Tropic Thunder ***

A big-budget sendup of big-budget action movies, "Tropic Thunder" takes some chances spending so much money to ridicule big movies, narcissistic actors, studio bosses (wait till you see what they did to Tom Cruise), and pea-brained agents. Thank goodness they, or rather, Ben Stiller, who has directing, writing and producing credits, succeed.

The cast is top drawer. In the group of actors that finds themselves in a real war, besides Stiller, there's Robert Downey Jr. as an Australian actor of some renown who has had his skin darkened so he can play a black soldier, Jack Black as an actor with some controlled-substance issues, rising comic star Jay Baruchel, and Brandon T. Jackson as Alpa Chino, the real man of color in the squad. Through in Nick Nolte as a demented author, Steve Coogan as the hapless director, and the aforementioned Cruise as a studio exec, and there's every reason to expect good things.

By its very subject matter, this is a narcissistic movie about movies and the movie industry, but in a day of E! channels and box office numbers reported like sports scores, American audiences, at least, can keep up. And there's plenty of explosions for the teenboy fans. It's a good romp, and a satisfying summer popcorn flick.

Rated R. 107 minutes. Ben Stiller - Director / Writer (screenplay) (story) / Producer, Justin Theroux - Writer (screenplay) (story), Etan Cohen - Writer (screenplay), Stuart Cornfeld - Producer, Eric McLeod - Producer, John Toll - Cinematographer, Theodore Shapiro - Composer, Jeff Mann - Production Designer, Greg Hayden - Editor. Distributed by Dreamworks Distribution.

Principal actors: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan, Danny McBride, Bill Hader, Jay Baruchel, Matt Levin, Andrea De Oliveira, Reggie Lee, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Cruise.

Bottle Shock ***

In 1976, a Paris-based English expert in wines decided to arrange a blind tasting of top California wines and a selection of fine French wines in honor of the American bicentennial.  Th e outcome of that blind tasting by French wine experts shocked the wine world and put Napa Valley on the map worldwide.

This movie, whose title puns on the term for damaging wine in transit by jostling, is the story of that tasting, how it was conceived, put together, and published 'round the world.  And it's not just "inspired by" the true story, but really does tell the story - at least in the historical particulars - of the people and wineries that were involved, complete with a update on what they're doing now. Judging by the credits, the film was a labor of love for Randall Miller, who directed, and also shares credits for writing, producing, and editing. 

His story focuses on one winery, its ex-lawyer owner (Bill Pullman), and his sometimes rebellious, sometimes lazy son (Chris Pine), who is definitely a representative of '70's youth.  The Englishman, Steven Spurrier, is tartly played by Alan Rickman, best known for his oily embodiment of Snape in the Harry Potter series.  Rachael Taylor rounds out the cast as winery intern Sam.  All perform creditably and without reservation. 

A lovely example of indie film-making, this refreshing story, with a zesty feel for life and flavor, goes down smoothly, satisfies, and leaves a pleasant aftertaste. 

Rated PG-13.  110 minutes. Randall Miller - Director / Writer (screenplay) (story) / Producer / Editor, Jody Savin / Writer (screenplay) (story) / Producer, Ross schwartz - Writer (screenplay) (story), Lanette Pabon - Writer (story), J Todd Harris - Producer, Brenda Lhormer - Producer, Marc Lhormer - Producer, Marc Toberoff - Producer, Mike Ozier - Cinematographer, Mark Adler - Composer, Craig Stearns - Production Designer, Dan O'Brien - Editor.  Distributed by Freestyle Releasing.

Principal actors: Alan Rickman, Chris Pine, Bill Pullman, Rachael Taylor, Freddy Rodriguez, Dennis Farina, Eliza Dushku, Bradley Whitford.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona ****

(Above: Director Woody Allen, right, with Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson)

A delightful, sexy, wryly- and sharply-written character study, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" shows us the summer of two friends visiting Barcelona. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is reserved, intellectual, engaged to be married, while Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is impetuous, sensual, searching for she doesn't know what. They meet a charmingly direct and seductive Spanish painter (Javier Bardem) with a fiery ex-wife (Penélope Cruz) and things begin to happen.

As in Allen's best work, the dialog is keenly observed, and the action flows directly from the characters. While not quite up to the gold standard of "Match Point" (2005), it supasses both "Scoop" (2006) and "Cassandra's Dream" (2007). Like the best of Vicky and Cristina themselves, it combines both refreshingly intellectual and deeply sensual pleasures.

Rated PG-13. 96 minutes. Woody Allen - Director / Writer, Letty Aronson - Producer, Stephen Tenenbaum - Producer, Gareth Wiley - Producer, Javier Aguirresarobe - Cinematographer, Alain Bainée - Production Designer, Alisa Lepselter - Editor.  Distributed by MGM.

