The Screengrab : martin lawrence

Morning Deal Report: Julia Roberts Meets Jesus H. Christ

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:30:00 GMT

As it turned out, the answer to the question “Who watches the Watchmen” was just about everybody, as the superhero epic topped the weekend box office with $55.7 million. We’ll see how all those high-minded claims about never making a sequel hold up now. It’s a long way down to second place, where we find Madea Goes to Jail with an $8.8 million total, followed by Taken with $7.5 million.

Julia Roberts will star in Jesus Henry Christ for director Dennis Lee. The film is based on Lee's “Student Academy Award-winning short film of the same name, and follows Henry James Hermin, a boy conceived in a petri-dish and raised by a loving, left-wing feminist. At the age of 10, he decides his mother's love is not enough and begins to follow a trail of Post-It notes stuck around town hoping it will lead him to his biological father,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

Chris Rock is set to star in a remake of the 2007 British film Death at a Funeral. Martin Lawrence and Tracy Morgan will join him in the comedy that “revolves around a dysfunctional family that gathers for the patriarch’s funeral. When tensions rise and old conflicts are uncovered, a man arrives saying he’s the dead man’s gay lover and threatens blackmail,” Variety reports. Neil LaBute directs. That’s right, I said Neil LaBute directs.

Related:
Chick Hits: The Girl Power Top Ten
When Good Directors Go Bad: The Wicker Man (Neil LaBute)

DVD Digest for November 18, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:00:00 GMT

This week, some of summer’s biggest hits arrive in stores in time for the holiday shopping season, along with a handful of choice classics.

DVD of the week: With all the care Pixar devotes to creating their theatrical releases, it’s amazing that they have any time left for their DVDs. However, Pixar’s DVD editions are almost invariably first-rate, and this week’s release of WALL-E would appear to be no exception. We begin, of course, with the razor-sharp transfer of the movie itself, which comes directly from the digital master, making it arguably crisper than could be found in the theatre. But that’s only the beginning, with two animated shorts (one seen in theatres, the other a DVD original), featurettes on the film’s sound design, visual design, music, character design, and more. Finally, there are a number of features on WALL-E that take viewers into the world of the film, including a documentary about the movie’s robotic cast, and short films about the nefarious “Buy N Large” corporation from its inception to their Earth Exit plan, and beyond. Needless to say, WALL-E is an ideal DVD for kids, but it’s also a must-have even if you don’t have a family to buy for this holiday season.

Other recent releases coming to DVD this week: Ben Stiller’s Hollywood action satire Tropic Thunder (Paramount, also Blu-Ray); America Ferrara, Amber Tamblyn and friends in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (Warner, also Blu-Ray); and a quartet of acclaimed indie films- Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World (Image); the documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson (Magnolia); Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely (Genius); and Audrey Tautou in Priceless (First Look).

On the classics front, the big release this week is David Lynch: The Lime Green Box Set (Absurda), which includes the new-to-DVD Industrial Symphony No. 1, plus the remastered Eraserhead, a Lynch-approved 5.1-surround version of Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Wild at Heart, The Short Films of David Lynch, Dumbland, along with new extras for Elephant Man and Wild at Heart, the Eraserhead soundtrack, and a “Mystery Disc” full of exclusive Lynch goodies. Or if you’re looking for something a little more “classical”, pick up the new Criterion editions of Martin Ritt’s masterful adaptation of the John le Carre novel, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, or the French swashbuckler Fanfan la Tulipe. Also worth mentioning is the release of Fred Schepisi’s long-unavailable classic of Australian cinema, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Ryko Distribution).

In a slow week for TV on DVD, the most noteworthy title is Bones Season 3 (Fox).

Finally, this week presents the most definitive argument that Blu-Ray has really arrived, with a plethora of mostly crappy Blu-Ray only releases. The exceptions are Curtis Hanson’s pretty-good Eminem vehicle 8 Mile (Universal) and the Neil Gaiman-scripted Mirrormask (Sony). But other than that, it’s looking pretty dire, with the Martin Lawrence double feature of Blue Streak (Sony) and National Security (Sony), Guy Ritchie’s Revolver (Sony), and Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales (Sony), which if nothing else remains the most definitive cinematic statement about the ongoing war over teen horniness. I’m for decriminalization, by the way.

