Summer Guide: The season of big-budget movies uses its brain

Comments (0) By Chuck Wilson Thursday, Jun 5 2008

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Miss Conception: Heather Graham has one month to conceive a child and enlists her friend (Mia Kirshner) to help her find a father. But that's not all! The title has a double meaning! (June 6)

The Promotion: John C. Reilly and Seann William Scott duke it out for the manager job at a Chicago grocery store in this consumer satire from writer-director Steve Conrad, who penned The Pursuit of Happyness. (June 6)

Heather Graham in Miss Conception

Ron Perlman in Hellboy: The Golden Army

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You Don't Mess With the Zohan: A pumped-up Adam Sandler stars as an Israeli Mossad agent fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a Brooklyn hairstylist. (June 6)

Get Smart: Steve Carell is Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway Agent 99 in this film version of the mid-1960s TV show about an inept super-spy and his smarter, sexier sidekick.

(June 20)

The Love Guru: Mike Myers dons a Mahatma beard and golden swami robes to play an American raised in India who dreams of becoming a Brooklyn hairstylist (or America's go-to self-help guru). With Jessica Alba and Justin Timberlake. (June 20)

Diminished Capacity: On the heels of his wife's SATC shebang, Matthew Broderick opens another movie, this time starring as a brain-injured man who hits the road with his dementia-addled uncle (Alan Alda) and high-school sweetheart (Virginia Madsen). (July 4)

Step Brothers: Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly reunite as newly related men who discover that two fools are better than one. (July 25)

Meet Dave: Dave (Eddie Murphy) is an alien, new to Earth. Dave tries to adjust to Manhattan life, all the while being supervised by a command post of tiny (alien) people in his head (whom we see). (July 11)

Kenny: Kenny Smyth (Shane Jacobson), Australian porta-potty entrepreneur, hopes to find a little respect at a Nashville convention of . . . porta-potty entrepreneurs. (July 11)

The Rocker: Rainn Wilson steps out of The Office and into leather pants for this comedy about a failed rock drummer getting a second chance — with his nephew's high school band. (August 1)

Pineapple Express: Seth Rogen and James Franco are stoned on the best weed of their life, and also running for their lives from a killer cop, in a film penned by Rogen and his Superbad writing partner Evan Goldberg and directed by indie darling David Gordon Green. (August 8)

Bottle Shock: Based on the true story of a French wine shop owner (Alan Rickman) who traveled to Napa in 1976 to set up a blind taste test between French and California wines. The must-see summer flick for wine lovers. (August 15)

Tropic Thunder: Ben Stiller (who also directs), Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. go all Rambo as Hollywood actors who don't realize that their military training is actually in a real war. With Tom Cruise in a fat suit cameo all the world wants to see (including you). (August 14)

The House Bunny: Ditzy Playboy bunny Anna Faris becomes college sorority house mother, a plot line that must have made for a terribly efficient pitch meeting.

(August 22)

Vicky Cristina Barcelona: Woody Allen down Barcelona way, steering Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and Scarlett Johansson (yet again) through the complications of three-way love. (August 29)

DANCING QUEEN

Mamma Mia!: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Amanda Seyfried dance and sing to the music of — who else? — ABBA. (July 25)