Principal actors: Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, Javier Bardem, Chris Messina, Patricia Clarkson, and Kevin Dunn.

Pineapple Express ***

The latest offering from the Judd Apatow hit machine is a stoner action comedy starring the still-not- grown-up Seth Rogen and, casting against type, James Franco as his dealer. The setup for this laugh out loud feature has Rogen witnessing a murder by a dirty cop, whereupon he ditches the roach of "Pineapple Express" he was smoking, which can be traced by the bad guys back to his dealer.

As usual with Apatow movies, the humor arises naturally from the situations and the characters in the story. The dialog has a fresh and spontaneous quality, and the locations look like today's real life.

Director David Gordon Green, who wrote and directed the very different "Snow Angels" (2007) here makes the transition to comedy well. I can't say the same for the action sequences, which look a bit clumsy and forced and over the top. Of course all action sequences are over the top, but here there is a real disconnect with the realism of the rest of the movie.

Nevertheless, "Pineapple Express" is well worth the time, and will leave you smiling, even if you're not in an altered state.

Rated R. 111 minutes. David Gordon Green - Director, Seth Rogen - Writer (screenplay) (story), Evan Goldberg - Writer (screenplay) (story), Judd Apatow - Writer (story) / Producer, Shauna Robertson - Producer, Tim Orr - Cinematographer, Graeme Revell - Composer, Chris Spellman - Production Designer, Craig Alpert - Editor.  Distributed by Columbia Pictures.

Principal actors: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Gary Cole, Rosie Perez, Danny R. McBride, Amber Heard, and James Remar.

Up the Yangtze ****

As the waters rise near the Three Gorges Dam, life upriver in China is changing. This arresting and beautifully photographed documentary examines the lives of some young people who go to work on a tourist cruise boat, mainly focusing on "Cindy," the daughter of a poor squatter whose hut and fields will soon be inundated.

The film is shot and narrated by Yung Chang, a Canadian whose grandfather immigrated from China, and who told his grandson many stories and songs from his homeland. Chang does not tell, he shows, in an unobtrusive way that must mean he was there for so long that his crew became part of the furniture. The family scenes in the hut, shot in available light, often just candlelight, depict a family struggling to adapt to the new China.

Because her family cannot afford the expense of high school for her, Cindy goes to work on the tourist boat, filled mostly with Americans. We see English lessons, the hierarchy of jobs on the boat, and the personalities of her co-workers. By the end of the movie it's clear that life on a small plot of land, growing vegetables for the table, will soon disappear, and that life now will be urban, commercial, and highly westernized.

A trainer on the boat relates a telling joke. It seems the presidents of the U.S. and of China were in a car. They come to a crossroads marked "Socialism" to the left and "Capitalism" to the right.

"Let's go to the right," says the U.S. president.

"OK," agrees the Chinese president, "but let's use the left-turn indicator."

Not rated. 93 minutes. Yung Chang - Director / Writer (writer), Mila Aung-Thwin - Producer, John Christou - Producer, Germaine Wong - Producer, Shi Qing Wang - Cinematographer, Olivier Alary - Composer, Hannele Halm - Editor.  Distributed in the U.S. by Zeitgeist Films.

Credited cast, as themselves: Jerry Bo Yu Chen, Campbell Ping He, Cindy Shui Yu.

Chris & Don. A Love Story ****

Don was still a teenager when he first met Chris, who was thirty years his senior, on the "queer beach" at Santa Monica in the early 'fifties. "Chris & Don. A Love Story" is an intimate and frank documentary of the 30-year relationship between writer Christopher Isherwood and the much younger Don Bachardy, told largely with interviews with Don and narration by Michael York over clips from home movies (often with Hollywood personalities and writers like Tennessee Williams), photographs, and excerpts from Isherwood's diaries.

The movie gives us a revealing look at Isherwood's development as a writer in the preceding years, growing up in a well to do English family, intentionally flunking out of Cambridge, and landing in Berlin in the 'thirties at the urging of poet W.H Auden. Isherwood's "Berlin Stories" from the period put him on the map, and later was the basis for the incarnations of "Cabaret." With war coming, Isherwood moved to the U.S., and settled in Hollywood working as a screen writer.

Chris' access to Hollywood stars dazzled the star-struck Don, and Chris was able to arrange for some of the biggest stars to sit for the Don, who, with Chris' encouragement and art lessons, became a portrait painter. Chris was the main influence on Don, and molded his speech, his sense of fashion, and outlook on life. As Don says, "It was just what the boy wanted, and the boy flourished." The scope and range of the documentary is arresting, and Don, now 74, and still a working artist, leaves out nothing as he relates their story, up until the day Isherwood died in 1986 at the age of 81.

