Without fail, at least once a month I peruse my DVD collection looking for a solid film focused on a female star -- a film where the woman is smart and successful, a film that focuses on something other than her romantic foibles. It's like I think wishing for there to be more films that fit "The Rule" will create a whole slew of new selections in my library. If only ... But there aren't a horde of these films to pick from, so that often means picking something of the romantic variety, often with a side of comedy.

But oh, the woes of romantic comedies. These days the term usually meets the following criteria: women acting irrationally, men being jerky, unbelievable occurrences taking place over and over again -- you know, all those super-fun stereotypes that every damn romcom these days seems to latch onto.

However, there are some romantic comedies out there that cater to those outside the throngs who thrive on fashion-obsessed ladies and relationship stereotypes. Sure, the films might get sappy or take an easy laugh here or there, but they also showcase a variety of relationships and romantic scenarios without falling into that typical void. These films work for a variety of themes -- the fantasy, the lesbians, the intellectuals, the music lovers, the single people, the passion fiends, and the lovers of foreign film -- and prove that romance is about a lot more engaging, and a lot more real, than many movies might suggest.

When the 1932 Olympics hit LA, it began a long history of synergy between the games and the movie business. That synergy led to Zhang Yimou, China's answer to William Wyler, who gave the recent opening ceremony all due pageantry. Over the years, the Olympics contributed to the movies, foaling movie stars by the ton. The games were a casting call whenever one needed someone as chunky as a wrestler or as slender as a swimmer, or Tarzan, who I guess is a combo of swimmer and wrestler. My favorite will always be Harold "Oddjob" Sakata, silver medalist in the light-heavyweight weight-lifting competition at the 1948 Olympiad. Defamer.com has the more tragic roster of Olympians who pursued cinematic careers like those of Mitch Gaylord and Bruce Jenner. The games have foaled classic documentaries, too, the most well known example is Leni Riefenstahl's 1938 Olympia. Yet there have been these lesser known pictures about this world-wide fest:

For me, it started with the deaths of comedic greats like Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason. Death had become real and tangible, making the world and showbusiness finite. Since then, the numbers have gradually increased. We're slowly walking into the period where memorials and tributes aren't relegated to actors before our time, but to the names and faces that shaped our views of entertainment -- the people who we have spent so much time with on the big screen, and within the comfort of our own homes.

But we're not just losing people to age. 2008 has been a heavy year for Hollywood, losing both rising stars and big names with long careers. Considering the fact that we just lost two more, I wanted to take a moment and look back at this year's shockers. Some of these men were young, some of these men were older, but all of them have left this earth too soon.

The other day, a blog entry from the cinetrix about "The Rule" evoked a flood of memories from my love-movies-hate-the-patriarchy college days. In 1989, my then-roommate's then-girlfriend showed me a comic strip from the series Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel. The strip was called "The Rule" and it was about a character who explained that she only went to movies that met three criteria:

1. Two of the characters had to be women --
2. Who talked with each other --
3. About something other than a man.

Read the original strip for yourself. At the time, "The Rule" had a big impact on my life -- it explained a lot about what I found lacking in movies. I wanted to watch strong action heroines, but I also wanted to see movies with women who talked about ordinary stuff that didn't involve boyfriends or husbands.

By: Peter Martin (original publish date: December 12, 2007)

(With the Cine-staff off on a late-July mini-vacation, we thought it'd be fun to bring you some of our favorite pieces from years past. Enjoy!)

As a longtime science fiction aficionado with a weakness for special effects, Francis Lawrence's I Am Legend is catnip to me. That doesn't mean I won't be watching with a critical eye, though. I've accumulated a long list of pet peeves about the way that "last man on earth" stories are told, both in print and on screen, and personal warning signs have already popped up just from watching the trailers for I Am Legend. I hope I'm proven wrong and that the film allays my concerns, carrying me away to another time and place, but I'll be on the lookout for some of the stupid things last men on earth do -- and don't do.

1. They Become Attached to Just One Pet

Uh oh, it looks like Will Smith only has one dog. That's never a good sign. He exercises with him, tells him to eat his vegetables, hunts with him, and bathes him. (Later he holds the dog's limp body in his arms; just before that, he screams "Nooooooo!!", sounding like Darth Vader, which may or may not be related to what happens to the dog.) Why do you think all those old ladies keep dozens of cats around? In case one of them dies! Now, I'm not saying Will Smith's dog dies in the movie -- I told you, I haven't seen it -- but if you're the last man on earth, you have to plan ahead. Even if your best dog friend doesn't get eaten by lions or murdered by mysterious creatures of the night, you might actually outlive your buddy, so always have multiple dogs hanging around just in case. (Don't fret too much; remember, All Dogs Go to Heaven.) Unless, of course, Will's canine pal is The Last Dog on Earth, which might be another movie entirely.

