Most people would guess that an historical accounting of cinema shot in the Sooner State would just about fill a pamphlet, but John Wooley has filled a revelatory and richly readable 309-page book with facts about rolling film in red dirt country.

“Shot in Oklahoma: A Century of Sooner State Cinema” reveals a long record of movies filmed in the Land of the Red Man, dating as far back as 1904. That was the year inventor Thomas Edison himself, the American movie studio pioneer, sent a film crew to Oklahoma’s 101 Ranch near Ponca City, seeking to capture authentic Western atmosphere on celluloid.

Many people who’ve lived in Oklahoma for any significant length of time might recall that Francis Ford Coppola brought young unknown actors such as Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke and Diane Lane to Tulsa to film “The Outsiders” and “Rumblefish” (both released in 1983), based on novels by Oklahoma author S.E. Hinton. They might also be aware that director Barry Levinson brought Cruise back to Oklahoma, along with Dustin Hoffman, to shoot scenes for the Oscar-winning “Rain Man” in 1988, and that the big-budget disaster movie “Twister” (1996), with Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, was shot in Wakita, Guthrie and several other state locations. And that’s about all that most folks know.

Fascinating details

But meticulously researched details of many older and/or lesser-known features shot in the Sooner state make for fascinating and informative reading, especially for film buffs and movie trivia fans who live here.

The book’s cover, for example, is taken from a poster hawking a low-budget 1950 Western called “Rock Island Trail,” a Republic picture shot mostly in Hollywood, with some outdoor action scenes filmed along a stretch of abandoned railroad track near McAlester. Its star, Forrest Tucker, is pictured leaping from the front of a locomotive with a six-gun in his hand and a savage look on his face. Great cover. Enhances the book’s title perfectly.

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans filmed 1946′s “Home in Oklahoma” around the Arbuckle Mountains, and Roy and Dale actually came back to the Sooner State and got married on a cattle ranch in the area the very next year.

I was intrigued that a Western project called “Osage,” starring, among others, Tulsa Western swing ace Johnnie Lee Wills and actress Noel Neill, who would later play Lois Lane on the first “Superman” TV series, was shot in part around Pawhuska, but never completed.

I was surprised to learn that parts of the wildcat oil boom drama “Tulsa” (1949), starring Robert Preston and Susan Hayward, were shot on the outskirts of Oklahoma City, and even a small bit of John Ford’s 1940 film version of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” — a book vehemently denounced by Sooner citizens and politicians alike for its depiction of Dust Bowl Okies — was quietly filmed around the Beckham County courthouse in Sayre.

Fun stuff from Wooley, one of the most prolific and popular of Oklahoma writers, a former Tulsa World entertainment writer, novelist and author of many music- and movie-related books and articles rooted in Okie culture. “Shot in Oklahoma” is published in paperback by the University of Oklahoma Press with a list price of $16.95.

— Gene Triplett

Angelina Jolie

BY DENNIS KING

Having passed the half-way point of summer’s big-bucks movie season, film fans must now be asking themselves: Is the popcorn box half full or half empty?

Traditionally, Hollywood studios frontload the lucrative summer season with the hottest attractions in May, June and early July (the better to wring longer, profitable runs from blockbusters during vacation and school’s-out time).

So, late July and the dog days of August aren’t usually as packed with big tent-pole movies each and every weekend.

A quick look at release calendars for the remaining weeks through Labor Day seems to bear that out.

With box-office under performers like “Sex and the City 2,” “Prince of Persia,” “Robin Hood” and “Knight and Day” still hanging on to screens, with big-foot profit makers like “Toy Story 3” and “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” still selling tickets, and with intriguing adult fare like “Inception” creating a buzz among moviegoers, the summer seems far from over.

But peer deeper into the bottom of the popcorn box and it looks like just a few fully blossomed kernels and a lot of grannies are left to be consumed.

This weekend promises a little “Salt” to spice up the multiplex fare, and the much hyped Angelina Jolie spy thriller from reliable director Phillip Noyce (“Clear and Present Danger,” “Patriot Games”) certainly qualifies as a big-deal summer release.

But beyond that, weekend release rosters just seem to get thinner and weedier.

The last weekend in July hosts a less-than-explosive trio of wide releases – the social farce, “Dinner for Schmucks” (a remake of Frenchman Francis Veber’s “The Dinner Game”), the silly, petcentric sequel “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” and the mystical baseball romance “Charlie St. Cloud” – with either very specialized or very limited appeal.

The same can be said for the entire month of August, with few releases that truly qualify as “events.”

Julia Roberts

Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg’s cop buddy comedy, “The Other Guys,” ushers in August on the 6th, hopefully giving Ferrell a chance to make people forget about “The Land of the Lost.” Then on August 13, Julia Roberts goes all touchy-feely and philosophical in the book-to-movie adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat Pray Love.” That shares the weekend with a film version of the obsessive comic-book favorite “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and the old Hollywood-style, star-packed action saga “The Expendables” (with Sylvester Stallone directing and starring with a crew that includes Jet Li, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Mickey Rourke, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis).

After August 20’s “Nanny McPhee Returns,” a sequel to Emma Thompson’s warmly quirky tale of a magical, potato-nosed nanny who rescues a dysfunctional British family, the summer seems to fizzle out.

Left over are things like the gimmicky “Piranha 3-D,” the slapdash “Twilight” spoof “Vampires Suck,” a Drew Barrymore romantic comedy called “Going the Distance,” a last-gasp Jennifer Aniston comedy from the dying Miramax titled “The Switch” and a hardboiled detective tale with Matt Dillon titled “Takers.”