Some animation and dramatic re-enactments enliven what is so often a dull form. I particularly liked the animated sequences of the horse and the pussycat (Chris and Don's pet names for each other) that give a sense of their relationship, and which allowed them to say things to each other that might have been too difficult to say directly.

Writer/producer/editor Tina Mascara and Guido Santi have done a superb job putting this project together. Their understanding of the currents of social class, sexual orientation, popular culture, friendship, and love make an arresting work. It is definitely worth seeing.

Not rated. 90 minutes. Tina Mascara - Director / Producer / Editor, Guido Santi - Director / Producer / Editor, Julia Alexander - Producer, James White - Producer, Ralph Q. Smith - Cinematographer, Miriam Cutler - Composer, Francisco Stohr - Production Designer.  Distributed in the U.S. by Zeitgeist Films.

Principal cast, as themselves: Don Bachardy, John Boorman, Leslie Caron, Christopher Isherwood (archival footage), Liza Minnelli, Gloria Stuart, and Michael York (narrator).

Swing Vote ***

Through a twist of fate (OK, several twists) and the well-meaning interference of his precocious daughter, a recently-fired drunk in Texico, New Mexico, has the opportunity to cast the deciding vote in the election of the next president of the United States.

The drunk, Bud, exuberantly and fearlessly played by Kevin Costner, seems to stand for what Edward Bulwer-Lytton called "the Great Unwashed," the great Unthinking, Uninterested, and Unexamined Underclass that is more interested in the next beer than in the next president. His daughter, Molly, expertly embodied by Madeline Carroll (watch out Abigail Breslin!), portrays idealistic youth, most interested in the plight of the working poor and the unfulfilled promise of the American Dream.

When Bud's identity becomes known, the incumbent Republican president (Kelsey Grammer) and his Democratic challenger (Dennis Hopper) both decamp to Texico to court Bud. Bud, who has no idea what the code words "pro-life" or "pro-choice" mean, for example, makes remarks that cause both campaigns to make shameless flip-flops on basic platform planks just to please Bud. The political satire is broad and there are some good laughs.

What I liked about this movie was Costner's and Carroll's performances, and the ultimate seriousness of the message. The heart of the film is the father-daughter relationship, and the father's belated recognition, in the face of far-greater failings of his ex-wife, of his own. But don't expect big box office. The public, suffering from four dollar a gallon gas, a slumping economy, and a war that still seems without end, is in no mood for anything that makes them confront an uncomfortable reality. Just like Bud.

Rated PG-13. 120 minutes. Joshua Michael Stern - Director / Writer, Jason Richman - Writer, Kevin Costner - Producer, Jim Wilson - Producer, Shane Hurlbut - Cinematographer, John Debney - Composer, Steve Saklad - Production Designer, Jeff McEvoy - Editor. Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Principal actors: Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, Nathan Lane, Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, George Lopez, Madeline Carroll, Paula Patton, Judge Reinhold, Willie Nelson, Mare Winningham, and Richard Petty.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor **

Impressive and inventive special effects, which often inform and advance the story, interrupt a silly narrative, tedium and bad acting in this third edition of the Mummy franchise. After many years, with an adventurous son digging in tombs just like his famous dad, you might think you've stumbled into another franchise. But this, alas, is no Indiana Jones adventure.

This time, shortly after World War II, the miraculously preserved O'Connells (the affable Brendan Fraser and a truly awful Maria Bello) are bored with English country life and ready to go to China to deliver a precious artifact to the Shanghai Museum. What they don't know is that their son, a quite bland Luke Ford, has unearthed the Dragon Emperor (Jet Li) and brought him to Shanghai.

We know from a backstory narration the story of this Emperor. As a wise man truly said, when a screen writer dies, he becomes a narrator. For an enlightening object lesson, see the first 20 minutes of WALL-E, where, with no narration and virtually no dialog, you get a clear idea of what is going on and what must have happened. Here, any dialog is a segue to a fight scene, a perilous escape, or a magnificent special-effects battle.

For special effects and fight fans, which I know are legion, this movie will satisfy. Also fans of really loud, bombastic music. Others may lament the wasted effort and talent, and the prominent lack of directing skill that make this movie explode like a box of fireworks and then vanish, like its warring armies, in a cloud of dust, like it was never there.

Rated PG-13. 112 minutes. Rob Cohen - Director, Alfred Gough - Writer, Miles Millar - Writer, Sean Daniel - Producer, Bob Ducsay - Producer, James Jacks - Producer, Stephen Sommers - Producer, Simon Duggan - Cinematographer, Randy Edelman - Composer, Nigel Phelps - Production Designer, Kelly Matsumoto - Editor, Joel Negron - Editor. Distributed by Universal Pictures.

Principal actors: Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, John Hannah, Michelle Yeoh, Anthony Wong, Luke Ford, and Isabella Leong.