Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis, from left.

BY GENE TRIPLETT

NEW YORK — From the number of guys stationed all over the place in gray suits with little electronic receivers in their ears and watchful looks in their eyes, one would think we were entering the private presidential quarters of the White House or the Federal Reserve Bank’s bullion-filled basement.

But this was Bergdorf Goodman, one of the highest of New York’s high-end department stores, one hour before opening time on a Sunday morning. A large group of reporters was being led through rows of expensively-draped mannequins and display cases sparkling with astronomically priced bling-bling and up the escalators to the establishment’s vaunted women’s shoe department.

It was in this appropriate setting that a press conference would be held with the stars of “Sex and the City 2,” the second big-screen sequel to HBO’s hit comedy series about four fashion- and romance-minded gal pals, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis.

One wasn’t sure whether the heavy security was for the merchandise or the movie stars. Probably the former, although the Fab Four of fashion were often mobbed like the Beatles while filming on Manhattan locations.

Producer-writer-director Michael Patrick King called those occasions “celebrity petting zoo” moments, which always caused delays in the NYC shooting schedule. But for the first time in the history of the series, much of the filming took place far beyond the city limits of the Big Apple, in the sands of the Sahara Desert and exotic Morocco.

“It was in the middle of the desert, not a sound, not a paparazzi,” King recalled. “Just the crew, the hot sun, and the sun falling out of the sky quickly. And us. It was a completely different, bizarre and magical time. Different colors, different smells, great crew. South Africans, Moroccans, Brits, Germans. It was an IHOP of a crew, big meals in tents.”

But there was much more to their desert adventure than that, as the dazzlingly dressed women of “SATC” would relate after breezing into the room — fashionably late by 20 minutes — and settling gracefully in a row of chairs before the crowd of journalists.

“It was laborious and Herculean,” Parker said. “It was one of the great experiences of my professional life, to live and work with this cast and that crew every single day, to see the sun rise and set over our locations in the most far-flung places, to lie in bed all day with these women, exhausted and laughing, to be on a camel with Kim Cattrall ….”

“Not many people can say they’ve done that,” Cattrall piped in.

Since its debut on HBO in June 1998, the “Sex and the City” series has followed the lives of four very different women who become fast friends and share three common interests: great sex, gorgeous clothing and the search for true love. Carrie (Parker) is the ringleader, an autobiographical columnist and best-selling author observing the sexual politics of singles in New York; Miranda (Nixon) is the dedicated career woman with an eccentric taste in men; Charlotte (Davis) is the traditionalist of the group, a gallery curator looking to settle down with Mr. Right; and Samantha (Cattrall) is the sexual huntress, a public relations executive who prefers one-night stands to lasting relationships.

Their favorite pastime has always been gathering over Manhattan cocktails to share gossip, romantic exploits and their most intimate secrets. The television series ended in 2004, but its popularity never waned, and when the first big-screen sequel hit theaters in 2008, audiences lined up to check in on a slightly older and wiser “SATC” crew, with Carrie settling down with the love of her life, Mr. Big (Chris Noth), Miranda juggling marriage, motherhood and career, Charlotte enjoying domestic bliss, and even Samantha committed to an exclusive relationship to a younger client/boyfriend.

But “Sex and the City 2” finds the foursome dealing with all manner of midlife crises.

“I think Miranda, the real issue she’s dealing with is what to do when you have a really terrific job that you’re well paid for, that you’ve worked for decades to get there, and all of a sudden you’re just miserable in it,” Nixon said. “So I can totally relate to that.”

“Better take that back,” Cattrall warned.

“Say that again?” asked Parker, who is one of the film’s producers.

“I’m kidding, honey, I’m kidding,” Nixon said with a laugh. “No, I think … as you get older and as you get more of a sense of yourself … learning to value yourself and say, ‘You know what, if someone is treating me badly, even though maybe it’s in my vested interest to keep my mouth shut, I actually have to speak out for myself and I have to protect myself. Because I may define myself as a lawyer, but if I’m a miserable lawyer, better not to be a lawyer at all.’”

Meanwhile, Charlotte’s discovering that being married with children is not as perfect as she’s tried to make it.

“Charlotte’s always been very, very traditional, and she has very, very high expectations of herself in those traditions,” Davis said. “And oftentimes she doesn’t live up to them, and possibly the things that she’s trying to control in life are not really things that you can control.”

