Look, I don't want to make it sound like an either/or thing. You can see wide-release films AND art-house indies. I'm just saying that on this particular weekend, the only wide release is something starring Nicolas Cage in a mullet, and it wasn't screened for critics. So if it were an either/or thing, this would be a good time to become an art-house fanatic, and the Indie Spotlight is here to let you know what your options are.
Seven films are opening in limited release today: August Evening, Everybody Wants to Be Italian, Mister Foe, Ping Pong Playa, Save Me, A Secret, and Surfer, Dude. Here's the scoop on each of them.

Everybody Wants to Be Italian
What it is: A romantic comedy about a man and woman who both pretend to be Italian because they think the other is. OK, maybe this doesn't actually sound any better than the Nicolas Cage/mullet thing.
What they're saying: At Rotten Tomatoes, all of the reviews so far are giving it a big ol' kick in the meatballs.
Where it's playing: A few dozen theaters all over New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and ... Salt Lake City? Well, OK.
More info: The official site has a handy list of theaters where it's playing.

Ping Pong Playa
What it is: A light, clean comedy about an Asian-American kid who has to step in when his family's ping pong championship is threatened.
What they're saying: Cinematical's Monika Bartyzel found it simply adorable last year at Toronto, saying it's predictable but charming. The reviews at Rotten Tomatoes are mixed so far -- it's either sweet and likable, or an annoying Napoleon Dynamite retread.
Where it's playing: New York City, plus the California cities of San Francisco, Alhambra, Berkeley, Glendale, Hollywood, Irvine, and San Jose.
More info: The official site has upcoming playdates, too.

As a kid I fell in love with movies mainly for the stories and characters, and every once in a while, maybe some special effects. As I got older, my love affair was renewed when I discovered the Cult of the Director. The Cult of the Director allows one to look at movies in a far more personal way. It's an ongoing game; one can discover long-forgotten works, or piece together old puzzles, but one can also look ahead and guess how a director's career arc will come together. Basically, there are roughly four kinds of directors. The most common is the kind with no personality, and perhaps very little skill, someone like Brian Robbins, the director of Meet Dave (58 screens). Many of these folks eventually disappear without ever making much of a mark. After that, we get the craftsman, someone with lots of skill and talent but still no personality. These guys are the most interesting to talk to; they're unpretentious and tell the best stories. Brad Anderson, the director of Transsiberian (81 screens), is a good example.

Then there's a weird category of directors who have somehow come to popular attention, despite a lack of skill and/or a lack of personality. These can range from moneymakers like Brett Ratner to Oscar winners like Ron Howard. But of course, since we're talking about live human beings here, there's a lot of wiggle room in these categories, and I could probably establish several sub-categories. Not to mention that any director's career can suddenly change course at any point. Yes, even Brett Ratner could suddenly make a good film. (I'm not saying he will, just that he could.) These people manage to stay on top through a lucky combination of subject matter and promotion. Even though films like Brick Lane (31 screens) and Mongol (16 screens) have no skill or personality, they seem like great films because of their stories and packaging.

Isabel Coixet's Elegy (92 screens) is a "disease-of-the-week" movie. I hate "disease-of-the-week" movies, but I really liked Elegy. I also liked Coixet's previous film, My Life Without Me, which was also a "disease-of-the-week" movie. Sarah Polley's beautiful Away from Her from last year was another excellent example. This begs three questions: What is a "disease-of-the-week" movie? Why do I hate them? And what makes Elegy so good? The phrase "disease-of-the-week" was coined to describe a certain type of TV movie some decades ago, which had addicted housewives sniveling and crumbling up tissues at their TV tubes for two hours every seven days. But filmmakers quickly snatched upon the formula as a quick and easy way to weasel their way into film critics' hearts, and probably win an Oscar or two.

Disease is an unfortunate part of life, but it's a part of life that no one likes to think about. What usually happens when we get sick? We avoid going to the doctor! We hope it'll go away. So why do people like these kinds of movies, movies that acknowledge our own mortality and frailty? I think the secret is that the most successful of these movies play up the disease angle, but the real subject is the heroism of the others, the people who are not sick. That way, the disease gets center stage, and some "courageous" actor gets to show off, while the audience gets to identify with the other characters, the ones who stand by their friends and family. The ones who don't give up.

As an opinionated cinephile, Roger Ebert has every right to dislike 3-D movies. And recently, on his blog, Roger Ebert's Journal, he wrote about such disfavor. Basically, in response to accidentally missing the press screening for the new animated 3-D flick Fly Me to the Moon, he admits that, because of a certain prejudice against the format, he likely wouldn't have enjoyed the movie anyway.