Occasionally Hollywood cobbles together random members of the A-list to play family members on film, even if their genes obviously come from opposite ends of the earth. If the actors are good enough or if the chemistry is there, sometimes the combo can work, such as Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman as brothers in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead or Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor in Cassandra's Dream. Other times, it stretches credibility, such as Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman in The Darjeeling Limited. My all-time favorite oddball casting is in Sidney Lumet's Family Business (1989), with Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick playing grandfather, father and son. (Huh?) At the same time, there are actor combos out there who just scream to be paired up in a family capacity. Remember Julia Roberts and Kyra Sedgwick in Something to Talk About? Well, neither do I, but that pairing was perfect. Here are a few others that could work:

1. Helen Hunt & Leelee Sobieski

They're so similar it's spooky, from their hair and foreheads, right down to the tonal quality of their voices. Anybody check the hospital records for mixed-up babies? (Helen is about 20 years older.) Not too long ago, both careers hit a peak: Helen won an Oscar while Leelee was working with Stanley Kubrick and playing Joan of Arc on TV. Now they're both in decline. For some reason, whenever Helen's name comes up, I hear "I HATE Helen Hunt!" And Leelee's last movie was for Uwe Boll. Now would be the perfect time for these two to team up in a mother-daughter drama. If they cooked up something along the lines of Terms of Endearment, with a good, solid writer and/or director, it could be interesting. Or better yet, how about something really strange and kooky with Spike Jonze or Harmony Korine? (Note: apparently the two once went head-to-head on "Celebrity Death Match.")

Gallery: Actors who could play relatives

There are many ways to anticipate The Dark Knight. You can assemble a fake plot out of the numerous clips circulating the web, you can stitch together adorable bat-toys, or just rewatch Christopher Nolan's first entry in the Batman franchise. However, there's a lot more to this sprawling, nearly three hour rush of furious confrontations and haunting corruption. The greatest Batman stories emphasize the character's shadowy nature, and Nolan pulls from many of them to create the intensely moody aura of the latest film. You don't need to know anything about the character to enjoy the movie, but it certainly expands the experience to do some research -- and allows for a greater appreciation of the filmmaker's efforts to honor the nature of the character.

Here's a look at some antecedents to the current interpretation from the last two decades.

If you paid good money to see Jaws 3-D, Friday the 13th Part 3 (in 3-D) and The Man Who Wasn't There (the Steve Guttenberg 1983 version in 3-D) during their original theatrical runs, as I did, then you might understand why I've been so reluctant to board the new 3-D bandwagon.Those were awful movies and terrible 3-D experiences: ghost images everywhere, red/blue mix-ups, and constantly shifting focus. The stupid little 3-D paper "viewers" never fit correctly over my own prescription eyeglasses. Instead of inducing a sense of wonder, those movies made my stomach queasy.

But everyone says the new technology is markedly better, and I'm even more optimistic after reading Christopher Campbell's recent column on the wonders of Journey to the Center of the Earth in digital 3-D. I plan to see for myself this weekend, and in anticipation, I started dreaming about other movies that might really benefit from 3-D done right. To keep the list from becoming endless, the seven below could all be considered future cousins of Journey, adventures involving travel through time, place and/or space. All are proposed sequels or remakes or adaptations of published works, and, alas, all must be considered dream projects, at least as far as 3-D is concerned.

Put on your 3-D glasses before jumping onward to my choices, and please share your dreams in the comments.

Yesterday, Scott posted a terrific month-by-month report card looking back the 2008 movie scene from the halfway point. With the interval between theatrical and DVD release dates shrinking steadily, a lot of the movies from January through June are either already available on DVD, or soon will be. For your consideration, here are what I consider to be seven underseen, underexposed, and/or unfairly overlooked gems from the year to date. Something to consider next time you log on to Netflix.

In no particular order:

1. Charlie Bartlett - I'll clamber out on a limb and call Charlie Bartlett the most valuable movie for young teenagers this decade (despite its R rating). Most films for kids and teens unthinkingly implore them not to worry about being popular -- do your own thing! Don't worry about what your peers think of you! Good advice in the abstract, maybe, but completely detached from reality for most school-age kids, who have to, you know, go to school, and eat in the cafeteria. Charlie Bartlett is smart enough to realize this. Rather than imploring kids to "be themselves," it wants to say something about what the ones who are actually popular should do with their popularity. For once, it's a movie with a message aimed not at the misfits but at the leaders: the kids who are smart, charismatic and capable; the schoolyard trendsetters and tastemakers. It powerfully suggests the importance of using that influence for good instead of evil. Oh, and it's bright, sincere, and very funny, with a downright miraculous performance by Anton Yelchin.

It usually takes about a week after the kids get out of school for summer to kick in, and if there was ever an official starting line, it's Fourth of July weekend. Maybe you're hitting up a barbecue with some friends this weekend, relaxing by the pool or shooting off some fireworks -- and that's cool. Enjoy yourself. Me? I'll be doing a little of the BBQ, but I'll also enjoy a screening of at least one of the following seven films. See, what's summer without a memorable summertime flick ... or several?

This year's best summertime film (according to me), The Wackness, hits theaters in limited release tomorrow before rolling out to other cities. That film caters a bit more toward a specific time period (1994) and a specific location (NYC), but those summer-in-the-city flicks are rare, especially a good one. Instead of following all those kids who left town, went to camp, traveled abroad, what have you, The Wackness remains with the one dude who didn't leave town. The kid who was stuck spending his summer on hot pavement, dealing pot to his therapist while chasing the girl of his dreams.

