“The Losers” proves the paradox that it’s possible to enjoy a movie without actually liking it.

This butched-up, big-screen blush on the popular comic book series by writer Andy Diggle and illustrator Jock encompasses everything that’s wrong with big-bang action movies – an adolescent fixation on hyper-violence, a sleazy pathological misogyny, a ridiculous disregard for the simple laws of physics and a lazy reliance of macho clichés and one-dimensional characters.

Yet, that said, it’s undeniably titillating and darkly funny, in a guilty pleasure sort of way.

“The Losers” is directed in a fitting, whiz-bang graphics style by Sylvain White (“Stomp the Yard”), and the whole enterprise feels like a comic book come to garish life on the big screen.

The formulaic story focuses on a muscular Special Forces black ops team that’s dispatched to the Bolivian jungle to deal with some generic, drug-running bad man. The team is comprised of five guys with deadly specialties and roguish nicknames – upright leader Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), wiseguy Jenson (Chris Evans), knife-fetishist Roque (Idris Elba), wheelman Pooch (Columbus Short) and sniper Cougar (Oscar Jaenada).

When their illegal covert mission goes terribly wrong, the “Losers” find themselves presumed dead and living on the lam, banana-republic style. Turns out they’ve been double-crossed and framed by a rogue CIA madman named Max (Jason Patric, who with tongue firmly in cheek seems to be channeling Mike Myers’ Dr. Evil).

The rest of it is about the guys getting back to the U.S., getting revenge and saving the world from Max’s devilishly illogical scheme to put futuristic weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists. Don’t think about it too much or it’ll make your head explode.

Anyway, as the action zips around from Dubai to Mumbai to Miami to Los Angeles, the Losers are strung along by a sultry, gun-toting temptress named Aisha (Zoe Saldana, lithe, sexy and human-scale after her giant “Avatar” outing), who also carries on a torrid love-hate affair with brooding team leader Clay.

“The Losers” contains no surprises and no revelations and certainly nothing that can’t be gleaned from perusing one of the comic books for a few seconds at a newsstand. It is definitely by-the-book. But there are loads of snazzy, well-executed stunts and pyrotechnics to keep the eyes occupied. There’s enough black humor to satisfy the cynical. And there’s a clumsy way left open for a sequel, should box-office receipts call for it.

All in all, not a total lost cause. But not a winner, either.

- Dennis King

“The Losers”

PG-13
1:38
2 stars
Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans and Idris Elba
(Sequences of intense action and violence, a scene of sensuality and language)

The only thing more mind-numbing than watching 57 movies over 123 straight hours without sleep would be watching someone else watching 57 movies over 123 hours without sleep.

That was the assignment given to Vice magazine editor and bon vivant Gavin McInnes during a five-day marathon of movie watching in 2008 that is weirdly documented in the off-the-reservation DVD “A Million in the Morning.”

Sponsor Netflix hired McInnes to report on the proceedings and Jason Goldwatch to direct a film documenting the event, billed as the Netflix World Movie Watching Championships. Contestants were vying for $10,000 prize plus a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most consecutive hours watching movies. Participants were sequestered in a plexiglass booth in New York’s Times Square where judges and spectators could observe them watching a non-stop string of movies, old and new.

Initially, Netflix reportedly planned to use the finished film as a promotional infomercial and to offer it on its website. But something went horribly and hysterically awry during the five days of filming that caused the DVD rental giant to back out of the project, leaving McInnes and the production entity Decon holding hours and hours of raw footage, which they’ve cut into a renegade DVD that’s by turns hilarious, profane, nonsensical and utterly delirious.

Disavowed by Netflix, “A Million in the Morning” slyly capitalizes on all that did go awry during the making of the documentary – namely that McInnes, having vowed to stay awake during the entire marathon, found himself going stark raving loony from sleep deprivation. As the host grew increasingly disoriented, he began wandering off into the streets of Manhattan on wildly incongruous tangents (a babbling confrontation with fitness guru Richard Simmons, an impromptu encounter with Times Square fixture, the Naked Cowboy, and so on).