My issue here is not to attack Ebert's opinion or his belief that after half a century of dissatisfaction with the format he's never going to change his mind about it. He's free to express both. And while I disagree and am disappointed, I would never claim that Ebert doesn't know what he's talking about. He's certainly smarter about film than I'll ever be, and his opinions are far more respected than my own.

However, Ebert is also one of the most widely read film critics in the world, and therefore he is a pretty influential person when it comes to the subject of movies. And I would hate for moviegoers to dismiss the new wave of 3-D movies simply because of Ebert's stance on the format. So, I merely intend to respond to his opinion with an opinion of my own, as apparently one of the wider read gushers on the topic of digital 3-D.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Safeway and I spotted a cheap DVD, a double-bill of The Fugitive (1993) and U.S. Marshals (1998), and I impulsively bought it. I already owned The Fugitive on laserdisc (that old thing) and had seen it many times, but I hadn't ever seen U.S. Marshals. I know it's supposed to be awful, but the cast of Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Downey Jr. and Wesley Snipes suddenly appealed to me. I decided to re-watch The Fugitive before I settled down to the sequel. I liked it as much as ever; it's a rare example of everything in the Hollywood machine coming together in the right way at the right time and working perfectly. But this time, something new struck me.

Last week I wrote a defense of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (184 screens), which I determined has been judged more by its hype than by the actual content of the film. But I didn't get much of a chance to talk about the film's star, Harrison Ford, who is an integral part of the film's success. I'll be the first to admit that Ford is an exceedingly limited actor. One of his failings is his seeming lack of humor and spontaneity in certain roles, exacerbated by the fact that, in person, he comes across just as humorless (though it could be that he merely mistrusts journalists). But ironically, one of his best attributes he shares with the comic actor Jackie Chan: a reluctance to enter into the action.

Week after week, I focus on the good and/or bad concerning moviegoing and the movie theatre industry. But as passionate as I am about the subjects of this column, I've never really felt strongly enough to label any one person either a hero or a villain to moviegoers. Perhaps the closest I've come to calling someone a hero was when I finally had my first experience with an Alamo Drafthouse cinema. On the other hand, I've certainly wanted to call a lot of people villains, including whoever was responsible for my worst moviegoing experience in years and whoever came up with the awful idea to produce scented pre-show ads.

So, it was by some sort of coincidence that last week actually brought news of both a remarkably heroic moviegoer and a terribly villainous theatre owner. Of course, you're welcome to disagree with me as I celebrate the former and castigate the latter. The interesting thing about these two individuals is that some of you may see my hero as a villain, and vice versa. In fact the law has deemed the former a criminal, and meanwhile tons of moviegoers in the UK are championing the actions of the latter. No wonder film exhibition is in such dire straits when there's such disagreement about how to improve the moviegoing experience.

A few bright spots aside, the August calendar of wide releases is generally pretty grim. (Do not speak to me of Clone Wars.) Luckily, there are always a few worthwhile flicks playing at the art houses, and the Indie Spotlight is here to tell you about them. We have the lowdown on what's opening "in select cities" this weekend, and if your city wasn't selected, at least you can file a mental note and keep an eye out for the film later.

Alphabetically, this week's new indie releases are: Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer, Bachna Ae Haseeno, A Girl Cut in Two, Henry Poole Is Here, and Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. Note that all of those titles fit in the first half of the alphabet, and three of the five contain people's full names. Fascinating! My OCD is fascinating! Here's the scoop on each of them.

Henry Poole Is Here
What it is: A gentle drama (with comedic elements) about a forlorn man (Luke Wilson) whose house develops a water stain that some people think is a sign from Jesus.
What they're saying: It's always noteworthy when a movie takes a pro-religion, pro-faith-in-God point of view -- and even rarer that such a film debuts at Sundance -- but this one doesn't seem to have done it very well. The critics are split down the middle at Rotten Tomatoes, while Cinematical's Jeffrey M. Anderson calls it "lackadaisical" and "too uninspired to be inspirational." (I've seen it, and I say amen to that.)
Where it's playing: Pretty much everywhere -- it's opening on 500 screens. So keep the faith, indie filmmakers! It could happen to you!
Official site: OMG you guys, it has a MySpace page!

If you believe what you read on the message boards, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (262 screens) is just about the worst movie ever made. There are a few recurring comments, which I will hopefully address one at a time. But first I just want to say three things. One, I loved the film. I saw it twice, and it made me very happy both times. Secondly, I'm not working for George Lucas or Steven Spielberg, and they're not paying me to write this. (If they were, I'd probably be vacationing right now.) Thirdly, I want to argue that most of the disappointed reactions to the film had to do with two elements that are not actually in the film. (More on this later.)