And what’s Samantha’s dilemma? “Menopause, menopause, menopause,” Cattrall said, wearily. “And I didn’t need to do any research. I don’t need to say anymore.”

Finally, Carrie, the once-eternal single girl, is struggling with the new role of wife, finally having married Mr. Big, the man she’s been pursuing most of her adult life.

So, it’s time to get away with the girls, where all can gain a new perspective on the changes in their lives, and figure out how to redefine tradition.

“And what better place to ask these questions than in the Middle East?” Parker joked.

Next stop, Abu Dhabi (actual location, Morocco), for desert adventure and enlightenment, not only for the characters but the actresses who play them.

“I’m telling you, it was indescribably wonderful to be so far away in such a wonderfully foreign place, to have this incredibly cinematic experience,” Parker said. “To be in the dunes of the Sahara for days and see things we will never see again. To smell things, to eat things. Yes, it was hard, but we could not have done it anywhere else this way.

“I would say the thing I cherish most about it, and therefore my most vivid memory, is that I got to live with this cast,” Parker said. “We were removed, we were shooting out of country for the first time. We’d never done that, and we had this chance to live together and to know one another in a way we never have had the opportunity to do in New York. In New York, we’d go home to our friends and our family and our children and our animals. And for me, it just changed everything.

“And I just came away loving them more than I ever have, because I got to see them in a new way, and I was so reliant upon them, and they became even more necessary, and I was challenged by the work that they were doing and how good they were and what thoroughbreds they were, and how nothing could get us down …”

So life imitated art on the set of “Sex and the City 2,” forming bonds even more valuable than that pair of Manolo Blahniks over there, with the $665 price tag.

Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis, from left, star in "Sex and the City 2."

New York’s best-dressed gal pals suffer mid-life crises and sand in their Manolos in their second romantic romp across the big screen, “Sex and the City 2,” a fashionably funny, playfully naughty and sometimes too-cute sequel to the sequel to HBO’s hit comedy series.

It’s been two years since we last followed the Manhattan misadventures of these smart, independent, fashion-fanatic women, and they’re still going through changes while remaining fast friends, constantly commiserating, counseling and consoling one another through all of their trials and tribulations.

Carrie Bradshaw (a radiant Sarah Jessica Parker), the once-eternal single girl, now finds herself struggling with the new role of wife, having finally landed Mr. Big (Chris Noth), the man she’s been pursuing most of her adult life. Uncertain about what to do after saying “I do,” the bestselling author writes a book, “I Do, Do I?”, lampooning all the accepted notions of traditional marriage. It not only causes tensions at home but gets panned by her favorite magazine, The New Yorker.

Meanwhile, confirmed career woman Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), partner at a major New York law firm after years of hard work, has hit the glass ceiling she never thought she’d encounter, at odds with a chauvinistic boss who finally pushes her to the breaking point. She still has a happy home life with hubby Steve (David Eigenberg), but Miranda has always defined herself as a lawyer, and being jobless has stripped her of her identity.

Sweet and conventional Charlotte York-Goldenblatt (Kristin Davis), on the other hand, has striven to create the perfect family picture that’s now blurred by the overwhelming challenges of motherhood and the necessity of hiring a young nanny (Alice Eve) who’s perfect with her little girl — but may also be too much of a temptation for Charlotte’s husband Harry (Evan Handler).

And single sexual huntress Samantha Jones (vivacious charmer Kim Cattrall) is finally wrestling with the first symptoms of menopause, the reality of aging and whether her days and nights of liberated lifestyle are numbered.

For all four, it’s time to get away with the girls. And what better place to put their problems in perspective than in the exotic desert environs of Abu Dhabi — where confused Carrie’s dilemma is further complicated when she runs into an old flame … Aidan (John Corbett).

Series executive producer and chief writer Michael Patrick King again directs from his own screenplay, dishing up all the elements “SATC” fans have come to crave, from classy clothes to soapy romantic entanglements, peppered with plenty of comedy (the gay wedding featuring Liza Minnelli and an all-male top-hatted choir singing “If Ever I Would Leave You” is not to be missed), some tear-jerking drama and a healthy dose of steamy sex.

