Movie Cricket

Only one movie opening today in Utah theaters, as Hollywood got a head start Wednesday with three movies opening then: "Public Enemies," "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" and "Cheri."

The new movie opening today is "Whatever Works," the latest from writer-director Woody Allen. This time, the Allen surrogate is played by writer-turned-TV star Larry David ("Seinfeld," "Curb Your Enthusiasm"), and you would think the pairing would be a goldmine of whining and complaining.

And while there certainly is a lot of whining coming from David's character, Boris Yellnikof, a physicist who the only genius in a New York full of "inchworms and cretins," there's not much funny or inventive in his plight. Evan Rachel Wood plays the gorgeous runaway who Boris takes under his wing, and that kind of May-December relationship in the hands of Allen is just as creepy as you think it is.

Karl Malden was tough, onscreen and off.

The image that first comes to mind when one thinks of Malden, who died Wednesday at the age of 97, is of a rumpled tough cop — the one he played on TV in "The Streets of San Francisco" opposite Michael Douglas in the '70s, or the cop-like pitchman for American Express travelers' checks (with the famous tagline "Don't leave home without it").

But Malden, a former steelworker who turned to acting, showed in some of his signature movie roles  a different kind of tough — the quiet man standing up to the machismo of others.

Think of Malden as Mitch, the nervous suitor of Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) who provides an alternative to the boorish Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando) in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951), for which Malden won an Oscar. Think of him as Father Barry, the crusading priest who stands up to the racketeers in "On the Waterfront" (1954). Think of him as Gen. Omar Bradley, the calm counterpart to the bellicose Gen. George S. Patton (George C. Scott) in "Patton."

(Turner Classic Movies will play a triple-bill of Malden's greatest films — "On the Waterfront," "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "The Birdman of Alcatraz" — on Friday, July 10, starting at 6 p.m. Mountain time.)

With the Fourth of July holiday, Hollywood is getting an early start with three new releases.

The cream of the crop is "Public Enemies," Michael Mann's dynamic, thoughtful and authentic biography of '30s gangster John Dillinger (played charismatically by Johnny Depp, pictured) and his FBI pursuer, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). The set pieces are Mann at his best, but the surprise is the heartfelt performance by Marion Cotillard ("La Vie en Rose") as Dillinger's gal, Billie Frechette.

For the kids, and the poor parents who have to accompany them, there's "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," the unnecessary third installment of the computer-animated franchise. All the characters are back, along with some new ones — which is the problem, because the movie's herd is getting too crowded (an interesting irony, since the characters are all supposed to be on the verge of extinction).

And there's "Cheri," a period romance (adapted from a Colette novel) that reunites four of the principals of "Dangerous Liaisons" — director Stephen Frears, writer Christopher Hampton, star Michelle Pfeiffer and France — but with diminished returns. Pfeiffer, still vivacious at 50, plays a courtesan reaching the end of her career, but having a last fling with a much younger man (Rupert Friend). Pfeiffer's great, but Friend's character is such a drag that you wonder why she's so in love with him.

Reviews for all three appear on the Tribune's Film Finder page. 

The Cricket is taking the day off.

Come back on Wednesday for reviews of three Fourth of July weekend openings: "Public Enemies," "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" and "Cheri."

Is a bad movie that earns $201 million in its opening weekend still a bad movie?

Fanboys would say no, and so would the Hollywood studios who tailor their marketing hype to attract the fanboys. People who get paid to watch movies, like your friendly neighborhood Movie Cricket, still say yes.

As impressive as the box-office haul for "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is, it has little to do with the quality of the movie and everything to do with the marketing campaign.

Paramount, releasing the movie through its DreamWorks arm, promoted the crud out of Michael Bay's explode-a-thon. They staged gala premieres around the world — each one producing red-carpet shots of Megan Fox in thigh-baring dresses. There were cross-promotions with Burger King and M&Ms (among others). And Paramount made commercial buys targeted at all different demographics: funny ones for the kids watching Nickelodeon, loud and rocking ones for the teens tuned into MTV, etc. (and, yes, both Nickelodeon and MTV are owned by Paramount's parent company, Viacom).

So everybody was lured into going to see "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." That doesn't mean everybody liked it. The measure of that will come next weekend, if people go back for a second dose of sensory assault.