Who Needs Sunscreen? Issue #40

By Zipporah Porton
Published: August 1st, 2009 | 12:00am

Since summer is the tent pole for big-budget films and television lapses into four months of reruns, this edition of the Zip File will be devoted solely to the big screen. For those of you indie buffs that fear the multiplex, particularly the heinous big-budget offerings that unfurl from May to September, rejoice in the knowledge that the wise moviegoer (with a little help from yours truly) can find a few needles in the summer hay.

SUMMER LOVIN’
There’s nothing wrong with catching the occasional rom-com, but wouldn’t it be nice if they didn’t all end with the leading lady running through an airport? Thank goodness for Stephen Frears’ Chéri, which (unlike most summer romances) won’t include a shirtless Ryan Reynolds. Starring a much-missed Michelle Pfeifer, Chéri (June 26) is an adaptation of the novel by French author Colette about the lingering effects of a romance between a middle-aged woman and a wealthy young man in 1920s Paris. Want more sap? You could watch Katherine Heigl reprise her tired role as a romantically challenged bombshell yet again in The Ugly Truth, or you could watch Hugh Dancy as the eponymous character in Adam, (July 29) an autistic man who develops a relationship with his upstairs neighbor, played by Damages star, Rose Byrne.

ANIMATION GRADUATION
As usual, a variety of extremely expensive animated features will roll out this summer — each is sure to boast impressive visuals hanging on recycled plots. Instead of watching the shamelessly cheesy Disney release G-Force, a “comedy adventure” where guinea pigs take part in a covert government program to train animals to work in espionage, give a new animator a shot with 9.99, written, directed, and animated by Tatia Rosenthal. Exploring the meaning of life and why we exist, 9.99 is a few cognitive notches above the rest of the summer’s animation. Hmm, guinea pig spies vs. the meaning of life — tough call.

AVOID THE SEQUEL
If you’re looking for some summer thrills but hoping to utilize a few brain cells, avoid anything that is playing on more than three screens in one theater, especially if it is a sequel such as Terminator Salvation, Angels & Demons, or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. You might have to dig a little deeper to find it, but Surveillance, written and directed by Jennifer Lynch, has the potential to be thrilling and creative as an FBI agent tracks a serial killer with the help of three of his would-be victims. Lynch, daughter of the brilliantly tortured David Lynch, is responsible for the creepy, yet fascinating, 1993 Sherilyn Fenn flick, Boxing Helena.