When Good Directors Go Bad?: Insomnia (2002, Christopher Nolan)

Paul Clark — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:00:00 GMT

One of the biggest dangers faced by an up-and-coming filmmaker is the burden of high expectations. If one is talented (and lucky) enough to make a movie that strikes a chord with critics and/or audiences, it can be tricky deciding what direction your career should take, now that people are anticipating your next move. This was the problem that Christopher Nolan faced after the release of his 2000 film, Memento, which not only bowled over the critics but also became the indie sleeper of 2001, accumulating deafening word-of-mouth during its protracted run in America’s arthouses before reaching an even wider audience on DVD. Memento made a dent in a public consciousness, people were curious about what was next for the newly anointed wunderkind who directed it.

Naturally, there was some head-scratching when it was announced that Nolan’s follow-up would be a remake of the 1997 Norwegian crime drama Insomnia. It was only natural to assume that the director of a buzz magnet like Memento would want to go Hollywood, but many people wondered what could have motivated him to helm a star-studded remake of an acclaimed foreign film, a career move that’s traditionally assumed on roughly the level of directing a Martin Lawrence vehicle. Was Nolan selling out, or did he have a legitimately interesting twist on the original material?

When I first saw Nolan’s Insomnia in 2002, I thought the former. Much of this had to do with the memories of Erik Skjoldbjærg’s original being fresh in my mind. Consequently, I had a hard time resisting the urge to compare the two films, and Nolan’s take was invariably found wanting. I mostly resented his need to soften the story, making its protagonist less of a prick and more of a showboat, a change that reflected the switch from Stellan Skarsgård to Al Pacino in the lead role. Likewise, there were a number of other narrative switcheroos that just didn’t sit well with me. I was hardly alone in this respect- Insomnia received mostly lukewarm reviews and opened to middling box office. Even the positive notices for the film seemed mostly respectful rather than enthusiastic, as if the critics were let down by the film’s inability to live up to the Memento’s high standard.

Six years later, in the wake of the resounding success of Nolan’s The Dark Knight, I felt compelled to re-visit Insomnia. I suppose I wanted to see whether my initial perceptions of it were skewed by my personal biases (pro-Memento, pro-Skjoldbjærg, anti-remake). Is it as subpar as I’d remembered? In a word, no. Insomnia isn’t a great film, but it’s a perfectly serviceable police procedural with some interesting elements, a movie that somewhat better than its middling rep would indicate.

This isn’t to say that it doesn’t have problems. The most glaring is Robin Williams’ performance as the killer who bedevils Al Pacino’s Det. Dormer (a too-obvious choice of names, by the way). Granted, it’s a tricky role to play- a man who has been sent around the bend by the killing he’s committed and now must manipulate the law officer who’s pursuing him in order to stay alive. Yet Williams never manages to make the character convincing. Instead, he gives a very actorly performance, with plenty of tortured facial acting plus a calm voice designed to tell us how unnaturally levelheaded the character is, but he never makes him work as a living, breathing person instead of an actor playing a role.

However, getting some distance from the original version of Insomnia has allowed me to better appreciate Al Pacino’s performance in the remake. Whereas Skarsgård performance in the original movie was a study in submerged conflict, Pacino’s has a much more physical take on the character’s troubles. In Nolan’s film, Dormer is facing problems from all sides- the case he’s working on, the Internal Affairs investigation that could very well ruin his career, his inability to sleep, and his guilt for accidentally killing his partner. By the time Williams comes calling to blackmail him with knowledge of the partner’s murder, Pacino is already in over his head, and the new complication just makes it even worse for him. It’s a surprisingly complex turn, and probably the last big-screen Pacino performance I’ve really enjoyed.

In addition, Nolan does a pretty good job at exploiting the stylistic possibilities of the story, particularly the never-setting sun of the film’s Alaskan setting. Most obviously, there’s the oppressiveness of the sunlight streaming into Dormer’s room as he tries (and fails) to sleep, but I also liked the way Nolan’s direction reflected Dormer’s shifting psychological state as the film progressed. The longer the character goes without sleep, the less he is in control of his senses, and Nolan makes the lights brighter and the sounds more invasive. There are also a number of effective moments in which Dormer visits the town in the middle of the night, the streets completely empty except for him. And a foot chase across dozens logs that are rapidly floating downstream is pretty damned exciting.