The film does cast a glancing look at the array of movie watchers competing for the prize – a competitive eating champion from New York, a Sri Lankan who holds several bizarre endurance records, an East Indian who had the then-standing movie-watching record, a Texan who appeared on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” But mostly it chronicles McInnes’ “spiral down a rabbit hole of sleepless dumbsnoozery.”

As he consumes increasing amounts of Red Bull, coffee and alcohol, McInnes ricochets between the competition (in which one contestant declares “West Side Story” “absolutely atrocious”) and his own babbling asides (including a crackbrained mathematical theory that leads him to conclude “that we don’t exist’).

It’s all very edgy and very funny, like a reality TV version of Martin Scorsese’s night-in-hell comedy “After Hours,” or a looser, more profane spin on Dave Attell’s “Insomniac.” It’s guerilla filmmaking at its zaniest.

By the way, the title derives from a particularly demented moment in the inkling of dawn when McInnes looks at his watch and declares the time “a million in the morning.”

“A Million in the Morning” retails for $12.98. You can purchase the DVD and watch clips on the film’s website www.amillioninthemorning.com.

- Dennis King

This week, the most offbeat DVD to appear on release lists is:

“This Is Primal Rap”

Crank the amps up to 11 and brace yourself for some hip-hop hijinks in “This Is Primal Rap,” a mockumentary that hopes to do for rap music what Rob Reiner’s landmark 1984 comedy, “This Is Spinal Tap,” did for heavy mental rock.

Producers of this underground DVD say they intend to shed some light on the Los Angeles rap scene while also poking a little edgy, street-smart fun at the macho clichés of hip-hop culture.

In a freewheeling fictional tale that features appearances by L.A. rappers KRS-One, 2Mex, Rifle Man, Awol-One, Riddlore and many more, the movie follows two aspiring young rappers as they struggle to break in to the cutthroat music business.

Problem is, Lil’ Young, a.k.a. “The Prophet to make Prophet,” and Guardlyc, “the human guitar beatbox,” are decidedly short on real talent. Nevertheless, Lil’ Young’s concerned stage father hires a foreign production company to follow the rappers around and document the duo’s rocky rise to fame. And, say producers “in the fashion of ‘Spinal Tap,’ ‘Borat’ and ‘The Office,’ comes a film where comedy is based on the truth.”

“This Is Primal Rap” is being released by Celebrity Video Distribution. Suggested retail price is $14.99.

- Dennis King

DVD REVIEW: “Defendor”

Look! Up in the cherry picker! It’s a telephone company repair guy. It’s a tree trimmer. No, it’s “Defendor!”

And be sure to pronounce the name right. He gets irritated if you call him Defender.

By day, he’s Arthur Poppington, slow-witted city street worker and lifelong comic-book fanatic with a childlike sense of wonder. By night he dresses in black, dons a hardhat with mini-camcorder and lights attached, paints a mascara mask across his eyes that makes him look like a fierce raccoon, and becomes a courageous, crime-fighting superhero. True, he has no superpowers, but he compensates with an imaginative if somewhat quirky arsenal of weapons that includes handfuls of marbles (amazingly effective when hurled into the faces of his opponents), a plastic lime juice squirter (a perfect Mace substitute), a jar of angry wasps and a trench club. His Batmobile equivalent is a truck with a basket crane borrowed from the city work shed that serves as his secret base of operations — and his home.

He may have a small IQ, but his heart’s as big as a house, he has the tenacity of a terrier, he’s on a collision course with disaster and no one comes to mind who could have played him as sympathetically as Woody Harrelson in this dark, seriously funny comedy-drama from writer-director Peter Stebbings. Kat Dennings (“Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist”) strikes a perfect balance between hardness and sweet vulnerability as the teen prostitute Arthur rescues from the street, Elias Koteas is effectively loathsome as the corrupt undercover cop who is constantly underestimating him, and Sandra Oh’s compassionate psychiatrist artfully underlines the sadness of Arthur’s lot in life.

“Defendor” unjustly received  a limited theatrical run for reasons known only to Sony Pictures, but justice is served with the release of the DVD, which includes five featurettes, commentary from Harrelson and Dennings and some riotous outtakes.  This hilarious heartbreaker is not to be missed.