Released in 1981, 1984 and 1989 respectively, the first three films are high on my list of the greatest summer movies of all time. I love them dearly; I yield to no one in my love for them. Raiders of the Lost Ark is certainly the best of the series, but truthfully, beyond an unmatched level of craftsmanship and enthusiasm, it's not exactly a work of art. It doesn't have much to say about the human condition except possibly for something about the juvenile repression of grown men -- but even that much is indirect and unintended.

The second and third movies lost the serious, professional edge of the first, and concentrated a little bit more on cartoonish non-reality. Pauline Kael made a passionate defense of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in her 1984 New Yorker review, arguing that Spielberg opened himself up more and directed it with more unbridled, infectious fun. But whereas Indy's relationship with Marion Ravenwood in the first felt grounded, Indy's relationship with Willie Scott in the second is straight out of bad screwball. The Last Crusade makes improvements with the additions of the "Young Indy" character (River Phoenix) and Indy's father (Sean Connery) but adds an even worse female lead (Alison Doody) and even more bad jokes; it feels even less "realistic" than the second entry.

NOTE: This post discusses Twilight, the movie, and the Twilight book series (particularly the latest book, Breaking Dawn), and is SPOILER HEAVY. If you've not read the books and don't want to read spoilers, do NOT read this post until you've read them. It's also longer than my usual column, as I had a lot of ground to cover, so if you hate reading long pieces, skip it. Thanks.

You're probably aware, even if you're not into books about vampires and clumsy, average teenage girls falling in love with one, that there's a popular book series called the Twilight Saga, and the first book in the series, Twilight, is being adapted for the big screen by director Catherine Hardwicke. What you may not be aware of is the little undercurrent of female writers decrying the series as inherently anti-feminist.

The Twilight series grew in popularity, mostly off the radar of the feminist set, until it got so popular that the feminists started to take notice -- and offense. I first became aware of this anti-feminist backlash when Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries (among other girly books) responded on her blog to readers writing her to ask what she thought of the series, thusly: " I didn't take my husband's last NAME when we got married. Do you honestly think I'd like a story about a girl considering changing SPECIES for a guy? No offense to any of you, but as a feminist, I just can't go there... "

I found Cabot's take interesting because I'm a feminist myself, who also didn't take my husband's last name when we got married, but I don't happen to find the series inherently anti-feminist. Nonetheless, since the release of the fourth book in the series, Breaking Dawn, on August 2, the feminist mutterings have started to escalate to a dull roar.

Moviegoing seems to be living in the past these days, as both 3-D and large format projection have become attractions at mainstream cinemas again, just as they were half a century ago. Of course, there are updated differences -- the new 3-D is digital and now employs glasses that don't give us headaches, and the large format presentation, IMAX (which is actually almost 40 years old and is technically not really similar at all to the Cinemascope, Cinerama, VistaVision, etc., which were used in the 1950s), is finally separating itself from its usual museum-set association to move into more multiplexes and offer more blockbusters, like the popcorns and sodas, appropriately super-sized.

So where is the return of that other, less successful, less fondly remembered novelty also implemented in desperate times to woo audiences away from their television? You know, that ridiculous idea that's so unappealing that it's a wonder it was even allowed to enter public awareness, let alone cement itself undeservedly onto the timeline of significant moments in film history. Smell-O-Vision. Where is the return of Smell-O-Vision?

What with the Olympics and the Batman and the pineapple express and the pants, you might be a little overloaded with things to watch this weekend. On the other hand, maybe you've seen all that and want something different. In that case, hooray for the Indie Spotlight! It's our weekly roundup of what's opening beyond the multiplexes, designed so movie fans can keep an eye out for those less-publicized titles.

There are eight indie films for you to examine this week: Beautiful Losers, Beer for My Horses, Bottle Shock, Elegy, Hell Ride, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, Red, and What We Do Is Secret. Here's the skinny on each of them.

Bottle Shock
What it is: A fictionalized account -- very heavily fictionalized, it would seem -- about the plucky California winery that managed to beat French wines in a blind taste test in 1976.
What they're saying: The reviews at Rotten Tomatoes are almost evenly split down the middle. My own take: It's the Two Buck Chuck of wine movies.
Where it's playing: Various places throughout Northern and Southern California, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Detroit, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston.
Official site: Take a sip.

Hell Ride
What it is: Executive-produced by Quentin Tarantino, it's Larry Bishop's homage to the sleazy biker movies of the early 1970s.
What they're saying: They're saying they hate it. Ten of the 12 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes are negative, and that includes the two from Cinematical, by James Rocchi and yours truly.
Where it's playing: Quite a few cities, actually; check out the map here.
Official site: Hop on, easy rider.

