Weekend Peep Show: Last Glimpse of Lindsay

Tracy Bennett/TriStar Pictures

Take a deep breath. Stick your tongue out. Do you feel anything? I do. I think the sky is falling. We know that talented actress Lindsay Lohan may never get to make a movie again because of her skyrocketing insurance rates.

Yep, there's something bizarre afoot in our movie universe. Just wait till you see the flicks we got coming at us. Even the good one—The Simpsons Movie—feels very outdated. How exciting would a Simpsons movie have been, say, eight years ago? I'll tell you this much. It woulda been more thrilling than the notion of Catherine Zeta-Jones stretching her slick wings and attempting romantic comedy. Man, someone give me a helmet. The sky is falling...in chunks.

I Know Who Killed Me
Sweetling girl becomes a child movie star. Then she gets boobs and makes one really superb movie. Then she starts "partying" too much, becomes addicted to getting her picture taken and rolls around with her mom and bottles of Jack Daniels. So, like, her career is in shambles. Nobody wants to work with her. She crashes her car. Again. Boom. DUI. Like a good li'l American hero, she cleans herself up, straps on an alcohol-detecting ankle bracelet and parties in Malibu and Vegas. Totally straight! Wink, wink. Then boom. It's all over, right?

I wish that were the story of this embarrassing movie. But it ain't. Lindsay Lohan plays a girl who's a stripper (or not) and has been murdered (or not). But the real mystery brewing is do we give a s--t? I don't. I bet you don't. I like my noir in black-and-white with legendary screen stars, all potboiling and David Lynch-like. This movie just sounds so silly. In fact, why are we even bothering?

20th Century Fox

The Simpsons Movie
Maggie speaks. She says "sequel." President Arnold Schwarzenegger declares that he became a leader so he doesn't have to read, in so many words. Springfield is encapsulated under a big piece of plastic that you might call a dome. Funny stuff. Delicious doughnuts. I expect zillions of you to rightfully embrace your chance to see America's First Family of Dysfunction on the big screen.

My friends who worked on it are very proud and secretive. A lot of heart and thought went into this. But that's what Matt Groening's gift to us has always been about: the love, the humor, the no-stone-unturned devotion to making every detail count. And, oh, is that kind of attention to detail and nuance refreshing in the middle of a big, splashy summer. Go Homer! Go Patty and Selma! Go audiences, get your tickets now!

Fred Norris / The Weinstein Co

Who's Your Caddy?
Racism is alive and well and living quietly in your neighborhood, and you know it. I was overjoyed at the scene in Knocked Up when the African-American bouncer says how hard it is having to see to it that the club doesn't have too many black people inside. I mean, that's disgusting and foul and everyone always just looks the other way.

That's why this movie bums me out. It's a surfacey laughfest about a rap mogul (Big Boi) who wants in on a superelite snotty-face Caddyshack-style country club. It's an opportunity to make a bold and much needed statement about this ass-backward country of ours. Such an opportunity, but it's just squandered with over-the-top jokes. My friends at the premiere said that Eddie Murphy was wandering around looking less than enthralled. I don't blame ya, Eddie. They don't make 'em like Trading Places anymore.

David Lee /2006 Village Roadshow Films

No Reservations
Nah.

Oh, should I go on?

Okay. I look at this grossly miscast rote romantic comedy and wonder one thing and one thing only: Aaron Eckhart, why don't you fire your agents already? I can watch Thank You for Smoking over and over not just because it's an amazing film packed with zingy performances by everyone involved (yep, Adam Brody, you rule) but because of Eckhart.

He can do so much. He is the good guy and the bad guy and the hedonist and the heartfelt. And to see him make smirky dopey love with Catherine Zeta-Jones' chef is painful. Barf. Please go on strike against Reservations. It's the kind of movie that Meg Ryan would have sleepwalked through toward the end of her rom-com heyday. Except she's Meg Ryan. She's believable as a perfectionist-but-womanly lonesome dove.

I'm doubly disgusted because this is one of those absolutely unnecessary remakes. Mostly Martha, the German film on which this is based, was a well-shot zinger of a film. Why remake it? Rent Mostly Martha and make a countdown calendar to Superbad. That sounds like a satisfying menu of activities to me.