— Gene Triplett

Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans and Ben Stiller in "Greenberg."

Noah Baumbach appears well on his way to becoming a brand name for the cinema of the self-absorbed.

Since launching his writing-directing career in 1995 with “Kicking and Screaming,” a witty comedy of infantile college grads, Baumbach has racked up an impressive resume of films that walk a fine line between comedy and misanthropy, between intelligence and runaway neurosis. His sharply observed studies seem to position him as a guru of self-obsessed neurotics.

In works such as “The Squid and the Whale” (which earned him an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay), “Margot at the Wedding” and his newest film, “Greenberg,” Baumbach has proven himself a literate moviemaker who is fast carving out a niche on the big screen comparable to that occupied by Larry David on the small screen.

It’s easy to imagine the title character of “Greenberg” (played with cranky intensity by Ben Stiller) showing up on David’s angst-fest, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and matching the curmudgeonly host insult for insult.

Stiller’s 40ish New York neurotic Roger Greenberg is in emotional freefall when he shows up at a stylish Hollywood Hills mansion to house sit for his prosperous brother, Philip (Chris Messina), who is taking his family on an extended vacation to Vietnam.

Fresh out of the hospital following a nervous breakdown, Greenberg is middle-aged and directionless, working as a carpenter with no passion for his craft. His plan is to hang around the pool, build a doghouse for the family’s German shepherd, Mahler, and venture out only occasionally for groceries. “I’m trying to do nothing,” he says.

In his New York state of mind, Greenberg — who doesn’t drive — finds himself a pedestrian in a highly mobile, mile-a-minute L.A. culture. So, he strikes up a prickly relationship with Florence (a wondrous Greta Gerwig), his brother’s efficient, do-it-all assistant, who agrees to drive him around on errands.

Florence, a timid, 25-year-old aspiring singer, is as open-hearted and guileless as Greenberg is emotionally stilted and suspicious. Naturally, they strike up a clumsy, off-and-on romance that is equal parts sweetness and cruelty. Florence imagines only she can see the good in Greenberg. Greenberg finds Florence’s aimlessness and innocence infuriating (perhaps because they mirror his own nagging lack of purpose).

When he’s not firing off angry letters to Starbucks, American Airlines and other business behemoths bemoaning their corporate malfeasance, Greenberg feebly attempts to reconnect with old L.A. friends — Ivan (a very cool Rhys Ifans), an old rock ‘n’ roll bandmate, and one-time college flame Beth (Baumbach’s wife and collaborator Jennifer Jason Leigh). But those long-dormant friendships are fraught with heavy emotional baggage and nagging resentment over Greenberg’s sabotaging of his college rock band’s breakthrough record deal.

Baumbach is sneaky-smart in the way he blends comedy with pathos, drama, psychobabble, naked conversation and an amazing amount of uncomfortable emotional honesty. And Stiller, usually known for over-the-top comic antics, displays an amazing degree of control in portraying this self-absorbed misanthrope with grudging touches of subtle insight and sympathy.

Gerwig, fresh from a run of ultra-low-budget indie films, is the warm, beating heart that holds this mass of neurotic movie tics together and gives it a haunting quality of messy, disappointing life observed and understood.

Call “Greenberg” a serio-comedy, or a comedy-drama, or a dramedy, but most emphatically, call it a Noah Baumbach film.

— Dennis King

MOVIE REVIEW

“Greenberg” 3 stars

Rated R

Running time 1:47

Starring: Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Jason Leigh.

(Strong sexuality, drug use, language)

BY DENNIS KING

NEW YORK — As is often the case with larger-than-life, big-screen funnymen, Ben Stiller seems rather soft-spoken, serious and unassumingly human-scale in person.

The actor is known for such outlandish film characters as uber-pouty fashion model Derek Zoolander (“Zoolander”), macho action star Tugg Speedman (“Tropic Thunder”), neurotic fitness freak White Goodman (“Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story”), nebbishy Greg Focker (in the “Meet the Parents” films) and the zipper-challenged Ted (“There’s Something About Mary”).