Don’t get me wrong- Insomnia is still a “minor” film in Nolan’s career. But watching it for the second time, it feels like a transitional effort for its director. It may have lacked the freshness and novelty of Memento, but I’d say that was good for Nolan in the long run, allowing him to make a movie that wasn’t simply founded upon a clever twist. In addition, it demonstrated to Hollywood that his sensibility- cool, clinical, philosophical- was compatible with a big-budget film. In addition, the film’s questioning of the morality of the crime drama anticipates Nolan’s work in The Dark Knight. Insomnia might not be of the caliber of Nolan’s other films, but it’s still a fairly solid film from a major filmmaker, and considering how good his subsequent work has been (especially The Prestige, my favorite film of 2006), that’s good enough for me.

Reviews By Request: The Hot Rock (1972, Peter Yates)

Paul Clark — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Thanks to reader “Uncle Crizzle” (a.k.a. Craig Lindsey) for requesting this week’s review. As always, for instructions on how to request the next review for this feature (to run in two weeks), see the bottom of this post.

The more heist movies I see, the more I realize that the secret to a good one lies in three factors. First, the characters have to be engaging. There are only a limited number of heists one can pull onscreen, but if we enjoy the people onscreen it scarcely matters. Second, the script shouldn’t run out of ideas before the ending, so that the audience won’t be too sure where everything stands until all the pieces finally fall into place. Third- and perhaps most importantly- the movie has to be light on its feet. If the style or the storytelling becomes overbearing, the movie will turn into a slog, which is pretty much the last thing you want from a heist movie.

Peter Yates’ The Hot Rock succeeds on all three counts, with the added bonus of getting better as it goes along. In the opening scenes, I was expecting a fairly standard issue heist movie, albeit one with an impressive, quintessential seventies-era cast. But The Hot Rock has plenty of surprises up its sleeve, not least that the story’s central heist scene happens even before the midpoint of the film. Best of all, it takes itself just seriously enough that it doesn’t feel like a lark, but never too seriously. It’s a lot of fun.

But back to that central heist, which involves the titular rock, a massive diamond that’s long been a point of contention between the ruling factions of an obscure (and apocryphal) African nation. The country’s ambassador to the U.N., played by Moses Gunn, hires the recently-released-from-prison John Dortmunder (Robert Redford) to mastermind a plan to steal the stone for him. Dortmunder’s team- comprised of safecracker George Segal, driver Ron Liebman, and explosives expert Paul Sand- exhaustively plan the job which, while quaint by modern-day standards, is a pretty good one. Of course, it doesn’t quite go according to plan, and it’s the aftermath of the heist that makes the movie so enjoyable.

The Hot Rock was based on a novel by Donald E. Westlake, who I was familiar with primarily for his hard-hitting crime novels written as Richard Stark and his nihilistic screenplay for The Grifters. However, this film is based on one of Westlake’s lighter Dortmunder books, which gave me some pause since my only previous exposure to a Dortmunder story was the godawful 2001 Martin Lawrence vehicle What’s the Worst That Can Happen? That film took Westlake’s story and buried it in shticky storytelling and hammy performances until it became all but unwatchable, and I feared the worst from The Hot Rock as well.

However, the difference between the two movies is telling. Whereas the broadly comic style of What’s the Worst That Can Happen? didn’t suite Westlake’s terse prose one bit, Yates wisely plays the story straight. Primarily known up to that time as an action director (his biggest hit had been 1968’s Bullitt), Yates never leans too hard on the film’s comedy. Instead, he directs the story like a straight thriller, matter-of-factly following his band of crooks from one complication to the next. This only makes the movie that much funnier. Due to unforeseen difficulties, the original heist ends up leading to another job, then another, then yet another, each more unlikely than the last. And the team, which seemed so well-chosen at the beginning, becomes less so with each successive job. Consider that Liebman is perfect behind the wheel of damn near any car, but fairly out of sort when he finds himself in an entirely different sort of vehicle.

