E-Mail This Article to a Friend The good old summertime (continued)
	Related Links Batman Begins' official Web site Bewitched's official Web site Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's official Web site Cinderella Man's official Web site Elizabethtown's official Web site Fantastic Four's official Web site The Great Raid's official Web site Herbie Fully Loaded's official Web site High Tension's official Web site The Honeymooners's official Web site Howl’s Moving Castle's official Web site Hustle & Flow's official Web site The Longest Yard's official Web site The Lords of Dogtown's official Web site Mr. and Mrs. Smith's official Web site The Pink Panther's official Web siteThe Bad News Bears' official Web site Saving Face's official Web site Star Wars' official Web site War of the Worlds' official Web site The Wedding Crashers' official Web site

JULY

Family values and special effects combine also in Fantastic Four (July 1) as director Tim Story (Taxi) brings one of the oldest Marvel Comics books to the screen. This is why NASA doesn’t send siblings and romantic couples into space: Professor Reed Richards, his girlfriend Sue, her brother Johnny, and the curmudgeonly pilot Ben Grimm return from a brush with radioactivity still squabbling and transformed, respectively, into an elastic man, an invisible woman, a human torch, and a thing. Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans, Jessica Alba, and Ioan Gruffudd star.

You might want to take a break with something more pretentious, er, French. The annual Boston French Film Festival runs July 7 through 24 at the Museum of Fine Arts. For most viewers, though, French means Lasse Hallstršm’s Chocolat (2000), a gooey pseudo-artsy Oscar-winning confection starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. Expect something more bittersweet as Depp reteams with frequent collaborator Tim Burton in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (July 15). In this remake of the classic 1971 adaptation of the misanthropic Roald Dahl children’s book, Depp takes the Gene Wilder role as Willy Wonka, a sinister chocolate mogul who invites kids in for a tour of his plant. Helping out are Freddie Highmore, who was Peter to Depp’s J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland (will this will be the antidote to that film’s cloying sweetness?) and Helena Bonham Carter.

Between Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Wedding Crashers (July 15), we might see a renaissance of crude comedy worthy of The Three Amigos. Crashers has aroused high expectations, with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as the title lotharios sneaking into weddings to take advantage of the bridesmaids’ hymeneal high spirits. David Dobkin (Shanghai Knights) directs. Also promising is The Bad News Bears (July 22). Richard Linklater (House of Rock) remakes the 1976 Walter Matthau comedy about a hard-boiled coach who tries to transform a losing Little League team into champions. With Billy Bob Thornton in the Matthau role drawing on his Bad Santa vibes and Linklater repeating the kid movie magic he showed in School of Rock, this could be a "hit."

Summer wouldn’t be complete without a futuristic dystopia or a film by Michael Bay. The Island (July 22) is both, a Brave New World in which Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson take flight after discovering that they’re clones designed by the Dr. Moreau–ish Sean Bean.

And aren’t we due for a return from occasional auteur Cameron Crowe following the undeserved (in my lonely opinion) flop of Vanilla Sky? Elizabethtown (July 29) stars former Elf Orlando Bloom, who having not made much of an impression as a Crusader tries his hand as a despondent screw-up who finds love and chaos at his father’s funeral in the title Kentucky town. Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, and Alec Baldwin co-star. It’s just one more example of seeking redemption by confronting the past.

So, in its way, is The Brothers Grimm (July 29). At least, it’s a confrontation with, and a possible resurrection of, the defunct career of Terry Gilliam, whom we last saw waning quixotic over another disastrous production in the 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha. Here he returns to the realms of Baron MŸnchhausen in a supernatural and surreal adventure starring the title pair as played by Matt Damon and Heath Ledger. Monica Bellucci also stars.

AUGUST

Darth Vader, Batman . . . Inspector Clouseau? The long-awaited origins of the bumbling Peter Sellers creation are at last revealed as Steve Martin takes on the role in The Pink Panther (August 5). This is not a remake of the 1963 original but a look at what happened before the events of that film. Directed by Shawn Levy (Cheaper by the Dozen), it also stars Kevin Kline and BeyoncŽ Knowles.

Like Steve Martin, Bill Murray is a wacky, aging comedian reinventing himself. He joins up with director Jim Jarmusch, for whom he provided a cameo in Coffee & Cigarettes, to play a washed-up Casanova in Broken Flowers (August 5), where he discovers he has a 20-year-old son (stop me if this starts to sound like Steve Zissou) and travels cross-country to determine which ex-love (Jessica Lange, Sharon Stone, Tilda Swinton . . . this is Bill Murray?) is the mother.

I think it’s time for some positive-male-image reinforcement. How about Grizzly Man (August 12)? Werner Herzog’s documentary investigates the fate of bear-loving macho naturalist Timothy Treadwell, who along with his girlfriend got eaten by an ursine acquaintance in October 2003 in Alaska. Or Four Brothers (August 12)? John Singleton returns to the ’hood, where the mixed-race sibs of the title gather, a la Elizabethtown, at their matriarch’s funeral, confront the past, and proceed to kick ass. Mark Wahlberg and OutKast’s AndrŽ Benjamin are among the stars.

And finally, John Dahl’s The Great Raid (August 12) is the true story of a commando raid that saved hundreds of Allied POWs from a Japanese camp in the Philippines in WW2. At a time when our own moral purpose seems murky both on the screen and in the real world, such returns to past glory are welcome indeed.