It would be easy to offer you appropriately themed movies for the Fourth of July. There is, of course, Independence Day, plus flicks like Yankee Doodle Dandy, or on a more serious note, Born of the Fourth of July. But what's the fun in that? You could come up with those yourself. I could be snarky and offer only British fare, which is actually very tempting, but I have something else in mind: Independence-themed chills.

The two films for this double feature are not centered specifically on the Fourth of July, but the date is important to both stories -- whether it's the tale of tourists and teeth, or parades and creepiness. Do you see where I'm headed? For this double feature, in honor of the Fourth of July, I give you: Jaws and Cape Fear.

(Note: We're re-posting the following review of The Wackness from The Tribeca Film Festival to coincide with the film's theatrical release this weekend.)

Finally, a film for kids of the 90's!

This is a hard review to write because it feels as if The Wackness was tailor-made for people like me: a male who grew up in New York City and graduated high school in 1994; the year this film was set. (Actually, I graduated in 1995, but it doesn't matter much: same kids, same lingo, same music, same surroundings). How do you review your childhood? These were all kids I hung out with, this was the music we listened to, these were the mix tapes we made and these were the girls we tried to hook up with ... but didn't. And, to some extent, it actually surprises me that so many people have loved The Wackness -- not because it's a terrible movie, mind you, but because kids who grew up in New York City during the '90s were annoying as all hell, with their "Yo, that was mad good" and their "He's got da skillz, kid!" Trust me, I know -- I was one of them.

Welcome back to another funtastic, Americana edition of Insert Caption -- the game where you don't need fireworks to blow our minds. Last week we asked you to step up to the mic with some dope captions for a photo from The Wackness. Congrats to Kurt P., who can now escape the summer heat and chill out with a new portable DVD player. We're jealous. We might stalk you Kurt. Be ready.

1. "Young couple seeks father figure, must have Hawaiian shirt, facial hair, and soft focus." -- Kurt P.

See full image and all captions









This week we're celebrating our independence with a big, bad red dude named Hellboy. That's right! Guillermo del Toro, Hellboy and all his freak-ish friends are back to get their fight on in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and the winners behind our three favorite captions based on the photo below will slip away with one Hellboy 2 t-shirt, one Hellboy 2 hat, one Hellboy 2 belt with buckle and one official Hellboy 2 poster. It's hot as hell outside, and come July 11 (when Hellboy 2 hits theaters), it'll get even hotter. Sound off critters!



Read the official rules for this contest

It's pretty easy to pick out Christmas movies and Halloween movies, and it's not too hard to find a New Year's movie, or even Arbor Day or Memorial Day movies. But how do you select a Fourth of July movie? Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) takes place during the Fourth of July, when the sheriff (the late, great Roy Scheider) tries to close the beach to protect the people from the killer shark and the greedy mayor wants to keep the beaches open to make lots of money. And who can forget Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991), with its image of a cackling, cigar-smoking Robert De Niro looming over the helpless, passive family, while fireworks explode overhead? These movies may not be entirely appropriate, or they may be all-too-appropriate symbols of America in 2008, but either way, they're both terrific movies.

The road movie is a uniquely American genre; unlike other parts of the world, Americans have the freedom to drive across 3000 miles of open land without getting hassled. It also involves cars, for which Americans have a singular passion. There are dozens of great road movies (not surprisingly), but let's go with three of the most unique examples. Tim Burton's cult classic Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) brings the title hero on the road to find his stolen bicycle; the film also has the best hitch-hiking sequences since It Happened One Night. Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) is the ultimate existential car movie, and David Lynch's The Straight Story (1999) is the road movie transplanted to a power lawnmower (which is pretty American, too, when you think about it).

It usually takes about a week after the kids get out of school for summer to kick in, and if there was ever an official starting line, it's Fourth of July weekend. Maybe you're hitting up a barbecue with some friends this weekend, relaxing by the pool or shooting off some fireworks -- and that's cool. Enjoy yourself. Me? I'll be doing a little of the BBQ, but I'll also enjoy a screening of at least one of the following seven films. See, what's summer without a memorable summertime flick ... or several?

This year's best summertime film (according to me), The Wackness, hits theaters in limited release tomorrow before rolling out to other cities. That film caters a bit more toward a specific time period (1994) and a specific location (NYC), but those summer-in-the-city flicks are rare, especially a good one. Instead of following all those kids who left town, went to camp, traveled abroad, what have you, The Wackness remains with the one dude who didn't leave town. The kid who was stuck spending his summer on hot pavement, dealing pot to his therapist while chasing the girl of his dreams.

But perhaps that's how you remember summer growing up. Or maybe you spent most of your summers in camp, or on the baseball field, or with a few of your best pals on another bizarre adventure. Those summer months hold a lot of memories for you, I'm sure, as they do for me. And what's up with summertime movies and awesome soundtracks? Ever notice that? Anyway, here are some of my favorites ... feel free to tell me yours.

