Battleship Directed by Peter Berg Reviewed by Malcolm Maclachlan and Tony Sheppard Malcolm: If you were looking for a summer blockbuster idea, you could do a lot worse than “Tim Riggins versus the Aliens.” If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Riggins is the character that made “Battleship” star Taylor Kitsch famous, and who was also one of the main reasons “Friday Night Lights” was one of the most underrated shows (formerly) on television. As the brooding fullback with daddy issues, he lurched back and forth between self-destruction and acts of great moral courage. He was both brawler and dreamer, bully and mentor, and a ladies man who behaved with surprising honor at times. I used t

In 2008 a little movie called Iron Man came out and dazzled us with fun characters, solid storytelling, and exciting set pieces. But the most exciting thing came at the end of the movie, after the credits rolled, when we were treated to a very short scene featuring Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. That scene basically announced one of the craziest and coolest ideas anyone has ever had, a real live superhero team-up movie: The Avengers! And now after five setup movies and just four short years this epic nerdgasm of a film is finally here. The Avengers begins with Loki (Tom Hiddleston) coming to Earth and stealing the Tesseract (that little blue cube from Captain America) from S.H.I.

When visiting the downtown/midtown area of Sacramento, be on the lookout for Sacramento’s favorite alien, the Brutha From Another Planet (B.F.A.P.). He can be spotted performing his unique dance moves to his favorite music on his space age music box which includes 70’s and 80’s funk, disco, and dance music from all eras. The B.F.A.P. was named by a group of admirers who first witnessed his funky dance moves. Meeting and greeting the B.F.A.P. is easy. He is very family friendly and is a great crowd pleaser. Youngsters of all ages are delighted and frightened by his robotic dance movements after seeing him frozen in place. Ruben of South Sacramento, age 10, described the B.F.A.P. as “Reall

District 9 Directed by Neill Blomkamp By Tony Sheppard Capitol Weekly Sitting at the Number 1 spot in this week’s box office rankings and modestly masquerading as a relatively low-budget creature feature, “District 9” is brought to you in a hands-off way by producer Peter Jackson (the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy). I say masquerading, as it’s really quite an insightful commentary on politics and international power-brokering, both past and current. The story has aliens arriving over Johannesburg, complete with their clearly superior technology and weaponry but also with a broken spaceship and apparently no intergalactic towing service. This results in two outcomes – a giant refugee camp

Crossing Over Written and directed by Wayne Kramer By Tony Sheppard Capitol Weekly Thirteen years after making a short film of the same name, writer/director Wayne Kramer (“The Cooler,” “Running Scared”) has revisited the topic for a feature that feels like three or four shorts spliced together. Unfortunately the outcome makes me wish they could be separated again and shown one after the other, with their respective overlaps encountered sequentially. “Crossing Over” is the latest film to tell a story that weaves multiple lives, with a common theme that connects them. It’s successful on some levels, but it also suffers the fate of other similarly-structured films in that some of those co

Monsters vs. Aliens Directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon by Tony Sheppard Capitol Weekly This is an interesting release for Sacramento, for a couple of reasons. For starters, it’s set in California, with the initial action taking place in the Central Valley and the climax in San Francisco. But it’s also a bit of a departure from the established norm in this market, in that it’s being released in 3D on the giant IMAX screen on the same day as it hits the multiplexes – so you can pick your format without having to wait. Susan (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) lives in Modesto, where she’s about to marry the local TV weatherman Derek (Paul Rudd). Derek is waiting to expand his horizons