As I said before, the cast is a lot of fun. I’ve never been a big Robert Redford fan, but he’s a natural here as the master thief who has to keep his cool in order to think himself out of the messes in which he keeps finding himself. Segal is his usual reliable self as Dortmunder’s trusty lieutenant, all business to the outside world but always kvetching to the boss. Liebman and Sand have some good moments as the other team members. Gunn gets lots of laughs as the seemingly imperturbable diplomat, at first amused by his involvement in the crime (observe his wry smile when he states, “I am a criminal”), only to become increasingly frustrated with every new development in the case. And there’s a choice supporting role for the one and only Zero Mostel, as Sand’s shifty father. Given his over-the-top signature performance in The Producers, I sort of expected Mostel to clash with the others, but instead his outsize personality is in service of an outsize character, which allows him to fit in perfectly with the ensemble. It’s an indelible character turn, with the unfortunate side effect of making me wonder how many priceless Mostel performances we lost to the blacklist.

The Hot Rock is yet another reminder of the kind of action movies Hollywood was great at making during the seventies, but not nearly as good at today. The cast is enjoyable, the storytelling efficient, and most of all, the direction never calls attention to itself. As fun as Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s films sometimes are, there’s always a layer of self-consciousness to them, as though Soderbergh deliberately means to evoke a bygone filmmaking style. By contrast, Yates trusts in his story enough to stay out of the way, and the result is a highly enjoyable example of its genre, and a darn good entertainment in general.

So, what movie would you like me to review for the next installment of Reviews by Request? Let me know in the comments section below. To refresh your memory, here are the rules for requesting a movie to be reviewed: (1) it has to be a movie I haven’t seen, (2) it has to be available through Netflix, and (3) please only request one film. Other than that, anything is fair game. First to suggest a movie that qualifies gets their requested review. See you in two weeks!

Unwatchable #88: “College Road Trip”

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

No, this is not a rerun. Unwatchable is back from a brief (but oh so blissful) summer hiatus, and we’ll continue our march up the IMDb’s list of the 100 worst movies ever made next time with #76. But as you may dimly recall, I was forced to skip #88 initially because it had not yet been released on DVD at the time. It was a better world back then, a world in which College Road Trip was not available on video, and I miss it so. But we can’t go back. College Road Trip is now out on DVD, it will always be out on DVD, clogging landfills and supporting drinks on coffee tables, so let’s just get it over with.

If you like your Martin Lawrence movies G-rated – and who doesn’t? – you’re in for a real treat. Lawrence is James Porter, police chief and doting father, two roles he was born to embody I’m sure we all agree. His dream is to send his college-bound daughter Melanie (Raven-Symone) off to Northwestern, a mere 18 minutes from his doorstep, but she has eyes on Georgetown in far-off Washington DC. When two of Melanie’s friends invite her along on a COLLEGE ROAD TRIP, James objects but reluctantly volunteers to drive her himself. Tagging along for the ride are Melanie’s precocious brother Trey and his super-intelligent pet pig Arnold. My guess is that the pig was added to one of the later College Road Trip drafts at the suggestion of a Disney executive concerned about the lack of slapstick involving anthropomorphic animals in the original story. This may have happened before or after another executive suggested the inclusion of a musical interlude in which Raven-Symone performs a teen-pop version of “Double Dutch Bus” on a bus full of Japanese tourists. It is believed that a third executive – the one who insisted that Donny Osmond be cast as the overly cheerful father of another prospective student – is now selling pencils on the Third Street Promenade.

But it would be a mistake to dismiss College Road Trip as a mere collection of mind-numbing pratfalls (including a hee-larious scene in which Lawrence parachutes onto a golf course and knocks fat Vito from The Sopranos into a water hazard). It’s also a collection of saccharine life lessons! Fathers, it’s not a good idea to sneak into the sorority house where your daughter is staying and hide under her bed. In fact, it’s a good way to get tazed. And young ladies, if your dad hides under your bed, that just means he loves you. But not in a creepy way. Really.

Previously on Unwatchable:

77. BloodRayne 2: Deliverance
78. The Quick and the Undead
79. Anus Magillicutty
80. The Smokers
81. Soccer Dog: The Movie

DVD Digest for July 15, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week, a comedic visionary gets the Criterion treatment, Jack goes nuts on Blu-Ray, and the unholy pairing of Martin Lawrence and Donny Osmond hits DVD.

