Superhero Movie

Superhero Movie Weinstein Co., $29.95 The proliferation of parody films with the word "Movie" in their titles has cheapened the noble tradition of making fun of pop culture, but "Superhero Movie" proves that there are still a few -- if only a few -- laughs left in the old formula. The jokes mostly flop, but the atmosphere is amiable, and every five minutes or so, writer-director Craig Mazin hits his target.

In a battle of the sequels, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" retained its superhero grip at the weekend box office, finishing No. 1 and beating the animated "Rio 2" by a slim margin. "Captain America" grossed a studio-estimated $41.4 million in its second weekend, down 56% from its $95-million opening. The Marvel superhero movie, released by Disney, has a domestic haul so far of $159 million. The 3-D sequel is already close to matching the total $176.7-million domestic take of 2011's "Captain America: The First Avenger.

"X-Men: First Class," which hit the screens this weekend, isn't just the latest installment in one of the most successful superhero movie franchises of the 21st century (the first four movies in the series grossed more than $1.5 billion). It's a more direct commentary on contemporary America than such ostensibly realist films as "Bridesmaids" and "Midnight in Paris. " Though populated with superpowered "mutants" such as Magneto (who is able to control all sorts of metallic objects)

"Man of Steel" and "This is the End" aren't the only game in town for moviegoers this weekend. If you're looking for an alternative to the big new summer movies, revival theaters, museums and archives have classics and rarely seen vintage films on tap for this week. Jeff Margolis' “Richard Pryor: Live in Concert” American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre, Santa Monica Friday, 7:30 p.m., $11 The pioneering African American comic's 1979 performance film shot at the Terrace Theater in Long Beach.

"Superhero Movie," a PG-13 rated genre spoof starring Leslie Nielsen, opens in wide release today but was not screened in advance for critics. The Times review will appear in Monday's Calendar and online as soon as it is available.

Given THE success of "Batman Begins" three years ago, adventurous, eclectic director Christopher Nolan could have gone anywhere and done anything with his next film. So why did he elect to return to the mythical city of Gotham, to the confines of a superhero movie and the narrow world of a caped crusader imprisoned by the secret of who he really is? That sequel, "The Dark Knight," answers all those questions with a vengeance. To see it is to understand that Nolan and his co-writer brother Jonathan saw a chance to go deeper into familiar characters and mythology, a chance to meditate on darker-than-usual themes that have implications for the way we live now. A chance to disturb us in the ways these kinds of movies rarely do. With Christian Bale returning in the title role and Heath Ledger giving a shocking, indelible performance as his arch-nemesis the Joker, "The Dark Knight" may be the most hopeless, despairing comic-book movie in memory.

If the mere mention of any of these strikes you as funny -- YouTube, Craigslist, Facebook, MySpace, "2 Girls, 1 Cup," Perez Hilton, Wikipedia -- you are 75% of the way to enjoying most of the humor in "Superhero Movie," the latest in a series of genre spoofs to open in theaters.

This weekend, the campaign gets intense. Not the Clinton-Obama one, but the Sony Pictures campaign to make Jim Sturgess into a major movie star. The 26-year-old British actor, who broke out last fall in Sony's musical "Across the Universe," has a supporting role in the studio's bodice-ripper "The Other Boleyn Girl" and now headlines its blackjack drama "21," also starring Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne and Kate Bosworth.

Turning the tables on Las Vegas was a winning theme at the movie box office over the weekend, but audiences weren't in the mood for another silly spoof or a serious drama about the Iraq war. Sony Pictures' blackjack thriller "21" topped the charts with an estimated $23.7 million in opening-weekend ticket sales, the studio said Sunday, knocking 20th Century Fox's animated hit "Horton Hears a Who!" to No. 2. The Dr. Seuss tale has now grossed more than $100 million domestically.

Three guys, one night, drunken debauchery. Jon Lucas and Scott Moore realized that, on paper, their new screenplay, "21 & Over," looked very derivative of "The Hangover. " Then again, they were the guys who wrote "The Hangover," which spawned the most successful R-rated comedy franchise of all time and heralded their arrival as successful Hollywood writers in 2009. And they wanted to direct a movie. So they decided to go with what they knew. "We were definitely conscious that the angle people would take on the movie is that it was a 'Hangover' retread," said Lucas, sitting next to his writing partner in a Hollywood sports bar a few weeks ago. PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments "But on a very practical level," Moore chimed in, "we wanted to get another movie made and direct it ourselves.

Three guys, one night, drunken debauchery. Jon Lucas and Scott Moore realized that, on paper, their new screenplay, "21 & Over," looked very derivative of "The Hangover. " Then again, they were the guys who wrote "The Hangover," which spawned the most successful R-rated comedy franchise of all time and heralded their arrival as successful Hollywood writers in 2009. And they wanted to direct a movie. So they decided to go with what they knew. "We were definitely conscious that the angle people would take on the movie is that it was a 'Hangover' retread," said Lucas, sitting next to his writing partner in a Hollywood sports bar a few weeks ago. PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments "But on a very practical level," Moore chimed in, "we wanted to get another movie made and direct it ourselves.

