audience outside of their normal frathouse crowd.

9. Superman Returns ­ I hoped that this movie would end up higher on my list, because it was obviously such a labor of love for Bryan Singer. The movie really looked great, and I didn’t have the problems with Routh and Bosworth that so many others did. I especially loved Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor and I wanted to lick the screen every time Parker Posey was on it (I know, too much info), but for the most part, it was a lot of great moments that didn’t really come together into a great movie. Then again, this was one of the movies I had hoped to see again this summer and didn’t get a chance to.

10. Lady in the Water ­ I’m probably an anomaly with this one, and it’s weird that I liked it considering how much I hated M. Night’s earlier movies, but I think I kind of got what he was trying to say and do with this one and didn’t let all “that other stuff” detract from my enjoyment. I’m in the middle of reading the Bamberger book, and frankly, I think that it never should have been released so close to the movie’s release because I think it’s more damaging than anything that actually made it into a movie that gets more magical every time I see it.

Well, that’s it for this summer. Hopefully, you were able to catch some of the movies above, and if you already did, I hope you liked them as much or more than I did.

THE CHOSEN ONE:

THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED (IFC Films)
Starring Kirby Dick, John Waters, Kevin Smith, Kimberly Peirce, Atom Egoyan, Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Kevin Smith
Written and directed by Kirby Dick (Twist of Fate, Derrida, Chain Camera, Sick: the Life and Death of Bob Flanagan) and Eddie Schmidt
Genre: Documentary
STILL NOT RATED!
Tagline: “censorship, uncensored”
Story: Filmmaker Kirby Dick decided to look into the MPAA and its ratings system to try to figure out how it works and who were these people deciding which movies should get the dreaded NC-17 rating.
INTERVIEW WITH KIRBY DICK
REVIEW

This week, I could have just as easily chosen Riding Alone for One Thousand Miles, a wonderful drama from the Chinese master Zhang Yimou, but it seemed like this new documentary from Kirby Dick, the man behind the religious Oscar nominated doc Twist of Faith, was far more an important film to discuss, at least in terms of what is going on in the movie business these days. After all, I’ve often complained about how it seems like studios get away with murder when it comes to their MPAA ratings, getting PG-13 for movies that have adult content, and some great independent movies are often missed, because they were given an NC-17 rating. This Film is Not Yet Rated looks into how the MPAA system works (or doesn’t work, depending on how you look at it), part of Dick’s M.O. being to hire a private investigator to find out who exactly are the people rating the movies. That investigation is interspersed with interviews with some of the filmmakers who were stuck with the dreaded “symbol of death” like John Waters, Atom Egoyan, Kimberly Pierce (Boys Don’t Cry) and Jamie Babbitt (But I’m a Cheerleader) and historical evidence that shows how they may have been unfairly censored due to the homosexual nature of the sex scenes in their movies. It’s the kind of movie that really makes you think about how hard and unfair the movie industry really is for an independent filmmaker without major studio backing. The documentary opens in New York and L.A. this Friday.

NEW THIS WEEK:

This looks like the week of the writer/director…every single movie this week is directed by the film’s writer.

THE WICKER MAN (Warner Bros.)
Starring Nicolas Cage, Leelee Sobieski, Ellen Burstyn, Molly Parker, Frances Conroy, Christa Campbell, Aaron Eckhart
Written and directed by Neil LaBute (Our Friends & Neighbors, In the Company of Men, Nurse Betty, Possession, The Shape of Things)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rated PG-13 (for yeah, we probably won’t be seeing any nude women singing and dancing in this one. Nerts.)
Tagline: “Some Sacrifices Must Be Made” (like critics’ Friday morning to see this if they want to review it)
Story: Police officer Edward Mallus (Nicolas Cage) investigating the disappearance of a young girl, ends up on Summerisle, a mysterious and secluded community that teaches and practices pagan beliefs and rituals. (Spoiler: One of them involves the “wicker man” of the title, and if you don’t know what that is then you probably haven’t seen the original movie… or been to Arizona.) Mini-Review: There's no better proof that the road to pointless remakes are paved with good intentions than this collaboration between Nicolas Cage and playwright Neil LaBute, which diverges far enough from the original to be its own unique thing, but also spends too much time watching Cage investigate this strange island and interrogating its women to be little more than a boring snoozefest. The movie certainly looks good and LaBute's script and cast is solid, but there's only so far they can go with the premise of an island run by women--the bee metaphor is just way too obvious--and even the new dynamics introduced by making a connection between Cage and the missing girl aren't enough to make you care. If you've already seen the original, you know where it's all leading and don't have to necessarily sit through a different take; if you haven't seen the original, it's not really worth sitting through 90 minutes of Nicolas Cage to get to the twist ending. As much as I hate to say it, this really could have used a few musical numbers and more cavorting naked women. Rating: 5/10

