Coming next week: A Nick’s List Extra: where to find great movies for the long summer ahead.

MOVIE 67

I, Robot
(Alex Proyas, 2004, 115 m.)

Essence of silly blockbuster. Opened in July. With obvious product-placements and sassy women. And nominated for a bunch of “Best Summer Movie” kind of awards. So, yeah, it’s all about eating popcorn in a cold room during a heatwave.

The sneaky/ambiguous ending credits say “Suggested by Isaac Asimov’s Book,” but really this movie tells the opposite of Asimov’s story. He presents a world of fanatic humans who unreasonably fear machines; this movie twists that premise so that everybody foolishly trusts robots, except one lone detective whose job is to save the world yet again for the summer. Does the movie use anything from Asimov? Yes, the title, the three laws of robotics and two character names. All the rest is a hodge-podge of computer-paranoia movies with a tacked-on ending straight from Tron (1982) — they even stole the red-bad-guys and blue-good-guys motif.

For the genuinely studious, consider going for a unique triple-play: the Will Smith movie, the Harlan Ellison illustrated screenplay, the Isaac Asimov book. Just follow the list down this page for more info, but let me suggest chronological order for the full effect. Asimov first, Ellison second, Will Smith third. If you’re crazy enough, maybe Tron fourth.

MOVIE 66

Sex and the City
(Michael Patrick King, 2008, 148 m.)

People get so worked up. Yes, this movie is as girlie as a baby shower, but it’s no worse than You’ve Got Mail and it’s way better than Wild Hogs, so what’s the big issue? I did expect Samantha (Kim Cattrall) to be the sexiest. She only talked dirtiest. Miranda the uptight lawyer (Cynthia Nixon) causes virtually all the trouble in the plot, basically by being a relentless witch. Some friend. Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw did, in fact, wear 15-20 separate outfits before the credits even finished, but the script seemed at least to lay off the shoe issue deliberately. And yes, some of the male characters could cry in public, some could kiss each other at parties, and some girlfriends did wear four-inch heels even lounging on deck chairs in Mexico — all expected. But the medium-hot porn going on next door to Samantha in Hollywood was enough to make you reach for the rewind inadvertently. The movie’s most sensual bodywork also went to Samantha’s same studmuffin neighbor Dante (Gilles Marini), who got the all-over shower treatment. So that was for women. But let’s give this movie some credit for saying that the two sexiest women are identified by age, as 40 and 50 years old, probably a Hollywood first.

The basic messages of the movie are be true to yourself and don’t be a hypocrite, which is already more thoughtful than half the Hollywood movies ever made. Still, it does go on endlessly. Cell phones started opening up. Maybe I’m wrong but is the big attraction of Sarah Jessica Parker in her brooding closeups? She had many. She’s shapely and moves well, so frankly I think the best possibility is just to keep her walking the streets in those tight outfits and spinning to show them to us.

What ultimately seemed missing was all the attitude in the old TV logo, gone with the Nineties. That spread-legged, hip-cocked stance of Carrie Bradshaw with the entire Empire State Building aimed right at her crotch, that was gone. Hmm, that was sorta the problem with the new Indiana Jones movie, too.

MOVIE 65

Tarzan and His Mate
(Cedric Gibbons, 1934, b&w, 104 m.)

Having decided that I would go see Sex and the City despite men whining all over the airwaves, I also decided first to see a sexy classic, second in the Tarzan series, sort of “Sex in the Jungle,” made right before the Hays Code covered up everybody. This movie includes some serious female and male nudity — even jokes about male nudity! Good luck finding that kind of shriveling humor in 2008. Yes, the movie is still utterly ridiculous, with hippos saving Tarzan’s life, and Tarzan killing crocodiles and lions in hand-to-tooth combat. If you are able to compartmentalize the casual racism and the cruelty to animals as inevitable in the 1930s, you can enjoy the campy quality of half-visible trapeze swings and apes nursing Tarzan with medicinal herbs after a gunshot wound. And watch Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan get dam-near nekked.