"Marvel Comics: The Untold Story" performs an act of what superhero comics fans might term "retcon" - or retroactive continuity - by returning to the beginning of the superhero industry and telling the tale again with a number of previously invisible heroes suddenly added to the story: the men and women who created superhero comics. Superhero comics has always been a bit of an oddball, a niche genre with a small but fiercely devoted fan base and a penchant for stories about flawed, outcast heroes who struggle not only to save the world but find their place in it. Sean Howe's book traces the byzantine histories of the colorful characters on the comics pages and in the Marvel offices, from the inception of the superhero in the 1930s through the modern era, and finds the real and the fictional equally laced with epic triumphs, tragic reversals of fortune, backstabbing and melodrama.

"The Possession" took ownership of the No. 1 spot at the box office this Labor Day weekend, but there was no love for "The Oogieloves. " The horror flick produced by Sam Raimi did stronger-than-expected business, grossing a solid $21.3 million over the four-day weekend, according to an estimate from distributor Lionsgate. "Lawless," the violent crime drama featuring Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy, trailed with a so-so $13-million debut. And then there were those poor "Oogieloves.

Potent, persuasive and hypnotic, "The Dark Knight Rises"has us at its mercy. A disturbing experience we live through as much as a film we watch, this dazzling conclusion to director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is more than an exceptional superhero movie, it is masterful filmmaking by any standard. So much so that, its considerable 2-hour, 44-minute length notwithstanding, as soon as it's over, all you want to do is see it all over again. That desire comes despite - or perhaps because of - the fact that "The Dark Knight Rises" might be the bleakest, most despairing superhero film ever made.

No film this year faces higher expectations than "The Dark Knight Rises," the ambitious conclusion to Christopher Nolan's pitch-black Batman trilogy. And yet, like the caped crusader himself, Nolan has been known to pull off some pretty remarkable feats - the latest being that "Rises" appears to live up to the hype. The Times' own Kenneth Turan calls "The Dark Knight Rises" a "dazzling conclusion" that "is more than an exceptional superhero movie, it is masterful filmmaking by any standard.

The unmistakable air of Hollywood calculation hangs over"The Amazing Spider-Man,"but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The studios wouldn't survive if they didn't make smart bets from time to time to balance their multiple bonehead maneuvers, and this new superhero saga is a shrewd wager that mostly - but not entirely - pays off. The first piece of calculation was the determination that, only a decade past the first "Spider-Man"film and...

No film this year faces higher expectations than "The Dark Knight Rises," the ambitious conclusion to Christopher Nolan's pitch-black Batman trilogy. And yet, like the caped crusader himself, Nolan has been known to pull off some pretty remarkable feats - the latest being that "Rises" appears to live up to the hype. The Times' own Kenneth Turan calls "The Dark Knight Rises" a "dazzling conclusion" that "is more than an exceptional superhero movie, it is masterful filmmaking by any standard.

March has been declared Carla Gugino month -- or maybe it just feels that way. The actress is in the just-released "Watchmen" and in Friday's "Race to Witch Mountain." And she's soon heading to Broadway for Eugene O'Neill's "Desire Under the Elms." -- How is your "Watchmen" junket going? It's actually been really fantastic because I don't know if I've ever been part of a movie that people have given this kind of response. Have you seen it yet? -- Nope, couldn't get into the screening.

The swoony, sparkly vampires in the "Twilight" saga have sold a bloody fortune at the box office, thanks largely to a devoted fan base of young women and teenage girls. But will young adult men respond in the same way to the vicious vein-drainers in the far more grown-up"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"? Opening in wide release Friday against Pixar's animated"Brave" and Focus Features' apocalyptic love story"Seeking a Friend for the End of the World," Fox's "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" presents an alternative biography of the 16th president in which the great orator is actually an ax-wielding monster slayer determined to avenge the death of his mother and rid the nation of an unseen, undead menace.

This is the Oscars' year of nostalgia - or at least that has been the pronouncement among observers. There is, of course, "The Artist," a silent film set in the silent film era. There is Martin Scorsese's "Hugo," which is the story of the rediscovery of one of the early pioneers of the movies, the French director George Méliès. There is Woody Allen's"Midnight in Paris" in which the protagonist slips through a hole in time into the Paris of the expatriate '20s. There are Steven Spielberg's "War Horse," which borrows the cinematic syntax of John Ford and feels like one of Ford's 1950s Cinemascope epics, and "The Help," which has the sensibility of a 1960s social issue movie.