Planetarium - politics/music/culture/smarts

As always, Friday can't come soon enough, and there's a startlingly large glut of new films being released tomorrow, trying to get enough of the summertime movie-going magic to earn serious cash. And while maybe one or two of them might, it's nevertheless fun to keep track of these things, in much the same way a gambling addict keeps his eyes locked to the horses on the raceway. Which is interesting, considering the special loathing Planetarium holds in our hearts for most of Hollywood.

First up is the man you either refer to as "M. Night Shyamalan" or "that fucking hack", depending on your response to his films. While The Village appears to at least offer a rather unique and impressive story for a genre film, early word on the flick has been something less than, shall we say, good. I see dead box office! Except that not really. Unless it's as bad as we hear, this movie's gonna be a megahit. Next up is the Manchurian Candidate, which, contrary to the assumed forecast, is actually supposed to be pretty damn good. Just because Jonathan Demme's last few have been a couple of clunkers (The Truth About Charlie, anyone?) doesn't at all tell us that the man responsible for The Silence of the Lambs can't make a good movie. The thing is- the first version with Sinatra is one of Planetarium's favorite movies of all time, so this had better be really good. And while we're on the subject: damn, Denzel, take a fucking vacation!

After the big boys, we've got a movie that Planetarium is all a-tingle to see- Zach Braff's directorial debut, Garden State. This movie has kicked all kinds of ass on the festival circuit, including Sundance, and just judging by the trailer, appears the most likely of the weekend films to have the potential for greatness. Call it an unpretentious Lost in Translation. Another movie coming out this weekend is Thunderbirds, which looks to be directly marketed to kids, looks to be a remake of a great TV show without the best parts (puppets), and looks to royally suck to high heaven. So that's that. Go see something this weekend, as it's the beginning of the dog days of August, the best time, in our humble opinion, to see movies on the big screen. Oh, wait, there's one more film coming out this weekend, but we can't remember the name, something about two best friends who get really high and try to get some burgers...we think it's called Harold and Kumar Rape Humanity.