But if Labor Day weekend marks both the end of summer and the beginning of the fall-holiday movies season, then both of them promise to go off with a bang. The Sept. 3 weekend boasts two strong finishers-starters for the transition of seasons.

Austin maverick Robert Rodriguez teams up with his favorite craggy-faced star Danny Trejo for “Machete,” a revenge yarn in which a hired assassin is double crossed and sets out to assassinate those who would assassinate him. Then George Clooney takes up arms in “The American,” another assassin’s tale with Clooney’s hired killer hiding out in an Italian village contemplating one last tricky assignment.

From that weekend on to Christmas and New Year, our popcorn boxes will again be overflowing.

Common wisdom in Hollywood says that it’s the rare sequel that outshines the original. And in the case of the overstuffed, overly frenetic, slightly incoherent “Iron Man 2,” that wisdom holds fast and true.

If this hotly anticipated sequel to the 2008 Marvel Comics superhero saga proves anything, it’s that more is not always better. But that’s a cliché, as well as a very real pitfall that trips up many if not most big-bang, big-budget action movies that score big box-office bucks and come back a couple of years later for a second helping of riches.

The things that surprised and charmed us most about the first “Iron Man” – clever gizmos, clever characters, prize-worthy special effects and the willfully eccentric, darkly dangerous presence of Robert Downey Jr. in the title role – are back in spades for the sequel.

But so is an overly convoluted plot by actor-screenwriter Justin Theroux (“Tropic Thunder”) that confronts our gazillioinaire playboy industrialist-inventor Tony Stark (Downey, upping his game in terms of bleak, sardonic humor) with a rash of personal problems and a couple of potent arch-enemies on his case.

It’s hardly necessary to provide detailed synopsis, since this thing was practically blogged to death before it hit multiplex screens.

But, briefly, Stark, seemingly unhinged by creeping megalomania and a bad ticker, is still stubbornly guarding the secret of his nifty bionic iron suit and insisting that he’s using it for the good of mankind.

Amid a numbing barrage of explosive special effects, orchestrated without much apparent logic by returning director Jon Favreau, Stark struggles with his own inner nuttiness while fending off a genius Russian thug named Ivan Vanko (is that Mickey Rourke under all those tattoos?), who blames Stark for … oh, something or other. There’s also an underhanded weapons dealer with the appropriate weapons dealer name Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), who’s conniving with Vanko against Stark.

On top of that, the blustery U.S. Sen. Stern (Garry Shandling) is pressuring Stark to turn over his technology to the Defense Department; Stark’s loyal Girl Friday, Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow), now has a rival in a dishy new assistant, Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson, scantily clad), and old comrade Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle, stepping in for Terrence Howard) feels that he needs to knock some sense into Stark’s muddled head.

That doesn’t even take into account the puzzling presence of Samuel L. Jackson’s eye-patched crimefighter Nick Fury, who shows up late and hangs around without much to do.

All the confusion and chaos of the story, or the over-reliance on noisy CGI action scenes, won’t likely spoil the fun for hardcore fans. Downey’s cheeky flamboyance and his knack for glib, dark humor provide enough saving grace to make “Iron Man 2” an ironclad blockbuster. It manages to be enjoyable, even while being a rattling contraption that’s far too mechanical for its own good.

- Dennis King

“Iron Man 2”

PG-13
2:04
2.5 stars
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson and Mickey Rourke
(Sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, and some language.)

Leonard Maltin

BY DENNIS KING

Movie critics, who see scores if not hundreds of movies each year, are often asked by acquaintances headed for the video store or their Netflix queue, “What movie should I rent this weekend?”

Since that’s always a matter of mood and personal taste, it can be a thorny question. People are usually fishing not just for the latest star-driven blockbuster but for some hidden gem or eye-opening sleeper that’s somehow escaped popular notice. Still, it’s a loaded question.

So for we movie wonks who don’t want to get crossways with our friends by  some weird, obscure or dicey film recommendation, Leonard Maltin comes to the rescue. That man of encyclopedic knowledge and 17,000 movies has a new book called “Leonard Maltin’s 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen” (HarperStudio, $16.99).

It’s filled with offbeat recommendations of both forgotten classic movies and underappreciated contemporary films.

For instance:

“Lady for a Day,” Frank Capra’s 1933 charmer about a poor bag lady (Mary Robson) who sells apples in Times Square yet leads her far-away daughter to believe that she’s a wealthy dowager. Capra remade the story with a bigger budget and more publicity in the 1960s under the title “Pocketful of Miracles,” with Bette Davis and Glenn Ford.

“The Pledge,” a 2001 drama directed by actor Sean Penn and featuring an all-star cast led by Jack Nicholson as a retiring Reno police officer who gets drawn into the case of a brutal attack on a young neighborhood girl. Despite an amazing ensemble featuring Patricia Clarkson, Aaron Eckhart, Mickey Rourke, Vanessa Redgrave and Helen Mirren, Penn’s third directing effort apparently fell through the box-office cracks and was largely overlooked.

A few other regrettably ignored titles on Maltin’s list are “The Ballad of Little Jo” (1993) with Suzy Amis as a gal passing as a rough-hewn cowboy; “In the Shadow of the Moon” (2007), a candid, intimate documentary about the astronauts of America’s Apollo space program; “The Whole Wide World” (1996), a real-life drama about a prim Texas school teacher (Rene Zellweger) and her relationship with troubled comic-book creator Richard E. Howard (Vincent D’Onofrio), and “The Weather Man” (2005), with Nicolas Cage as a Chicago weather forecaster struggling with maturity, family and ambition.

So next time someone corners you at a party and asks you to pull a brilliant movie recommendation out of your hat, just let Leonard do it.