In 1973, Anthony Schaffer adapted his own novel, The Wicker Man, about a devout Catholic police detective who comes to an island off the coast of Scotland to investigate the disappearance of a little girl only to discover a strange pagan society not ready to reveal their unconventional customs to the outside world. Starring Edward Woodward, who would go onto become “The Equalizer,” the movie was only significant in being a very strange and freaky movie that capitalized on the era of drugs and free love, and was best remembered for the climactic final scene. (You can read a thorough history of the film and the problems that plagued it here.)

It wasn’t the greatest or most influential movie ever made, but it did become a bit of a cult classic on video, mostly due to an outlandish performance by horror veteran Christopher Lee, which could have been the precursor for him getting the role of Lord Saruman in the Lord of the Rings movies. It also paved the way for every pretentious religious outcast who chose to live a pagan lifestyle, influencing the prominent alternate arts festival Burning Man which draws over 30,000 people to the Nevada desert every Labor Day weekend. (In the last few years, Scotland has responded with its own Wicker Man alternative music festival, which reprises the film’s climactic finale.)

Fast forward 25 years later and one of the fans of the movie is actor Nicolas Cage, who used to watch it with his good friend, the late guitarist Johnny Ramone, and he decided to get the rights to produce a remake, bringing on board playwright and filmmaker Neil LaBute to adapt Schaffer’s original novel. Considering how strange the original movie was--it wasn’t so much horror as a psychological musical thriller featuring odd customs and dancing naked women--it seems like an odd choice, building upon the already eclectic career choices by Cage. (Cage’s career was discussed at length in the Aug. 11 column.)

This remake has been in the works for a long time, maybe because adapting Schaffer’s novel for a modern audience would be a difficult task even for the most accomplished of filmmakers, but it’s finally coming out at a time when horror remakes are at their height following successful remakes of movies like The Omen and When a Stranger Calls. Like The Omen and countless other recent thriller, the trailers feature a creepy kids, which makes it look a bit more like the 2000 horror dud Bless the Child. The original movie is a bit of a cult phenomenon, but it doesn’t really have the mainstream crossover appeal of movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Dawn of the Dead.

The cool thing about having Neil LaBute at the helm is that Cage was able to get a much better cast than he might have otherwise. Instead of Christopher Lee, we get another horror movie veteran, Ellen Burstyn, whose prominent career has included six Oscar nominations and a win for Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Still, her most famous role is as Linda Blair’s mother in the horror classic The Exorcist, which came out the same year as The Wicker Man. This remake marks a return for the actress, who has been laying low since garnering an Oscar nomination for her performance in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, only resurfacing for 2002’s The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and other small roles. She follows Mia Farrow, another ‘70s horror veteran, into the world of modern horror remakes, Farrow having starred in the recent remake of The Omen. The movie also marks the return to screens of Leelee Sobieski, who really hasn’t done many movies since her back-to-back 2001 thrillers Joy Ride and The Glass House, neither which did particularly well. The remake also stars Canadian actress Molly Parker, best known for her role on HBO’s “Deadwood” and Frances Conroy, the Emmy winning actress from HBO’s “Six Feet Under.” (Parker also appears in next week’s Hollywoodland.)

While the original movie is more of a psychological thriller, this is being marketed by Warner Bros. as a horror film, and though the primary audience will likely be the 30 plus year-old audience who may remember the original, its PG-13 rating should help bring in the teen audience looking for scares this weekend, as well. For the most part, the people who go to see will be fans of Cage first and horror second, although the movie’s religious themes might put church-going folk off more than the remake of The Omen.

Like way too movies this year, The Wicker Man is not getting press screenings--the first movie from Warner Bros. this year to not be pre-screened--assuming that familiarity with the original and the trailers will be enough to get people in to see the movie. More likely, the movie is a disaster that Warner Bros. is dumping over Labor Day weekend knowing that this remake might be received as poorly by critics as The Omen, but hoping that the holiday weekend can help it make some money before divebombing next week. The similarities in the movie’s title to the 2004 remake Wicker Park, a Josh Hartnett thriller that also opened over Labor Day without press screenings, isn’t very promising.

Why I Should See It: Should be interesting to see what Neil LaBute and Nicolas Cage do to modernize the very strange ‘70s thriller.
Why Not: Really, is there any way this can possibly be good considering how odd the original movie is?
Projection: $12 to 14 million over the four-day weekend (struggling for #1 against Invincible); $30 million total.

