A little over a year ago, I was assigned a "Cinematical Seven" on the most overrated actors in Hollywood. I stand by five of my choices, but things have changed for two of the others. Heath Ledger (#4) was one, and his amazing performances in both I'm Not There and The Dark Knight proved me wrong, not to mention that he's no longer alive to be overrated, underrated or any kind of rated. The other was Ben Kingsley (#1). For some reason I have seen five Ben Kingsley movies in the past three months. Seeing such a wide range of performance in such a short time has caused me to re-think my opinion on him. The first Kingsley film I saw this year was The Wackness (31 screens), as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival. I didn't much like the film; I found it to be a rather bland, tame coming-of-age picture disguised as a daring snapshot-of-an-era movie. And Kingsley's performance as a pot-smoking shrink struck me as yet another piece of overacting, with lots of weird pauses and run-on sentences in his dialogue.

His turn as the villain in War, Inc. (20 screens) didn't fare much better. I liked the film, but strapped to a wheelchair, his immobile body only increased his tendency to overdo it in his line readings. The third movie, Transsiberian (opening this week on 2 screens), proved somewhat more interesting. He played a Russian narcotics detective, complete with an accent, but somehow his performance perfectly clicked with that sturdy suspense film. The fourth film, The Love Guru (over 400 screens), was by far the worst of the lot but also proved the most revealing.

Here's one of my dirty little secrets: I love lists and I keep track of my year's ten best movies all year long. Most other critics hastily assemble their lists at the last second, which is partly why so many December movies dominate; critics can't remember what they've seen earlier in the year. My list shows that 2008 has had a pretty poor first half, but I do have some contenders for listhood. Two movies are currently competing for the top spot, though I need to see them both again to be sure. Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon (6 screens) is one; it has a lovely, laid-back, observant quality and feels less severe than some of Hou's other recent films. But I haven't yet decided if the film is a comedy or a tragedy. It all feels pretty light and insignificant, except for the saddest thing: no one seems to notice the red balloon of the title, drifting around Paris, unable to find a boy like Pascal to love it. The film also contains the year's most vibrant performance: Juliette Binoche playing a frenzied single mom working with a puppet troupe.

It's pretty easy to pick out Christmas movies and Halloween movies, and it's not too hard to find a New Year's movie, or even Arbor Day or Memorial Day movies. But how do you select a Fourth of July movie? Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) takes place during the Fourth of July, when the sheriff (the late, great Roy Scheider) tries to close the beach to protect the people from the killer shark and the greedy mayor wants to keep the beaches open to make lots of money. And who can forget Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991), with its image of a cackling, cigar-smoking Robert De Niro looming over the helpless, passive family, while fireworks explode overhead? These movies may not be entirely appropriate, or they may be all-too-appropriate symbols of America in 2008, but either way, they're both terrific movies.

The road movie is a uniquely American genre; unlike other parts of the world, Americans have the freedom to drive across 3000 miles of open land without getting hassled. It also involves cars, for which Americans have a singular passion. There are dozens of great road movies (not surprisingly), but let's go with three of the most unique examples. Tim Burton's cult classic Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) brings the title hero on the road to find his stolen bicycle; the film also has the best hitch-hiking sequences since It Happened One Night. Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) is the ultimate existential car movie, and David Lynch's The Straight Story (1999) is the road movie transplanted to a power lawnmower (which is pretty American, too, when you think about it).

In describing today's best directors, three terms are generally used (and overused): Maverick, Genius and Auteur. A "maverick" is now used to describe virtually anyone who makes a movie without using Hollywood money. An "auteur" is used to describe anyone who writes as well as directs. And "genius" is used to describe anyone who makes a halfway decent film. I'm taking these words back. In reality, a "maverick" should be a button-pusher. It's a filmmaker who is so radical and daring that even high-minded, forward-thinking critics sneer at their work, people like Vincent Gallo or Catherine Breillat. These people are so dangerous that they have trouble making and distributing films. Harmony Korine, director of Mister Lonely (5 screens) is very much a maverick. Korine has pushed many buttons and many envelopes over the years and though I love his work, he's someone I wouldn't want to invite to my house. (He scares me.)

Werner Herzog, director of Encounters at the End of the World (1 screen), is also a maverick (and, incidentally, a buddy of Korine's). His physically dangerous films have probably had insurance companies slamming the door in his face, and his co-workers have included people who might not be fit for polite society. (At the very least, most of them would turn heads.) Some of his actors have reportedly threatened to kill him. It cracks me up that, because Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man was such a hit, Herzog was allowed to make his new film for the Discovery Channel. I'd really love to have been in on that board meeting. Did they really know who they were dealing with? At the same time, Herzog is also an auteur: all of his films have the same roaming curiosity, fearlessly exploring man's tenuous connection to nature, from Aguirre navigating the Amazon looking for El Dorado, to Timothy Treadwell seeking to befriend the bears.

Four of the most exciting movie stars in the world are currently appearing in two of the least interesting new movies, taking a back seat to less interesting stars. Jackie Chan and Jet Li are master martial artists, Chan with a comedian's touch and Li with an appealing stoic quality. They team up for the first time in The Forbidden Kingdom (105 screens), a movie about a white kid and his attempt to beat up some bullies. Chow Yun-fat and Michelle Yeoh team up for the second time in The Children of Huang Shi (43 screens), about a British journalist (not played by Chow) and an Australian nurse (not played by Yeoh) saving some orphans.

Chow had a suave, cool quality that could have turned him into the next James Bond or Cary Grant, and Yeoh is a beautiful martial artist who could have become a groundbreaking feminist action star. It's a sad state of affairs, but I guess these films are the final proof of the cold, dead corpse of the Hong Kong New Wave.

