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Hot Bodies and Beached Whales

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JUNE 8

HOSTEL: PART II

Cast: Lauren German, Bijou Phillips, Heather Matarazzo, Roger Bart

Director: Eli Roth

In a decidedly unkempt Slovakian dungeon, three vacationing Americans are flayed, decapitated and generally mistreated by insane rich men with knives. Summer movie fun for the whole family.

OCEAN'S THIRTEEN

Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin

Director: Steven Soderbergh

A band of very pretty people rob a casino. (See review in the main issue.)

SURF'S UP

Voice Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Jon Heder, James Woods, Jeff Bridges

Directors: Ash Brannon, Chris Buck

Yet another penguin movie: A teenage penguin travels from Antarctica to Hawaii for a surfboarding competition. Animated.

JUNE 15

FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER

Cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon

Director: Tim Story

In this sequel to a film that every comic geek saw but few loved, a silver-skinned cool-dude superhero on a surfboard joins forces with the Fab Four against evil Dr. Doom.

FIDO

Cast: Billy Connolly, Carrie-Anne Moss, Dylan Baker, K'Sun Ray

Director: Andrew Currie

In 1950s suburbia, where an invasion of zombies has been thwarted and the flesh eaters turned into household servants, young Timmy's family finally gets a zombie of its own, a benign, wise hulk whom Timmy dubs "Fido."

NANCY DREW

Cast: Emma Roberts, Rachael Leigh Cook, Tate Donovan

Director: Andrew Fleming

The rare summer movie that may appeal to your grandmother, this big-screen adaptation of the young-adult mystery series stars Emma Roberts (daughter of Eric, niece of Julia) as a modern-day version of the plucky 1930s teen sleuth. Give it a chance: Fleming wrote and directed Dick.

JUNE 22

1408

Cast: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Mary McCormack

Director: Mikael Håfström

Stephen King, who knows a thing or two about scary hotels, penned the short story that inspired this thriller about a professional haunted-house debunker (Cusack) who checks into a room many have entered and few have exited.

A MIGHTY HEART

Cast: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, Will Patton, Irrfan Khan

Director: Michael Winterbottom

Angelina Jolie stars as Mariane Pearl, whose best-seller A Mighty Heart detailed her 2002 journey to Pakistan to search for her husband, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and killed by Islamic fundamentalists. Futterman (who wrote Capote) portrays, in flashback, the late Daniel Pearl.

CAPTIVITY

Cast: Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gilles, Pruitt Taylor Vince

Director: Roland Joffé

A fashion model (Cuthbert) and her chauffeur (Gilles) are kidnapped and tortured by one of her fans (Vince). Locked in a tiny room together, model and chauffeur predictably fall in love and unite to defeat their captor. What's unexpected here is the presence behind the camera of Joffé (The Killing Fields, The Mission), who's either slumming for a buck or attempting to elevate torture horror to a higher plain.

DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE

Cast: Jaime Pressly, Holly Valance, Sarah Carter, Natasha Malthe, Devon Aoki

Director: Corey Yuen

Scantily clad beauties fight evildoers in this live-action version of a popular video game.

EVAN ALMIGHTY

Cast: Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman, Lauren Graham

Director: Tom Shadyac

Morgan Freeman returns in what's shaping up to be the first talking deity series since George Burns started yakking to John Denver. In this not-quite-a-sequel variation on the Jim Carrey hit Bruce Almighty, God comes calling on an arrogant newsman, played by Carell.

SEPTEMBER DAWN

Cast: Jon Voight, Trent Ford, Tamara Hope, Terence Stamp

Director: Christopher Cain

A bearded Stamp plays Mormon leader Brigham Young in this dramatization of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, when 120 settlers in the Utah Territory were murdered by a Mormon militia. Sorry about the timing, Mitt.

YOU KILL ME

Cast: Ben Kingsley, Téa Leoni, Luke Wilson, Philip Baker Hall, Bill Pullman

Director: John Dahl

A crime comedy from Red Rock West director Dahl about an alcoholic Polish Mafia hit man (Kingsley) ordered to dry out in San Francisco, where he finds love and a part-time job as a mortician.

JUNE 27

LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD

Cast: Bruce Willis, Timothy Olyphant, Justin Long, Maggie Q.

Director: Len Wiseman

Twelve years and many flops after Die Hard With a Vengeance, Willis returns to the role of maverick cop John McClane.

JUNE 29

DEATH AT A FUNERAL

Cast: Ewen Bremmer, Peter Dinklage, Matthew MacFadyen

Director: Frank Oz

A black comedy about a proper British funeral where the mourning family is slowly coming unhinged, thanks to accidental drug trips, unexpected trysts and the unnerving appearance of the dead patriarch's secret gay lover. Great trailer.

EVENING

Cast: Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Wilson, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close

Director: Lajos Koltai

Novelist Michael Cunningham (The Hours) wrote the screenplay for this star-packed adaptation of Susan Minot's exquisite 1999 novel, in which a dying woman recalls a wedding 40 years earlier at which she fell madly and tragically in love.

RATATOUILLE

Voice Cast: Patton Oswalt, Brian Dennehy, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garofalo

Director: Brad Bird

Pixar Animation and the director of The Incredibles team up to tell the inspiring tale of Paris rat Remy, who dreams of being a master chef in a world that doesn't always respond enthusiastically to a cute rodent in the kitchen.

SICKO

Director: Michael Moore

After taking on the car industry (Roger & Me), the gun industry (Bowling for Columbine) and the war industry (Fahrenheit 9/11), Michael Moore shifts his obsessive gaze to American health care. Hey, insurance companies: Any publicity is good publicity, right?

JULY 4

LICENSE TO WED

Cast: Robin Williams, Mandy Moore, John Krasinski

Director: Ken Kwapis

Sadie (Moore) dreams of marrying her fiancé (Krasinski) at her family's church, but it's booked for the next two years. To score the one open day, the couple must survive a marriage-prep course devised by a most unorthodox pastor, played by Robin Williams.

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