DVD of the Week: Jacques Tati was one of the greatest comic filmmakers ever to man a camera, a brilliant visual filmmaker whose skill at engineering gags was only matched by that of Buster Keaton. Criterion has previously released Tati’s classics M. Hulot’s Holiday, Mon Oncle, and Play Time, and now they’ve made available a snazzy new edition of Tati’s final theatrical feature Trafic. In Trafic- also the final onscreen appearance of Tati’s signature character Monsieur Hulot- Tati takes on car culture, as Hulot takes to the highways in a souped-up camper and encounters all sort of automotive mishaps and outrageous technology. Compared to the almost impossibly ambitious Play Time, Trafic’s humor is quirkier, but Tati’s sense of timing and gentle humanism are as present as they ever were. The DVD also includes the two-hour documentary In the Footsteps of Monsieur Hulot from 1989, as well as a number of interviews with the filmmaker and a new essay from critic Jonathan Romney. Trafic may not be as well-known as many of Tati’s beloved classics, but it’s nonetheless an important title in his filmography, definitely worthy of the attention Criterion has lavished on it for this release.

This week’s recent releases on DVD include: College Road Trip (Disney, also Blu-Ray), the aforementioned Lawrence/Osmond vehicle; Jason Statham in the true-crime inspired The Bank Job (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray); Step Up 2 the Streets (Disney, also Blu-Ray), a sequel no one actually asked for; Aaron Eckhart in Meet Bill (First Look); the Christina Ricci-starring fractured fairy tale Penelope (Summit Entertainment); and the Brazilian Oscar submission The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (WEA). In addition, this week brings a trio of horror releases- Asylum (MGM), Shutter (Fox, also Blu-Ray), and the omnibus film Trapped Ashes (Lionsgate), whose participants included Ken Russell, Monte Hellman, and Joe Dante.

TV-on-DVD releases this week include Birds of Prey: The Complete Series (Warner) and Saving Grace: Season 1 (Fox).

Finally, the week’s sole Blu-Ray only release is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Warner).

DVD Digest for June 17, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week, a French tough guy classic comes to DVD, and musical lovers will go bananas… so to speak.

DVD of the Week: Today, director Claude Sautet is best-known to lovers of French cinema for his relationship dramas such as Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud and Un Coeur en Hiver. However, closer examination of Sautet’s career shows that he’s more versatile than his reputation would suggest. One fascinating recent discovery for me was Sautet’s breakthrough film, 1960’s Classe Tous Risques (The Criterion Collection). Starring two of French cinema’s most iconic badasses- Lino Ventura and Jean-Paul Belmondo- Classe Tous Risques is a character study that walks and talks like a taut, stylish crime thriller, but it works on both levels. Ventura in particular is sublime, so effortless and minimalistic that one can almost see the young Belmondo taking notes during their scenes together. Criterion’s new DVD edition features an interview with Ventura, along with documentaries on Sautet and writer Jose Giovanni, and numerous essays including two by directors Bertrand Tavernier and Jean-Pierre Melville. Pretty much a must-buy for lovers of big-screen tough guys… and French cinema fans, for that matter.

This week’s other notable classic DVD is Fox’s Carmen Miranda Collection, which features five of the colorful songstress’ best-loved titles. The set includes a newly restored version of The Gang’s All Here plus DVD debuts of Doll Face, Greenwich Village, If I’m Lucky and Something For the Boys. Other new Miranda titles coming to DVD this week (sold separately) are Weekend in Havana, That Night in Rio and Down Argentine Way. Also of note are Popeye the Sailor, 1938-1940: Vol. 2 (Warner), The Sword and the Stone 45th Anniversary Special Edition (Disney), and in conjunction with the release of Mike Myers in The Love Guru, So I Married An Axe Murderer (Sony, also Blu-Ray).

Recent movies coming to DVD include: Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind (New Line, also Blu-Ray); the long-awaited reteaming of Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey in Fool’s Gold (Warner, also Blu-Ray); Martin Lawrence and family in Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (Fox); and the arthouse sleeper hit Under the Same Moon (Fox).

Finally, the week’s sole Blu-Ray only titles? Men in Black (Sony). So now you know.