CRANK (Lionsgate)
Starring Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Efran Ramirez, Jose Cantillo, Jay Xcala, Carlos Sanz, Keone Young
Written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (debut)
Genre: Action, Drama, Thriller
Rated R (for lots of sex, violence, drugs and swearing…woo!)
Tagline: “Was uns nicht umbringt, macht uns stark.” (German for “What does not kill us, makes us stronger”--ironically, the credo of the film critic.)
Story: Hitman Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) wakes up one morning to find out that he’s been injected with a deadly Asian poison that will stop his heart unless he keeps moving and keeps his adrenaline pumping.
REVIEW (Coming Soon!)

At a time when big budget action movies aren’t doing as much business as they used to, along comes this unique attempt to make a straight-ahead action movie that quite literally ups the adrenaline and the ante by ignoring exposition and character development in favor of non-stop action from beginning to end. For commercial directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, it was a chance to take an original idea they came up with years ago and follow-through to turn it into an action movie that crosses the classic film D.O.A. with a movie like Speed. Making the movie took them all over and above Los Angeles with its hero f*cking, killing and doing tons of drugs to try to stay alive. Sounds like pure cinema magic.

Probably the biggest and maybe only selling point for the movie will the be the fact that it stars British actor Jason Statham, putting him in another action movie just a year after his hit Transporter 2 topped the box office over Labor Day weekend. (See Star Spotlight and This Weekend… below.)

Statham’s lovely co-star is Amy Smart, the blonde who played a large part in various traveling comedies from Road Trip to Rat Race, though this is a decidedly different type of movie than those other ones. Smart’s last movie was Just Friends with Ryan Reynolds, and before that, she had a memorable role as Ashton Kutcher’s girlfriend in the 2004 sci-fi thriller The Butterfly Effect. She’s yet to prove herself as a box office star, but it’s doubtful that the guys interested in this movie will mind seeing her in it. Crank also stars Efran Ramirez, best known as Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite, in a decidedly different role.

Unlike the Transporter movies, this movie is rated-R, and that’s a hard R with lots of sex and drugs that will limit the movie to older teens, and put off older audiences and women, who might see the movie’s violent nature to be somewhat misogynistic. That just leaves guys from 15 to 25, many of whom may want to stay home playing video games rather than watching a movie that looks like a video game.

This is an unknown quantity with a vague title, and Lionsgate might have waited too long to get word around, first starting to promote it at San Diego Comic-Con a few months ago. The company certainly has done a good job getting guys interested in their movies, and it’s likely that the target audience will be more interested in this than the other two movies. ies. To further entice them into theatres, Lionsgate announced they would include a clip from Saw III before the movie, which would have been enoughto get some of the younger horror-action fans away from Nicolas Cage’s The Wicker Man, but then they couldn't include it because of MPAA restrictions, so Lionsgate is back to square one on this movie.

Why I Should See It: Jason Statham doing another balls-to-the-wall action movie with the super-sexy Amy Smart along for the ride.
Why Not: The movie will be too frenetic for older audiences, especially those who have pacemakers.
Projection: $9 to 11 million over the four-day weekend; $22 million total

CROSSOVER (Sony/Tristar Pictures)
Starring Anthony Mackie, Wesley Jonathan, Wayne Brady, Kristen Wilson, Lil' J.J., Phillip "Hot Sauce" Champion, Eva Pigford, Alecia Fears
Written and directed by Preston A. Whitmore II (The Walking Dead, writer of Fled, Lockdown and Civil Brand)
Genre: Drama, Sports
Rated PG-13 (for light trash-talking which doesn’t involve anyone’s mother)
Tagline: “Play by your own rules.”
Story: Two street ball players, Tech (Anthony Mackie) and Cruise (Wesley Jonathan) get involved in the high stakes world of professional street ball due to a hustling bookie (Wayne Brady), but their dreams of going to L.A. might
Mini-Review: Anyone going into this movie expecting wall-to-wall streetball action is going to be sorely disappointed by how little of the flashy game play actually made it into the movie--a short game at the beginning and another at the end. In the middle, it’s a misguided cliché-filled drama that falls flat due to a terrible script that’s below the standards of actors like Anthony Mackie, whose character isn’t very likeable to begin with, but then gets less so the more things he does that don’t make any sense. The movie probably wouldn’t have been so bad if Whitmore hadn’t filled it up with things to try to make it more “real” to an African-American audience, while alienating others at the same time. Wayne Brady isn’t bad as the primary bad guy, showing off impressive acting skills in the way he acts “street tough” but otherwise, the story is weak, often going off in odd directions that have little to do with the game, and the performances are even weaker. Maybe fans of the game will appreciate it for what it is, but the chances of it actually “crossing over” are nil. Rating: 3/10

