Enterteinment

COOL LIKE THAT
By Noah Stern, West Coast Film Critic

Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall and Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter in Warner Bros. Pictures' fantasy Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Photo by Jaap Buitendijk. ©2008 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

I find myself on the road this Summer – not in a Nicholson/Hopper/Fonda “Easy Rider” escape, but rather in a contemplation of the great conundrums manner. Heavy stuff, like: Kobe v. LeBron. (and why DO they live together. as Muppets??). Is my nephew – at 6'4'', 280 lbs, too “sophisticated” for SpaceCamp? And how hot – and I mean equatorial, upperdeck sizzling at LandShark hot – does it have to get before I succumb to Tom Hanks and his modified Mardona/Riles greasy Angels and Demons coif...just for the air-conditioning? Decisions, decisions. The sobering truth – if you're reading this and you're not a 15 yearold boy...in Space Camp...then the Summer blockbuster season isn't for you. Every week between now and Labor Day, a host of new films will spill into your neighborhood multiplex, and for every “Angel,” there will be a “Demon,” or at least three films starring Christian Bale. I'm firmly on the side of the halos, and rather than make your decision based on the obvious, or the a/c, here's a preview of the Summer's counter-life, the stuff you should catch while everyone else is queueing up for Transformers 2, Shia's Revenge. It's gonna get hot, but to quote the great Bill Paxton, whom before he was a TV polygamist, was one fierce Aliens hunting marine; “Yeah man, but it's a dry heat.”

JULY 1 - ICE AGE 3: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS
Quick – close your eyes! And riddle me this Batman; Can you honestly remember the difference between Ice Age, and Ice Age 2? Between Ice Age 2 and Madagascar? Between Madagascar 2 and Happy Feet? Between Happy Feet and Surf's Up? Penguins, Froyo, some kind of feral thing that sounds like John Leguizamo. It's back to hypnotherapy if you can recall any of these sub-Pixarlooneytoons. Everyone loves Raymond? Not true, and even less so as a Woolly Mammoth with a deviated septum.

PUBLIC ENEMIES
Johnny Depp was 4 years old in 1967, perhaps too young to rock the lead in the then-modern/ now-classic Bonnie and Clyde. Three decades
later, he's pencil-mustache perfect as John Dillinger in Michael Mann's Public Enemies. The latest installment in Mann's HD digital trilogy (Collateral, Miami Vice) Public Enemies returns Mann to the gangland stomping ground of his best work (Thief, Manhunter, Heat.) Growing up in Chicago, there were two things every kid knew about John Dillinger; first, that F.B.I. G-men employed a seductive “Lady In Red to lure him into an ambush outside the Biograph theatre in Lincoln Park, still standing to this day. Second...well... let's just say Hendrix had nothing on Johnny D – is that a smile on the “Lady in Red's” face? Kiss Kiss/Bang Bang.