It’s all designed with the female in mind and should please its intended audience immensely, as long as no one minds that these characters veer between substance and superficiality and even a bit of sappiness in depicting the feminine condition. The principal players’ karaoke rendition of “I Am Woman” is a definite low point.

But the chemistry in this ensemble still bubbles as refreshingly as a cosmopolitan, with standout turns from Parker and Nixon, and Cattrall still heating the proceedings at a fiery 53. And, once again, the most appealing aspect of this sexually liberated, high-fashion free-for-all franchise is its heartwarming look at the true-blue nature of female friendship. The whole world should take a lesson.

– Gene Triplett

Rated R

2:26

2 ½ stars

Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, Chris Noth, John Corbett.

(Some strong sexual content and language)

The Oklahoman’s Entertainment Editor, Gene Triplett has an exclusive conversation with Sarah Jessica Parker that didn’t go as planned at the “Sex and the City 2” press junket.

BY GENE TRIPLETT

NEW YORK — Never send a boy to do a fashion editor’s job.

That was the hard lesson learned at a recent press junket for “Sex and the City 2.” When my boss heard I was New York-bound to preview the glittery chick-flick and interview its stars — Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis — she instructed me to bring back fashion quotes from each of the four actresses.

Now, I feel qualified to review any movie, no matter what audience it’s targeting, and ask intelligent questions about character, performance, artistic intent, etc.

But when it comes to women’s fashions, I don’t know Rene Caovilla from Reeboks.

Consequently, I’m not equipped to make informed inquiries about designer duds for the distaff side of the human family, and wouldn’t feel comfortable trying.

Alas, my orders were clear. But since the Q&A with these glamour gals was to be in a press conference setting with dozens of other journalists from all over the U.S. and Canada, some fashion-conscious scribe was bound to ask the crucial question for me.

After all, this fluffy film’s tagline is “the fun, the friendship, the fashion,” and the conference was being held in the rarefied surroundings of Bergdorf Goodman’s shoe department. The question had to occur to someone, and it usually does at these things when the interview subjects are expensively wrapped female stars.

But when an entertainment boy is on a fashion editor’s mission, anything that can go wrong, WILL.

First, the stars breezed into the room — fashionably late by 20 minutes — and took their chairs all in a pretty row.

Then a lot of time was spent with pesky, pertinent questions about story arc, each character’s “journey” and “issues,” problems with location shooting in Morocco, and so forth.

The clock was ticking. Everyone had to vacate this ultra-upscale establishment before its Sunday noon opening time which was now fast approaching, and STILL no one had asked The Question.

Desperately, now willing to humiliate myself, I stuck my hand in the air, hoping the moderator would pass the microphone before the time for questions ran out. But there were too many reporters in the room and not everyone got a turn at the mike.

When the moderator called “last question,” she picked someone behind me and my heart sank.

But when the conference adjourned and the stars were still up there milling around and talking to one another, I made a last-ditch move, stepping up and calling, “Sarah!”

To my relief she turned and smiled, raising her brows quizzically. Here I was, face to face with a radiant Sarah Jessica Parker aka Carrie Bradshaw, bubbly but wise fashionista and autobiographical romance columnist in the fabulously successful “Sex and the City” TV and movie series.

And, I swear, she had colored, sparkly flakes on her eyelids. They matched the sparkles on her pink and lavender jacket and top thing, and the pale flowers on her skirt matched all the other colors. How’s that for vivid fashion description?

I asked The Question: “Sarah, could you tell me real quick what you’re wearing today?”

“I’m wearing Elie Saab and Preen and Louis Vuitton,” she said. “And Lanvin.”

I think what I wanted to ask next was, “How does it make you feel to wear such a lovely outfit?”

But what came out of my mouth, around the foot that was lodged in it, was: “How does it make you feel?”

“How does what make me feel?” she asked, smile fading.

“Your outfit,” I said.

“Oh, you’re setting me up,” she accused.

“No, no, no,” I insisted, surprised, laughing nervously.

“You probably have an opinion,” she snapped. “Isn’t that more important?”

“No, no, no,” I repeated stupidly, groping frantically in my mind for a more convincing reassurance, some way to quell this horrible misunderstanding.

“How do I feel about it? I hate it, that’s why I chose it,” she smoldered. “I’m so ashamed.”

Then she relented, probably noticing that I was about to melt through the floor with embarrassment.