But as shamelessly goofy as he can be on screen, Stiller also knows how to go for more than broad belly laughs, as he proves with fearless, misanthropic glee in “Greenberg,” a smart new comedy with dramatic overtones by that rising master of midlife angst, Noah Baumbach.

In this moody, understated character study, Stiller stars as the title character, Roger Greenberg, a single, 40-ish New Yorker who comes to house-sit his successful brother’s lush home in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills and is nagged by a past of failed expectations and a hefty case of middle-age depression.

“In my 20s, I felt like I had it much more figured out than I do now. And I think it’s that sort of blind sense of confidence that allows young people to take chances and do things,” Stiller, 44, said during a round of press interviews hosted by Focus Features. “But for Greenberg, it didn’t work out. And I think he also didn’t nurture friendships and relationships. He wasn’t thinking ahead; he was just thinking this is the way it is. And he’s been in that head space for the last 15 years.

“So Greenberg didn’t think that (his impulsive, youthful decision to turn down a recording contract for his college rock band) was a crossroads. And then as the years have gone by and as other opportunities didn’t happen, he found himself further and further away from what he thought he was going to be.”

In his 40s, Greenberg finds himself working as a carpenter and being out of touch with his old L.A. band buddies. Stiller said he can identify with the source of Greenberg’s dogged sense of discontent.

“I definitely have those regrets,” he said. “You know, there are two or three things where I think, ‘Wow, if I’d done that movie, if I hadn’t said that to that person, things would have been different.’ But I’m lucky to have other successes and other people in my life that don’t make those bad decisions as fateful to me. But I still regret them. If I didn’t have those things I have now, it would be much more painful. And I think that’s where Greenberg is at.”

Stiller said he jumped at the chance to work with fellow New Yorker Baumbach, whose writing in “The Squid and the Whale” and “Margot at the Wedding” he deeply admires.

“What’s so interesting about Noah’s dialogue is he writes the way people talk, where they’ll be talking and then someone else starts saying something else while that first person is still completing her thought,” Stiller explained in a roundabout way. “Greenberg in particular is so into his own thing that he doesn’t listen that much. That was something I got out of the part, realizing that I don’t listen a lot of the time. You know, I’ll have a thought and say something, and you say something, but I’m thinking about what I want to tell you. You said something, and it brought up something for me. And so you’re finishing saying what you’re saying, and while you’re finishing, I’m thinking about what I want to tell you about what you said. So, I’m not hearing the rest of what you said.”

That clash of self-absorbed personalities carries over neatly into the relationship that develops between the emotionally closed-off Greenberg and his brother’s guileless personal assistant Florence (played by relative newcomer Greta Gerwig), charmingly neurotic and much younger than Greenberg.

“Greta is such a good actress and so real that interacting with her felt very natural,” Stiller said. “I think when you’re working with a great actor, that dictates everything. When someone is being very real with you, your instinct is to try to be as real back to them and react to what they’re doing. And she just had that special quality.”

Someone cited the prickly satirist Michael O’Donoghue’s famous quote, “Making people laugh is the lowest form of humor,” and Stiller nodded knowingly.

“The great thing about working on this film was there was no pressure to be funny,” he said. “When you say a movie is going to be a comedy, then people want to laugh. So, the pressure is on. With this we can say, ‘You know, this isn’t a comedy, it’s a Noah Baumbach movie.’ Then it has the ability to just be what it is. Then the context is totally different. I think we felt that making it; I think an audience knows that going in, hopefully.”

BY DENNIS KING

For all you inhabitants of Earth who are not environmentally astute, outdoorsy types, here’s a way to celebrate Earth Day on Thursday from the comfort of your own La-Z-Boy. Why not create your own day-long marathon of Earth movies?

DVD shelves are bulging with movie selections that probe the globe in all its myriad facets. Some suggestions:

Why not start on a high-minded note with “The Good Earth,’ Sidney Franklin’s earnest 1937 adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s novel, about a poor Chinese farmer and his wife who suffer through famine, drought and a plague of locusts. It’ll cleanse your soul with its noble tale of humility and bravery, and it’ll boggle your mind with its portrayal of Caucasian Paul Muni as a humble Chinese peasant.

