Summer Film Previews

Baadasssss!
STARRING: Mario Van Peebles, Nia Long, David Alan Grier, Ossie Davis
DIRECTOR: Mario Van Peebles
WRITERS: Mario Van Peebles, Dennis Haggerty
PREMISE: Playing his daddy Melvin, Mario dramatizes the trials and tribulations surrounding the production of the 1971 hit Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.
OUTLOOK: Why the five S's? Because the Motion Picture Association of America won't allow the word ass in a title. Wouldn't be a bad idea to release Papa Van Peebles' original movie on deluxe DVD to get the word out. If Mario can sell it to the black youth audience, he'll have a hit.

Coffee and Cigarettes
STARRING: Bill Murray, Tom Waits, Cate Blanchett, Roberto Benigni, the White Stripes
WRITER-DIRECTOR: Jim Jarmusch
PREMISE: A compilation of black-and-white short films made by Jarmusch over the years, all of which involve comic conversations over, yep, the titular caffeine- and nicotine-delivery devices.
OUTLOOK: Is there anyone out there who doesn't want to see Bill Murray play a scene opposite the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA and GZA? Or Steve Buscemi mediating between Cinque and Joie Lee? Iggy Pop and Tom Waits discussing, well, anything? This stuff is cool, people!

Gojira
STARRING: A guy in a monster suit, some Japanese people
DIRECTOR: Ishiro Honda
WRITERS: Ishiro Honda, Shigeru Kayama, Takeo Murata
PREMISE: Formerly trimmed, dubbed and Raymond Burr-ed as Godzilla on these shores, the original Japanese big-critter-stomping-on-Tokyo flick finally hits U.S. theaters uncut and in Japanese, with 40 minutes of footage previously unseen stateside.
OUTLOOK: To quote Harry Knowles: MAN IN SUIT! MAN IN SUIT! MAN IN SUIT! A geekstravaganza.

Time of the Wolf
STARRING: Isabelle Huppert, Beatrice Dalle, Maurice Benichou, Patrice Chereau
WRITER-DIRECTOR: Michael Haneke
PREMISE: A French family finds its country vacation home occupied by strangers with guns. But that ain't the worst of it -- it slowly becomes clear that some unknown cataclysm is gradually causing the End of the World as We Know It.
OUTLOOK: Basically, it's like Signs without the aliens. Could be the first French film parents can take their teenage boys to.

JUNE

Around the World in 80 Days
STARRING: Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan, Cécile de France, Jim Broadbent
DIRECTOR: Frank Coraci
WRITERS: David Goldstein, David Benullo, Michael Weiss and Jules Verne
PREMISE: Chan and Coogan take to the skies in the umpteenth remake of this classic novel.
OUTLOOK: Looks like good, old-fashioned fun -- if any market for such a risk still exists. Coogan (star of British TV hit I'm Alan Partridge) and Chan are both geniuses of their craft, and the stunt casting -- including the Gropenator as a polygamist -- seems amusing.

The Chronicles of Riddick
STARRING: Vin Diesel, Colm Feore, Alexa Davelos, Judi Dench
WRITER-DIRECTOR: David Twohy
PREMISE: That bald brute from the supercool Pitch Black returns to save the universe.
OUTLOOK: Looks like a very heavy-handed allegory for the European Crusades. Dench may be seeing Alec Guinness potential as the mystical guide of the nice-guy Elementals, whom Richard "Dick" B. Riddick (Diesel) assists in battling the probably-not-nice Necromongers, led by Feore. Pitch Black was an Alien knockoff done right, but this may be the beginning of an action trilogy done silly.

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
STARRING: Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Christine Taylor, Rip Torn
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Rawson Marshall Thurber (the short film-commercial "Terry Tate, Office Linebacker")
PREMISE: Another month, another Stiller-in-a-wig movie.
OUTLOOK: Didn't that one episode of South Park already exhaust every possible gag to be wrung from the notion of a dodgeball world championship? Here's a bold prediction: There'll be more than one scene of a man getting hit in the crotch.

Garfield
STARRING: Breckin Meyer, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Steven Tobolowsky, the voice of Bill Murray
DIRECTOR: Peter Hewitt
WRITERS: Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow (the Cheaper by the Dozen remake)
PREMISE: The fat cat popularized in the '80s finally hits the CG big time.
OUTLOOK: Really, think about it: fat, obnoxious comic-strip creature eats and complains constantly, annoys bachelor and dog. This could just as well be the Cathy movie. Director Hewitt previously helmed the heartwarming British comedy Thunderpants, about a kid who farts a lot, which remains mysteriously unreleased on our prim shores.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
STARRING: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Gary Oldman
DIRECTOR: Alfonso Cuarón
WRITER: Steven Kloves, based on the J.K. Rowling book
PREMISE: Boy wizard and friends must confront a scary spellcaster.
OUTLOOK: Probably another strong installment in a high-quality series. Michael Gambon is a good choice to replace woefully departed Richard Harris as Dumbledore. Whether the charm of director Chris Columbus can be replaced by the rough edges of Cuarón (the teen-sex exposé Y tu Mamá También) remains to be seen, but the odds are now greater that Harry and Ron will masturbate together on diving boards at the Hogwarts pool.

Kaena: The Prophecy
STARRING: The voices of Kirsten Dunst, Anjelica Huston, and the late Richard Harris
DIRECTORS: Chris Delaporte, Pascal Pinon
WRITERS: Delaporte, Tarik Hamdine
PREMISE: Kaena (rhymes with hyena) is a teenage girl who lives in a floating forest above the clouds. Defying the elders of her village, she undertakes a perilous journey to discover why the forest is slowly dying.
OUTLOOK: Kaena began life as a video-game concept and evolved into the first fully CG-animated feature from France (dubbed by Hollywood stars on these shores). From a critical standpoint, any kind of animation that isn't Disneyfied, Pixared, or anime-based seems noteworthy. But American audiences tend to gravitate toward the familiar in their 'toons.