Right off the bat, I must say: While I love music in film, I don't like most of the musicals out there. Try as I might, most just inspire me to daydream through the musical numbers. But those that capture me, I adore. I never get tired of the rapid wordplay from Pirates of Penzance. I love most of the music in Moulin Rouge -- especially the inclusions of Lamb's "Gorecki." If it's done right, I'm a fan forever (Evil Dead: The Musical).

Surprisingly enough, there are two films that came out in the last year that I really dug, even though they really didn't hit the mark with fans. They came, they danced, they crooned, and they fell flat. I sat down to watch both of these expecting disappointment, and in one case, I was digging it from the first minute, and the other, I just couldn't stop giggling. In a very brief journey back in time, I give you: Across the Universe and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

These days, genre has been boiled down into such simplistic forms that it becomes a buzz-worthy feat when a film manages to pull off more than just a basic premise. A superhero film becomes wow-worthy if time was taken to perfect the story and actors. A comedy becomes rare if it includes a lot of smarts with the slapstick. A romance becomes one of a kind if its characters don't fit into the almost-always-used conventions.

This latter one is a true sore spot of mine. For the most part, romance and relationships have been boiled down to such ridiculous stereotypes that all romcoms sound ridiculous and anything with romance gets the "chick flick" badge. But romance isn't all that stereotypes would have you believe. It's not all clutzy or irrational women, fashion, game playing, and vast gender divides. Sometimes, the romance is even infused with smarts, success, and tangible connection. In praise of my favorite romances, I give you: Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.

It would be easy to offer you appropriately themed movies for the Fourth of July. There is, of course, Independence Day, plus flicks like Yankee Doodle Dandy, or on a more serious note, Born of the Fourth of July. But what's the fun in that? You could come up with those yourself. I could be snarky and offer only British fare, which is actually very tempting, but I have something else in mind: Independence-themed chills.

The two films for this double feature are not centered specifically on the Fourth of July, but the date is important to both stories -- whether it's the tale of tourists and teeth, or parades and creepiness. Do you see where I'm headed? For this double feature, in honor of the Fourth of July, I give you: Jaws and Cape Fear.

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Whether it's grown men in bunny suits or the addictive giggle of Melissa McCarthy, this week's double feature is all about alternate realities. While I'm not the biggest fan of many science fiction elements, I'm a sucker for a good story about worlds that are just a little bit off. When an eerie twist is mixed into scenes showcasing the life and environment we're all familiar with, a film changes from something we can guess into an intriguing puzzle to figure out, or endlessly argue about. (And it does so without traveling to unrecognizable, fantastical new turf.)

Tonight, we've got a film that really should get more play, plus one beloved cult classic. I give you: The Nines and Donnie Darko.

*Included at the request of a nerd friend of mine.

No more teachers! No more books! No more teachers' dirty looks! When the teacher rings the bell, drop your books and run like hell!

It's the anthem of June, as classes wind down and summer begins. When there's two full months free of school, it's easy to forget the looming dark cloud that is September ... unless you're a lucky college grad (or a high school student not heading off to further your education).

There's a definite twist that happens over those four years, as school falls into a memory. High school grad movies are full of exacerbated partying, getting your last hoorahs, and last chances at childhood love. After college, however, the tone changes a little bit. There's work, the towering pressures from the adults around you, and the bad choices you make in the name of lust and love. The two films for this double feature are almost 30 years apart, but both are classics, known for their stars, music, and adult angst. I give you: The Graduate and Reality Bites.

This week, I have had the fortune of working from a cottage, surrounded by trees, birds, and a large and peaceful lake (as well as insidious horse flies, determined mosquitoes, and about 50 million caterpillars). In between the work and the sun, I've mused about cottages and movies. There's not many cottage-based films out there -- at least not ones that are about the actual experience, rather than something about a scary killer, or maybe a campfire ghost story.

But there are a lot of camping movies. You have color wars, swimsuits, canoes, trees, and all of that big nature-on-the-water stuff. I wanted to include Poison Ivy tonight, the awesome TV-movie camp fest that stars Michael J. Fox and Nancy McKeon, a counselor and camp nurse who team up with the kids to face off against Adam Baldwin's evil Ike Dimick. However, I can't find so much as a trailer for that.

So instead, whip up some smores and check out an old classic and newer gem -- Meatballs and Happy Campers.

It's June, which means the countdown is on until the cute little rugrats and tempestuous teens get released from school to wreak havoc in the home and on the streets. That means that there is not much time left to make use of the long nights of studying, the friendly sleepovers, and the hours at school. In some places, school's already out, and the mayhem has already begun!

So, tonight's double feature is all about getting a night of sweet silence and cinematic sexiness with your partner of choice. There will be no Mulholland Drive, because a few moments of supreme sexiness don't make up for the overall feel. Instead, this is about movies that have more than one saucy scene, and should get you in the mood for post-film shenanigans. Obviously, it's pretty much impossible to pick the best of, because there are so very many good examples -- Bliss, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Nine 1/2 Weeks, The Story of O, Basic Instinct, Dangerous Liaisons, Crash, Like Water for Chocolate...

But I'm going to go with a little bit of bondage, and a little bit of literature. I give you: Secretary and Henry & June.

And this is your obvious warning: What follows has sexual and adult content and language.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Since Fox has refused to reveal virtually any plot details about this summer's The X-Files: I Want to Believe, I've endeavored to translate the still-cryptic but slightly more informative Russian trailer that hit the interwebs yesterday. It would seem that the story will involve a priest named "Father Joe" (that's the Billy Connolly character) who has nightmarish visions of a woman in trouble that he claims come from God. (In other words, this unofficial summary seems to have been on the money.) We also learn that Mulder is roped into the investigation by Amanda Peet's character, Dakota Whitney.

I had fun translating the cheesy dubbing; you hear bits of this dialogue in the American trailer, but a lot of it is new. Check out the translation after the jump.

At first, this was going to be a post about music on DVD -- in honor of the eleventh anniversary of Jeff Buckley's death, which horribly coincides with my birthday. But then there was another bout of sadness for the 29th -- the death of Harvey Korman. Coincidentally, I'd had a whole conversation yesterday about Abe Vigoda, and old funny men who are still alive. I wish this was the case for the great Harvey.

I'm not going to write a lot about his career -- Scott did that wonderfully in his obituary. And, I've already given you the double feature that covers my favorite Korman film roles -- the Mel Brooks-inspired March double feature of History of the World, Part 1 and Blazing Saddles. But Harvey Korman was really special, and he's given me, and many others, so very many laughs over the years that he deserves the Double Feature tonight.

But things are going to be a little different this week. So much of Korman's work is worth the time that I'm abandoning the two-film format and, instead, giving you a selection of clips and moments from the spectrum of Korman's career. Use this as a jumping point for your own Korman double or triple feature, or enjoy a full Harvey Korman marathon. Enjoy the clips after the jump, and weigh in on your favorite Korman moments in the comments.

Harvey, you will be deeply missed.

I wanted to continue this whole week of Indiana Jones, but we've already given you movies reminiscent of the classic adventure series, and we've already given you retro reviews for each of the three films. So, I started to think about what I like about Jones and my favorite of the three, Raiders of the Lost Ark. One of the best gems of that film is Marion Ravenwood.

So, in celebration of how much Ravenwood rules, I wanted to celebrate women who are more than just damsels in distress. The might find themselves captured. They might get beaten down. But they don't wallow -- they fight back. And even better -- they're both old-school. One comes from the '90s, and the other first kicked butt on the big screen 31 years ago. I give you: Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia in Star Wars.