“No, I love it,” she said. “It was something I could borrow, and I can return it tomorrow for some other lucky woman to wear.”

Then a crowd of studio handlers and reporters closed in around her and separated us, but she was still staring at me over several shoulders, now with a satisfied little smile on her face that said “Gotcha,” or something to that effect.

Later I heard one of my male colleagues say, “Did Triplett really ask her what she was wearing?”

Jeez, how many other people overheard that exchange? Yeah, bozo, I asked her what she was wearing. Let’s hear you ask it any better, if your boss says ask.

Where’s Linda Miller when you need her?

The things I do for a paycheck sometimes. Man.

Noomi Rapace

The late Swedish author Steig Larsson’s blockbuster Millennium Trilogy of bleak crime novels gets its initial, bracing cinematic treatment in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” a chilly film that deftly condenses the sprawling exposition of the first book into a taut, violent, troubling and deeply compelling experience.

Drawn from the novel whose original Swedish title translates as “Men Who Hate Women,” this adaptation is densely plotted and slightly overlong and packs in enough serial murder, S&M depravity, stark nudity, cold-blooded brutality, rape and mutilation to scare away the overly sensitive and merely curious.

But hardcore fans of Larsson’s sharply intelligent writing and his gloomy Scandinavian aesthetic will be rewarded with a film that’s scrupulously faithful to the author’s characters and to his scathing social commentary.

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (in Swedish with subtitles) introduces us to the mismatched pair of crime solvers that propel Larsson’s three novels – his Nordic, anti-Nick and Nora Charles, if you will.

They are crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a world-weary knight errant recently convicted of slander for an investigative piece gone askew, and Lisbeth Salander (a wondrous Noomi Rapace), a 20-something goth hellion with a genius for computer hacking and an utter disdain for social graces.

The duo become reluctant allies when Blomkvist, awaiting his prison term, is hired by elderly tycoon Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) to look into the disappearance, and presumed murder, of his beloved teenage niece at a family gathering 40 years earlier. The pierced and surly Salander, working for a private security firm, is first hired to vet Blomkvist for the job but soon finds herself aiding in his sleuthing efforts.

The complex investigation takes the pair to the gray, frigid climes of Hedeby Island, where the Vanger clan – a creepy nest of drunkards, greedheads, abusive parents and closet Nazis and anti-Semites – has its ancestral estate.

As the case unfolds, director Niels Arden Oplev adroitly inserts worlds of backstory revealing the deviant horrors of the decades-old crime along with more recent horrors of rape and torture that haunt the beautiful Salander and answer for her furious nihilism.

The stark story gets a needed jolt of full-blooded humanity in the performances and personalities of the two leads. Nyqvist lends a rueful wisdom and wry, dark humor to Blomkvist that puts him in league with such noble, weathered sleuths as Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. And Rapace throws off exhilarating sparks of sexual energy and righteous anger as the clenched and guarded Salander.

Larsson is said to have numbered among his influences in the genre such writers as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and Sara Paretsky. But Thomas Harris and screen adaptations of his “Red Dragon” and “The Silence of the Lambs” come most readily to mind as kindred tales to this harrowing, thrilling film. “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is every bit as spine-tingling.

A note: The second and third novels in the trilogy – “The Girl Who Played With Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest” – have been adapted as Swedish film productions but have yet to be released in American markets. Also, an English-language adaptation of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is reportedly being planned by director David Fincher (“Se7en” and “Fight Club”) for release in 2012.

-Dennis King

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”

Not rated
2:28
3 stars
Starring: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Gunnel Lindblom, Ingvar Hirdwall and Tomas Köhler
(Recommended for adults, due to sexual themes, nudity and violence)

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

“NYC: Tornado Terror”

Lifelong residents of Oklahoma’s tornado alley might find a chuckle or two in this 2008 made-for-TV disaster tale of New Yorkers bracing for the big one to descend on the Big Apple.

When little whirlwinds and dust devils start turning up around Times Square, the mayor and other officials dismiss them as harmless weather events. But sexy meteorologist Nicole de Boer (“Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and “The Dead Zone”) knows that global warming presages something far worse for NYC.

Soon enough, a super cell of raging twisters descends on Manhattan, sending New Yorkers into a frenzy and threatening the city’s very existence – that is, unless this intrepid meteorologist and her deputy mayor husband can discover a way to calm Mother Nature’s fury.

