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  • SF Weekly

    Identity Plagiarism

    A blogger steals someone else's life story and calls it her own.

    By Ashley Harrell

  • Westword

    Fuel's Gold

    How William Orr's quest for better, cheaper gas became a crime.

    By Alan Prendergast

  • Miami New Times

    Mold Over Miami

    The family of a dead judge blames a creeping fungus in the federal courthouse.

    By Tim Elfrink

Get Inside

Continued from page 1

Published on May 18, 2006

What it's about: It's like Speed, but without a bus, a bomb or Dennis Hopper. And with a mailbox that transports love letters through time. A remake of the Korean film Il Mare, in which a man and woman write each other letters, only to discover that they're both living in the same house but in different time periods — two years apart.

Why you should see it: Could Keanu plus time travel equal an excellent adventure?

Why you should not: Every other love story Keanu has ever done. Also, Valentin was cloying, annoying crap.

Nacho Libre Starring: Jack Black and Efren Ramirez

Directed by: Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite)

Written by: Jared Hess, Jerusha Hess and Mike White

What it's about: Black (Nacho) plays a Mexican cook who stuffs his face into a wrestler's mask to save his financially strapped orphanage.

Why you should see it: Mike White wrote the best part Jack Black's ever been given, as Dewey Finn in School of Rock.

Why you should not: Because Napoleon Dynamite was a great four-minute movie that went on just a little too long.

June 23

Click Starring: Adam Sandler, Christopher Walken and David Hasselhoff

Directed by: Frank Coraci (The Waterboy)

Written by: Jack Giarraputo, Tim Herlihy (almost every Sandler movie to date), Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe (Bruce Almighty), and Sandler

What it's about: Sandler obtains a magic remote control that can control the universe. Pausing, rewinding and replaying in slow motion the world around him is a lot of fun ... until the remote gets stuck in fast-forward.

Why you should see it: Whatever you may think of Sandler, a movie that brings Walken and Hasselhoff together cannot be all bad.

Why you should not: Seems like it has a good premise, but so did The Benchwarmers at one point.

Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties Starring: Bill Murray, Breckin Meyer and Jennifer Love Hewitt

Directed by: Tim Hill (Muppets From Space)

Written by: Joel Cohen (Cheaper by the Dozen)

What it's about: America's favorite fat cat 20 years ago takes a trip to jolly old London and switches places with a rich, fat feline in this essential sequel to 2004's Garfield. For more information, read Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper.

Why you should see it: Old pro Bill Murray can get laughs reading obituaries.

Why you should not: He's Bill Murray, not He Who Is Risen.

Waist Deep Starring: Tyrese Gibson (Four Brothers), Meagan Good (Roll Bounce) and Larenz Tate (Crash)

Directed by: Vondie Curtis-Hall (Gridlock'd)

Written by: Curtis-Hall, Michael Mahern (Mobsters ) and Darin Scott (Tales From the Hood)

What it's about: An ex-convict (Gibson) is driven to desperation when his son is kidnapped and held for ransom by a vicious crime lord. He begins to rob banks to raise the ransom, but only banks where the thug has an account.

Why you should see it: It's rated R, and based on the preview, it looks like the two beautiful leads get sweaty.

Why you should not: Curtis-Hall directed Glitter. That's right, Glitter.

June 30

The Devil Wears Prada Starring: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Adrien Grenier

Directed by: David Frankel (Entourage, Sex and the City)

Written by: Aline Brosh McKenna (Laws of Attraction) and Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex), based on the novel by Lauren Weisberger

What it's about: Big-screen adaptation of Weisberger's thinly disguised "fiction" book about working as assistant to Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour (Streep).

Why you should see it: Streep rarely chooses unredeemable projects.

Why you should not: Do we care how hard it is to work for a fashion magazine?

Superman Returns Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth and Kevin Spacey

Directed by: Bryan Singer (X-Men, X-2)

Written by: Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris

What it's about: Set five years after Superman II, more or less, Superman returns from self-imposed exile to find Lois Lane with a kid and Lex Luthor out of prison, with yet another plan for world domination.

Why you should see it: Singer made the X-Men movies into something accessible to mainstream audiences without sacrificing their comic-book roots; he made superheroes human.

Why you should not: Look, it can't be any worse than Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

July 5

Little Man Starring: Marlon and Shawn Wayans

Directed by: Keenen Ivory Wayans (Scary Movie, Scary Movie 2)

Written by: The Wayans brothers

What it's about: A digitally altered Shawn Wayans plays a weensy little criminal mistaken for a baby by a wannabe dad (Marlon).

Why you should see it: Consider it your biennial dose of Wayans charm.

Why you should not: Perhaps you recall White Chicks?

July 7

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley

Directed by: Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)

Written by: Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (Shrek), based on the Disneyland ride

What it's about: Bill Nighy joins the fun as supernatural villain Davey Jones, out to collect the soul of Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) just in time to ruin the marriage plans of Will (Bloom) and Elizabeth (Knightley).

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