Unwatchable #87: "The Sidehackers"

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

The eagle-eyed and mathematically inclined among you may have noticed that we’ve skipped from #89 to #87 in our little survey of the shittiest. The reason is simple: #88 on the list is the 2008 Martin Lawrence comedy College Road Trip, which will not be released on DVD until next month. Since I somehow managed to miss its theatrical run, we'll catch up with it later. For now we’ll move on to 1969’s The Sidehackers, which proves to be a change of pace from the mutant insects and quicksand-ridden islands we’ve been dealing with lately.

What, you may ask, is a sidehacker? Well, silly, a sidehacker is one who sidehacks! And what is sidehacking? Apparently it’s a form of motorcycle racing that may or may not have actually existed at one point. It involves a metal bar and platform extending from the right side of a motorcycle, upon which a passenger rides. This passenger is responsible for leaning into turns and providing extra torque, if I am using the turn correctly. And if I’m not, who gives a crap, since I’m still not convinced sidehacking is or ever was a real thing. Granted, the opening credits give special thanks to the Southern California Side-Hack Association, but that group appears to be defunct at best, if my rudimentary research is any indication. If any current or former members of the Association would like to dispel my skepticism, feel free to post a comment. Anyway, Vince Rommel (gravel-throated biker movie stalwart Ross Hagen, a poor man’s Steve McQueen) is the king of the sidehacking, “a new and exciting sport filled with thrills and spills you’ve never seen before.” And after you’ve watched The Sidehackers, you still haven’t seen them, despite the copious footage on display. Many minutes of sidehacking are presented for our consideration, none of them exciting in any way.

It doesn’t matter much, because sidehacking virtually disappears from the movie once the plot machinations kick into gear. It seems that J.C. (Michael Pataki, who diligent Unwatchable fans may remember as Sgt. Ward from The Bat People and culture mavens everywhere will recall as George Liquor from Ren and Stimpy), a mincing, shiny-shirted biker, would like to recruit Rommel for his touring motorcycle act. Rommel isn’t interested in J.C.’s offer, nor does he comply with J.C.’s girlfriend Paisley’s desire for a roll in the hay. The jilted Paisley gets back at him by making J.C. believe that Rommel raped her. J.C. responds by raping and killing Rommel’s girl Rita. So I gather, anyway; I didn’t see this happen because The Sidehackers is one of those movies I couldn’t find in any form other than its Mystery Science Theater 3000 incarnation, which omits the crucial scene. Now, I can sort of understand this; it’s hard to have robots cracking wise over a rape-murder scene, although they don’t seem to have any problem later in the film when J.C. strangles Paisley to death. Again, though, the purity of the Unwatchable experiment has been tainted by these friggin’ robots.

The movie ends with a very 1969 showdown, in which Rommel shows mercy and lets J.C. live, and J.C. thanks him by shooting him in the back. Bummer, man.

Previously on Unwatchable:
89. Bloodlust!
90. The Bat People
91. Horrors of Spider Island
92. I Accuse My Parents
93. Howling III: The Marsupials

Universal Lines Up 2008

John Constantine — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:20:00 GMT

Film studios have followed a rigid thematic release schedule year in and year out since 1970. You’ve got your lightweight comedies until spring, then a bank of action blockbusters that are either sequels or adaptations, a drama or two in the fall coupled with some quick horror from a side studio, and then as much award fodder as you can fit into December. If there’s enough time, you fit some big family friendly hooha in there as well, preferably animated or based on a true story. This summation might seem flippant if Universal’s release schedule didn’t follow the formula so specifically. From February 8th to May 30th, Universal will drop six comedies that seem progressively promising. It starts with Martin Lawrence in Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, the no doubt side-splitting tale of an L.A. talk-show star going home to small town Georgia, and ends with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the latest from Judd Apatow’s crew. It’s about hard luck in love. Surprise! From June 13th to July 11th, moviegoers will get three, count them three, comic book adaptations including The Incredible Hulk, a sequel/franchise reboot with 100% less Ang Lee and 100% more ripped Ed Norton. The fall’s quiet right now but the schedule might bulk up as the year goes on but December already has the heavy Academy hitters lined up with Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, about, um, Frost and Nixon, alongside Clint Eastwood’s The Changeling, which actually sounds pretty cool. Seems predictable on the whole but who can say a giant, green Ed Norton is bad until they see it for themselves?