Movies

Hollywood loves buddy pictures, so it's kind of fun these day to see Ben Stiller doing some serious cozying up to Tom Cruise, who if you haven't already heard 1,000 times does a funny turn as a bald studio chief in Stiller's new Hollywood spoof "Tropic Thunder," which opens Wednesday. Stiller has had his pre-release problems in recent days, notably the threat of a nationwide boycott of the film by a coalition of disability groups, who are furious over what they've called the film's open ridicule of the disabled.

LOS ANGELES — More than a dozen groups on Monday called for a boycott of the film “Tropic Thunder,” citing what they described as the movie’s disregard for people with intellectual disabilities. The step followed screenings at which Paramount and its DreamWorks unit showed the film to advocates for the disabled, many of whom had expressed outrage at marketing materials that showed Ben Stiller, the movie’s star and director, portraying a weak-minded character named Simple Jack.

The documentary "Man on Wire" opens with a grainy black-and-white reenactment of events that transpired in August 1974, when French high-wire artist Philippe Petit and a group of friends infiltrated the newly built World Trade Center, armed with hundreds of pounds of equipment, a harebrained scheme and an astonishing amount of hubris. As the participants narrate what's happening on-screen, the story quickly takes on the taut urgency of a thriller. Then suddenly, the film inserts a jarring color shot of Ground Zero.

“Bottle Shock,” an easygoing little movie, made with more affection than skill, takes us back to the days when men wore loud plaid suits and people who were serious about wine sneered at the very mention of California. Sticking reasonably close to the historical record, the director, Randall Miller (who wrote the screenplay with his wife, Jody Savin, and Ross Schwartz), reconstructs a watershed moment in the wine world’s acceptance of the Golden State and, eventually, of many other non-French viticultural regions.

Johnny Depp is being tipped to play The Riddler in the sequel to The Dark Knight.

It's not easy to play a stupid guy. The temptations are everywhere - to wink at the audience as if to say, "I'm smart, actually" - or to try to make being stupid a form of adorable. Kevin Costner plays a good-natured idiot in "Swing Vote," a middle-aged man who has squandered what little potential he had in favor of life as a hard-drinking good-for-nothing, and he gives a remarkable performance.

Stephenie Meyer has a cameo in the movie version of her novel Twilight, but the author isn't eager to see her acting debut. "That's the only part I'm never going to watch," she says. Meyer has no lines in the movie — she says she was too shy — but she can be seen sitting at a lunch counter in a diner. It's a scene where Bella and her father are dining out in Forks, Wash., the town where most of the story takes place.

SATURDAY AM: Warner Bros' The Dark Knight continues to power drive the North American box office and grossed a whopping $23.1 million Friday from 4,366 theaters. That's down only 66% from its record-smashing debut a week ago. With an expected $78 million weekend, down only 50% from the best-ever Fri-Sat-Sun, the Christian Bale-Heath Ledger actioner directed by Chris Nolan is also well on its way to making $300M in just 10 days, the fastest ever (beating Pirates Of The Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest which did it is 16 days).

The almost comically ominous opening music is nearly the best part of Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, building anticipation for a story that just doesn't give rise to goosebumps.