When Stephen Frears' The Queen came out in 2006, all the buzz emphasized Helen Mirren's icy performance as London's reclusive royal highness. The ubiquitous praise lead to her Oscar win, but it overwhelmed recognition of the movie's secret weapon: Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, quietly pressuring his Majesty to face the public in the wake of Princess Diana's untimely demise. There's a reason why Sheen conveyed the nuances of Blair's role in the event, which transpired a mere three months after the Prime Minister rose to power -- he had practice. The Deal, a fantastic made-for-TV movie Frears directed in 2003, tracked Blair's cunning (and morally questionable) instincts in the years leading up to his position at the top of the Labor Party.

Sheen played Blair in The Deal first, and it's both a superior performance and a superior film. Whereas The Queen had a tabloid hook and only tangentially explored the deeper political ramifications of a reclusive national leader, The Deal delves into precisely how Blair managed to emerge at the top of British politics with a series of calculated maneuvers. Political drama at its finest, The Deal hit DVD in the United States last month, where it has been touted as "the prequel to The Queen." That's not quite fair; The Queen is the sequel to The Deal, and the two movies ought to be seen as a single, wholly fascinating package depicting British politics in the 1990s.

Bill Lobdell, longtime writer and editor for the Tribune-owned LA Times and its subsidiaries, has an excellent, insightful piece up on his new blog titled "42 Things I Know," outlining why exactly he left his cushy corporate job and what's wrong over at the LA Times. Much of what Lobdell has to say is pretty much what those of us who work in new media have been saying for a long time now: that print media (in particular, the overfed layers of managers who spend most of their days having meetings about meetings so they can plan more meetings, thereby justifying their spendy salary-and-benefits packages) don't know what the hell they're doing when it comes to the real world in the age of the Internet.

The most telling of Lobdell's "42 Things" are the following:

Newspapers were unbelievably slow in embracing the Internet, even though younger reporters have been pleading with their bosses for years to embrace the Web.

Amazingly, it took until 2005 for top editors at The Times to realize the Internet not only wasn't going away but might lead to the demise of newspaper.

Prior to that, the Internet operation at The Times was used as a place to hide reporters and editors who had fallen out of favor.

Behold my 1000-plus words way of asking you this simple question: how many times have you seen The Dark Knight?

Here's a little story I probably tell too often (it's even in my "Meet the Team" bio): Long ago, at an art school that should remain nameless (I hated the place too much to give it any kind of credit), I studied film production, with the crazy notion that I would be the one to bridge the gap between Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino (this was in the mid-90s, when all film students just wanted to be the latter). And while I wasn't any good at being the kind of leader necessary to be a great director, I thought I was on track to (at the very least) become an Oscar-winning screenwriter.

Then, in the middle of my freshman year, I went to see 12 Monkeys. And when it was over, I stayed in the theater and I watched it again. I believe this to be the moment when I decided that I no longer wanted to be a filmmaker and wanted to be a film watcher. But it would take me another year of school -- during which I changed the names in my dream from Spielberg and Tarantino to Gilliam and Hartley -- to realize that I could be a ... professional movie theater employee!

Years more would go by before I actually realized that I was better off writing about the movies than attempting to write for the movies, and fortunately all that time managing multiplexes gave me an extra niche to write about, as well. This week's column, however, despite its long-winded introduction, is not about how I came to write "The Exhibitionist." It's actually more specifically about that repeat screening of 12 Monkeys 12 years ago. Because thanks to The Dark Knight's box office success reportedly linked in part to repeat business, I've been thinking about the few movies that I've actually seen in the theater more than once.

It's around this time every summer that the major blockbusters have done their thing and the multiplexes start to feel stale. Another Mummy movie? A Kevin Costner political comedy? Meh and meh. And that's where the Indie Spotlight comes in! We're here every Friday to tell you what's opening beyond the multiplexes, out in the art houses and fringe theaters, to remind you that there are alternatives to the flicks opening on 3,000 screens.

This week sees the release of five indie films: America the Beautiful, Frozen River, In Search of a Midnight Kiss, Love and Honor, and Sixty Six. The scoop on each of them is below. If they're not opening where you live, make a note to keep an eye out for 'em later.

Frozen River
What it is: A drama set at the border between Quebec and New York, where a woman helps people immigrate illegally.
What they're saying: The film premiered to wide acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and where Cinematical's James Rocchi declared it excellent. At Rotten Tomatoes, 81% of the critics agree with Rocchi.
Where it's playing: New York City (Angelika Film Center, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas) and Los Angeles (The Landmark, Laemmle Sunset 5, Town Center 5 in Encino, Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, Edwards Westpark 8 in Irvine).
Official site: Sony Classics.