Then bore deep beneath the surface of things with the sci-fi chestnut, “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” You can choose either the quaint, old-school 1959 film with James Mason as the craggy, absent-minded Scottish professor leading a cast of spelunkers that includes pop crooner Pat Boone as a squeaky clean young adventurer. Or, you can go with the razzle-dazzle 2008 version with its big-budget CGI and Brendan Fraser as a scatterbrained scientist on a quest to find his missing brother. (The theatrical version boasted spiffy 3-D effects, so if you watch it on DVD in 2-D, don’t expect as thrilling a ride.)

Back on topsoil, perhaps its time for some good, old-fashioned ’50s paranoia with the classic “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Michael Rennie scolds earthlings for their wasteful, warlike ways, and the indestructible robot Gort responds to those immortal words, “Klaatu barada nikto!” Enough said.

If you haven’t had enough of cosmic shenanigans, check out the truly nutty “Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000,” in which John Travolta and a cast of “man animals” espouse the virtues of L. Ron Hubbard’s 1982 novel and its crackbrained philosophy and create a movie so staggeringly inept that it’s like watching a 10-car pile-up in outer space.

While we’re on the subject of B-move space schlock, why not go whole hog and check out 1956’s “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.” It’s got intrepid scientists, alien abductions, buxom Earth girls, devious Martians and brilliantly cheesy special effects by Ray Harryhausen. And it doesn’t pretend to be the least bit profound.

Maybe it’s time to get back down to terra firma with “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” a strange 1976 morality tale from Nicolas Roeg that features pop star David Bowie as a benign alien from a dying planet who comes to Earth in search of water and encounters all manner of human greed and ruthlessness.

And speaking of being down to earth, 2001’s “Down to Earth” updates 1978’s “Heaven Can Wait” (which itself was an updating of 1941’s “Here Comes Mr. Jordan”) with Chris Rock as an aspiring comedian who is inadvertently plucked up to the Pearly Gates well before his time. A hipster angel named Mr. King (Chazz Palminteri) is dispatched to make things right.

If you’re now ready dispatch with the sci-fi and spirit world, check out “The Greatest Show on Earth,” Cecil B. DeMille’s 1952 Oscar winner about earthy life under the big top with trapeze artists, acrobats, elephants, lion tamers and a clown named Buttons hiding a dark secret from his past.

And if you seriously want to consider Earth Day and all its dire and hopeful ramifications, “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore’s 2006 Oscar-winning documentary on global warming might be just the proper sobering and thought-provoking way to wrap up your personal film festival. Mother Earth nurtures and sustains us, so it’s the least we can do on this day to burn up a little electricity earnestly considering her current state.

Movie critics. Who needs them?

Well, it turns out that movie studios need them, and so do astute movie lovers. These scribblers in the dark who so often deliver the first opinions to the public on any film’s merits or demerits have had a crucial place in the movie food chain from the earliest days of cinema.

Those and other assertions are laid down in “The Complete History of American Film Criticism” (Santa Monica Press, $27.95) by Jerry Roberts, just published on April 1.

Roberts, himself a film critic, columnist, editor and academic, brings to bear a wealth of scholarly research to make the point that film criticism is a craft that has grown and flourished in tandem with the art of film.

Beginning with the first movie review in the New York Times in 1896, the book examines the work of silent era critics such as Robert E. Sherwood, Gilbert Seldes and Frank E. Woods, who wrote insightfully about the films of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith. Next, it moves through the work of significant critics of the pre- and post-war years (Frank S. Nugent and Cecelia Ager among the former and James Agee, Manny Farber and Andrew Sarris as lights of the latter).

The great age of film criticism, according to Roberts, arrived in the 1960s with the ascendancy to Pauline Kael and the emerging work of Judith Crist, Roger Ebert, Stanley Kauffmann and Richard Schickel. The formation of the National Society of Film Critics and the early inklings of credible TV film critics (John Simon, Gene Shalit, Rex Reed, Ebert and Gene Siskel among them) marked a proliferation of the critics’ influence that pushed well into the 1970s and beyond.

