Movie Cricket

Four movies opening in Utah today — including the season's loudest blockbuster, and the year's best and worst comedies.

The blockbuster, of course, is the heavily hyped "2012," in which director Roland Emmerich tries to top his previous end-of-the-world epics ("Independence Day," "Godzilla," "The Day After Tomorrow") by systematically destroying all of planet Earth in one go. Along the way, he throws a slew of thinly drawn characters — played by a cast that includes John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, George Segal and President Danny Glover — into a rollercoaster of computer-animated effects and disaster-movie cliches.

With seven weeks left in 2009, it feels safe to call "Pirate Radio" the best comedy of the year. Director-writer Richard Curtis ("Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill," "Love, Actually") creates a joyously funny ensemble in this story of a renegade radio station broadcasting rock music to beat-starved Britain in 1966 — when the BBC didn't play any rock music, even though the UK then was giving the world The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who and so much more. The ensemble cast includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans and Nick Frost ("Shaun of the Dead"), but the standout is Bill Nighy as the station's dotty owner.

The worst comedy is, thankfully, only playing at three Carmike theaters (Carmike 12 in West Jordan, Ritz 15 in West Valley City, and Wynnsong 12 in Provo). "Play the Game" is a shoddy sitcom-like romance about a smooth ladies' man (Paul Campbell, from "National Lampoon's Bag Boy") who teaches his pickup tips to his grandpa (Andy Griffith) — who soon becomes the stud of the retirement home. Watching an icon like Griffith try to wring laughs from this awful material is a painful experience.

The only art-house entry this week is "The Yes Men Fix the World," a funny if one-sided documentary about the activist pranksters who play tricks on corporations in the name of social justice. (Go to tonight's 7:25 screening at the Broadway Centre Cinemas, 111 E. 300 South, Salt Lake City — one of the Yes Men, Andy Bichlbaum, will give a post-show Q-and-A with local activist Tim DeChristopher. After the screening, Bichlbaum, DeChristopher, author/activist Terry Tempest Williams, KRCL's Troy Williams and attorney Pat Shea will lead an activism workshop at the coffee shop Toasters, 30 E. 300 South, Salt Lake City.) Read an interview with Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum here.