Over the course of my time in this job I have acquired a reputation as someone who reviews and appreciates lots of foreign films. Of course, at the same time I have occasionally been accused of not understanding these films at all, which is partially true. It's not technically possible for one person to fully absorb and comprehend every facet of every industrialized culture in the world. For one thing, subtitles never accurately translate what's being spoken, and then there are little cultural things, certain behaviors, for example, that may not translate either. Conversely, it's impossible for any one person -- filmmakers included -- to represent a culture. It gets even more complex than that, if you want to boil it down. For example, I could say that I identify with the characters in High Fidelity (2000), but if you consider that I've never been to Chicago, and consider further that the book was originally set in London, then it creates a cultural divide. That movie has levels that will forever be out of my grasp.

You do your best. You keep an open mind. Although, I admit I'm usually disappointed when I see too many Western filmmaking elements slavishly copied in Eastern films (Mongol, The Counterfeiters, etc.); it shows the overwhelming influence of Hollywood on other parts of the world. I'm sure more people in Portugal saw Transformers than saw Manoel de Oliveira or Pedro Costa's latest films.

June is here, and summer has more or less begun, even if we have to wait until June 21 for the official start date. I'm here in the Bay Area, under a blanket of fog, wearing a sweater (if you saw last year's wonderful Colma: The Musical, you'll get a visual) while everywhere else people are sunbathing and drinking frosty frappuccinos. No matter. I've spent many summers like this and I have my share of fond summer memories even if they happened in the freezing cold rather than the relaxing heat. I was just remembering back to my first summer here. I had a pretty laid-back, part-time job that allowed me to go to as many movies as I wanted. So this week I thought I would do a flashback to the summer of 1991. (Imagine a pre-Tarantino world!) Things started well with the 50th anniversary re-release of Citizen Kane, and although I'd seen it many times before (and since) I got to see it on the big screen for the first time.

Next up came the documentary Truth or Dare. I wasn't a particularly big Madonna fan, but there was one scene that made the movie an event. Warren Beatty (then dating Madonna) turns up in her dressing room and is nonplussed about the intruding cameras: "She doesn't want to live off-camera, much less talk. There's nothing to say off-camera. Why would you say something if it's off-camera? What point is there existing?" Little did we know that those words would come to define our country and culture in the 21st century.

I had a friend once who claimed that there was no point in listening to a record or seeing a movie that was merely good, that to invest the money and time, it should be great. I later caught him listening to -- and enjoying almost to the point of tears -- a CD that would never be described by anyone as great. The point is that sometimes a good movie does wonders for the soul that a great movie could never hope to replicate. Take a look at Iron Man, still on nearly 4000 screens and still raking in the returns. It's well on its way to earning $300 million and shows no signs of stopping there. It's currently the #1 highest grossing film of the year, as well as one of the top rated films at Rotten Tomatoes, with a whopping 93%. I'm one of the movie's fans, but it seems to me that this response is based more on sheer gratitude than anything else. Everyone seems to be simultaneously chiming in: thanks for the good movie!

2008 has been a lousy year for great movies, but I have seen quite a few good ones. The documentary Young@Heart (212 screens), for example, has continued to live in my memory long after I saw it, and long after any of the award-winning Iraq documentaries I've had to sit through. I suspect that it's one of those rare, word-of-mouth docs like March of the Penguins or Grizzly Man that people actually tell their friends about. I don't want to give anything away, but before I saw the movie I didn't care much for the band Coldplay, and now I can't listen to "Fix You" without getting a lump in my throat. The key to this movie is that it looked terrible before I went in, and it turned out to be a huge and happy surprise.

Since it's Indiana Jones week, I wanted to do something Indy-themed for my column this week, perhaps something along the line of "Indy indies," but I kept coming back to an idea that has been gnawing at me for some time: a recently re-discovered appreciation for Steven Spielberg, flaws and all. As a kid, I was treated to Spielberg's childlike fantasies, including E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and, to a lesser extent Poltergeist and The Goonies. He, along with George Lucas, seemed to be able to tap directly into the universal fantasies of boys (and some girls, too) everywhere, thereby discovering a gold mine.

But he eventually felt the need to grow up, not because he wanted to, but because he yearned for the acclaim that goes with making more grown-up movies. His first attempt, The Color Purple, was oddly, almost uncomfortably childlike, but he eventually made the leap with Schindler's List. At least three times he has jumped back and forth between childhood and adulthood in a single year: 1993 (Jurassic Park and Schindler's List), 1997 (The Lost World and Amistad) and 2005 (War of the Worlds and Munich). It's only natural, then, that fans and critics began to see this as a kind of betrayal, or worse, inconsistency. Not to mention that his gargantuan success, both financial and critical, tends to breed contempt in others.

I noticed that Lloyd Kaufman's Poultrygeist (subtitled Night of the Chicken Dead) has finally emerged in theaters (currently playing on 1 screen). Kaufman is the president of Troma, a production company and distributor that has survived as an indie for over 30 years, mainly due to salesmanship. By any count, they have been responsible for at least 150 movies, and Kaufman himself has over 200 on his resume. Anyone who has ever frequented a video store has probably come across titles like Blondes Have More Guns (1995), Cannibal! The Musical (1996), Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (1991), Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part IV (2000) (and, indeed, the entire Toxic Avenger series), Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986), Femme Fontaine: Killer Babe for the C.I.A. (1994), Killer Condom (1996), A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1991), Rabid Grannies (1988), Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. (1991), Surf Nazis Must Die! (1987) and Tromeo and Juliet (1996). They have also distributed such nuggets as Brian De Palma's The Wedding Party (1969), Samuel Fuller's Shark! (1969) and Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome (1996).