In the vein of You Got Served, this new sports drama looks at the world of Streetball, a down ‘n’ dirty version of basketball played on the courts and streets in many major cities, ignoring the rules of regular basketball to allow all sorts of flashy tricks and trash talking among players. Streetball has always been popular in big cities where large crowds gather around public courts to watch the games. In recent years, it has gone legit and become more popular thanks to coverage on ESPN, a couple video games, and the AND 1 Mix Tape tour, a grassroots campaign to expand the game to a wider audience, creating a number of name superstars. Although sports fans, especially those who play ball, probably know about Streetball, it’s not something that has “crossed over” into mainstream audience, although Crossover will probably try to change that, capitalizing on the recent success of basketball movies like Coach Carter and Glory Road and urban films like Love and Basketball and Spike Lee’s He Got Game.

The movie is the story of two Detroit friends forced to deal with their newfound success in the game and having to decide between following their dreams to go pro or to finish school. It’s the second dramatic role in the last month for Anthony Mackie, a hot up ‘n’ coming actor who has appeared in a variety of movies from Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby to Spike Lee’s flop She Hate Me and Jonathan Demme’s The Manchurian Candidate in between. He’s also currently starring with Ryan Gosling in the Sundance favorite Half Nelson and has a role in the upcoming drama Haven opposite Orlando Bloom, which will finally open here after sitting on the shelf for two years. This December, Mackie has an even bigger role in McG’s football drama We Are Marshall. His best friend Cruise is played by Wesley Jonathan, who has appeared in a number of television shows and in last year’s roller-skating movie Roll Bounce.

Then there’s talk show host and former “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” star Wayne Brady, branching into drama by playing the movie’s bad guy, a professional sports bookie who tries to sway the two friends towards a career in pro ball. Brady hasn’t had too many film roles, though he also had a small cameo in Roll Bounce. The cast is rounded out by “America’s Next Top Model” winner Eva Pigford and actual AND 1 Streetball player Phillip “Hot Sauce” Champion as Tech’s main adversary.

Sounds like the movie could find a strong urban audience, especially among fans of the sport, doesn’t it? Well, maybe it would if anyone knew about it, but Sony’s Tristar division really hasn’t done a very good job marketing it. Like Touchstone’s recent surprise hit Step Up, this movie came out of nowhere, being dumped into the Labor Day weekend earlier this summer without much fanfare, and so far, the only real promotion has been commercials and ads in places where fans of the sport might see them. There certainly isn’t the kind of buzz for this movie that has been building over the summer for Step Up thanks to its MySpace dance competition.

The movie is being marketed solely based on its basketball action, which is fairly minimal, something that might be disappointing to fans of the sport who show up to see the movie, and though the sport is popular, this movie looks like it won’t fare that much better than last year’s Supercross: The Movie or 2004’s Grind, movies set in the world of popular spectator sports that failed to find an audience among the sports’ fans.

On top of that, movies targeted towards urban audiences haven’t fared that well over the last two Labor Day weekends. Queen Latifah’s The Cookout only made $6.2 million over the four-day weekend, but it did much better than Nick Cannon’s Underclassman which made half that amount a year later. Crossover might have its niche audience, but it will also be competing for the urban audience with OutKast’s Idlewild, which has gotten a much higher profile release among its built-in audience, and it’s likely to bring more people in over the holiday as they discover the new OutKast album.

Why I Should See It: If you’re a fan of the flashy AND 1 Streetball from playing the video game or watching it on ESPN
Why Not: The lack of actual Streetball playing compared to drama and exposition is going to piss off fans going to see it for the action and trash-talking.
Projection: $3 to 5 million over the four-day weekend; less than $9 million total.