Hungarian director Tibor Takacs appears to be a veritable prophet of doom and an old hand at these nature run-amok movies. His recent credits include titles such as “Meteor Storm,” “Mega Snake,” “Ice Spiders,” “The Black Hole,” “Nature Unleashed: Earthquake,” “Rats,” “Tornado Warning” and an apparent attempt to one-up “The Fly” titled “Mansquito.”

“NYC: Tornado Terror” is not rated and runs 90 minutes. It’s being released by Monarch Entertainment for a suggested retail price of $24.95.

- Dennis King

As “Saturday Night Live” skits turned into movies go, “MacGruber” is better than you might expect but still not good enough to merit full-length feature treatment.

If you were to compile a list of one-joke SNL skits rightly or wrongly adapted into full-blown movies, the former (rightly) would be a paltry one: “The Blues Brothers” and “Wayne’s World.” A dubious so-so list might include “Wayne’s World 2” and “Blues Brothers 2000.” The big list (wrongly – as in wrong, wrong, wrong) includes such celluloid-wasters as “Coneheads,” “Superstar,” “Stuart Saves His Family,” “The Ladies Man,” “A Night at the Roxbury” and last, and least, “It’s Pat.”

So, charitably speaking, Will Forte’s mildly amusing spoof on that jerry-rigged TV spy series “MacGyver” stretches the skit material to the breaking point and beyond (with loads of scatological gags, gay jokes, comic explosions and a leafy stalk of celery stuck up Forte’s – well, enough said). But it delivers enough guilty, juvenile laughs to land in the so-so column (barely).

Primarily, “MacGruber” seems intent on making fun of ’80s macho action movies, tacky pop culture and, only tangentially, Richard Dean Anderson’s super-resourceful TV spy and his formula of using science-fair gizmos to blow up villains and defuse world crises.

So we have Forte’s MacGruber coming out of South American exile to thwart the mad, world-domination scheme of arch-villain Dieter von Cunth (yes, that’s the running gag, and he’s played by a very porky Val Kilmer).

The rest is just an uneven catalog is pop-culture sight gags (MacGruber’s mullet, plaid shirt and poly-vest, his cherry-red Miata sports car with the tape deck he removes every time he parks) and MacGruber screw-ups (he recruits a gnarly A-Team of macho operatives then, well, kaboom!)

Thankfully, he’s left with an A-list actor and the funniest female SNL cast member since Gilda Radner on his B-Team. That would be hunky Ryan Phillippe as an eager young commando who idolizes MacGruber for some vague reason, and Kristen Wiig who somehow manages to bring a touching vulnerability along with perfect comic timing to the role of Vicki St. Elmo, spy chick, part-time songwriter and secret, amorous admirer of MacGruber.

Director and co-writer Jorma Taccone (a veteran SNL scribe) isn’t above resorting to infantile dialogue (“If you think he’s so handsome, why don’t you marry him?”) and cheap visual gags (the aforementioned celery stalk – twice!) in an apparent effort to fill out the thin material.

Nothing here rises to the level of satire, and much of it barely qualifies as spoof. Mostly, it’s made up of bits and pieces of jokes and gags that might be dreamed up by any group of guys sitting around wisecracking about ’80s TV and movie kitsch.

Most disappointing of all, Forte and his partners largely ignore the film’s main reason for being – MacGyver’s trademark way of whipping up techno-gizmos with ordinary household ingredients. There’s one quick scene where MacGruber assembles an arsenal of paper clips, push pins and dental floss, but it goes nowhere. And you’re left teetering between two wisecracks – that he might have used the stuff to defuse this movie bomb, or he might have employed it to create a few explosive laughs.

Unfortunately, “MacGruber” did neither.

- Dennis King

“MacGruber”

R
1:39
1.5 stars
Starring: Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Phillippe and Val Kilmer
(Strong crude and sexual content, language and some nudity)

Sanaa Hamri

BY DENNIS KING

NEW YORK – Sanaa Hamri has made a name for herself as a director who is adept at handling multi-racial, multi-cultural stories.

In music videos and on film and television, she’s worked with artists as diverse as Prince and Sting and on stories ranging from the largely black romance “Something New” to the multi-racial “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2” to mostly white TV series “Desperate Housewives” and “Men in Trees.”