Way back in November, John C. Reilly signed on to play Larten Crepsley in the adaptation of Darren Shan's Cirque Du Freak. Since then, we've gotten a sneak peek at Salma Hayek's bearded lady, but nothing of the sharp-toothed Crepsley -- until now! Empire has posted a first look at Reilly's character, which you can see cropped on the right. (It's a little bigger over at Empire, but unfortunately, not much.)

The film focuses on a 14-year-old kid, Darren Shan (Chris Kelly), who visits an illegal freak show, sneaks in after hours, and gets thrust into a life of freak shows and vampiric servitude. The photo shows Shan and Crepsley, so maybe this is when the poor kid getting pulled into the freakish life. Although really, I think Crepsley's outfit is the most freakish thing. That, and the darkly rouged cheeks.

The flick should hit US shores in 2008, before the scheduled UK release in February of 2009.

*Note: Both the real Darren Shan and the kid who plays the fictional Darren Shan use two names. To clear up confusion between the Empire report, here, and IMDb: The young actor goes by Chris Kelly and Chris Massoglia, while Darren Shan is also known as Darren O'Shaughnessy.

"If a film fell in the multiplex, and no one was there to see it..."

Limited release: such a simple phrase, and yet two words that all but indicate to a majority of moviegoers that whatever it is they want to see may or may not escape the confines of a NY/LA run before the film in question comes to them by way of Netflix mere months later.

Meanwhile, screens upon screens across the nation are filled by the likes of the same stars and the same stories, with the same special effects and the same happy endings, leaving the smaller films, the different films, the better films to slip through the distribution cracks, as it were.

Among their number falls The Promotion, a film which we've admittedly supported ad nauseum to the oh-so-ironic tune of $365,928 on a grand total of 81 screens. It opened just this past weekend in my market, Orlando, Fla., on a single screen, for a whopping four days, with a grand total of eight showings, before being shuffled off to make room for that other Jason Bateman co-starring comedy-drama hybrid.

It was the first day of July, and the last night for the film. Having enjoyed it twice before and driven by - I don't know - a sense of romantic futility, I turned out for that final showing. Lo and behold, I wasn't alone...

And we thought that the shrinking gap was only between theatrical and DVD releases. Now it's how soon a project can get off the ground after someone passes away. Anna Nicole Smith had barely been gone a month when projects started to cook up on her life and death. Now Defamer has spotted that a super-respectful NINETEEN DAYS after Tim Russert dies of a heart attack, a telepic is already in the works with a casting notice up on Craigslist. The notice even says that Randy Quaid has already signed on to star.

When the news broke, did someone reach over for their phone, call up Quaid, and get this set up? Or, maybe they, you know, waited a few days so they wouldn't seem eager to capitalize on the man's death (and spent that time throwing together a script). So, this ad says that a New York-based film company is looking to cast an unknown actress in the role of Maureen Orth, Russert's wife, and that the film will follow the last 24 hours of his life. So, not only can they not wait a bit to get this going, but it's also centered on the man's death?

The casting is certainly appropriate, but that's about the only nice thing I can say about this news.

When films turn personal, there are a myriad of ways they can turn out. One way I never thought of -- out of body experiences that need soul saving. Variety reports that Val Kilmer, Shane West, Cam Gigandet, Eric Balfour, and Arielle Kebbel have signed on for a film called Silver Cord. James Ordonez will direct the feature, which he wrote with Ken Gord, and relive some personal experiences.

As Variety describes it, the film "centers on Ordonez's brother who came back to life after being declared clinically dead on multiple occasions. The brother died in 2004." But the summary up on IMDb says a whole lot more, written by James himself: "The story of a young man who is separated from the love of his life. To find her he has an Out of Body Experience but the silver cord that connects his soul with his body breaks and he is believed to be dead. In a desperate race against time his friends have less than 24 hours to save his soul before his body is cremated."

It's not every day you get so-called true life stories about people leaving their body to find paramours and then losing their body and being declared dead. Since he'd been declared dead a number of times, I guess the dude had a penchant for out-of-body travel.

Drug consumer par excellence, Hunter Thompson's legendary hallucinogenic and boozy escapades have by now been sufficiently documented, not to mention brought to pitch-perfect cinematic life by Terry Gilliam's 1998 adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Less well known, however, is his lifelong political conscientiousness, which receives the lion's share of attention in Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Alex Gibney's (Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) loving yet even-handed non-fiction bio of the notorious father of Gonzo journalism. Narrated by Johnny Depp (Gilliam's Fear and Loathing star), and overflowing with archival footage and interviews with friends and enemies, the film lays out the vital details of its subject's life, from his outcast adolescence in Louisville, Kentucky to his suicide in 2005. Comprehensiveness, however, isn't necessarily the goal, and thus while most prime topics are tackled, the greatest focus is paid to Thompson's failed attempt to run for governor of Aspen, Colorado on a legalize-drugs platform, and his coverage of the 1972 presidential election, which resulted in the classic Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.