Features & Columns

Best Summer Movie Deal Anything that's free—as in the free outdoor film series scheduled in various San Jose downtown locations and in Redwood City's Old Courthouse Square. Favorites include: Raiders of the Lost Ark (June 9, Starlight Cinemas, San Jose; July 1 Redwood City); An American in Paris (July 21 San Jose; July 22, Redwood City). (See page 33 for full schedules.)

Best Commando Team Movie This is the summer's most crowded field, with MacGruber (May 21) beating out May 27's Sex and the City 2 (A-Team of patriotic cougars heads to Dubai to swive the Arabs into docility). Or July 9's Predators (A-Team of killers vs. crab-faced aliens). Or July 16's Inception (more Dream Team than A-Team). Or June 11's The A-Team (June 11) (an A-Team movie about the actual A Team). Or Aug 13's The Expendables (Sylvester Stallone directing Schwarzenegger, Lundgren and Rourke in what could, will and shall be called The AARP Team).

I predict that MacGruber vanquishes the field: Will Forte stars as the world's toughest action man in the extended version of the sketch on SNL; the choice is fortified with our own desire to watch Kristin Wiig do anything: wash dishes, repair a head gasket, whatever, we're good.

Best Movie About Adultery The Kids Are AlL right (July 16) In return for being faithful husbands and wives, our cinema really should reward us with movies about what might happen if we ever yield to temptation. Hence Lisa Chodolenko's mean and funny story of an L.A. lesbian couple (Julianne Moore and Annette Bening) with a grown daughter (Mia Wasikowska), an adolescent son and a very dead bed. The arrival of the anonymous sperm donor who helped create the household (the affable Mark Ruffalo) kicks off turmoil all around. Cholodenko (High Art and much HBO work) brings what you might call the HBO spirit—the view of marriage as something that survives infidelities instead of succumbing to them. Moore (wonderfully earthy and sneaky) has a speech about what it takes to keep a marriage that's as honest as it is comically bleak.

Most Backlash-Prone Movie The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (June 30). Bella Swan (Kristin Stewart) prevaricates over her supernatural fanged beau. This one takes no exception to the rule that the funniest line will always be in the trailer: "I'm going to fight for you—until your heart stops beating" is to be quoted and giggled over until Labor Day.

Best Chance at Romance Knight and Day (June 25) Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz attempt to retrieve the zen of the action-adventure spy movie of the 1960s.

Most Worthwhile Remake June 25's The Killer Inside Me. Another crowded field, but Michael Winterbottom's new take on Jim Thompson looks much better than The Karate Kid with Jackie Chan (June 11) and certainly The Last Airbender (July 2), written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The Killer Inside Me is a seriously faithful set-in-the-1950s version of the Thompson pulp classic; Casey Affleck stars as the soft-spoken Texas deputy whom everyone takes for a fool, until he learns them better. Strange feeling, to actually be looking forward to a Winterbottom movie for once.

Best Alternative to Summer Movie Burnout Winter's Bone (June 18) is a tough, frosty Little Red Riding Hood story in which there's nothing but wolves. Jennifer Lawrence stars as an Ozark girl in search of her no-good, meth-cooking father, who pawned the family spread in exchange for bail. It's going to be this summer's best escape from escapism.

Best Way to Tell the Difference Between 'Eat Pray Love' (Aug 13) and 'Predators' (July 9) Julia Roberts eats, prays and loves; Predators love to eat their prey. The former stars Roberts in the film version of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir of traveling from Italy to India to Indonesia (yes, the key letter is "I"). In Predators, a group of savage alien sportsman hunt the beast called man on a hell planet even worse than earth. We're counting on our readers to make the mature choice. See you at the alien movie.

Best Baffler Inception (July 16). Viewing the Escher-like cities and floating humans, audiences gape wonderingly at the preview of the new Christopher Nolan. We have it on the authority of Nolan (per his appearance at Wonder Con) that this is merely a heist movie with a bit of futuristic technology included. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the head of a team of thieves who crack exceptionally well-guarded vaults: the vaults in question being the subconsciouses of their sleeping victims. Nolan made a minor movie about a caped vigilante chasing a scar-faced horror clown, but forecasting this film's take vis-à-vis The Dark Knight is a task for those who enjoy counting other people's money. No other film this summer should offer such delightful bafflement. Runner Up: The Adjustment Bureau (July 30) with Matt Damon, based on a 1954 Philip K. Dick short story concerning interdimensional border troubles.

Best Monster Movie Vincenzo Natali's Splice (June 4) mixes the DNA of Cronenberg's pervy yet icy Canadian dismay with Guillermo del Toro's rich paganism. It's the story of a gene-splicing experiment gone wrong . Much deadpan fun as the bald creature develops—she's so advanced for her age, a monster of Aubrey Beardsley–worthy insinuation. Trying to outwit it, Sarah Polley is the most winning embodiment of redheaded geek chick you'll see this summer.

Best Corporate Fat Cat The now obese Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) from Shrek Forever After (May 21) gets the nod over the title feline in July 30's Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. Should animals star in Bond parodies? Isn't that what PETA was formed to stop?

Best Art-House Options Tie: Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (June 18) and I Am Love (June 25); the former being the true story of the liaison between the smell-maker and the noise-maker, with Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen flaring their nostrils in each other's general direction; the latter, a glamorous Milan drama with Tilda Swinton involved in the ruin of a well-off family.

San Jose: The Great Outdoors

Starlight Cinemas, Wednesdays at sundown, June 9–Aug. 25, free; various San Jose locations.

June 9 San Pedro Square: Raiders of the Lost Ark plus live improv by ComedySportz.

June 16 Post Street: It Happened One Night plus live jazz.

June 23 SoFA District: This Is Spinal Tap plus live music.

July 14 San Pedro Square: Batman plus a comic-book swap and costume contest.

July 21 Post Street: An American in Paris plus dance lessons from Burn the Street.

July 28 SoFA District: Rocky Horror Picture Show plus Bawdy Caste and audience participation.

Aug. 11 San Pedro Square: The Goonies plus short film from Cinequest Adobe Youth Voices.

Aug. 18 Post Street: Creature From the Black Lagoon in 3-D plus mass musical chairs.

Aug. 25 SoFA District: Zombieland plus Zombie-O-Rama parade and zombie crawl.

Redwood City Movies on the Square

Thursdays at sundown, June 24–Sept. 9, free; Courthouse Square, Redwood City.

June 24 The Wizard of Oz

July 1 Raiders of the Lost Ark

July 8 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

July 15 The Blind Side

July 22 An American in Paris

July 29 Meet the Fockers

Aug. 5 Ghost

Aug. 12 Star Trek

Aug. 19 Up

Aug. 26 Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Sept. 2 The Music Man

Sept. 9 Jaws