Roberts employs mini-biographies and a chronological framework to build his case for this journalist specialty and its wide-ranging cultural and artistic impact. And along the way, he relates some rousing controversies that have colored the lore of film critics everywhere – including heated philosophical battles between auteur theorists and opposing critics, studio boycotts of various newspapers over supposedly “unflattering” coverage and the blacklisting of certain critics for writing “negative” reviews.

At their best, Roberts maintains, movie critics have helped educate generations of moviegoers on the distinctions between good and bad movies. They’ve helped focus attention on emerging or unsung directors, screenwriters, cinematographers and actors and have shed light on various innovations and groundbreaking movements in film art.

All in all, “The Complete History of American Film Criticism” provides a well-organized, comprehensive survey of an embattled journalistic profession that has played a key role in establishing film as one of the 20th century’s most important and meaningful art forms. Give it four stars!

- Dennis King

This week, the most offbeat DVD to appear on release lists is:

“200 Motels”

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were at their surreal, psychedelic peak in 1971 when they came under the camera eye of famed British director Tony Palmer for a freewheeling bit of cinema tomfoolery that became the cult film “200 Motels.”

Shot on videotape and edited with a wild guerilla abandon, the film achieved legendary status among ’70s rock fans before disappearing into the vaults of legal limbo. On Tuesday, the documentary comes out for the first time on DVD in a remastered version that includes a detailed production booklet plus a specially recorded director’s commentary giving insights and anecdotes of the true story behind this flawed masterpiece.

“200 Motels” purported to be a mondo look at the craziness and grind of life on the road for touring rock musicians. Less a coherent documentary than a surrealistic series of songs, skits, cartoon interludes, insider jokes and daffy performance pieces, the film offered a crude but dead-on testament to Zappa’s musical brilliance and off-the-wall sense of absurdity.

The plotless narrative features ragtag scenes of band members in performance and cutting up during off hours. There are oddball cameos by Flo ‘n’ Eddie, the Who drummer Keith Moon, former Beatle Ringo Starr, folk icon Theodore Bikel and even the Royal Symphony Orchestra. Song performances range from “Lonesome Cowboy Burt” to “Magic Fingers” to “Strictly Genteel.” It’s a truly strange musical hodgepodge, weird enough to make even the most daring, cutting-edge modern rock videos look like kids’ stuff.

“200 Motels” runs 98 minutes. The DVD, featuring Dolby Digital stereo, retails for a suggested price of $18.99.

- Dennis King

Robert Osborne

BY GENE TRIPLETT

Robert Osborne is raring to get the reels rolling next Thursday at the first annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood.

“I think it’s going really be fun. I am excited about it,” the prime time host of Turner Classic Movies said in a recent phone interview. “First off it’s something we’ve never done before, and that’s kind of fun because it gives a new rhythm to your life. I think it’s going to be fun to get a lot of people there.”

Every evening for the past 16 years, Osborne has strolled across a warm-looking, well-appointed living room set to greet his viewing audience with a cordial smile and a friendly, “Hi, I’m Robert Osborne.”

The dapper, silver-haired, soft-spoken gentleman is genuinely glad to be hosting people who share his love of filmdom’s golden era, and as he introduces the movie that’s about to be shown (uncut and commercial-free), he shares fascinating little-known facts about the piece and the people who made it — information that comes not from cue cards or somebody else’s research, but his own encyclopedic knowledge of films and film history.

But while he’s sharing his movie love with more than 80 million homes, he’s usually looking into a television camera lense, and not the faces of his fellow film fans.

The TCM Classic Film Festival in Tinseltown is going to change all that, at least for its four-day run. The cable network has invited people from all over the country to come west and join in a celebration of classic movies from Hollywood and elsewhere, with more than 50 screenings, major events, celebrity appearances, panel discussions and, the rare opportunity to experience some of cinema’s greatest works as they were meant to be seen — on the big screen.

“In preparation for our 15th anniversary last April we pulled together 15 fans of TCM,  just randomly picked to come to Atlanta for a taping and be guest programmers, each of them on one movie,” Osborne said. “And it was so much fun seeing these people, these movie fans from all over the different parts of the country get together, it was just like you couldn’t get a word in edgewise … and it was great fun. And I think it’s just going to be more of that in Los Angeles, when a lot of people from out of town who don’t get to talk movies with a lot of people are going to be there and really have a good time.”