MOVIE 64

Mad Max
(George Miller, Australia, 1979, 93 m.)

This classic action-movie masterpiece is important in a number of ways. The story created the Mad Max franchise that first turned international attention on Australian movies. Of course, the movie also created the instant stardom of Mel Gibson, who became an international sex symbol, the first of People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive series, a multiple Oscar winner, a controversial Hollywood player and so on.

Furthermore, the movie was historically important in the now-rampant independent movie universe that generally works in separate parallel (and in constant peril) to the mainstream Hollywood movie. Easy Rider showed what could be done, but it didn’t develop. Mad Max was not only astonishingly profitable, but it also showed the way to make action franchises respectable and bankable. What George Lucas did with Star Wars for $13 million, Byron Kennedy and George Miller did, too, but for 3 percent of that! And Star Wars was completely mom-and-dad-nicey-nice, while Mad Max had rapes and run-over babies and ripped-off hands dragging on chains, and ended with a heroic policeman who systematically murdered an entire gang to the audience’s complete satisfaction.

Much more can be said about Mad Max, if anybody asks, especially in relation to American Westerns, but enough for now.

MOVIE 63

The Visitor
(Tom McCarthy, 2007, released 2008, 108 m.)

An excellent, discouraging movie. Not tear-jerking, which tricks you into crying. Discouraging, which eats at your courage. In the quirky plot, a middle-age college professor meets two illegal immigrants and his life is profoundly changed. At the outset, he’s nearly a waste, living joylessly out of habit — a bad teacher, a bad colleague, barely even a nice person. On a trip to NYC, he finds a young couple living in his own long-empty apartment. They’ve been “renting,” scammed by somebody. Despite the mutual fear and confusion all around, he decently lets them stay the night. And then the movie takes off, turning into a subtle and frightening story of how life has changed in the U.S. before and after 9/11.

The plot carefully navigates among the varying “sides” of the immigration issue, always staying specific and personal, but I could not help but question any notion that we are still a safe haven for the tired, the poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. I’m further tempted to think the professor is like many of us, not really bothering to face up to such difficult issues as immigration or due process until one day when we accidentally get involved.

Imagine that “catastrophic illness” is only a phrase to you one day but the next day your father is dying uncontrollably, inexplicably, and your life starts coming apart while he is about to disappear. Meanwhile, nobody else seems to care, except for making the required bereavement allowances for you for about a week. Then they think, well, sorry, but you need to get back to pulling your share of the load. And if your loved one is merely your sister-in-law or your next door neighbor for 20 years or the family’s beloved pet, people really don’t want to hear you complain. And what if your loved one is an illegal immigrant? Maybe a lack of empathy is a failure of imagination.

Tom McCarthy is the director who made The Station Agent (2003), equally sensitive and offbeat. Richard Jenkins is the professor, Walter Vale. Haaz Sleiman is Tarek Khalil, who came from Syria after his journalist father was killed for speaking out. Danai Gurira is Zainab his African girlfriend. Hiam Abbass is his mother, Mouna Khalil. They won’t make you cry.

Nick Otten is assistant director in the Theater Program at Clayton High School and adjunct professor in the graduate Communications MAT Program at Webster University. He consumes vast quantities of books and movies. In his description of Nick's List, he says,  "For every single work, I’ll quickly post a brief commentary — each week, at least 1 book and 2 movies, usually more. Maybe a paragraph, maybe a page. Sometimes, not often, I may go crazy and write some kind of extra, a page or so, on some movie or pair of movies or some genre, actor, or something else, or how one book relates to another or a movie or you or me or us. Such stuff will be just one click away, guaranteed."

To read the previous Nick's List posts click June 2 , May 26 , May 19 , May 12,   May 5 , April 28 , April 21 , March .