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hollywood’s got my dollar this summer! here’s what i’ve been checking out, hopefully i can see a scanner darkly this week:

X3: the final stand - more like yechhhs men! even for a comic book movie, the screenplay was a total hack job. there were too many characters and too many storylines and subplots, leaving a lot of them underdeveloped and unresolved. rattner and co. also managed to ruin one of the greatest stories from the comic (the dark phoenix saga) and make it almost an afterthought. not even patrick stewart and sir ian mckellen could save it. on the plus side, kelsey grammar makes a nice hank mccoy/beast. not recommended.

superman returns - despite one of the most misguided premises ever, i enjoyed it. definitely a grand homage to the originals and most of the casting was spot on, with the exception of kate bosworth. brandon routh does a great christopher reeve without becoming a parody. kevin spacey camps up his take on lex luthor and it works well. for the most part, singer avoids a lot of cheesy moments that a lesser director would have played up. one of the things the movie did a great job with was capturing the inherent loneliness of being the last survivor of a doomed planet. if brian singer had gone with a ’superman begins’ movie, this would have been out of the park. as it was, it was merely “pretty good”. recommended.

strangers with candy - how i’ve missed you, jerri blank. this is pretty much a prequel for a six year old television series, if that makes any sense. for the uninitiated, i’d say the tv episodes (available in dvd box set form) are a better starting point but for fans this works just fine. stephen colbert has some classic moments and amy sedaris rules the school but my favorite character? stu the meat man. highest recommendation for fans, definitely worth a matinee for non-fans.

clerks 2- this movie is a lot like catching up with old friends after a long time apart. dante and randall are probably my favorite characters in the kevin smith universe and this was a funny, dumb and at times, touching (!) sendoff to them. in the early stages i was worried that he would be hard-pressed to be outrageous but rest assured he does. in fact, he does it in spades. you get all the requisite gross humor and non-acting found in the original and then some. but at the same time, the characters have grown up (even if it’s just a tiny bit) and for anyone older than 25 who’s lived in jersey, a lot of the themes will hit especially close. this movie exceeded my rock-bottom expectations and i can think of a hundred worse ways to spend your hard-earned movie dollar. recommended.