Summer has just flown by, hasn't it? It seems like only yesterday that Robert Downey Jr. was ushering in the season with Iron Man ... actually, it was 14 weeks ago. Where did the time go? How many films have you seen in the interim? (I myself have seen 12 in theaters.) Now, however, as we prepare to retire our bathing suits to the bottom drawer, deflate the wading pool, and unplug the collection of portable fans we've had strewn about the house for the last four months months, let's talk about the final four films that will be released in what can still technically be called the "summer season." Sorry to say, we are not ending summer with QUITE the bang that we began it ... but were any of us really expecting that?

I'll begin with a true blue Fantasy Moguls bargain, Babylon A.D., which is available for only $7 in August-October Ultimate Movie Moguls leagues (and only $4 in the July-September Ultimate leagues). This futuristic sci-fi actioner stars buff tough-guy Vin Diesel as a soldier-turned-mercenary who is hired to transport a package from eastern Europe to New York City. A package that turns out to be a mysterious damsel played by French actress Melanie Thierry. Is there more to his fragile, lovely young charge than meets the eye?

Let me say this up front: I like Vin Diesel. Sure, on most occasions he has the emotional range of a houseplant, but there's no doubt that his muscular frame, shaved head, piercing glare and deep, gravelly voice cut one badass figure. I thoroughly enjoyed his role as Riddick in both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick films, and I fully expect to enjoy Babylon A.D. as well. This is his element, a genre that many actors tend to shy away from due to its largely love-it-or-hate-it following.

Babylon also stars Michelle Yeoh (who also appears in the just-opened third Mummy movie) and two French actors, Melanie Thierry and Lambert Wilson (a.k.a. "The Merovingian" from the Matrix trilogy), and is being directed by French helmer Mathieu Kassovitz (who tanked with Gothika in 2003). The trailer looks very cool, with great effects, chase scenes and a charismatic anti-hero leading the way.

I called this title a bargain, and I meant it. Given at least a decent theater count, I feel assured that Babylon A.D. will win its opening weekend with around $20 million, and hang around in the Top 5 for at least two weeks after that. There has been a lot of switching of release dates for many movies on the September and October slates; so many, in fact, that it's often tough to keep up with them. At the moment, however, I have Bangkok Dangerous as the ONLY wide-release film scheduled for Sept. 5, which means that for $7 worth of Babylon A.D., you can pick up anywhere from seven to 10 Top 5 points, perhaps two or three PTA, a IMDb number likely somewhere between 6.0 and 7.0, and somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million in box office. In Box Office, however, it will run you a fairly steep $17, which, sorry to say, makes it a harder sell. In Ultimate, though, this film WILL pay dividends.

Now, if there is one film that has a shot at beating out Babylon A.D. for that No. 1 spot (assuming that Tropic Thunder isn't a world-beater on a Dark Knight scale, and that Death Race doesn't attract a far larger crowd than I've predicted), then it would most assuredly be Traitor, a sleek-looking espionage thriller being given a Wednesday release (on Aug. 27). It stars the always-engaging Don Cheadle as Samir Horn, a former Special Ops officer who becomes the prime suspect in a conspiracy investigation due to his strong ties to Afghan rebels.

Don Cheadle, for me, is one of those actors who brings a unique verve to whatever role he plays, be it in cool flicks like the Ocean's Numerals series, Oscar fare like Hotel Rwanda, or in emotional dramas like Talk to Me and Reign Over Me. I still think he is one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood, and I hope that his career can continue to blossom in future years.

Traitor also stars Aussie actor Guy Pearce (who was actually born in England), who made himself a semi-household name for a while by dint of his stirring roles in L.A. Confidential and Christopher Nolan's Memento (both of which are in IMDb's Top 100-rated movies of all time). He hasn't really done anything mainstream since his wham-bam one-two punch of The Time Machine (good guy) and The Count of Monte Cristo (bad guy) in 2002, and I look forward to seeing him on the big screen for the first time in six years. Pearce plays Roy Clayton, an FBI agent who heads up the conspiracy investigation, which involves tracking Horn all over the world. The never-dull Jeff Daniels rounds out the main cast.