But perhaps that's how you remember summer growing up. Or maybe you spent most of your summers in camp, or on the baseball field, or with a few of your best pals on another bizarre adventure. Those summer months hold a lot of memories for you, I'm sure, as they do for me. And what's up with summertime movies and awesome soundtracks? Ever notice that? Anyway, here are some of my favorites ... feel free to tell me yours.

With Kit Kittredge: An American Girl finally opening in limited release on Wednesday, it seemed like a good time to take a look at other films girls in the same age demographic might also enjoy. As a mother of three daughters, I like to seek out films that have strong female characters. So many of the roles for females in Hollywood either fall into blatant stereotypes or position young girls and women as existing on this planet primarily for the pleasures of the male half of the species, and I don't want my girls growing up believing the images of women they're exposed to through the media. Of course, everything in life doesn't have to have a political agenda -- what fun would that be? So some of these are just films my own daughters very much enjoy, that the girl in your life might like also.

Here are seven great films for fans of American Girl books and movies ... let me know what others I've missed that you like; with only seven slots to work with, I had to leave out a lot of films I otherwise would have included ...

With Wanted opening this week, starring rapper Common opposite Angelina Jolie (and, I'm happy to see, getting some awesome reviews, making it one of the few movies I may pay to see just for the heck of it), we thought it would be a good time to revisit seven other rappers who've attempted the treacherous transition from rap artist to movie star.

What makes film producers look to rap stars when casting for the big screen? Well, aside from the built-in audience that comes from casting a popular rap performer in a movie role, rappers have to have stage presence to perform, and that charisma and personality can come across well on a movie theater screen. Here are seven of them; let me know which of your favorite rappers I missed. (And before any of you Outkast fans get all worked up: they are hip-hop, not rap, and this post was for the rappers; Outkast is one of my absolute favorite bands, though, and Andre Benjamin in particular, I consider enormously talented. I'll do a whole column on Outkast and what they're up to movie-wise in the near future, promise.)

1. Will Smith -- Smith charmed TV audiences as a teenager in his popular TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air before hitting it big on the silver screen with the triple-whammy of Bad Boys (1995), Independence Day (1996), and Men in Black (1997). Since then, more hits have followed, and Smith and his wife, actress Jada Pinkett-Smith, have become Hollywood royalty; Smith's solid marriage and commitment to his family have earned him a reputation as one of Hollywood's genuine "nice guys," to boot. Smith is one rapper who successfully made the transition from singer to big-name actor, largely due to his charm, charisma and natural talent on the screen. His latest film, Hancock, opens July 2.

Two things I enjoyed about Definitely, Maybe, which came out on DVD today: the cheesy jokes about New York City in the early '90s and the fact that it is a chick flick for guys. What I mean by the latter is that the movie seems targeted to females yet it caters more to the male viewer. It's basically a male fantasy: Ryan Reynolds tells the story of how he dated three beautiful women (played by Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz and Elizabeth Banks), one of whom he married and later divorced -- meaning he's now single again. And he also got a cute, precocious daughter (Abigail Breslin) out of the deal who becomes beneficial to him in his return to bachelorhood.

But then is it really a chick flick? I guess it is if you count romantic comedies in that grouping, though the genre has never necessarily been aligned with the term, nor vice versa. And in the age of Judd Apatow, it's more likely that any new romantic comedy is actually a guy movie. Do many men realize it's a movie for them, though? Probably not. Though chick flicks are typically movies primarily populated by women characters and/or a female protagonist (think Steel Magnolias), romance films not made by either Apatow or the Farrelly brothers may be thought of as being for the ladies, even if they feature a male lead, like Reynolds in Definitely, Maybe.

I'll admit I've always been confused about chick flicks as a term. I apparently enjoy many so-called chick flicks, including even (especially) Beaches. So, I may not be using the term correctly in this list. However, I am a guy and I know what guys want. So, I'm going to do this my way, and answer the following question: What other films may have been initially perceived by males as being made for chicks but which turned out to be more for them (us)?

With the pending release of the new version of Get Smart, and many fond childhood memories of the original series, I thought I would assemble a list of TV spies who made great movies. Unfortunately, I was confronted with a mountain of evidence that international men and women of mystery have suffered horribly in their transition to the big screen.

That conclusion sounds counter-intuitive. After all, a movie can focus on a single defining story in a spy's life, while a television series, by its very nature, must include many routine episodes that fit into a familiar formula. The movie can have a much bigger budget, allowing for a variety of international settings, while the TV show often takes place in just one or two locations on the back lot.

But I think the best TV spies were successful because the producers made sure that the characters were the stars. Two-shots and close-ups of people talking work really well on the small screen, and sharp, well-written dialogue is always a bonus. Just a list of character names invokes pleasant nostalgia, while the movie versions have, for the most part, justifiably faded into oblivion.

1. Wild Wild West

Two words: Giant spider. Need I say more?