The lively director of the newly released Queen Latifah-Common romantic comedy, “Just Wright,” said her multi-hued take on life and art comes naturally.

“I think my vision comes from within,” said Hamri, who was born in Tangier, Morocco. “I’m multi-cultural. I’m mixed. I grew up with people with different skin colors. What you see on screen is how I feel about the diversity of people and their beauty.”

Hamri, who studied theater arts and psychology at Sarah Lawrence College, talked about Queen Latifah, Common and the making of “Just Wright” during a recent press event hosted by Fox Searchlight.

On the film’s strong basketball theme: “I played basketball as a teen. I was a point guard, and I’m 5 foot, 2,” she said with a laugh. “I’m athletic, so I understand sports and I understand the dynamic of athletes. But I think what helped me most on this film is that I’m fascinated by body and motion. I mean, I know more about soccer because in Africa that’s the main sport for us. But here basketball is so cool, and the dynamics are very similar.”

On working with Queen Latifah: “I hadn’t worked with Latifah before, and I was stunned at how quickly she picked up the details of her character, the jargon and techniques of a physical therapist (her character’s profession). At one point I wondered, did she study physical therapy? We had consultants on the set, but she was just so natural at it. I was tempted to ask her, can you check my sore knee out? She just knows how to get into those roles.”

On the casting of hip-hop artist Common in his first leading role: “You know, Common is a positive, great role model,” she said. “I always liked him as a person. It’s always difficult when you have an actor who comes from a musical career. But I knew he upheld what he talked about in his music. He’s kind of unique among hip-hop artists of his caliber. I mean most of them are talking about loose women and the party they went to last night, which I’m tired of. I always knew that Common has so many layers emotionally, so when this role came up I knew he would be perfect for it.

“The rest of Hollywood only sees black males in certain types of roles,” she said. “He had done the gangster stuff on screen, but I knew he could do so much more. Plus, Queen Latifah and Common have natural chemistry. They genuinely like each other, so it’s good to start from that place.”

On presenting positive black male role models: “I think it was important that we showed James Pickens’s character as a father who was there for his daughter. That’s why I wanted to highlight it as much as possible, because I really think that life imitates art nowadays. So we wanted to reinforce that positive image of a father being there and being that great support system. And quite frankly the reason that Latifah’s Leslie Wright winds up with a good guy like Common’s Scott McKnight is because she had a good role model in her father. If her father is not around and doesn’t pay attention to her, then nine out of ten times she’s going to end up with a man who does that.”

On Paula Patton’s character, Morgan, an ambitious a gold-digger: “She’s smart as a whip, but she’s channeling all her energies into the wrong thing,” Hamri said. “She’s on the computer, reading books, setting herself up to nab a rich man. But if she took all that energy in a different direction, she could wind up running a company. There are women who are obsessive about celebrity, about getting the right man, the money. Especially with all these reality TV shows, I felt she kind of epitomized where some of the culture is going – in a negative way.”

On what makes a good date movie: “First and foremost you have to have romance. And you have to have two characters who you want to get together,” she said. “I think that’s what works. And, of course, comedy and having fun are always important when you’re on a date. Not something too heavy but something you can talk about afterward. Like if you’re going to go out to this movie and have dinner afterward, you and your date can have a lot to talk about. For me it’s important to have a movie that’s not like you just ate too much popcorn and feel, well, uggh.”

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

“The Navy vs. the Night Monsters”

The influence of low-budget horrormeister Roger Corman is all over this campy 1966 sci-fi thriller, out in a new DVD edition Tuesday. Although Corman’s producing work is uncredited, this movie – shot in 10 days and deftly exploiting the ample charms of ‘60s sexpot Mamie Van Doren – bears his unmistakable stamp.

Killer trees infest a south seas island, trees that bleed acid and seem determined to cremate the entire human race. When Navy nurse Van Doren and some others (including song-and-dance man Bobby Van and “Father Knows Best” bad-boy Billy Gray) are imperiled by this botanical menace, the U.S. Navy is called in to wage battle.

Director Michael A. Hoey and producer Jack Broder reportedly waged battle with each other during the hurried filming, with Hoey objecting that the special-effects “tree stump monsters” looked ridiculous and refusing to shoot them. But Broder prevailed, probably figuring that with Van Doren in a low-cut nurse’s frock, nobody would even notice the cheesy trees.