If you don't recognize the name of director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, don't sweat it. This is only his third time in the big chair ever, although he did pen the screenplay for Roland Emmerich's high-budget disaster epic The Day After Tomorrow. He's wearing both hats here, and I feel confident that the finished product will be a fast-paced, well-acted thrill ride.

I just can't shake the feeling of anxiety, however,  that I have about this film's chances. It looks very much adult-centered, with only a fraction of the youth appeal that, say, Matt Damon's Jason Bourne movies had, not to mention the fact that Middle East-centric films have failed to attract large audiences in the last few years. Placed as it is in the very last week of the summer, I have to wonder whether this film will be able to draw a successful crowd, a crowd that is atypical of a summer audience. Babylon A.D. looks much sexier on paper, and I think that Traitor, even taking into account its Wednesday opening, will be lucky to come in at No. 2 in its first weekend.

Fantasy Moguls predicts four Top 5, one PTA, a Rating of 6.9 and only $26 million, which is rather a low dollar total to be charging $11 for it in the Ultimate leagues. Traitor seems to be the reverse of Babylon A.D., however, in that it is priced at a much-more-reasonable $9 in Box Office. All things being equal, I only would go with it there, and not in Ultimate.

As Anton Ego said in Ratatouille, "People thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to read and to write." And if THAT'S true, be prepared to have more fun than you've had in some time. For up next we have Disaster Movie, the latest in an ever-increasing assembly line of unfunny spoofs by "directors" Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Before I tear into this waste of film, however, let me say a few words about a genre that I used to hold near and dear to my heart.

I'm not quite sure what the first pure "spoof" movie was. In my personal viewing experience, it was probably Airplane!, which was directed by the truly talented team of Jim Abrahams and David Zucker. This pair, who would, jointly or separately, direct or write some of the funniest films ever created: Top Secret!, both Hot Shots! movies, and the first two Police Squad movies, among others. These films, especially Airplane! and its sequel, were funny because they relied heavily on purely visual jokes, spoofing a specific genre rather than an actual film (well, occasionally they called out a specific film, but only just), and they starred practically every famous person in Hollywood at the time.

And then you have the classic spoofs of Mel Brooks: Young Frankenstein (horror movies), Blazing Saddles (westerns), Spaceballs (sci-fi films, primarily Star Wars), and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (Robin Hood films). (The less said about Dracula: Dead and Loving It, the better.) These films were hysterically funny, eminently quotable, and remain watchable even to this day. Not to mention the fact that this branch of comedic films kept Leslie Nielsen gainfully employed for decades. (Grin.)

But in 2006, the genre started to slip into an ever-accelerating downward spiral, and I put the blame entirely on Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. After starting their careers as writers for the Nielsen-starring Spy Hard, followed by the pretty funny Scary Movie and Scary Movie 2, as well as the mildly-amusing Scary Movie 3 (Scary Movie 4 was, in an amusing twist, handled by Zucker and Abrahams), the fellas decided to try their hand at directing. That led to a whole slew of "Movie" movies: Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans and now Disaster Movie, the most apt title for a film since, well, Titanic. (Note: They were not behind this year's Superhero Movie, which was actually pretty funny in places but underwhelmed at the box office, probably because everybody thought it was just another product of Friedberg and Seltzer. Zing! In actuality, it was written and directed by former Disney ad marketing exec Craig Mazin.)

Rather than pick one theme and play it out for maximum laughs, these two decided to go down another road ... take the plots, characters, and catch phrases of as many recent movies as they could, mash them together into a completely incomprehensible and unintelligible mess, and shove it into theaters. The purpose of a spoof is to take something well-known, tweak it just a little bit, and make it amusing in a satirical or ironic way, but Feldberg and Seltzer are content to just display a familiar character, whack him in the nuts (or hit him with a car, or drop a cow on him, or whatever), and move on to the next one. There's no need to tell you about the plot, for it is completely irrelevant.