LASSIE (Samuel Goldwyn Films, Roadside Attractions)
Starring Peter O'Toole, Samantha Morton, Peter Dinklage, Lassie, Steve Pemberton, John Lynch, Jemma Redgrave, Gregor Fisher
Written and directed by Charles Sturridge (A Handful of Dust, Where Angels Fear to Tread)
Genre: Family, Adventure
Rated PG (because even Lassie sometimes has a potty mouth)
Tagline: “More than a Hero. A Legend.” (Wow.)
Story: As World War II hits a Yorkshire mining town, a family in poverty sells their dog Lassie (Lassie) to a rich Duke (Peter O'Toole) who takes her 500 miles away to his Scottish castle, but the clever dog finds a way to escape and make the long trip back home to her family in time for Christmas.
Mini-Review: Leave it to the Brits to take back something that was originally theirs before being usurped by Hollywood and reinvent it into something that's so much better than the traditions they're trying to revive. It's the British Invasion all over again! Besides writing a great family-friendly script that takes the story back to the original period and setting, Charles Sturridge got himself a top-notch cast, the best move getting Peter O'Toole to play the Duke, since he's still such a wonderful actor, but even more fun when given a sparring partner in Jemma Redgrave. But make no mistake that the real star is Lassie "herself" and the latest generation of canine sensation is every bit as impressive as her predecessors, both in her stunts and acting.The movie does get a bit silly towards the middle, especially with Peter Dinklage's odd Irish-Slavic accent, but all-in-all, this is a very well-made family film that should find Lassie a whole new appreciation from audiences, both old and young. Rating: 9/10

I’m not sure which is harder to believe, that Lassie the lovable collie is back or that this is British revival is being released by an independent company over the weekend in a rather limited release. It’s certainly a rather mainstream choice for Samuel Goldwyn Films and Roadside Attractions, but maybe they’ve decided to release something that might actually make them money.

That said, some might consider Lassie to be old hat. The first Lassie movie, Lassie Come Home, came out in 1943, leading to four more movies and a popular television series that ran for almost 20 years. The last attempt at making a Lassie movie was over 10 years ago by Paramount Pictures, but that movie ended up making less than $10 million. Of course, this isn’t the same dog that appeared in all those other movies, because there have been 15 generations of the world-famous collie, but it’s harder to fathom that anyone under 30 has even heard of the dog, let alone their kids.

That said, British filmmaker Charles Sturridge has assembled a pretty amazing cast, including Peter O’Toole, who was nominated for seven Academy Awards before being given an honorary one in 2003, and Samantha Morton, who received Oscar nominations for Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown and Jim Sheridan’s In America, and has appeared in a variety of movies including Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report. It also stars the equally talented Peter Dinklage, star of The Station Agent and who stole Elf from Will Ferrell. He plays a circus performer who befriends the dog and accompanies her on her journey.

Parents who remember growing up with Lassie might want to introduce the dog to their kids, but it seems odd to think that this movie might bring in much business when two years ago, they tried to revive Lassie’s successor Benji in Benji: Off the Leash!, a movie that was given a wide release but failed to find much of a new audience, making less than $4 million.

Why I Should See It: You want to introduce your kids to Lassie.
Why Not: Because Benji is so much cuter. (Update: After seeing the movie, I might have to change this opinion.)

STAR SPOTLIGHT: Jason Statham

At the age of 34, London’s Jason Statham has yet to attain the action star status that Stallone and Schwarzenegger had 20 years ago, but he’s doing a lot better than Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal, at least, in that he’s become a recognizable face and accent that people like to see in movies.

That said, it’s only been seven years since Statham made his film debut as Bacon in Guy Ritchie’s groundbreaking Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, before getting a bigger role as Turkish in Ritchie’s follow-up Snatch, which was given a much bigger release in the United States because it starred Brad Pitt.

As Ritchie started getting involved with Madonna, Statham moved onto other things like appearing in John Carpenter’s sci-fi thriller Ghosts of Mars and facing Jet Li in the sci-fi action movie The One. He also reunited with Vinnie Jones in Mean Machine, the Ritchie produced remake of The Longest Yard, replacing American football with British football; it barely made any money in the U.S.

The next major turning point in Statham’s career was when Luc Besson cast him as Frank Martin in his action movie The Transporter, which opened in a busy October weekend in 2002, and managed to do semi-well, finding an even bigger audience on DVD. Statham followed that with an even bigger hit in the 2003 remake of the British crime caper The Italian Job, his character Handsome Rob being very popular among fans of the movie.

In 2004, he played the bad guy in the New Line thriller Cellular, just a month after making a brief cameo in Michael Mann’s Collateral, and then he reunited with Guy Ritchie for his new crime drama Revolver, this time taking the lead, though the movie was lambasted by critics and has yet to find distribution in the United States.

Statham has been branching out a bit in recent years, appearing in the indie drama London with his Cellular co-stars Chris Evans and Jessica Biel and even making a cameo as a soccer star in The Pink Panther earlier this year. His latest movie Crank returns him to familiar action theory, as once again he finds himself in a race against time to find an antidote, much like he was in Transporter 2. Next up for Statham is a reunion with Jet Li for another Lionsgate movie, Rogue, and a rather worrisome role in the next Uwe Boll masterpiece, In the Name of the King, based on the Dungeon Siege video game.