“The Navy vs. the Night Monsters” is not rated and is being released by Video Music Distribution for a suggested retail price of $12.95

- Dennis King

Gary Winick

BY DENNIS KING

NEW YORK – Gary Winick has made his name primarily as a producer of smart, low-budget independent movies with such indie icons as Richard Linklater, Rebecca Miller and Steve Buscemi. But as a director, the New York native said he often feels lightly typecast as “the romantic comedy guy.”

Two of his most recent films, 2009’s “Bride Wars” and 2004’s “13 Going on 30,” have fallen squarely in rom-com territory, and his latest, the hyper-romantic “Letters to Juliet,” will likely do nothing to disprove Winick’s attraction to scripts leaning heavily toward light love and whimsy.

But to hear the director tell it during a recent round of press interviews hosted by Summit Entertainment, “Letters to Juliet” in pre-production had an entirely different tone from the film that finally made it to the screen.
“Originally, this concept had a ’50s romantic comedy feel – you know, like one of those Katharine Hepburn-Cary Grant stories. It had the repartee,” said Winick. “But then the script drafts never really seemed to duplicate that. And part of that was because maybe we’ve just outgrown those ’50s type of films.

“Because of the success of ’13 Going on 30’ I now seem to be this romantic comedy guy,” he said. “And what we had in mind was something like ‘Notting Hill,’ which seems to me one of the best romantic comedies of the last 20 years, in my opinion. It’s interesting when I look back at that film they had that repartee, but it was in a different milieu. I mean we were locked in this kind of timeless warp of Italy and Vanessa (Redgrave) coming back and looking for her old love and going to beautiful places.

“And its funny because ‘Letters to Juliet’ turned into more romance than comedy,” he said. “If Amanda (Seyfried’s) audience is our audience then I think they expect something like that movie I did last year (“Bride Wars”) which Entertainment Weekly, if you look it up in the 2009 year-end issue, put on their 10 worst list.

“Anyway,” he continued with a rueful laugh, “I only make a movie if it has a story worth telling, and for me that movie was all about friendship. And I’ll always make a movie about friendship because that’s the most important thing in my life.”

Does he feel hemmed in by the “romantic comedy guy” label?

“I know what I’m not good at and I believe my strength, if I have a strength, is that I’m pretty truthful and honest in my moments and can get the comedy out of situations without getting too broad and get the emotional stuff from being truthful and honest,” Winick replied. “So if that is able to elevate a romantic comedy, I’ll give it a shot. Unfortunately, I don’t read that many romantic comedy scripts that do that, so usually you have to get a good screenwriter to come in and elevate the material so that you have a shot at making something that audiences will really respond to.

“But would I like to make other kinds of moves? Yeah, maybe some dramas and stuff like that,” he said. “But when I look back, I’m very grateful to have done the work I’ve done.”

But getting any modestly budgeted romantic comedy made these days is an uphill battle, the veteran producer-director said.

“It’s funny because there are two films that we’d wanted to make for years,” he said. “and one of them was ‘Letters to Juliet.’ And there’s another that hopefully I’ll get to make one day, and it’s called ‘Rat Bastard.’ It was written after ‘Tadpole’ and it’s my ‘Tootsie,’ and it was written for Ewan McGregor and Kate Winslett, but for some reason I can’t get that made.”

But getting the right cast, with bankable actors such as Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave, does go a long way toward getting a green light.

“I think I’ve been very fortunate that I get actors who are just wonderful people and we all go in wanting to make the same movie,” he said. “There are so many great directors working today. And you know what, I may not be as talented as a lot of them – I’ve accepted that – but I think I have a way that I make people feel comfortable and trust me, and that goes a huge way with the actors.”

One thrill of working on “Letters to Juliet,” Winick said, was overseeing a romantic, on-screen reunion between Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero, whose lifelong love affair began when they co-starred as Guenevere and Lancelot in 1967 screen musical “Camelot.”

“They’re married but they don’t live together,” Winick said of the pair. “I’m not telling you anything that you can’t find out on the internet. One lives in London and the other lives in Italy. But they spend all this time together and they were so romantic on set. It was wonderful to have them on set together. The last third of the movie is when they’re at the vineyard and stuff. The whole atmosphere was magical – we all joked more and you could just tell that they’re in love.