Passes are on sale at TCM.com, priced at $499 for the “Classic Pass,” good for all regular passholder screenings, events and gatherings, and $599 for the “Essential Pass,” which adds one special event: the opening night red carpet gala screening of “A Star Is Born” (1954).

“I think the seed of it has been around for a couple of years,” Osborne said of the festival. “It just took time to kind of pull it together and figure out how they wanted to do it, where they wanted to do it, how big or whatever. And then they got the green light to really go big with it. I don’t know where it really started. I was certainly all for it.”

The stellar roster of guests introducing films and joining panel discussions includes Tony Curtis, Mel Brooks, Anjelica Huston, Danny Huston, Illeana Douglas, Eva Marie Saint, Martin Landau, Nancy Olson, Susan Kohner, Juanita Moore, Curtis Hanson, Cheryl Crane and Leonard Maltin — to name a few.

Osborne will be there to greet stars and fans alike because he is, indeed, well qualified for the job.

Raised in the farm community of Colfax, Wash., he found his escape from boredom through the movies of the ’40s and ’50s, and he dreamed of being the next Cary Grant. He studied journalism at the University of Washington, dabbling in acting on the side until he was spotted by a Hollywood talent scout and signed to the acting stable of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’ Desilu Productions.

“And it was kind of Lucy that in a way took me under her wing and said, ‘You know, I don’t think (acting) is going to make you happy,’” Osborne recalled.

Ball suggested Osborne tap into the storehouse of old Hollywood knowledge and trivia he had already accumulated, use his journalism training and become a writer. An early supporting bit on the pilot for “The Beverly Hillbillies” may have convinced him Ball was right.

Osborne eventually became a columnist-critic for the daily show-business trade paper The Hollywood Reporter and an on-air entertainment reporter on Los Angeles’ KTTV in 1982. Similar stints on CBS and The Movie Channel finally led to TCM when it was founded in April 1994.

Ever since, he’s been the main face and voice of TCM, TV’s only 24-hour, commercial-free cable channel specializing in movies from the silent era through the age of big-studio glitz and carefully groomed contract stars, with a generous selection of noteworthy films from the ’70s through the 2000s rounding out a fabulous library.

Osborne, 77, is also the official biographer for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And now he can add   host of the TCM Classic Movie Festival to his resume.

So what is he looking forward to most?

“Well I’m very excited about the 50th anniversary screening of ‘Breathless’ with Jean-Paul Belmondo coming from France to participate in that. I think seeing ‘A Star is Born’ in Grauman’s Chinese Theatre with Judy Garland three stories tall, singing, is going to blow people away and be exciting.

“I’m looking forward very much to ‘The Big Trail’ with John Wayne, which is a widescreen movie that most people haven’t seen in widescreen. It almost killed his career right off the bat but is still a fascinating film to see today.”

Osborne said  Wayne “took the rap” when the 1930 Western became a financial flop. The real problem was that “The Big Trail” was filmed in an early 70 millimeter widescreen process, and most theater owners couldn’t afford to install screens big enough to accommodate it, since they’d just blown their budgets installing sound equipment.

Wayne was relegated to B movies until “Stagecoach” finally made him a major star in 1939.

“I’m excited to see ‘Top Hat’ with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,” Osborne said. “I’ve seen them for so many years now on a television-sized screen, but to see some of their dancing together on a big, huge screen in a theater I think is going to be great fun to watch.”

For fans who can’t make it to the event, many of the festival films being screened will be shown on simultaneously on TCM, along with live feeds from some of the events.

“We’re certainly going to make everybody at home feel they’re part of the festival,” Osborne said.

Robert Osborne’s all-time favorite film?

“Well, it kind of changes, because I change, so I guess my tastes change, but I’d have to say probably my all-time favorite film is ‘A Place in the Sun,’ the George Stevens movie. I’d say ‘The Third Man’ is a close second and ‘Sunset Boulevard’ is a close third, right now. But that may change by five o’clock today.”