Summer movie preview
Fighting forces, both male and machine, dominate a slimmed-down summer scene
Seth Rogen isn't all that's getting smaller in Hollywood. The summer movie season has lost some weight, too. There are fewer movies in 2009 than a year ago - 16 percent fewer. (Thanks, economic recession.) If ballooning attendance trends hold though, a skinnier summer will be just as lucrative as the super-sized summers of yore. Who knows, maybe fewer movies will mean better ones.
It's still the usual guns 'n' ammo show. But some of the show has been directed by men (and, sadly, pretty much only men) who know what they're doing. Michael Mann uses digital video to show us Johnny Depp as the gangster John Dillinger ("Public Enemies"). Quentin Tarantino sics Brad Pitt's mustache on the Nazis ("Inglourious Basterds"). And Tony Scott remakes "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3" with Denzel Washington and John Travolta. For each of those stand-alone movies there's a franchise offering - a "Terminator" sequel, another "Transformers" movie, and the first in what Paramount surely prays will be many summers spent with "Star Trek" and "G.I. Joe."
Following "Borat," Sacha Baron Cohen looses himself again on America in "Bruno," playing the eponymous gay fashion reporter. Judd Apatow takes a break from being the most referenced force in comedy to direct "Funny People," a love story (of sorts) between Rogen and Adam Sandler. And Woody Allen gives us "Whatever Works," starring Larry David, who's basically Allen marinated in bile.
Boys will also get to play with Will Ferrell in a movie version of "Land of the Lost," then Jack Black and Michael Cera as cavemen in "Year One." Ladies will - well, they'll get to watch the boys watch "Year One." For what it's worth, Sandra Bullock and Katherine Heigl will show up in romantic comedies, because movie executives still haven't figured out what to do with women from May to September (let alone the rest of the year). There is Nia Vardalos heading to Greece in "My Life in Ruins." No word yet on whether she'll be doing ABBA. Odds of a "Mamma Mia Wears Prada" seem slim, regardless. But come August, Meryl Streep does return, with Amy Adams, as Julia Child in Nora Ephron's "Julie and Julia." How did Streep become summer's surest thing? The blockbuster ceiling seems to apply to every woman but her.
Here's our guide to the next four months in movies.