“Vanessa was the one who said, ‘I want to cast Franco,’ when there were so many actors, more famous actors, in Italy that wanted to be in the movie,” he said with a wry chuckle. “I do have to say this, and I say it in a very loving, fun way, but you know – I guess part of it is being an actor, part of it’s being Italian, part of it’s being Franco – I mean, he has a big ego. And he said, ‘I’ve been in 157 movies and I’m doing this only because of Vanessa, but, come on Gary, I’m in only four scenes.’”

Robin Hood is a straight-arrow myth for all seasons.

Depending on your age and taste in movies, you might imagine him as the silently swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks, the Technicolor Errol Flynn, an animated Disney fox, a gnarled and aging Sean Connery,  jolly Cary Elwes for comic relief, Kevin Costner with an American drawl or any of a dozen incarnations of the folk legend so thoroughly promulgated in literature and cinema.

Add now a brooding, muscular Russell Crowe who brings a gladiator-like scowl and swagger to director Ridley Scott’s gritty new “Robin Hood,” an epic prequel that imagines how an obscure Saxon archer in Richard the Lionheart’s army might have become one of folklore’s most enduring superheroes.

There are no green tights or bands of merry men cavorting around Sherwood Forest in this version, scripted with supple imagination, shadowy innuendo, flourishes of earthy humor and loads of thudding, brutish, in-your-face combat scenes by Brian Helgeland (“L.A. Confidential”).

Rather in its sweeping scope, its grimy, realistic grandeur and its idealistic narrative thrust, Scott’s film owes a debt to his own bloody Roman epic, “Gladiator,” and to Mel Gibson’s rousing, Scottish independence cry, “Braveheart.”

The narrative sets off as weary King Richard (Danny Huston) is pillaging across France on the way home from the gory Third Crusade. Among his ragged army is a yeoman archer named Robin Longstride (Crowe), whose trio of pals (Kevin Durand, Scott Grimes and Alan Doyle) form the core of the future merry men.

Through a series of complex plot turns, Robin eventually finds himself traveling to Nottingham to return a fallen nobleman’s sword to his kin. There, he comes under the wizened tutelage of Sir Walter Loxley (a grand Max von Sydow), the dead nobleman’s father, and succumbs to the no-nonsense allure of the nobleman’s widow, Lady Marion (Cate Blanchett).

Meanwhile, lots of royal court conniving is going on elsewhere as the callow Prince John (Oscar Isaac) defies his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Eilene Atkins), takes a French mistress, assumes the throne and orders onerous new taxes across the land, and as the dastardly Sir Godfrey (Mark Strong) schemes with the French King Philip to foment rebellion in the north and set up an invasion from the south by the French army.

The jam-packed narrative often relies on too thinly drawn characterizations to be fully engaging. And the too-brief appearances of some mainstays, such as the beekeeping Friar Tuck (Mark Addy) and the sniveling Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen), seem merely intended as setups for larger roles in a sequel.

Crowe and Blanchett spark some strong chemistry as Robin and Marion — he all buff and earnest; she no mere maiden, but a lady fully adept at archery and swordplay.

But it’s the florid villains who add grit and texture to the piece — most notably the bald-pated Strong with his hideous facial scar as the despicable traitor Godfrey and Isaac, whose sculpted beard, curly locks and prissiness suggest King John channeling Rowan Atkinson’s pompous Edmund Blackadder.

Scott orchestrates the muddy, bloody battle scenes with artful skill, painting large-scale portraits of clashing armies and making stomach-churning use of ancient implements of warfare and their killing efficiency. He even employs the arrow-cam view pioneered in Costner’s “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” to telling effect.

Concluding with idyllic suggestions of Robin and the merry men in Sherwood Forest, Scott’s “Robin Hood’ leaves the drawbridge wide open for an obvious sequel. And judging from the visceral impact and narrative effectiveness of this prequel, fans of such brawny swashbuckling will be left eager for more.

— Dennis King

MOVIE REVIEW

“Robin Hood”

PG-13

2:20

3 stars

Starring: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Max von Sydow and William Hurt.

(Violence including intense sequences of warfare and some sexual content)