And Disaster Movie does something never done before: It "spoofs" films that, for the most part, are STILL IN THEATERS, including Iron Man, Sex and the City, The Incredible Hulk, Kung Fu Panda, The Love Guru, Hancock, Hellboy II: The Golden Army and, I would imagine, The Dark Knight. Many of this year's other films (and a few from 2007) are flung into the piranha-infested pools of this pair's imagination, and the result is undoubtedly one of the worst films ever produced. Which, when you think about it, makes the notion even more appalling; at the time they filmed Disaster Movie, the only info they could possibly have had on these films were their one-sheets and their teaser trailers. That's it. What's next, making a spoof of films that aren't even out yet? ("Coming in January 2009: spoofs of The Watchmen, Wolverine, Terminator Salvation and Avatar!") Enough is enough, people. Frankly, I don't know what I find more offensive: these two assclowns' personal mission to lower the standards and I.Q. levels of filmgoers the world over, or the fact that there is actually a studio out there that will LET THEM DO IT!!

In the August Ultimate leagues, this film will only run you $3, and I'm sorry to say, it might very well pull in a few Top 5 points and around $20-$30 million. But you shouldn't need me to tell you that the User Rating, which will probably be on the same level as that of, say, The Hottie and the Nottie, will kill you. And $9 in Box Office is way too much. Plus, there's being able to look at yourself in the morning. Stop the madness, I beg you all. Declare cinematic jihad on these two bozos, who are without a doubt the worst directors in the entire world, with the possible exception of Uwe Boll. (Final thought: I once had an amusing idea that Friedberg and Seltzer should just go ahead and spoof an Uwe Boll film, but then I realized, no one would be able to tell the difference.)

My learned colleague Mister Informative really hit the nail on the head last week, regarding the movie College, when he said "had this movie come out last summer, it would have been Superbad's little brother". But now, one year and several postponements later, this film is more like Superbad's cute-but-annoying little bespectacled cousin who shows up, out of the blue and uninvited, and never leaves (you know, kind of like Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch).

The film stars current teen heartthrob Drake Bell (Drake & Josh), Andrew Caldwell and Kevin Covais (who you may remember from the 2006 season of American Idol as the glasses-wearing blinky kid who was unflatteringly dubbed "Chicken Little" by Ryan Seacrest) as three high school pals who decide to spend a weekend scoping out the campus of a local university, ostensibly as prospective freshmen. They decide to play it up like they are already students there, however, and spend the entire run of the movie getting hazed, humiliated and coming thisclose to scoring some drunken tail.

I skimmed over 10 mini-reviews on IMDb, all of which gave the film a positive rating, but take that as read, just as you should probably take as read the poster for this film, which is nothing more than a guy "riding the porcelain freeway" and the caption "Best. Weekend. Ever." Look, I'm not one to pooh-pooh a good teen sex-and-alcohol debauchery movie. Hell, I came of age in the '80s, which was the decade that practically spawned the genre: Porky's, Private School and Revenge of the Nerds were all classics, as was the granddaddy of them all, National Lampoon's Animal House. However, I feel safe in predicting that College will not be joining that august pantheon of films, whose ranks could include the aforementioned Superbad in time.

Given this film's myriad postponements, a likely minimal (for a wide-release film) theater count and almost certain indifference, this film is appropriately priced at $2. Now, it always seems like one invariably has to have a $2 film to squeeze into that eighth and final spot on one's roster, and as luck would have it, there are all of two films with that price tag left on the August-October Ultimate roster: this, and Righteous Kill, which stars a few mildly successful actors named Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. (Perhaps you've heard of them?) Given the choice between the two, it seems clear which one has more potential. Neither will give you a huge boost in User Ratings, but Kill should easily top College in every other category.

Well, that will wrap it up for me for another week. If the schedule for the Sept. 5 weekend that ComingSoon.net has posted holds, then it would seem that I only will have one film to critique next week, that being Bangkok Dangerous, a remake of a 1999 Asian film of the same name, starring Nicolas Cage as a hitman who visits the Thai capital city and ends up taking a job that he's not prepared to carry off. That will leave me some room, so I will fill it by naming the 10 films opening from the beginning of September to the end of 2008, that intrigue me the most. Not as a Moguls player, mind you, just as an ardent filmgoer. It should be interesting, as we will be getting into the winter (read: Oscar) season before you know it.

TTFN!

Shrykespeare watches American Idol? And remembers things that were said by Ryan Seacrest?! Um ... OK. Let him know how special you think that is at shrykespeare42@gmail.com.